Family Reunion After-Action-Report

I survived the family reunion

I hung-out with the mature guys on the shady side of the house for the first part of the reunion. 

Ordered by age, it was Howard, Mike, Mike, Joe and Phil. They gave me permission to use their actual names in "that internet thing that I do".

Conversation wandered and was interspersed by thoughtful silences. That was a sharp contrast with the conversation on the other side of the house. From what we could hear of it, those conversations sounded like a bee-hive that had been bumped by a lawnmower, not that our hearing is all that good.

We talked about collectibles like baseball cards. How the price had been low and then spiked. And then it tanked. And now it is climbing back to the sky. We talked about the age of the collectors. The interest in cards seems to have jumped over the kids who were born in the 80s and 90s.

Phil, who was sitting next to me, went with the flow. I know from prior conversations that he has a keen interest in business cycles and it is his belief that speculative excesses are symptoms of old, played-out economic expansions. All of that "money" from the timid investors (or smart ones) has to go somewhere and it floods into tiny, illiquid markets as players cash out of stocks, bonds and real-estate.

It is similar to all of the passengers on a cruise ship trying to pile into too-few life-boats. The bulk of the investors see the outrageous run-up in prices and pile into collectables running from zero-income and chasing the momentum.

Another thread of conversation involved charity work. Howard was mowing the lawn of the 90 year-old Italian widow next door. Then the house on the other side of his was inherited by a family of alcoholics. Howard started mowing their grass too (because they let it grow waist-high). Finally, seeing the light, he gave them one of his older but still serviceable mowers so they could cut their own. The immediately sold it and bought a couple bottles of vodka with the proceeds. Howard no longer mows their grass.

One of the Mikes volunteered at an organized charity. They received a call from a needy family and visited a house. Several of the children were sleeping on the floor. The charity bought the family two mattresses and had them delivered. The next week, another family in the same block called the charity. They had kids sleeping on the floor. Then two more houses called the next week. Then it was three a week calling the charity. The game stopped when an unmarried, cohabitating couple called and ordered a new mattress. The faith-based charity decided that they were not going to subsidize sex outside of matrimony by purchasing mattresses for unwed couples. In fact, they decided that they were not going to buy any more mattresses, ever.

Another riff involved renting nice places on a lake to vacation. The speaker marveled at the size and cost of the houses. According to Zillow, they started at $1.8M. He also marveled that most of them were vacant even during the prime summer vacation time slot. He said the fishing on the lake was spectacular. He said that even though every house had a dock and every dock had multiple boats moored, nobody was on the lake. Nobody else was fishing.

I spent the last part of the reunion sitting with the "Karens". 

I was not the center of attention. I was not a ball of fire. I was still sore from lifting the day before.

I ate too much. I had two glasses of wine over the six hours we were there. I did not water ski or swim or go out on a boat. I didn't talk with the out-of-state relatives but I will get reports from Mrs ERJ.

This may be a weird thing to have noticed but I saw a huge range of maternal instinct in the women. Several were drawn to the infants-through-seven year-olds like moths to a flame. Others were actively repulsed by them...they could not control their facial expressions.

Four of the married ladies were pregnant and one had given birth two weeks ago: K, Kr, L, B & H so there will be no shortage of screaming kids for the next ten years or so.