When daughter Luan and husband Bob Offer started planning the Open House for their son Dan’s graduation, the goal was to get as many cousins together as possible.
Other than funerals and weddings they may never see each other, and never can they all make those occasions.
Luan, being a self-designated gynecologist, I mean genealogist, has the family trees, branches and mulch. At least she thought she had them all until I asked about cousin Carl Black, on my mother’s side of our family.
She did well on the Offers, Shermans and Hazel’s Luchenbils though, and they responded.
Roasted pig was the main menu item. It arrived at 11 p.m. the night before. The roaster, Bob, started the coals at 4 a.m. on the 200-plus pounds of spitted pork. It was done an hour before the 2 p.m. start.
The mostaccioli (Luan believes everyone loves mostaccioli because she does), pork, Caesar salad, baked beans (for me), cold pasta salad, cheesy potatoes, rolls and fruit salad was displayed in my newly re-surfaced garage.
When the party ended over four hours later there was more than enough food left to have two more parties of equal numbers.
My dozens of geraniums could not have blossomed more fully than on this day. I received raving comments from one person.
My dozens of marigolds were resplendent in yellow. If they were mentioned it escaped my ears. My sister, up from rain-drenched Florida was kind in her comments. ‘I saw a weed out there,? she said.
My lawn could have been cut one more time, but as mentioned in a previous column my super, reel cutting mower was in the repair shop.
It was another eighty degree day and the swimming pool was very popular with the little ones, which kept me watching to make sure someone was life-guarding.
Grandson Dan had my permission to dig holes for horseshoe pitching in my yard. I think I saw someone pitching once. At the time I gave the nod I figured it would grow back. I haven’t totally convinced myself yet.
The big game in Dan’s life now is Frisbee golf. In case you don’t know what it is, chains hang from a circular lid and when a thrown frisbee hits the chains it falls into a saucer-type bottom.
It’s as exciting to watch as horseshoe pitching.
Then there was beanbag throwing. The idea is to have the bag go through a hole in a slanted piece of plywood. Few succeeded. Watching that drove me to drink.
Of course, there had to be a setup for volleyball. This also required holes in my lawn. That too, will heal, I guess.
Now, then, if I have presented this gala as I intended, you will see that it was excessive. When seldom seen cousins meet, they do not immediately pitch horseshoes. They pitch something else.
During this graduation Open House season the graduate’s peers are either having their own parties, or spending a little time at each, timed so that when the last one ends they will have time to get to a concert at some outdoor theater.
Thus the games for the late-teenagers are a totally unnecessary and a lawn-damaging extravagance. Understand this is only my opinion, which will be ignored in three years when the next grandchild, Karen, is expected to graduate. However, in her case, it may be four years.
As this 15-year-old often says, ‘Like, just kidding.?