Who Are All These Strange People

Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

BY: April Knight

Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.
~Tony Benn

When my husband received a letter from his sister telling him there was going to be a Stafford Family Reunion in Southern Missouri, she said she'd drive there from Ohio and meet us.

My husband, Bill, was not excited about the reunion with his mother's family.

"I haven't seen any of these people in thirty years. I wouldn't know them if we passed on the street," he said.

"All the more reason to go," I insisted. "Besides, it will be good for our kids to meet their aunts and uncles, and they'll have fun playing with their cousins."

We loaded our four grumpy teenagers into the back seat of the car and began the 200-mile drive.

Every thirty minutes, Travis, Troy, Peter or Spring would ask when we were going to stop and get something to eat.

"You don't eat before you go to a reunion," I said. "Those women have been cooking for days. When we get there, they will have a feast prepared."

We drove deep into the Ozarks, getting lost twice, and finally found a sign on a fencepost that said, "If your name is Stafford, this is the right place. Welcome!"

We parked the car next to twenty other cars in the yard and joined the rest of the family just as they were cleaning off the picnic tables. We'd missed the picnic, and there was very little food left. The children did get some chicken wings, Bill found a deviled egg and a piece of cake, and I ended up with a biscuit and a handful of carrots.

My husband phoned his sister and found out she'd decided she didn't want to drive to Missouri in the July heat and wasn't coming.

We spent the next hour introducing ourselves to everyone and wondering why we couldn't make a connection with anyone.

"Are you John and Thelma's boy?" an old man asked my husband.

"No, my parents were Marge and John. My father's parents were Rebecca and Ben," he answered. "They all lived in Kansas."

"Never heard of them," the old man said.

As hard as we tried, we couldn't find our branch on the family tree.

"I think we are at the wrong family reunion," Bill said. "All we have in common is our last name."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I just wanted our kids to play with their cousins."

"There is no one here under the age of seventy. I don't think their cousins feel like playing," he said.

"I guess we should just leave and go get something to eat and head home." I knew when I'd lost.

We said our goodbyes and got into the car. The car wouldn't start. Bill looked under the hood and wiggled and jiggled some things and slammed the hood closed.

"The alternator has gone out. We can't go anyplace until I can buy a new one," he said.

"Oh, that's bad luck. The only garage in the area is closed on Sunday. You'll have to spend the night here, and one of us will give you a ride to the garage in the morning," an old man said.

There were no extra beds. In fact, the dozens of Staffords had rolled out wall-to-wall quilts on the floor of the living room, and people were sleeping nose to toes. Since we didn't know these people anyway, we decided we'd take our chances outside.

Spring took the back seat of the car, and I lay down in the front seat. Bill and the three boys threw jackets on the ground as beds.

"Mom, I'm starving to death!" Spring said, near tears.

"I know. I'm so sorry," I said. Then I remembered I had a package of M&Ms in my purse. I dug them out and handed them to her. She generously shared some of them with me, but I dropped some of them onto the front seat and couldn't find them.

Somehow, we survived an endless night. At the crack of dawn, an old woman pounded on the car window and woke us up.

"Get up! Some of the people have to leave, and we want to get pictures of everyone before they all go home!" she said.

"But I don't think we are related," I said.

"We can't risk it. We'll take pictures of everyone and sort it out later."

My right foot was tangled in the steering wheel, and I was completely numb. My neck was so stiff I couldn't move my head.

"Mom! What happened to you?" Spring asked when she saw me.

I'd slept on the M&Ms I'd dropped in the seat and now my face had green, orange and yellow spots all over it.

Bill and the boys were covered with mosquito bites, and Travis had slept on the zipper of his jacket and looked like he had a huge, crooked scar across his face.

All of us had slept in our clothes, so we were wrinkled and our hair wasn't combed.

We were pushed into a line of washed, combed, clean and well-dressed people. Cameras clicked, and dozens of photos were taken. Photographs of this Stafford reunion would be hung on walls and put into albums. A hundred years from now, other generations of Staffords would look at the photographs of all the nice-looking people. Then they would point to our family and ask, "Who are those dirty, spotty people in the wrinkled clothes? What are those colored spots on that woman's face, and why is her head crooked? Those strange-lookin g people surely can't be related to us!"

And they would be right. We weren't related to any of them, but our family at its ugliest, dirtiest, worst-dressed and most miserable will be included in the family album forever.

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