It was a fish fry family reunion, and I think the main dish was rather appropriate, what with all the whoppers and such being told.

Tales of stolen pears and cousins who tattled about it headlined Saturday’s event, followed by one involving a relative’s first-time experience with electric fencing. My favorite, the story of Rasberry, a soldier who fled Vicksburg and hid out in a cave until the war’s end, didn’t come up, though.

And while sounds of catching up echoed through the church gym, the sights of a century projected overhead in black and white. There were fuzzy images of men with hats and ladies with hair my daughter described as “bouffant.” Ones of gaunt-faced great-grands, rib-counting thin, convinced us we know nothing of lean times.

Later I talked with a mother whose two sons had landed in Seoul the day prior, and then I hung on the details of another cousin’s nine-day cruise in Europe.

Curious, I sought out an authority. I asked if the family patriarch had ever done any traveling to compare, and found out yes, he had been to Louisiana. At least once.

During the lulls, I couldn’t help but notice the gaping holes left by larger-than-life personalities who have passed on. What family wouldn’t miss an uncle who let us kids thump his wooden leg? And another who tried to compete (but couldn’t) by removing his dentures on demand?

My aunt and her sweet tea, the stuff she made with spring water and served in aluminum pitchers that left puddles on her plastic table cloth, weren’t there either. I wondered what she would think of the store-bought gallons of Milo’s down by the ice coolers. I wondered, too, what a grandmother who baked biscuits three times a day would think of Mrs. Edward’s pies and the trays of Chick-Fil-A nuggets we consumed.

But reunions are a mecca for those who love research and genealogy and names like Jeptha. That’s why it was unfortunate that most of us in attendance weren’t there to scour the notebooks brought by a man from Louisiana who wanted to fill in the blanks in his family line.

We had come instead for the living, breathing connections. To introduce our kids to kin who played basketball for the Air Force during the Korean War and to a cousin who helped build Grand Gulf. We had come to eat banana pudding and to hold new babies.

Some came, though, because there was a loved one who would want them there – someone they will always try to please, even if her tombstone is just across the road from where we’re seated.

And, of course, the spouses came, too, and we are glad they did. I joked with a wife about driving a separate car for an early escape and a husband who was seeking a phone signal in an area DSL has yet to discover.

It was about that time when my own spouse looked out across the crowd and whispered, “Why didn’t Uncle Cecil come?”

“Well,” I whispered back, reaching for the Butterfinger pie he didn’t finish, “that would be kind of hard, since he’s been dead almost four years now.”

He looked surprised.

“And besides that,” I continued, “he was a Britt, but not from this branch.”

He looked even more surprised at the thought of yet another bunch of Britts, and I just smiled.

Now that I think of it, maybe we should have visited with that guy with those genealogy books after all. I’m sure he would have been willing to provide further clarification.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at henderson7@juno.com.