My Anonymous Oak Harbor Relative Bringing Back The Pain of July 27, 2002

I'd not thought of the day the above picture was taken in a long time. On July 27, 2002. Less than a year after the events of 9/11, which, no one but I knew, was the catalyst that caused that large group of my relatives to show up on a warm Saturday at the Fairgrounds in Lynden, Washington.

Between October of 2001 and March or April of 2002 I built what is believed to be the biggest family history website on the Internet. It is absurdly big, convoluted and complex. I've not looked at that website in a long time.

9/11 led to the website, which led to the reunion.

That reunion, of over 8 years ago, was brought back to mind today by my mysterious Oak Harbor relative who, as far as I know, first commented on my blog on my birthday, saying, among other things, the shocking statement that I was wise, or something like that.

Then yesterday I blogged about Spencer Jack and made some relative family remark, to which the Anonymous relative commented (slightly abridged)...

"That Spencer Jack kid is darn precious. If DNA testing confirmed that you grew from roots not worthy of a strong Dutch Lynden family surname, than you are a family imposter! The Oak Harbor relatives want all their travel expenses refunded from the Lynden fairground family fiasco gathering of years ago. I may have to check with my attorney...but family impostering may warrant a lucrative civil suit, especially if the family imposter was the event coordinator of such a family gathering.

Has a committee been formed to elect a chairperson for the a potential 2012 reunion? I suggest you would be the appropriate appointee, pending additional DNA tests. I'm not sure what kind of salary the position would offer, however, since you are 68, a salary may be problematic as it most likely will reduce your social security benefits."

You would have had to have read yesterday's blogging to get the DNA/family impostor comment.

The reason I've not thought of the 2002 Reunion in a long time is it was a very annoyingly painful experience. It did not take me long upon my arrival, in the Lynden zone, the night before the reunion, to figure out that my cousin, who had worked with me on the fiasco, was, well, oh, hell, I'll just say it. An idiot. In the aftermath of the reunion I sort of hedged my words, though still plenty blunt, but I never went to the core of the problem. That being my cousin is an idiot.

And that saying that nuts don't fall far from the tree. Well, you can intuit from that my cousin's mother's status on the idiot scale.

I'll just tell you one part of that fiasco that only I was privy to, because it was directed at me, by my cousin and her bizarro mother. I did not realize that those two had attached their egos to this reunion and family website thing. As if it somehow gave them some sort of strange status in their minds.

During the course of the planning of the fiasco, I was contacted by one of the local Whatcom County newspapers, I don't remember which one, Lynden Tribune or the Bellingham Herald. The reporter wanted to hear how the reunion, celebrating 120 years since my ancestors came to America, from Holland, came to be. I believe the reporter had already interviewed my cousin, who I'm sure bored the reporter totally with her lifeless personality.

So, the article was written. Various people mailed hard copies of it to me. I was a little surprised that basically it was my words telling the unvarnished narrative of what was about to bring about the biggest reunion in my family's history.

The night before the reunion my cousin made an odd snide remark about the article. I was supposed to say a few words at the start of the reunion. My cousin told me no one needs to hear the story of how the reunion came about again. Then that next morning, I was already so offput I showed up late, not wanting to help one bit with the setup.

When I arrived I saw there were a lot of displays, including the newspaper articles. My cousin's mother made some remark, in a snide tone, like her daughter, about the article being so nice about me, making me out to be a hero.

Huh? And what the hell, I thought to myself. That was just one moment of weirdness.

Previously I did not know that my cousin had a personality disorder which made her a totally overbearing prig. Her behavior offput several of my other cousins that reunion day.

I did not know she'd gotten a professional photographer, which turned into an entire other embarrassment, which I later was sort of able to fix.

At the point where we turned on the microphone, I forget what it was I was to say, I think I was supposed to introduce myself, and my cousin, and say we needed to be heading out for the group photo shoot. I speak, the volume was too low. As we adjust the volume my cousin tells me I'm speaking too fast. So, with the volume up, I then said, I am sorry I have been informed I am speaking too fast. I figured I was back in Washington where I could speak at my normal speed, but I will slow it down to my Texas speed of speaking. So, I introduce myself and my cousin. There was some clapping. My cousin then leans over to me and says something like "isn't that interesting, they clapped louder for me than you!"

Well, that may have been the point, or it may have come later, but there was a point where I thought to myself that my cousin and her mother have made a really big mistake. With me having absolutely no false pride attached to the reunion or family website, I knew I was about to totally burst their deluded bubble.

I know I made some changes to the website while I was still in Washington. I remember having to do it in HTML edit mode.

I think I was back in Texas when I wrote my take on the reunion fiasco. This generated a lot of comments, which I also printed, which generated more comments. It was pretty funny. There was the overly earnest, totally humorless part of the family. There was the totally honest, tell the truth part of the family. And there were those who shared my pain.

If I remember right I was barely back in Texas when I got an email from my cousin, going on about what a successful event the reunion was and that she'd gotten a wonderful thank you message from some relative thanking her for the reunion. My cousin offered to send me a copy of the message, because my cousin felt I deserved to share in the praise. I replied that she was welcome to keep any praise she received, I was more worried about receiving complaints. Like the one today from the Anonymous Oak Harbor relative wanting a refund from that fiasco. I then pointed out to my cousin, some of her errors. For instance she sat greeting people and taking their money. But, the idiot did not think to have people sign a guest book type thing so we'd know who was there.

I sort of solved that problem later by making a Virtual Guestbook on the website.

I think the overall word I'd use to describe the reunion fiasco was tacky. My cousin and her mother are just really tacky people. With really bad taste.

I would tell you details of my cousin and her mother's latest tacky fiasco. It was jaw dropping. But, it would probably be tacky of me to do so, since the latest tacky fiasco was a funeral.