The players--now this is kind of tricky

The guests of honor, my Aunt Irene and my Gran Gran.

In case you have not picked up on it, this is a strange family. Well, how could you miss that but I mean it is strange in a rather unique way. The first matching of the Stubbs and Thrasher family occurred when Aunt Irene Stubbs married TD Thrasher. Then shortly after that, Gran Gran (a Thrasher sister) married Papaw (a Stubbs brother). Much later, one of the youngest Thrasher sisters, Aunt Peggy married Uncle Jay Stubbs, who was also Papaw's brother. Interestingly, only the women are still alive-- I just realized that.

So there is a running joke about the Double Cousins, but in fact, it is worse than that. We are all related three times. Mandy just says it is no wonder that we are all the same level of screwball since our family tree does not branch. I don't even keep track of all that rigamarole about who married who when, so I had to confirm it all with mom so I did not embarrass myself, but I actually had it all right. It gets a little dicey further on down the lines, with the cousins--so many to keep up with!

Almost everyone was there. Aunt Irene had two kids, Larry and Kay. Kay was killed as a teenager, but Larry was there. Two of his sons were not, but various other parts of that clan were there. And of course, Larry's wife Pat was the Thrasher part of the organizing of this deal. She is the one whose son disappeared in the flood this year and was not found for weeks, so that she could plan a party in the soon aftermath of that is amazing to me.

Gran Gran has three kids, and of course, mom and Aunt Jana were there, but not Uncle Bob, who lives in North Carolina, or his three children who live in North and South Carolinas. Gran Gran went there today. Mom and Aunt Jana have two kids each, and we were all there. Jana has two grandkids, one from each of her children, and they were both there. Mom only has Gabi, but of course she was there.

Aunt Peggy was there, as was her son Bob. That always leads to some confusion, as you will inevitably have people say, "don't you remember me?" or are you Bobby Stubbs? Well sure, but probably not the one you are talking about. We need a little more confusion up in here, in case anyone was getting close to figuring things out.

There were also about 70 more people, including my Gran Gran's friends who are also the parents of my first great love, Bryan. They brought me photos of he and his wife, and their three children. I have to admit it was a little weird, but nice now I am not standing there feeling like a jackass wondering what you say to that.


Well that is me and Barry. And I have no idea what is wrong with my hair. I still need an eye lift.
This is Mom, Gran Gran, Mandy and Gabi
This is my Aunt Jana, Gran Gran, my cousin Kim and her son Jack in front of her, and my cousin
Johnny in the back, with his daughter Ciara. I had not seen Johnny in probably 10 years or Ci in seven years. She lives in Florida. The rest of them live in Chicago.

It was nice that so many people came from so far away. I have some other pics of interesting things, but I figured the family would want to see these, so here they are.

For more entertaining things, there were several odd comments overheard at this shindig.

1: Mandy keeps saying how amazed she was that my hair was "under control". Also, what a great color that is, she says to me. It is her color, so no wonder she likes it. Dad wants to know where my real hair color went. The gray is getting it, probably from being in this family.

2: I overheard mom telling Dad that he could go out to Brenda's (her best friend from childhood) and sleep "with her". I am pretty sure she meant he should go out there and use one of her spare bedrooms, instead of yelling at everyone who walked between him and the football game on TV. Dad's response" "Does she have the football game on?" When I asked him later what he was still doing there instead of being at Brenda's, he said "she did not have the football game". As if he had not noticed that the strangest part of the equation was the offer to sleep with Brenda.

I am sure I will think of more.

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