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This story first appeared in the July 29 issue of The Trussville Tribune…

Regardless of whether or not we participate, some rites of summer never die. The annual Harper Family Reunion is one example. Until this weekend, the last time Jimmie and I attended was as newlyweds over 30 years ago, but our absence has affected the 93-year-old tradition not one whit. It just goes on and on and on, an Energizer Bunny of a gathering that continues despite the fact that many of us who showed up this year are virtual strangers to one another.

But when Cousin Kathy recently e-mailed a reunion reminder and urged the rest of Granddaddy Harper’s grandkids to attend, I thought, “Why not?” Like I said, it’s been a while, and a break from the usual weekend routine sounded appealing. So the day before, I went grocery shopping to pick up a ready-made pound cake and the ingredients for an easy fruit salad (MeeMaw Harper used to cook for hours for these things; I obviously didn’t inherit that gene), and bright and early on the fourth Sunday of July, Jimmie and I took off for Rome, Georgia, where a host of Harpers awaited.

Walking into a roomful of unfamiliar faces didn’t bother me. My job requires that I attend networking events on occasion, so to me, this was just another banquet room full of people to mix and mingle with. Jimmie, on the other hand, steps into new situations a little more cautiously than I and was, thus, a little flustered at the greeting he got.

Most Harpers are about as shy as I am, which isn’t very, so getting from the door to the serving tables to add our contributions to the potluck meal wasn’t easy. We were immediately surrounded by and being introduced and re-introduced to cousins of every age and degree of removal. We had no doubt of our welcome status.

Harpers are also huggers, and if you’re the least bit kin, you’re bound to get more than a squeeze or two in fairly short order. And Jimmie’s cuddly teddy-bearish looks invariably attract women huggers. So when a second cousin flung her arms around him as he walked through the door, I could tell by the look on his face that he was wondering what the heck he’d gotten himself into.

The same cousin later teasingly threatened to steal him away but backed off when I told her she could have him – only on a no-return basis. I’d earlier been teeth-grindingly aggravated with him for not pulling complete directions to the reunion site off Mapquest (we got lost twice on the drive over), and since a residual amount of annoyance remained, I probably sounded a little too anxious to pawn him off on the first taker. She evidently noticed and wisely declined.

The most fascinating part of the day by far was perusing Cousin Jo Ann’s family trees on which she’d separately charted the descendants of Granddaddy Harper and each of his eight siblings. The work it’s taken to develop the charts, much less keep them updated, is a priceless gift to each member of the family. I hope everyone appreciates Jo Ann’s efforts. I know I do.

The funniest part of the day was watching Kathy, appointed by Jo Ann as the unofficial (unpaid) event photographer, trying to snap photos of every person present. She must have taken a hundred pictures of various groupings, many people in various states of chewing, and all with a broken camera that had been rigged together with an oversized screw and a rubber band.

At the end of the day, the 2010 version of the Harper Family Reunion was well worth the trip. It was a beautiful, albeit hot, day for a drive, and we enjoyed a sumptuous meal in the company of a lot of Harpers – which is fine combination, if you ask me.

The reunion was also a reminder that there’s something to be said for family connections, no matter how close or distant they may be. On the strength of common ancestors and a common name, we Harpers share a unique bond, and – forgive us if we seem conceited – we think there’s something pretty special about that.

This story originally appeared in the July 15 issue of The Trussville Tribune…

I hope none of my neighbors are reading this since I’m about to say something that might make them nervous: In some ways, I am their Gladys Kravitz.

You remember Gladys. She’s the nosy Morning Glory Circle neighbor on the old Bewitched TV series who, to put it politely, kept a careful eye on the Stevens home across the street. And it often paid off. Seems like every time Gladys peeked through her living room curtains, she saw something worth seeing. Like aliens. Or Benjamin Franklin. Or Samantha’s dithery old Aunt Clara entering a hitherto non-existent second-story door without the benefit of stairs.

Gladys’ immediate reaction in each instance was to call out to her ever-skeptical husband, who never seemed to pry himself away from his crossword puzzle in time to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

“AB-ner, AB-ner!” she’d screech, fluttering between the window and his chair. And all to no avail, for Abner could not be convinced that anything was amiss, except in his wife’s head. His attitude only served to make Gladys determined to prove herself sane. In the process, she became obnoxious to the point where the Stevenses dreaded to see her coming.

But what if Gladys had taken a different approach? I mean, the Stevenses were nice enough, and Samantha had that cool hocus-pocus things going on. If Gladys had played her cards right, Samantha could have easily twitched her up a new car or a houseful of new furniture and maybe even instantly transported her to lunch in London or Paris a few times a month. But nooo… early on, Gladys positioned herself as an adversary who couldn’t be trusted to keep the Stevenses’ secret.

Despite Gladys’ shortcomings, however, I find myself admiring her in a way. As you may recall, Gladys was quite the civic-minded gal, actively participating in at least one political campaign. And she never hesitated to call upon city officials and/or her local police department whenever she felt the public good was at stake.

But to give Gladys her greatest due, she was one of the most observant individuals you could ever hope to meet. While others remained clueless (Larry Tate, for example – how such a doofus got to be the boss, I’ll never understand), Gladys was the only one who ever truly realized something was not quite normal across the street and consistently tried to figure out what was going on. In a sort of sideways fashion, she was a forerunner of today’s organized neighborhood watch groups.

So I kind of hate to admit it, but Gladys and I have a lot in common. I, too, like knowing what’s going on my neighborhood. And while I don’t have the time to be as civically active as I eventually hope to be, I like to think I do my part.

