Craig Daily Press

The McAnally family reunion is going on at Juniper Hot Springs as I type, a thousand miles away and 34 degrees cooler (at least at 6:40 A.M. CST). I imagine that several groups came in from many miles away, and for this weekend, they will have a wonderful time retelling old stories, updating on new events that occurred over the past year, and sharing plans for the year ahead. Then, by Sunday, they will pack up and return home with the intent to do it all again in 2009.

We grew up as participants in the family reunion tradition. I remember going to the Howell reunion many times throughout my childhood years. The Howells are my dad's mom's family. Every year, we'd travel to the Denver area and meet in a park, usually under a gazebo. The kids would go play and get messy, while the adults met in the shade and shared memories and told jokes. I remember meeting all my grandma's siblings...

Uncle Harry who always shook the coins in his pocket and gave us kids a quarter when we saw him, so we called him "Uncle Jingles." He was married to Aunt Carol, who was always so sweet...she always seemed to me, with her sweet spirit and pleasant attitude, that she could have been the child of the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Aunt Jemima.

Uncle Glen, who by the time I knew him was deep into alcohol addiction, and I at first confused him as a homeless man who had crashed the party. That changed when dad told me stories of Glen's former brilliance as an educator and inventor.

Uncle Gene and Aunt Maxine. I can still see the twinkle in Uncle Gene's eyes whenever he told a story and the grin that would sneak out as he remembered details of long-ago adventures.

Aunt Virginia, who seemed to be closest to grandma. They looked alike and always ran around together like twins, even though they weren't.

Aunt Helen, the oldest of the siblings. From time to time, Aunt Helen would show up in the Denver society pages, and it was always fun to see her there. She never had children and always looked about 25 years younger than she is (I wonder if there's a connection with those two details).

Aunt Madeline and Uncle Stan. Stan was a Denver car salesman, and we bought every car we had from him for many years.

And of course most of the siblings' kids came in with their own families, so I was introduced to cousins and second cousins and second cousins once removed. They siblings seemed to keep it straight and all I cared about was getting to play football and drink enough Pepsi to make myself sick.

But as we got older, the Howell reunions gave way to the McAnally reunions, coordinated by my dad. We started by going up to the Sherman youth camp north of Craig. Some of the Howells transitioned into the McAnally reunion (Uncle Gene was a regular). But this was a reunion for the next generation, so the main participants were the families of dad's siblings and cousins. Every year as a teenager, my brother and I would come along, bringing the girl we were dating at the time. We would play horseshoes and home run derby. We would make a bonfire and stay up way too late. What was cool about McAnally reunions was in the generosity of who was a McAnally...my mom's brother and mother often made appearances. My childhood friends all were adoptees at one point or another. There was no discrimination...if you were a friend, you were family.

The reunions continue, even while many of the family is gone...Uncle Harry, Aunt Maxine, Uncle Glen...and grandma. Some from dad's generation are gone...his brother Gene and my mom. And certainly new family have come along and the tradition continues, but my generation and the ones emerging behind seem to drift farther away geographically and traditionally as the years pass.

It has been at least five years since I have been to a McAnally family reunion. I've lived in Georgia and Texas. I work in a field that gets busy the first week of August, the same time as the reunion every year. I'm under deadline for two books. This year, our two oldest children are at church camp. So I think about the fun time we all could be having in the cool morning air of Northwestern Colorado, and the promise of another hundred-degree day in North Texas smacks me in the face and tells me to get back to work.

Last year, my family traveled to Littlefield, Texas, to take part in my wife's family reunion. We noticed much of the same phenomenon...the younger generations were more poorly represented than the older. Perhaps we're too busy or maybe we're just too young and foolish to appreciate the blessing of family as much as we should.

For my and subsequent generations...we can be better connected than ever before with sites like facebook, myspace, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, Friendfeed, and our own personal web sites. We can get in touch at moment's notice...I can think of no less than nine web sites, four emails, three phone numbers, two addresses, and even a fax number to contact me. Yet, for all this connectivity, we're as distant as always. And the best way to connect...one on one, face to face...is the one that happens the least.

So as the family reunites and I sit here typing about it, I have to accept that while the miles that separate us are many...they could not be any closer to my heart.