I really appreciated the 36 questions that came out of the first meeting of the GRAMA working group and wanted to offer one perspective on a first pass at answering those questions. I will say upfront that the answers provided here are subject to modification or revision based upon more detailed information. Consider this the legislative intent or deliberative process version of any final answers. Before answering the questions I wanted to make one related comment.

When I saw that Common Cause was running a full page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune today calling for the repeal of HB 477 I worried that they were positioning themselves to take some credit after it gets repealed tomorrow (and it will). As citizens we need to be careful in our consumption of information. We need to make sure that we are not fooled by the claims of any interest group. Common Cause appears to be using this situation to help them jump start the reopening of their Utah chapter. I don’t know whether that will be a good thing in the long run or not – I don’t know much about the group – but we should not confuse their core advocacy for open government with any significant work to get this repealed. It was the uproar by the citizens of Utah that brought about this legislative reversal, not the political astuteness of some interest group.

Now, on to the questions:

1. Is there any reasonable expectation of privacy for an elected official? If yes, what should be private? What should be public? Not unless the person was elected against their will. They chose to be a public figure and should expect that their actions are under public scrutiny because they have the opportunity to make public policy.
2. Does it make a difference if an elected official uses a publicly funded or a privately funded device? Not at all.
3. When are the personal notes of a government official public records? Anytime they have any connection to their office or to anything voters might consider relevant in deciding whether to continue supporting them as an officeholder.
4. What personal records of an elected official should be protected, and what should be public? Should a government official be required to release personal notes created solely for his or her own use? If so, what constitutes a personal note? Does the form matter (handwritten, diaries, appointment books, computer files)? Does it matter if those notes are or are not related to policy or government duties? This gets to the heart of this issue. I’m not sure there is a clearcut or lasting answer to this question. Some things are clear though, any record created for their personal use and not shared with others or related to policy or government duties ought to be considered private. The form of those notes only matters insofar as the form may be used to help define of the note was considered to have been shared.
5. Is there a difference between a digital conversation and a digital record? How should channels of communication like text messages, IMs, Email, video chat, Twitter DMs, Facebook Messages and voice mail be considered under the GRAMA statute? The difference between a digital conversation and a digital record is whether the medium is designed to be preserved or discarded. Digital records such as blog posts are designed to be preserved while digital conversations such as twitter are not (just see how easy it is to retrieve or search old tweets, it’s not nearly as reliable as old blog posts). The default assumption on the part of government should be to preserve where possible. Holders of government office need to realize that the more information people have the more likely they are to agree with their elected officials. Those in favor of open government already realize that officeholders tend to make reasonable official positions in direct proportion to the amount of information they share with the public.
6. How should we categorize the increasing new channels of electronic communication as they arise? Categorizing is not as important as retaining the default assumption of “preserve where possible.”
7. Who owns the records? The elected official, the elected body, or the company that provides the electronic forum? I.e. Facebook, Twitter? Who should archive these records? For formal meetings and conversations the elected body owns the record. For informal settings the elected official owns the conversation. In all cases the owner is responsible for archiving records where possible. The better they do the more prepared they will be to respond to watchdog groups who already archive anything they feel they can use.
8. Who should pay the real costs for searching and producing these records? the owner of the information should pay the costs of archiving the record while the person requesting access should pay the costs of searching and reproducing the records.
9. Does a citizen have an expectation of privacy when they contact their elected official? Only if their contact is unrelated to policy or government function.
10. Should records that contain information about a person’s health be protected? Generally yes.
11. Should personal Email addresses be classified as protected records?Yes.
12. Should a lobbyist have any expectation of privacy when they contact an elected official? No.
13. The more complicated the rules for privacy become, the more complex and expensive the legal review in responding to records requests will be. Who should pay these costs? First, the rules should be simplified as much as possible. Second, the requestor of the information should generally pay those costs of compliance.
14. Should the GRAMA statute contain intent language? If so, should the intent language be allowed to trump the actual text of the code? Intent language only opens the door for inconsistency of interpretation. If the text of the code alone produces results different than the intent of the legislature then the code should be altered. The intent should be included in the discussion when creating and debating the text of the code.
15. Currently, GRAMA does not address which party has the burden of proof on an appeal to show that the public interest in disclosing a record outweighs the record’s private or protected status. Who should bear this burden of proof? If the legislature feels that information disclosure is in the public interest they should proactively make it available. The burden of proof when someone wants protected information made public should reside with the requestor.
16. What protections should be afforded to the internal and deliberative processes in the three different branches of government? With the possible exception of judicial deliberations, the common sense of office holders should be such that their deliberations should be able to withstand public scrutiny. Likewise the public should be astute enough to figure out how much credence to give to anything that occurs during the deliberative process.
17. Is there any situation in which a deliberative process should be protected? Should private creative brainstorming play any role in the policy-making process? In the legislative and executive branches at least creative brainstorming should be part of the process but it need not be private.
18. Should the governor & legislature be allowed to discuss policy issues with staff in private before they take a public policy position? After a bill is passed or policy is made public, does this protection remain or open up retroactively? Yes, they should be allowed to have private discussions with staff before taking a public position but those discussions should be made available to public scrutiny once the position has been taken.
19. Should elected officials’ discussions with their staff be presumed to be protected or presumed to be open? Under what conditions should elected officials’ communications with staff be presumed to be private? They might have a temporary protected status while choosing a public position. The only time they should be presumed private is when those communications are related to the staffing itself rather than any government function (in other words communications about people joining or leaving the staff may be presumed to be private).
20. Is there a time-frame equation that could be useful in making information public? I.e. records presumed protected for a certain amount of time, then presumed public. it would be perfectly reasonable for a record to be presumed protected for the length of time it takes to review the record and correct any obvious mistakes.
21. Should any person or organization be given a special exemption from fees associated with a GRAMA request? No.
22. If the request requires the review or search of a large number of records, extensive redacting or other work, legal review, or technical expertise, who should be required to cover the cost of the request? The requestor.
23. Should we revise the current GRAMA policy of not charging for the first 15 minutes spent to fulfill a request? Not unless there is some agreement on a longer period for free initial effort.
24. Should the wise use of taxpayers’ funds be part of the assessment equation when assessing fees? In other words, should governments have the ability to waive fees if it is in the public’s best interest? Yes.
25. Should the audit records of the State Auditor and Legislative Auditor General be protected if their disclosure would interfere with an audit, investigation, or internal procedures? Yes.
26. Should attorneys representing a taxpayer-funded government entity have the same protections as attorneys representing private entities when creating documents or having communication about reasonably anticipated litigation? Probably.
27. Should records relating to fiscal notes on legislation be protected until the legislation has passed or the session has ended? How about protected until the legislation reaches the floor for debate or the session ends – whichever comes first.
28. What role does private communication among elected officials, constituents, and interested parties play in formulating good policy? What effect would classifying a record public or private records have on the legislative process? Private communication has no advantages in forming good policy, only in forming bad policy. When records are classified as public it serves as a deterrent to foot in mouth disease.
29. What role should our legislature’s part time status play in the classification of information? Their part time status means that whatever they do in their employment outside the legislature should receive the same protections as any other employee unless it has some connection to government function or policy.
30. Looking forward, how can we automate the legislative process of archiving records and properly making them available? That is a technical question and a technical answer is outside the scope of what I would try to address here even if I were qualified to do so.
31. How does the decentralized and geographically dispersed structure of the legislative branch affect record production and storage of records? It has little bearing in our digital age.
32. Is there a defining line or equation we could use to discern between the private life and public life of a elected official? Is there a same or similar line that would also work for a governor, citizen, activist, lobbyist, media representative or a government employee? The simple line is that before they declare their intent to run is their private life and after they are no longer a candidate or officeholder is also private life. Everything else is public life. For all others their life is public to the degree that they affect or seek to affect public policy.
33. Is there a role for confidential discussions in the deliberative process in the different branches of the government? I don’t see how this question differs from questions 16, 17, & 18.
34. Given recent advances in technology we have experienced an exponential increase in the volume of potential records available, and a concurrent increase in demand for those records. Given the reality of limited government resources, how should this workload be managed? Along with the volume and demand for records brought on by technology we also have an increase in the capacity of technology to help manage the records and consequently the workload. Is there actually a greater demand on resources or has technology already compensated for the theoretical extra burden of extra records and extra demand? If there is more burden on government resources the demand will be managed if the cost of record retrieval is paid by the requestor.
35. What technological advances do you foresee over the next 10 years that will effect how we might archive and access public records? The ability to archive and access records will probably improve at least as fast as the number and type of records increases but I can’t guess what changes the next 10 years will bring. Perhaps the legislature should be required to periodically review GRAMA and determine if changes have become warranted.
36. What further policy questions should we consider as we bring GRAMA into the next century? No further questions your honor.

