The Other Side

Another weekend, another family reunion. Once again I nabbed a train down to the parents’ house on Friday after work and headed out the next morning to Bedford County, PA for a family reunion. This time we’d be hanging out with my mom’s side.

Whereas most of my dad’s side of the family is from the suburbs around New York and Philadelphia, my mom’s side is firmly rooted in rural, central Pennsylvania. I don’t have a very firm grasp on the ancestry, but from what I gather the Nunamaker family has been located in the same general vicinity for at least the greater part of the twentieth century.

I’ve been going to these annual gatherings for as long as I remember. The things that stick out when I think of them are really good, really unhealthy food, and lots of it; corny games; and lots of country accents. In the most recent incarnation, all of those things held true.

The food was once again spectacular. There was a zucchini dish that was out of this world. And the fried chicken, brownies, scalloped potatoes, sausage, and other assorted bits and pieces of country flavor weren’t so bad either.

And yes, once again there were corny games. There was one where you throw a hand-sized sandbag into a hole in a wooden platform. It was sort of like horseshoes. In another game you threw two golf balls tied by a string onto a series of poles set up about 25 feet away from you. I’m happy to report my dominance in both of these events. In reality, my main competitors were a 7 year old girl and her 11 year old brother.

One family who had brought a lot of games to the picnic explained that they had so many because they “always took them to church camp.” That’s the sort of vibe that you get when you go to family reunions in Bible Country, Pennsylvania. There’s church camp, there’s grace, there’s the money collected to send Bibles to Africa.

In general there aren’t too many political discussions at these events. I think it’s because everyone agrees on the important political issues. They’re all very conservative, very religious, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military, card-carrying Red Staters. I remember once during a hunting trip (I go hunting with this side of the family), one family member of mine said that if the government ever tried to take away his guns they’d have to “pry it out of my cold dead hands.” Another expressed incredulity when someone joked that he’d hold hands with another man for $1 million: “now that just ain’t right!”

This is crazy stuff for a decidedly Blue State liberal to be hearing from members of his own family. When I come to these types of gatherings I’m always reminding myself that these are the types of voters that drive me up the wall. They’re against progress, I say! They’re delusional and backwards! Why won’t they think outside of what their pastor tells them?!

And yet, here they are, and I’m playing this weirdly fun sandbag throwing game with their children. It doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, they’re my family. They’ve always been absolutely supportive and friendly to me. I very rarely hear them speak hatefully towards other people. They’re honest, good people. But on the other hand they spend their entire lives in these tiny towns and go to church camp where, presumably, they’re told that evolution isn’t the truth and that America always has God on its side. They’re the mythical evangelical voters.

Do I resent them or appreciate them? Do their political/social/religious views make more sense to me because I know them, or less? Are their small-town American views the best America has to offer, or a handicap as we move into the 21st century? I don’t know.

I’m not sure where I’m going with all this. It goes to show you the power of family, I suppose, for better and for worse.