But (and I hope my neighbors agree) I’m not quite so flighty and downright snoopy as Gladys. Most of my neighborhood watching occurs only on weekends and very openly from my rocker on the front porch. Unlike Gladys, I don’t cross property lines to go peeking into windows or over fences. Especially when binoculars will do. (Just kidding, folks!) Nor do I create fake excuses to go knocking on neighbors’ doors, hoping to get a look inside their homes.

I have to say, though, that if I glance out my living room window one day and see a flying saucer in the yard across the street, Ben Franklin waving from the front porch, and a dithery old woman circling overhead on a broomstick, I’m heading right over with a basket of homemade goodies in one hand and my wish list in the other.

If there’s one “don’t be like” lesson I’ve learned from watching Gladys Kravitz all these years, it’s to make friends with the neighbors, particularly those who seem a little weird. You never know when one of them might be able to twitch you up a shiny red Ferrari, a new bedroom suite or a trip around the world.

This story originally appeared in the July 1 issue of The Trussville Tribune…

My little brother has always been such a brat. When we were growing up, Michael meddled around in my room, pestered my friends and me to distraction, listened in on my phone calls, hogged the one color TV in the house after school (I liked watching Gomer Pyle; his favorite was Gilligan’s Island), and gobbled up the best snacks in the house before anybody else could get any.

Our older brother Darrell and I had no doubt The Brat was Mama and Daddy’s favorite. They frequently made us let the baby have his way, and we regularly accused them of letting him get away with murder. If we went somewhere, he wanted to go, too. If we did something, he wanted to do it, too. And we were often overruled when we tried to keep him away.

“He just wants some attention,” Mama would say. “Be nice.”

That’s easier said than done when you’re 16 years old, desperately trying to cultivate a “cool girl” image, and you’ve got a pesky 11-year-old brother hanging around. Giving him a little attention by whacking him over the head with a stick and locking him in a closet crossed my mind on more than one occasion.

Even as we’ve grown older, Michael has continued to be a pest. He’s always got something say about how he got all the looks in the family (I beg to differ), and for some reason, he claims to be smarter than I am. But if he’s so smart, how come his latest bid for attention was a round of open heart surgery? I mean, gee whiz, couldn’t he think of something that would cause him less pain and trouble than that?

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Michael saw a cardiologist for testing after experiencing intermittent chest pains for several days. He ultimately wound up in the ER hooked up to all manner of apparatus and giving umpteen histories to various medical personnel. The doctor’s level of concern was high enough for an arteriogram to take place the next day – a Saturday – and the results showed the need for some bypasses. Surgery was scheduled for the following Tuesday.

When Michael’s – and thus, our family’s – ordeal began, each of us quickly came to the startling realization that at 48, he’s the same age Daddy was when he died of a heart attack in 1977. While that had us all a bit freaked, we realized that medical science has made many, many advances with regard to heart disease in the past 33 years and that bypass surgery has become relatively routine – which sounds great when it’s somebody else’s brother you’re talking about.

But the one thing that just about did me in was Michael’s vivid description of the procedure the day before surgery. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice it to say, for all the times I’ve considered doing him physical harm myself, the prospect of someone else cracking open his breastbone and playing around with some of his vital organs nearly made me ill.

Fortunately, though, the surgery went well, and five bypasses later, Michael is as good as new. Well, maybe not as good as new just yet. He’s still on the road to complete recovery. But he’s a whole lot better than he was a couple of weeks ago – and a whole lot more of a brat. With everyone (including yours truly) fluttering around, making every effort to cater to his every whim, he’s getting the idea that he’s somebody important.

But I’ve got news for him. As soon as this whole thing is over, he’s going to get a piece of my mind for going to such lengths for the sake of a little attention, and I’m thinking I just might threaten him with a big stick to drive the point home.

For now, though, I’m reveling in the relief of a crisis passed and hoping it will be a long, long time before we ever have to deal with another situation like that again. But in the meantime, I’m reserving my rights as a big sister: If anybody or anything is going to hurt my little brother again, it really should be me.

A big shout out and many thanks to Dr. Jason Thompson, Dr. Stanley Lochridge, and the nurses at St. Vincent’s East for the excellent care recently rendered to Michael Harper.

Well, I’ve gone and done what I’ve told myself over and over again I’d never do: joined thousands of other writers in the blogosphere with every intention of spouting my deepest, most personal thoughts to people who really don’t care. (No need to get excited. My deepest, most personal thoughts are relatively mundane.)

“So why?” you ask. Good question. It’s not that I think I have a lot of important things to say or that I can express myself any better than the next writer. And it’s not a vanity thing for me – I don’t think. Despite the time and energy demands of my day job, I manage to write enough for local publications to satisfy my inner writer’s craving for readership.

I guess what it comes down to is, creating a blog is part of my ongoing ADHD-inspired effort to regularly try something I’ve never tried before. Last week it was rutabagas, today a blog… So I’m a thrill-seeker. What can I say?

And while I sincerely hope at least a few people will read and enjoy what I write, keeping a blog is also a self-centered attempt to keep myself writing and (hopefully) become a better writer as I go along. In the process, maybe – just maybe – I can entertain a bit, possibly inspire on occasion, and consistently provide content that won’t bore anyone to tears.

One more thing: Some blogging experts advise new bloggers to make a plan (I have none) and give readers information they can use (I’ll try, but that would require added effort on my part, and I’m basically a lazy person). So forgive me for my lack of total blogging commitment, but what you’ll find here is pretty much what you’ll get.

If you enjoy what I write (or even if you don’t), please let me know!

June