"We come together once a year and live as white trash." ~Aunt Callie

This quote refers to the way that we live on Hatch family reunions. We sit around and eat and play and vegetate. This year, this is how my Aunt Callie described these reunions. I have just returned from this living as white-trash expedition.

This year, it was attended by most people, with no Marie (who was teaching classes in Arizona), with no Chris (who was at business meetings in California, much to his dismay), with no Justin, Ashley and twins (who were in Spokane, I think), no missionaries (Sam and Carol), no Caleb (at Scout Camp), no Beth (working at Safeway), and no Tom (my Dad, working in Seattle).

Hoop Lake in the Uintas: The water is sick. We called in iron-enforced, but it was a little bit just plain old sick. Slightly brown in color, when a light yellow-brown color issued out, everyone ran for their water bottles. Furthermore, Hoop Lake is well-stocked with rainbow trout, and the fishermen of the family enjoyed being there. I learned how to gut a fish, Clark explained the process, and then I participated. It was very informational. I figured if I can do chickens (which I have), I can do fish. And I was right.

I love Hatch reunions, and we discussed what would come of the next generation of Hatches, as Eliot was in attendance (though he's technically a Lucherini, but hey, I'm technically a Russell), and Justin's twins have recently entered this world. It's a sad day thinking that these reunions might fall apart. We'll have to fight to keep them alive.

On the way back, we took the scenic route and stopped in Oxford, Idaho. You've probably never heard of this place, unless you're related to me on the Hatch side. Doesn't surprise me. It has a population of 54 people. It's where Grandpa Hatch grew up, and where Grandma Carol is buried. It is a sad place really, because it has died. It was never Boise, but when my grandfather was growing up, it was a town. 200+ people, in the 30s. The bus went there, people lived there, there was a schoolhouse, it was prospering a bit. Harold B. Lee taught school there once. But, the railroad went on the other side of the valley. The interstate followed the railroad. Oxford was bypassed is now dying. I'm crying as I write this. People driving through as we ate lunch in the picnic table on some land that formally belonged to an aunt and uncle of my mom's looked into the town in disgust, wondering what wrong turn they had made in getting stuck in this little dairy farm. I called a town in Wyoming called Urie a hicktown. I don't think Oxford is a hicktown. Urie is the town with the no automatic shut-offs on the pumps. A town that tried to modernize and flourish but failed miserably. Oxford was just bypassed and will soon blow away. I hope that that town is still around when I have kids, so that I can take them there, but I don't know that it will be.

We saw the Hatch corner of Oxford Cemetery. There, right next to the Fisher plots, I might add, were my ancestors. People whose names I had seen in my personal ancestral file all the time. There was Elsie May Gooch buried next to her husband, Henry Daniel Hatch. There were the three sisters of my grandfather's who died before adulthood. There were the old faded stones of the founders of Oxford, in whom I hold my roots. There was the grave of my Grandmother, Carol Hansen Hatch, or Carol H. Hatch as the grave says, right next to a pre-bought plot for my living grandfather so that they may be buried together. A beautiful temple of eternal marriage is on their gravestone, and I see the people who lived in that town, and died in that town. The place they loved is now nothing but memories.

I saw the place where the house of my grandpa's youth once stood. It's not there anymore, and only a few trees of the orchard are there. Oxford is fading away. How many other towns of the simpler life of humanity are as well?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Over-analyzing Disney Movies: The Little Mermaid--Why Eric is White.

Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!

What does it mean to be a Russell?