Reunion report: strawberry cake and seersucker suit

Family reunions are a part of the Southern heritage. Ours was held Sunday in the little town of Yadkinville, just west of Winston-Salem.

The turnout was impressive, despite the welcome downpour that ended the weeks-long drought in the foothills.

We always wear name tags, since growth in the Snow clan is as remarkable as that of the Wake County school system. My tag read, "One of the originals," as did those of my sister and two brothers. I had made the Final Four of this large, wonderful family.

The meal was preceded by a prayer from older brother A.D., a one-time hell-raising Marine who was "born again" after barely surviving a Japanese kamikaze attack on the carrier USS Franklin during World War II.

Before the rush for the table groaning with food, my only sister, Zetta, also sang a couple of verses of "The Great Speckled Bird," her voice as clear and sweet as it was all those years when she sang in the Fairview Baptist Church choir.

I ate sparsely of the meats and vegetables, saving space for a tour of the long table laden with every kind of dessert imaginable. Missing, though, along with the dear ones who prepared them, was Alva's traditional cherry cobbler made with cherries picked from her own trees, and Jessie's moist, mouth-watering coconut cake.

As usual, my favorite was strawberry cake -- not the tough, dry shortcake -- but real, delicate cake, made by my niece Yvonne, following her mother's recipe and generously strewn with the last of the season's strawberries.

An inexplicable custom at our family reunion, and perhaps yours, is the practice of the individual families sitting together, rather than mingling with their cousins, uncles, etc. Also, it is troubling, especially for those of us who drive long distances -- my wife and I from Raleigh, and, this year, a brother who was driven by his family from Florida for the event -- that as soon as the food is devoured, everyone packs up the leftovers and heads home, as if they still have to feed the stock and slop the hogs.

One of my favorite relatives offended me by commenting, as I walked in wearing my seersucker suit, "Oh, you look like Colonel Sanders in that suit."

I let her know that the seersucker suit is back in style and that for summer wear, nothing is more comfortable or practical. At one time in Raleigh, the seersucker suit was the summer uniform of every lawyer in town. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen longtime friend and attorney Robert McMillan dressed up in anything but seersucker in summertime. Didn't Atticus Finch wear a cotton seersucker in "To Kill A Mockingbird"?

Colonel Sanders, indeed!

Someone who had read last week's column on the impractical things we pray for said, "You'll be hearing from the race fans."

But Charlene conceded that I was kinder than her favorite columnist in The Charlotte Observer who recently vowed he'd never attend a stock car race unless he could be guaranteed that two or three ice hockey players would be run over and killed. I'd never tempt fate that far.

Many of you, in varying degrees of approval and disapproval, did respond to the "Lord, forgive us the things we pray for" column.

Rich Quinlan of Holly Springs wrote almost poetically about why people risk their lives in such questionable pursuits of happiness:

"In the short 32 years I've been on this rock, I've been a volunteer fireman, an amateur automobile racer, Army air crewman (Black Hawk helicopter), and am currently a competition-level motorcycle track driver and four-wheel drive rockcrawling enthusiast.

"I don't expect everyone to understand why I run towards a fire they run from, or why I ride a motorcycle when a car is more comfortable. And while I don't think that some of my chosen activities are as deserving of divine protection as the men and women fighting overseas, there's no reason to look down your nose at people like me."

During the reunion, someone asked me if I had seen the hand-lettered sign in the men's room. I had. At least twice. It read: "Please pee in the urinal, not under it." I noticed that the Snows seemed to be complying with the request.

As we broke up, exchanging hugs as we went out the door, calling out goodbyes in the parking lot, the clouds were clearing away. The purple line of the Blue Ridge mountains stretched peacefully and majestically across the horizon. Another family reunion lived and loved.