A Family Reunion Can Be Grim

By Cary D. Shoberg
(Guest columnist for Charles M. Guthrie)
Published by the StarTribune
November 28, 1965

   THE WHOLE GANG was at Grandma and Grandpa’s for Thanksgiving again this year and Gramps said it was my turn to write a column for him and he would give me a dollar.
   I reminded him that was what he also gave my brother Mark and cousin Dave for the job and did he not know about inflation? Well, he hemmed and hawed around and said the job would be easy for me because I was so smart and in the fifth grade, but if one dollar wasn’t enough maybe it would be enough for one of the other kids who wasn’t such a wise guy and I could forget the whole thing. So I caved in.

   WHEN WE ARE ALL together there are 15 of us and quite a racket and I notice every year Gramps doesn’t stand up as good as he did the year before and I spoke that is what getting old does to anybody although Grandma stays about the same one Thanksgiving to the next and is now starting to worry about Gramps.
   “Don’t you feel well, dear?” She asked him when he was yelling at everybody to pipe down while he was carving the turkey. “What is the matter with you?”
   “A lot of things might be the matter,” he growled, “but I know one thing that isn’t the matter. I haven’t got an empty-nest syndrome.” I didn’t know what he was talking about and don’t think he did either.
   We were going to have the Thanksgiving deal at our place in Rhinelander but are building a new house which we have not moved into yet but would have lived in for a couple of months already if things had gone as expected. It looks like another couple of weeks before we get into the place.
   When we do get settled it will be great. We had to move out of our other house in September because it had been rented to another family and had to hole up in a lake cottage while the construction boys take their sweet time about getting the new house finished.
   The lake cottage was quite a ball for us kids in Sept. and Oct. but good and cold in Nov. and everybody getting croup and stuff. Mom said the other day she would loose her mind in another two weeks and Dad is starting to mumble to himself.

   SO IT WAS NICE to be with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Tom and also Uncle Chuck’s family in a warm place with ping pong and pool in the basement and toys for Bobby and Scott even though Gramps was sort of crabby and said if we didn’t pick up the stuff before we left that was scattered from h-ell to breakfast he would ring our necks. Grandma told me he had not been right since the squirrel fell down the chimney into the fireplace and he chased it around the living room.
   The plan now is for everybody to be at our place for Christmas if the carpenters and painters ever get through and Mom can get things straightened up, but Gramps is dragging his feet. “It depends on the weather and the car,” he said. “It’s about 230 miles and if there’s snow or ice we’ll have to pass it up. If the car is acting up we won’t come, either. I am not interested in an ambulance ride or a long walk.”
   Gramps is a nice fellow when you get to know him but a real wet blanket at that.


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