Food and lodging $1,000, gasoline $150, extra food and drink $300 (whoa), morale building, priceless. No sales were made. No deals were made. No promotions were handed out but I promise you, the trip was a success by every other measure. In my higher education parlance a form of team building was held.
We all had plenty to say. Then when someone started with, “Remember the time . . . ,” you knew that the remembrance had a 50/50 chance of pointing out something from the past that might be less than flattering. Well, each sibling handled whatever was said in their own particular way. These are my opinions and not necessarily shared by management or the siblings. I think that Jane, the second oldest, is the most serious of the siblings. For one thing, she is a serious person and, at times, she can be a little naïve. But for me, I don’t usually pick on a person who has caught more crappies in one day than I ever have. Colleen, the next oldest, is the toughest. She is a nurturing person with skills. She is a nurse and a self-taught plumber and handyman from the days after our dad died. I’ve rarely seen anyone really get to her. Juleen who is next, has the best sense of humor. She can tell a joke but for sure she gets a joke. That causes her to laugh easily (at Patrick’s stupid/silly jokes) which usually ends with a laugh snort which causes Patrick to tell more jokes. Then there is Patrick, the youngest (17 years between me and him). He’s the most talented; graphic artist, plays guitar, engineer’s mind and entertainer. He also can be annoying, maddening, exasperating (you get it). His humor is usually at the expense of one of us which is usually laughed at by at least one of us (Juleen) which encourages him. But, he’s the baby and we love him.
I think they went a little easy on the oldest, me, because I’m the sick guy. Lest you think that they are close to being anointed, they took their shots. Just not as many. They didn’t fail to mention the various dirty tricks that I tried to play on most, if not all, of sisters’ boyfriends. In the later years, Patrick helped. They owe us big time for that. The three that we didn’t try to chase away, are now our brother-in-laws and they are the best.
The moral of the story is that the time is now. Gather your siblings, parent(s) if you are an only child and one or both of them are still with you or your best friend(s) and start the planning process for a weekend of family/friend renewal. I’m not a travel agent nor do I receive any kick backs, but this is one long weekend that should not be put off. If desperate, you can call me. My bucket list isn’t so long that it can’t include a trip to reminisce about the times we’ve spent together. For that matter, you can bring your family or friend trip to Indianapolis and I can entertain you here.
When we were planning the trip, we heard people say that their group would not be able to make it work logistically. It can be done if you work at it. We also heard people say that their siblings don’t all get along well enough to be together for a long weekend. To that I say, “You need a long weekend to fix that.” If you need advice on either of these, let me know.
Update – Infusion yesterday, Kiwanis today, golf tomorrow, dinner out tomorrow night. I’m trying to “Keep on keeping on.” Ya’ll stay strong with me!