{"id":971,"date":"2015-06-26T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=971"},"modified":"2015-06-24T14:48:48","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T21:48:48","slug":"off-to-south-dakota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2015\/06\/26\/off-to-south-dakota\/","title":{"rendered":"Off to South Dakota"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re headed to South Dakota this weekend. Some of you who have looked at the schedule<\/a> know that I\u2019ll be doing an event in Rapid City on Sunday afternoon, but the first part of the weekend will be devoted to an Anderson Family Reunion in the Black Hills. The last family reunion I attended was in 1984. This was long before I met Bill. My sister and I drove there with my two kids in the back seat of my 1978 Cutlass Supreme Brougham which, unfortunately, came to grief in Yellowstone Park when the automatic transmission died. I suspect it was a somewhat delayed after effect of my move from Arizona to Seattle, dragging that loaded U-Haul behind the car.<\/p>\n

We stalled out somewhere inside the park. Our last view of bison was from the front of a tow truck. We spent the next three days stuck in West Yellowstone where, if you\u2019ll pardon my saying so, there wasn\u2019t much happening, but that\u2019s how long it took to get parts. Once the car was repaired, we went on to the reunion which, as it happens, was also held in the Black Hills.<\/p>\n

At that event all of my mother\u2019s sisters and her brother were still alive. The uncles sat on the porch in a row of rocking chairs, communing with one another. My favorite photo from that event is one I took of all the photographers lined up to take a picture of our part of the family.
\nA lot of the people who attended that reunion aren\u2019t around anymore. My parents, of course, are both gone as are my mother\u2019s brother, Glenn, and her other sisters–Alice, Edith, and Toots. Their spouses have all passed away as well.<\/p>\n

This spring, the last of my mother\u2019s sisters, my Aunt Kelly, turned 100. She\u2019s the official guest of honor, but this year I expect to be one of the generation laying claim to those front porch rocking chairs. At the 1984 reunion, I was still considered one of \u201cthe kids.\u201d This time I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n

The last time my mother attended a family reunion, she went all-out-Evie when someone had the unmitigated nerve to suggest that when it came time to serve the \u201chot dishes\u201d the children should go first. Evie simply put her size eight foot down. \u201cNo way Jos\u00e9! When I was little,\u201d she told them, “I had to wait in line until all the grownups were served. Now that I\u2019m 80, I\u2019m going first, and the kids can come after me.\u201d Which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

This time around when it comes time for the potluck, we\u2019ll let Aunt Kelly go first with my sister’s and my generation right behind her, but I\u2019m guessing we\u2019ll both be missing our mother right about then.<\/p>\n

Yes, Evelyn Allegra Anderson Busk, we still miss you.<\/p>\n

Every single day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re headed to South Dakota this weekend. Some of you who have looked at the schedule know that I\u2019ll be doing an event in Rapid City on Sunday afternoon, but the first part of the weekend will be devoted to an Anderson Family Reunion in the Black Hills. The last family reunion I attended was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-fF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}