Funny Short Story About My Brother and His Wife

       For over fifty years, the Pierce family had a yearly family reunion here in Menard.  As my father”s generation started to die off,  we gradually quit having the reunion every year.  I had promised daddy and Uncle Nick I would try to keep it going after they were gone.  I tried my best to keep it going.  But, the younger generation seemed to lose interest.  I have many wonderful memories of the Pierce family reunion.  This is one of those funny and wonderful memories.  The Pierces would just show up the last weekend in June.  We didn’t have to send out invitations, they would just show up.  We would always get together on a Saturday and have a big lunch for whoever was here.  At supper time, we would all meet for a picnic in the park under the bridge.  At that time there was no walking trail.  There were picnic tables scattered throughout the park. You could drive anywhere you wanted to in the park.  Then, on Sunday morning, some would go to church and some would stay home cooking.  We would then meet somewhere, like the community center or Club Victoria for a huge dinner.  This particular year we met at the old community center by the news office.  My brother and sister-in-law were always late getting to the dinner.  My sister- in-law always brought something like a noodle salad.  She would always wait until the last minute to prepare the dish.  So, they arrived at  our house after everyone had already left to go to the community center for the big dinner.  They finally arrived at the community center.  We did not see them come in and we did notice what they had brought to the dinner.  We had a blessing for the food and everyone lined up to get our food.  Then, I saw it.  They had apparently had trouble finding a container to put the noodle salad in.  To my amazement and I might say horror, there was their noodle salad in our mop bucket.  Needless to say, Loveta, our children, and myself did not partake of any of that noodle salad that day.  We couldn’t afford to tell anyone.  So, we just pretended to not know.  We still have that same mop bucket today.  Every time I see that mop bucket, I think of that funny story.  I would not take for that wonderful memory.  I will have some more stories about the Pierce reunion, at a later date.