(Mac chats with Elizabeth-with-a-Z, 2005).
“What do you want me to do? Win World War Two again?”
– Mac to Grandson, Outer Banks Shower’s Family Reunion Quote of the week, 2012.
It has been a marvelous weekend, filled with camaraderie and family, and it was an honor to be part of the gathering of the far-flung Showers clan and assorted admirers and friends.
Last night featured the money quote of a Showers Beach Week on North Carolina’s Outer Banks- the sort of ultimate come-back to trump the contentions of a younger and confident generation to the wisdom of another.
The family had secured the Williamsburg Room on the second floor of the luxurious new Arlington clubhouse of the Army-Navy Country Club. The season was starting, late on a Sunday afternoon, golfers coming off the course and the place coming alive. The old clubhouse, the one whose central core went back to the founding days of 1924, is fully gone, and the new contour of the ridgeline now resembles what it must have looked like then the Civil War Arlington Line snaked across the highlands. The outlines of the earthworks of Fort Richardson that now nestle the ninth green on the clubhouse approach are much more dramatic.
The property was part of the Nauk Neighborhood, whose immediate progenitor had been a Freedman’s Village established at the end of the war. It is still true that the defining event in the life of the Boomers is World War Two. When we say “the War,” or “after the War,” as a marking point for some event in the social life of the nation, that is the defining moment.
But not here. The War still will always refer to the years that the Union Army surged across the River and constructed an astonishing ring of forts, protected firing positions, sunken roads, and all of them bristled with guns from the Arlington highlands.
(Mac’s sister, in from Iowa and looking spirited at 96 years young.)
Anyway, nice view from the new clubhouse, where the gathering of the Clan was just about complete. Mac’s big sister was there, alert and vibrant with the same spirit of life that Mac always had. She was almost a dead ringer for her little brother, and with a walker just like his, and the same bright eyes that have seen nearly a century of life in These United States.
Mac’s kids were there, and their kids, and a few of yet another generation crawling about with tiny trucks and jets, and some new arrivals still clinging to their mothers. Truly a multiple generational celebration of Mac’s life, and pretty damned impressive.
Tom the son-in-law brought in an extraordinary case of fine wine that had been a favorite of Mac’s, whose traditional wine of choice had been Gallo Hearty Burgundy, a vintage I recall vaguely from Mom and Dad’s adventures in fine wine, and which I despise to this day. Mac’s tastes evolved over time, and if he did not have this precise vintage before, it was from a winery of which he would have thoroughly approved.
(Two of the most beautiful granddaughters ever share memories).
So, Saturday at Willow as the critical mass of family increased. An afternoon in the Gardens of Stone to survey the place of eternal rest for our pal, and his reunion with his beloved Billie. Now, this afternoon is the main event.
Showers this morning, the meteorological version, and the weather guessers are saying things will dry up in time to accommodate the scheduling of Mac Showers this afternoon.
(Mac and Billie prepare for the Big Trip).
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com