Dan X Day 2016.

This may be a photoblog, but the template lends itself nicely to story posts.

Most of my photos are absent of people. I see myself separated from people, for the most part. Introverted? Unfriendly? Anti-social? Not sure; after all these years, a bit of all I suspect. So, I don’t take a lot of pictures of people, not even during the family reunion.

Dan X Day brought together all families of my grandmother’s sisters, the daughters of Dan X MacNeil. Everyone up there in Benacadie Pond, Nova Scotia is a MacNeil so they differentiated each other via middle initials. At least I assumed his middle name was Xavier. When I was young, it was simply The Country and I spent most of every summer there, barefoot and half-wild. As I grew older, the families did not get there as often. So, just before I left, they established a new tradition — every 5 years, they would gather the families for an extended summer weekend. I don’t get back to many but this year, I did.

Below you see the primary families of the Coombs side, Bessie Coombs being my grandmother and one of the daughters of Dan X. There are the (Gerard) Coombs, the (Paul) Coombs, the (Ray) Coombs and the absent (didn’t make it up the hill or did I just get distracted?) (Donald) Coombs. And then there are the (Valerie) Balls and us, the (Phyllis) Petites. And kids and grand kids and extended family members.

And that was just one gang. There were four (three?) other family groups all gathered about the foot of the hill for three days, four nights, of camp fires, songs, events, swimming, beer, tea biscuits, games, music, laughter, more beer, games of scat (card game) and plenty of more laughter. Despite my discomfort, I did enjoy myself.