We arrived a little late for our family reunion in the park pavilion. I don’t think they can really call it a “reunion” if it happens every year but it is not my call. We’re always a little late and so are most of the people in our family but this year everyone had eaten and the charcoal fires had already died down. We had thawed out some hot dogs, ones left over from another family picnic, but we forgot them. My brother-in-law offered us two left-over Hebrew Dogs, those skinny dark red links, not the fat juicy things that made this town, and we made do.
I sat next to our Niagara Falls cousins who had brought along this picture of the family. Their mom wasn’t married yet so she was pictured without my uncle. The first of seven, I was the only kid in my family at the time (upper right in my dad’s arms). My cousin, Greg, who is my age, is in his mother’s arms at the other end of the photo (see enlargement). By the time I had identified everyone in the photo and confirmed with my cousins, the meal was breaking up.
I was talking to Greg’s brother and a call from Greg came in on his phone. Greg is living in Arizona now and I hadn’t talked to him in ten years. He used to live in a house behind us on Brookfield Road and we played all the time. We double-dated and even went out with the same girl at one point, my dentist’s receptionist. He went to McQuaid and his parents threw him a graduation party where he took me aside to tell me, “Don’t tell anyone but I didn’t graduate.” He worked at Gray Metal across the street from Maracle industrial Finishing where I worked and we’d go out at night. He and his first wife bought a house near our’s in the city. He had two Great Dane’s and I went down in his basement one time and watched him scoop up the piles of dog shit with a snow shovel. He got into even larger animals and went to school to be a farrier. He shoed the Rochester Police Department horses when I was working for the City. My cousin was ready to let the call go to voicemail but I said, “I’ll talk to Greg” and he passed me his phone.
Greg was harboring some sort grudge that we were able to get past in the first few minutes and we had our own little ten-year reunion.
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