Summer is a favorite time of year for families to gather for reunions and as a child I remember attending the annual Underwood picnic in Blooming Prairie. Aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and various friends who became adopted family gathered in the church basement to trade stories and eat a covered dish lunch. The church basement was always clammy with the humid summer air even when you stood in front of the one oscillating fan in the place. Little kids with red Kool-Aid lips gave grandmas and great aunties big sticky kisses at the urging of laughing mothers.

Aunt Betty, Little Mary and Uncle Dick

didn’t put in enough of the flavor packets. But it did us no good to say it needed sugar, there was no sugar to put in! They remembered the cream for the coffee, but no one used sugar.  That was before the days of sugar substitutes so no Equal or Splenda either.  Obviously, we survived and can laugh about it now – the year we had colored water at the picnic!