Too many faces ...

If you ever want to get lost in the crowd, drop by my Mom's house when the family is there.

It does not even have to be all of the family. Any sizable branch of the family tree is likely to have enough people on it to populate a reasonably-sized Pacific Island. And there are not many days in the month when at least some of them are around, in, in back of, or in front of Mom's house.

It has always been like that since we were kids. As children, one of the kids always had someone over doing something in some part of the house. I have mentioned previously that Glenda was famous for performing hair experiments and ghastly homemade piercings (just the ears, as I remember) with her friends in the bathroom, her bedroom or the back patio, while Tony and his crowd was playing football in the front yard or basketball in the driveway.

Dad set up a basketball goal over the garage door, like a lot of families did before the days of portable hoops. What set "Williams Arena" apart was Dad's modification to the curved driveway we had that led to the garage - he "squared in" the curve to allow better parking. The unintended result (I guess it was unintended) was the creation of a reasonably good half-court driveway. Tony, John and the neighborhood kids had a field day, with hours-long pickup games that attracted kids from blocks around.

To draw a parallel to the present day, my family still draws a crowd. The only difference with the present day is that if someone stands around long enough, they usually become part of the family.

I admit that living a long day's drive away from Opp makes it difficult to keep up with people whether they are family or not. But I have to say that over the years, every trip home I made found me looking at people whom I did not recognize that seemed eminently comfortable on Mom's couch. These days, I will even find people napping in her living room that bear no resemblance to my forefathers.

Now, that is what I call making yourself at home.

I am glad everyone feels so at ease around the family. My problem comes with keeping up with WHO is IN the family.

A little detailed research has indicated to me the cause lies partly with my nieces. Over the years, the girls have dated guys and married guys. A few have divorced and married other guys. I have no problem with people divorcing whatsoever - I've done it myself, and my oldest brother was unconsciously attempting a world's record before finding his current (wonderful) wife.

And before you say it, girls, I know the guys change partners occasionally, too. But I have really never met an unidentified girl in Mom's house on the couch. And my wife said I had better not meet a girl on any couch, ever, either.

But that leaves me with a sense of confused wonder when I visit home. It must be similar to what Alzheimer's patients go through, meeting new people every day. (Hope that is not insensitive, which it probably is. OK, sorry.) Usually the new population consists of boys who are tracking a feminine interest like a bloodhound on a convict, and they wander into the house lulled by the distracting smell of food and the warm glow of a television.

I will walk into the living room, and three guys will be there. I do not recognize any of them, and even those who have been around awhile have not seen me enough to know who I am. We all look at each other, suspiciously, and the same unspoken question is on our minds: "Can I see your ID, please?"

In one instance, I believe one guy dated one of my nieces enough to be considered steadies. They must have broken up, because the niece married someone else. But I believe he hung around the family for a few months afterward. Mom liked him, and of course getting the permission of the matriarch and homeowner trumps nearly all claims of citizenship.

I think he even started dating another niece. But we won't go that scenario as it may bring up other family-and-marriage stories that probably need to remain a part of Southern myths and legends.

When we first moved to Opp, Mom got very curious about our school friends from the first day. She heard us mention their last name, and she would ask us who their parents were, where their parents went to school and in what year, and other details to the point that we began calling the queries "filling out the application."

She was trying to identify the kids of people she knew from her school days. But I have to admit that I could use information like that about my own family. I missed most of the weddings, sadly, but had I gone I would spent so much on airfare that I would have accumulated enough frequent flier miles to take most of south Alabama to Cancun.

Admittedly, they would have be told where Cancun was, but I digress.

I saw a family picture from a recent wedding, and I was a bit flummoxed in that I could only recognize just over half of them. It probably says more about my lack of time spent in Alabama, but it is still sort of disconcerting.

My family (the ones I know) are not a lot of help. A few of them seem to believe in community memory, acting as if I will know the person in question if I can relate it to someone everyone in the room knows. That would work if I was in the room more than 2 days a year.

"You know," they will say, "Tommy's brother."

Tommy? Tommy Who? Tommy Lasorda? Tommy Tune? Tommy whose momma used to teach school with Norma McCutcheon, whose aunt went to church with Rowena St. McCorkle and tried to make her cornbread, but Lord, it came out bad, and she stopped talking to Sammy Bob Doowhatchie because he moved in with her grandma and ... you get the idea.

