Return to the Outer Banks

It's mid-August already. I seem to recall promising more reflections on Reunion Season. So many thoughts, so scattered.

It started with the campus ministry/Gannon reunion in Erie back in June, which I've already covered.

It continued in July with the Return to the Outer Banks. The first vacation since losing Mom was a good one, largely because of the comfort of being with family, both immediate and extended. There were more than 40 of us gathered at the Cavalier Motel, which for better or worse is little changed since our first excursion there circa 1975. I think the euphemistic terminology would be "vintage." New carpeting, pleather furniture and new bedspreads were the most obvious physical improvements. The beloved wooden Adirondack chairs have been replaced by plastic ones, largely due to wood-rot, I'm told.

Sigh.

My immediate family hadn't joined in the annual beach reunion since 1999, by our best guestimates: the Year of the Sea Lice. It was a particularly hot, breezeless week at the beach, and the ocean was unswimmable due to the biting baby jellyfish. Good times. Mom declared emphatically that this was it for her...we could all return if we wanted to, but she was done with beach vacations. Oddly, my memory of that declaration made it more bearable to me that we were there without her, for the first time.

As we sat pool-side one breezy evening, my cousin Tom commented, "We grew up here together, didn't we?" I was just shy of nine years old in 1975, the first year we went down to Kill Devil Hills for the week. Given the number of times I've moved over the past 40 years, it's safe to say that the Cavalier is as steady a geographical touchpoint as any for me. And long absences between visits make it that much more remarkable to watch the cousins with whom I played and hung out through so many summers now build sandcastles and body-surf with their kids, some of whom are already older than I was that first summer.

Part three of Reunion Season would be the almost-annual Chautauqua gathering in August: a reunion of college/campus ministry friends. That account will have to wait for another time, but I'll do what I can to make it sooner than later. Really.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying lots of mini-reunions throughout the summer. An overnight visit with Ann and Patrick in Virginia on my way to the beach. A spontaneous day-long rendezvous in Erie with Renee the last Saturday in July. Dinner and ice cream with Jeff, a good friend from Allegheny days, as he passed through town a couple weeks ago. And now I'm looking forward to a reunion with Katie, Dan and family tomorrow. Kate was at the Gannon gathering in June with two of her three little ones. Tomorrow, the whole family travels from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to spend the day at the zoo, followed by dinner with Amy.

Long live reunions!