My Blog for 5/3/2012 -- The Lineup

I've neglected my blog for too long, due to all the partying going on in my life.

Friday a week ago, we met with my father's family which is pretty abbreviated.  Interestingly, my four cousins from my father's only sister's marriage, never had children.  They were an AirForce family that traveled all over the world.  At issue is they were stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada during the testing period of the Atom Bomb.  In naive innocence, all the base turned out to watch the explosive testing that went on for so many years before the Abomb was harnessed and capsulated as a weapon of mass destruction.  So, for years, these little cousins stood in their backyard on the base and watched mushroom clouds created by uranium every couple of weeks.  As adults they all have serious physically problems.  It was a conscious decision to not send damaged DNA through to little children.  Most people never have to face a decision of this magnitude.

In any case, I hadn't seen one of the cousins for forty years, and over that time, two of the cousins and my uncle have died under strange illness situations.

This past weekend, a mini-reunion occurred at my brother-in-law's house.  Four of my husband's brothers came to it, and several of the cousins my kids grew up with, and their spouses.  We only had twelve people, but it seemed like fifty since everybody is so gregarious.  The comedians got "on stage" and we all laughed so hard our faces hurt.  At one time their lineup looked like the defensive line for the Green Bay Packers.  Now is not much different.