A little local information, though, can be a very good thing. There is a reason mountain climbers taking on Mount Everest use Nepalese Sherpas. (Alabama alert - Nepalese people are from Nepal, where Mount Everest is located. You're welcome.) The theory works in rural Alabama, as well.

When my wife first came to Opp, she was driven there by her son. Neither of them had any notion of how to get to my Mom's, where I was, and they called me just outside of town after they gave up on finding the right road.

"Where are you?" I asked her as I sat with family on the front porch.

"I'm not sure," she answered. "But the white house we just passed has a bicycle leaning on the fence and a boat in the side yard."

I repeated those landmarks out loud, mostly to make sure I heard them right.

"Wait," said my brother in law, Dwight. "I know right where she is."

Next time there is family gathering at which I will gather, I want the people whose names I do not know to come up to me and tell me who you are, and how you are related. Please do not be embarrassed. I will be the embarrassed one, but I need to know.

Help a family member out, OK? I'd hate to have to ask if your momma went to school with my mom, or if Rowena has been cooking your aunt's cornbread.

The Original Seven

There was a movie - a Western movie, to be more precise - called "The Magnificent Seven." I really only remember the title of it, but I think a sequel was made called "The Magnificent Seven Ride." The movie was made in the 1960's, so nowadays the sequel could well be called "The Magnificent Seven Crowd the Sidewalk with their Walkers."

I mention this movie because the title could well apply to my generation of my family. The family spans four generations, and with the recent arrival of my niece Bonnie's first grandchild, the fifth generation of the family has made its initial appearance.

Each generation has sort of created its own identity. The brash and arrogant members of the generation after mine decided to informally declare themselves "The Cool Kids." We will not burst their bubble and remind them that calling yourselves "cool" is probably the best evidence that, in reality, you are anything but cool.

Whoops, there goes the bubble.

That generation went so far in their labeling as to name my generation. We are, in their parlance, "The Original Seven."

This is where the movie title would have served a much better purpose. First off, we are not the Original Seven, or at least, we certainly are not original. Mom and Dad's generation were vast in their number - Mom's more so than Dad's, but still the families were numerous. And going back in our family genealogy, it can be found many of our forefathers and their fore families were prodigious at expanding the family - or they figured out a way to keep warm in the winter.

To call ourselves original removes dozens upon dozens of stories about Big Papa and Big Mama, Uncle Billy, Aunt Christine and all of Mom's siblings. And the family without stories about Uncle Bob and Uncle Dick, Aunt Hazel and all of Dad's family is just not the family. So, Cool Kids, who are they? The Cro-Magnon Generation?

I can sort of see their point in naming our generation "The Original Seven." For many of the "Cool Kids," life begins with them. So the generation before must be explained, and for that reason we are the "Originals."

We are sort of an original group. Everyone we know is astounded that the seven of us don't hate each other or hold petty jealousies towards each other. Of course, a lot of the people that know our family do not really believe I exist - that I am a sort of phantom, heard about but never seen. Rumor has it that a family friend actually tried to take my place in the family group after claiming I did not really exist.

Gary, you knew better. But I forgive you.

It has become a status symbol to be an Original Seven member. It is an exclusive club - I seriously doubt anyone else can gain membership. The Original Seven's spouses, while loved and revered, cannot even claim an equal status in the family hierarchy because we are the ones who lived through the raising by Harold and Sue. To be more honest, it was probably more a case of Harold and Sue living through raising seven children.

We tell stories. True stories, although everyone remembers them differently. Stories that get us laughing so hard at each other that we just start crying and holding our sides. And Mom provides the perfect foil.

When we last got together, we disputed a claim about the grades we made in grammar school. In mere moments, Mom swooped into the room and dropped a pile of papers in front of each of us - all of our report cards from school, from kindergarten through senior year. She not only kept them, but knew exactly where they were. Not bad for 82, huh?

We Originals don't keep to ourselves. We talk to the children and our siblings' children and tell them stories and try to pass on to them our wisdom and expertise on life. What they do with it is their problem.

We are, after all, magnificent, each of us in our own way. We deserve the title if, for no other reason, we managed to raise each and every Cool Kid. Just as we owe our development and character to our parents, the Cool Kids are who they are, in no small part, through the efforts of at least one of the Original Seven.

That should rock their world a bit. I will smile at this thought as I run through the IMDB website to see just who was in that western. It's going to keep me up nights trying to remember.