A Package From Mom & Dad Has Me Thinking About A Lynden Reunion

I found a package from my mom and dad in the mailbox yesterday. What was in that package caused me to think back almost 13 years, to a date which lives on in infamy, July 27, 2002, that being the date on which the biggest Jones family reunion ever to take place, took place, at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds in the Dutch town of Lynden.

I don't rightly recollect what motivated me to fly north for that reunion. It may have had something to do with some sort of post 9/11 sentiment, with family and family history for some reason seeming more important.

I recollect exactly one month before 9/11, on 8/11,  I was at my mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary party, having driven myself north, solo. I remember returning to Texas with a box full of photos which I scanned and webpaged, including a lot of photos of the Jones ancestors who had made the trek from Holland to America in 1882, eventually ending up in Lynden.

I got back to Texas one week before 9/11. My mom and dad showed up for their first Texas visit a month after that. I gave the box of photos to mom and dad who were perplexed as to why I had taken them to Texas and why there were now having to haul them to Yuma.

I digress.

What was in the package from mom and dad which led me to take a picture of that souvenir coffee mug that my cousin sold at the aforementioned reunion?

Well, that would be the picture you see below.

The last time I talked to my mom mention was made of a package being mailed to me which contained, among some other stuff, a couple pictures which were taken at that aforementioned reunion. My mom did not remember this picture being taken. Nor do I. I was a bit stressed out that day, for a variety of reasons. Mom said she thought this was the last time all the siblings were together at the same place and time.

Looking at the above photo a lot has changed in the years since. I remember at that reunion my brother-in-law, Jack (not Spencer Jack's namesake) asking me to help convince my sister it would be a good thing to move to Arizona.

At that point in time I was fairly early in to my Texas exile.

Now, in 2015, eight of those in the above photo live in Arizona.

When the above picture was taken it would not have crossed my imagination to think that less than four years later I would be flying home to attend Spencer Jack's dad's first wedding. Or that two other people in this picture would be getting married, with me invited to only one of those weddings.

The below photo is not one of the two in the package from mom and dad.

The above photo is one of many group photos taken at the aforementioned reunion. I recognize very few people in this picture.

Well, enough with this trip down nostalgia road. I just got a text message from Elsie Hotpepper telling me I need to check my mailbox...