Family Ties

By TAD BARTIMUS

Her directions had been a bit vague but I wasn't worried; after all, we were both journalists who'd independently found our way out of Kansas, around China and under New York City at rush hour. How hard could it be to connect at a hotel?

Thirty minutes past our rendezvous time I gave up looking for a face I hadn't seen in five years and stopped a man with a nametag for help, telling him who my friend was and asking where her party was seated.

"Oh dear," he said, clearly distressed. "I'm not sure. There are 74 of them."

74???? Seventy-four relatives, all together on a vacation? Just thinking about it is enough to make most people hyperventilate. The hotel employee's guess that they tended to move in a pack, however, proved right; nearly all of them were in a cluster, enjoying each other's company as well as the sunshine.

In extended families that succeed in playing and staying together, narcissism and selfishness must be sublimated in favor of civility and plain old good manners. What a concept!

"Hello, hello!" said my friend, whom I recognized instantly, after all. "Let me introduce you." All around me, polite men and women stood up and held out their hands, saying "How do you do?" and "It's a pleasure to meet you." I was intimidated by so many new names and faces coming at me at once, sure I wouldn't be able to keep them straight. But within minutes I was caught up in this gathering of offspring, spouses, cousins and more cousins expressing interest in who I was and where I came from.

There were three generations of them, from all corners of the country. Together, they comprise not only a great family, but also one of America's Great Families: of philanthropy, public service, commerce and influence. Yet what struck me, from the first moments I was swept up in their gregarious inquisitiveness, was that these people really seemed to LIKE each other. They talked, laughed and sat in companionable silence as only folks who belong to one another can do. The ease of their inter-mingled relationship was palpable.

The sum of this family - which shares a common financial underpinning and a single, unequivocal patriarch - truly is greater than its parts. In any tribe there's bound to be some dysfunction, friction and personality clashes, but in the interest of harmony and order these personal issues must be stifled or accommodated. In extended families that succeed in playing and staying together, narcissism and selfishness must be sublimated in favor of civility and plain old good manners. What a concept!

At the end of a happy day with my friend's clan I reluctantly said goodbye, realizing as I drove away that I was envious of their easy-going intimacy and common traditions. None of them will every lack for others who know their personal history, share their inside jokes, or remember each other's childhoods.

Many of us increasingly are alienated from our extended families, choosing self over group for various reasons. Most of us don't have to depend on family members for our livelihoods. The mobility of the Boomer Generation has scattered relatives like milkweed seeds on the wind; specialized greeting cards now take the place of reunions.

In my family, my dad was an only child and my mother nearly so. I have always compensated for this lack of "one for all, all for one" heritage by telling myself that my friends more than make up for a bunch of aunts, uncles and siblings I never had. But now, after a very invigorating, fun day spent in the bosom of a family bigger than most marching bands, I'm not so sure.

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