Everyone out of the gene pool (Humor from June 2002)

The ex has recently informed me there will be a family reunion for her side of the family in the coming weeks. She wants to know if the girls can go. Naturally, I have no problem with my daughters mingling with their ancestry. Although I should. My family has dispersed and I have never fit in very well anyway. I do remember family reunions Appalachian style. It is high summer. We converge on the shelter house at the rest area on the little highway. The picnic tables are pushed together and uncle Dick has been there since the crack of dawn to reserve our place at said shelter house. Within an hour the tables are covered with succulent mystery dishes covered in a secretive veil of tin foil. There are piles of napkins and plastic cups, coolers full of beverages, big jugs of sweet tea and lemonade. Everyone has a lit cigarette. There is a Frisbee in the air and some of the lesser known female cousins have been eyed up by the boys. A euchre game is underway in a corner of the shelter house. Finally the call for dinner is shouted out and children run from all over the park to partake of the bounty presented in honor of ancestry. A furious rustle of tin foil and plastic wrap and like magic the Tupperware becomes grand chargers laden with the fruits of good country kitchens. The fat aunts can really cook. There is ham and then more ham, great tubs of cheese cut into chunks, Buns and hamburgers, all the fixings too. There are seeming miles of casseroles laid end on end like barges, all of which conceal the inside ingredients with thick scabs of melted cheese. Oh and the desserts. Cakes and pies. I hear someone yell at the top of their lungs."where's the ambrosia at" A query quickly stifled when the wonderful jello and marshmallow concoction comes out. One version has pasticcios in it. Hillbilly cooks shouldn't get too creative.
A line quickly forms up around the serving tables. Mothers and older children helping the youngsters. A new cousin cries somewhere in the heap of family and food. The cackling aunts blather on about family connections and how great aunt "Einie" will be 94 this summer. Mostly the noise level evens out as fifty hungry relatives consume vast amounts of cured pork and carbohydrates.
Finally as a last gasp of consumption takes place, folks start to drift about. The afore mentioned lesser known female cousins take off and a similar group of boys tag along to get chummy and perhaps see a gap in a halter top. There is something fundamentally wrong with this behavior but I did it too. Hey where we come from you can legally marry your cousin. Meanwhile back in the cool recesses of the shelter house several euchre games fire up. Everyone has iced tea and the ashtrays are getting full. Eventually this orgy of familiarity comes to a close and the fat aunts pick up the Tupperware and the big green barrels chained to strategic points fill with the detritus of feasting.
I look back and wonder if I really came from these people. I know I did and part of me cant complain. I have lost much because of death and alienation. Have I as a misfit simply turned my back on my heritage? Am I really so arrogant as to eschew my lineage as a fluke of nature. ...
Ok I can live with that.