Remembering family reunions - McGowans
Aug. 27th, 2007 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trystinnThe McGowan clan is a large, rowdy Irish immigrant family comprised of several dozen households that meet on a regular basis, seemingly at the drop of a hat. Growing up as a quiet child among them had its challenges, mostly because my cousins had a very devious manner of dealing with my shyness - they ignored it completely.
"My favorites Douglas, Glenn & Drew (the twins) were the guides through my childhood. Teaching me the basics every kid needs to know - how to play chess, ping pong, pool, air hockey and poker. When I graduated from a child's banana-seat bike to a street bike, it was Douglas who gave me his old bike and taught me to really ride, all the tricks so vital to a proper childhood. And the advanced course, too - how to hustle uncles at chess, hotwire a car and pick locks. And it was the very handsome Douglas who gave me my first (and only) fake ID and my first real kiss (after reminding me I was adopted with a purely Irish grin) back behind Aunt May's tool shed one glorious July 4th when I was fourteen. The McGowans never did place any importance on specifications as to second, third and once removed cousins status. If you were old enough to supervise another kid and run a few errands, you were old enough to be called Aunt or Uncle. I became an Aunt at about sixteen through this system, though I've yet to become one in the traditional sense!
Grandmother Lila's house was the typical meeting place for such events. Four stories, a large garage, stable, fields and a carriage house of mischief. Controlled chaos, to be sure, but we were polite, quiet when necessary and to a fault, fun loving. Whenever someone got a bit too big for their britches, a stocky Irish uncle would take us out back and scare the daylights out of us to remind us of our place in the scheme of things. We got into plenty of scrapes, mind you. I cannot begin to count the number of times I got bit by my aunt's shetland ponies - Gods I hated those things! However, it wasn't me who locked all the alcohol in the RV one campout when the adults got too drunk to stop us. I was only the quick, slight girl who crept in and out of the closet without being seen. Honest.
To add to that, the McGowans had a standing, if unspoken, rule - at least one fistfight per reunion and that wasn't limited to the kids. Lila was known for instigating such at the beginning of the parties to get it over with, something my very staid mother never approved of. Useful though, especially as the alcohol flowed throughout the day. "You'll just have to wait until next time" Lila would sigh, "Uncle John already hit Uncle Charlie this morning". (Mind you, I've got at least three Uncle Charlies and five Uncle Johns, not to mention a multitude of cousins Charlies and Johns).
The McGowan family owns a large fleet of antique cars, mostly Model T's and A's which tour the country several times a year and reside in a special museum the rest of the time. Between tours, we'd hold family revues: the men dressing up in raccoon coats, straw hats and bamboo canes with the women in flapper dresses and feathered headbands while we sang along with old ragtime records. When folks wonder why I adore drinking Sidecars and singing along to Bessie Smith, I just smile.
As a young woman, my cousins became the bane of my existence. Dropping by my apartments and rented houses at ungodly hours of the weekend morning to drag me out for breakfast at a diner. Having not been to bed themselves, they'd sneak around the back of the house and bang on the windows and porch doors - scaring boyfriends out of their wits. Something they relished. Finding a man who could stand up to their relentless teasing was almost impossible, Josh manages with an almost inhuman stoicism and a bag of dirty tricks learned from more than a decade of service in the military."
I do miss those days.
"My favorites Douglas, Glenn & Drew (the twins) were the guides through my childhood. Teaching me the basics every kid needs to know - how to play chess, ping pong, pool, air hockey and poker. When I graduated from a child's banana-seat bike to a street bike, it was Douglas who gave me his old bike and taught me to really ride, all the tricks so vital to a proper childhood. And the advanced course, too - how to hustle uncles at chess, hotwire a car and pick locks. And it was the very handsome Douglas who gave me my first (and only) fake ID and my first real kiss (after reminding me I was adopted with a purely Irish grin) back behind Aunt May's tool shed one glorious July 4th when I was fourteen. The McGowans never did place any importance on specifications as to second, third and once removed cousins status. If you were old enough to supervise another kid and run a few errands, you were old enough to be called Aunt or Uncle. I became an Aunt at about sixteen through this system, though I've yet to become one in the traditional sense!
Grandmother Lila's house was the typical meeting place for such events. Four stories, a large garage, stable, fields and a carriage house of mischief. Controlled chaos, to be sure, but we were polite, quiet when necessary and to a fault, fun loving. Whenever someone got a bit too big for their britches, a stocky Irish uncle would take us out back and scare the daylights out of us to remind us of our place in the scheme of things. We got into plenty of scrapes, mind you. I cannot begin to count the number of times I got bit by my aunt's shetland ponies - Gods I hated those things! However, it wasn't me who locked all the alcohol in the RV one campout when the adults got too drunk to stop us. I was only the quick, slight girl who crept in and out of the closet without being seen. Honest.
To add to that, the McGowans had a standing, if unspoken, rule - at least one fistfight per reunion and that wasn't limited to the kids. Lila was known for instigating such at the beginning of the parties to get it over with, something my very staid mother never approved of. Useful though, especially as the alcohol flowed throughout the day. "You'll just have to wait until next time" Lila would sigh, "Uncle John already hit Uncle Charlie this morning". (Mind you, I've got at least three Uncle Charlies and five Uncle Johns, not to mention a multitude of cousins Charlies and Johns).
The McGowan family owns a large fleet of antique cars, mostly Model T's and A's which tour the country several times a year and reside in a special museum the rest of the time. Between tours, we'd hold family revues: the men dressing up in raccoon coats, straw hats and bamboo canes with the women in flapper dresses and feathered headbands while we sang along with old ragtime records. When folks wonder why I adore drinking Sidecars and singing along to Bessie Smith, I just smile.
As a young woman, my cousins became the bane of my existence. Dropping by my apartments and rented houses at ungodly hours of the weekend morning to drag me out for breakfast at a diner. Having not been to bed themselves, they'd sneak around the back of the house and bang on the windows and porch doors - scaring boyfriends out of their wits. Something they relished. Finding a man who could stand up to their relentless teasing was almost impossible, Josh manages with an almost inhuman stoicism and a bag of dirty tricks learned from more than a decade of service in the military."
I do miss those days.
