An Era Ended ... An Era Begun

An era ended … an era begun. The Roy Rogers Museum closed in Branson, Missouri. Roy’s will specified that it be closed when it wasn’t able to pay for itself. That day came in June this year, and his son closed the museum. Most people today would have to Google his name to know who Roy Rogers was. An era ended! A letter came to me just before my birthday in June informing me I was officially on Medicare. This can’t be true! I am now in the Medicare generation. An era begun!

My birthday launched another landmark occasion. On that same day my wife and I boarded a plane here in Santiago, Dominican Republic to travel to Idaho for the summer. With us were my daughter-in-law and her two young daughters who had stayed with us for this past year. We flew to Moscow, Idaho to meet the rest of my family for the first-ever Dale family reunion. It was the first time our three children had actually been together for eight years.

Several months ago when we began to plan how to get our daughter-in-law and brood back to Japan, the idea of a family reunion was a small seed planted in our thinking. As we prayed and planned we watched the Lord open a few doors to allow this seed to grow to bear fruit, so to speak. Consequently all three of my children and their families were able to come. My daughter and her husband and new baby girl flew in from Peru. My son flew from Japan to meet his wife and two girls. My oldest son was already in Moscow and helped our property manager get our house ready to handle the crowd. Grandparents can ask no greater joy than to experience this kind of chaos (as long as they got along as well as they did.)

When my mother heard that my family was all getting together and that we would be visiting her in southern Idaho, she decided to get all of us brothers and their families together also. To her amazement, everyone showed up on a Saturday afternoon to eat and talk. I think it was a vivid realization to each of us to see how big our Dale family has grown. It started from the three sons of Everett and Della Dale. Each boy now has three children and some of those children are now married with kids. A head count showed 50 people which we miraculously managed to capture in one picture.

In my enthusiasm I blurted out, “Wow, this is great! I hope we can do this again next year!” The table went unexpectedly quiet and heads turned toward me. Finally my brother’s wife enunciated slowly, “You may want to speak for yourself, this was a lot of work!” So we may want to wait a few years to attempt another one.

Mama Dale is a smart great-grandma. She knew that half of the population of a family reunion (by definition) is children. And she also knew that the big people couldn’t visit very well with that many little people afoot, so she rented one of those bouncy houses that you see at carnivals.

So after the meal and family introductions at the church fellowship hall at Mom’s church, many of the families migrated to Mom’s house where this device had been assembled in the back yard. I’m not exaggerating when I say that roughly 15 children were screaming and bouncing outside in kid heaven until dark while the parents enjoyed a relatively quiet catching-up time inside . The occasional exception was when a teary little one would burst into the house sporting a knot on the head from a bouncy house collision. After a good cry and more than a few hugs from doting relatives, he/she would race out to have more fun. The house was finally empty around 11:00 p.m..

While all of my children were in Moscow for a few days by ourselves we decided to have a set of family pictures taken. A friend of ours, who loves photography, volunteered to take our pictures in the college arboretum. This was the only planned event.

Each person seemed to have his own agenda … a mental check-off list of things to do before the short time expired. One wanted to hike around on Kamiak Butte to revisit some special memories. Another wanted to build a fire at a camp ground and shoot the rifle again.

And each one went through his boxes of possessions that have been stored in the garage for years. Sometimes they did these things together … sometimes with only the wife or husband. Occasionally Mom and Dad were allowed to tag along. It was a little bit like herding cats … but when the dust was settled and each child in turn left us taking our grandchildren back to their homes scattered around the world, I noticed there were literally tears in my eyes and a prayer on my lips that God would continue to draw our little family toward a more important reunion in eternity.

I doubt if we have the ability or opportunity to do this again for a long time, if ever. So we praise God for this experience. They are gone … an era ended. But now we have a new challenge of finding how we can keep our little, but growing, scattered family together … an era begun.