photo credit: Dvorscak

When defining how much wealth you want it is important to first define what wealth is. It can’t simply be income because I think most people would agree that the person who earns $100,000 a year and spends $60,000 is better off (wealthier) than the person who earns $1,000,000 and spends $1,060,000. (Amazingly Congress does not believe this.) A few years ago I stated it this way:

Wealth is not about cash, it is about cash flow – to be wealthy all you really need to do is flow less cash out than in.

While I still believe that statement to be true, I consider it to be an incomplete definition of what it means to be wealthy. If you have more cash flowing in than flowing out then I think it is safe to say that you appear to be heading toward being wealthy as opposed to heading towards poverty but there must be a reason for keeping that extra cash flowing in which gets to the heart of what it means to be wealthy.

As Ebenezer Scrooge came to realize in A Christmas Carol, dying with a lot of material possessions to call your own is not a fulfilling purpose. The reason to have more cash flowing in than out is to eventually get to where you feel safe making decisions independent of their cash flow implications. In other words, to have reserves in place should you need or want to be able to spend more than you earn (making no distinction between whether this is a result of increased spending or of decreased earning).

Having concluded that the definition of wealth is, in a way, inversely related to dependence on cash flow makes me rethink my wealth target because it caused me to ask this question: who is better off in a crisis, the man with savings of $1 Billion or the man who owns his home, has enough food and fuel to last a year, and has the skills and resources to continue producing everything he needs?

Of course the billion dollar figure is extreme but even at that extreme the are situations where that $1 Billion of savings could fail to provide what the rich man needed, just as the life skills could provide little help against severe injury or adverse weather conditions which might impede the implementation of those skills.

My wealth target is a hybrid of those two extremes. I want to fully free myself from debt so that I own all my property outright (thus lowering my cost of living significantly) and have sufficient stores of goods to live cash free for an extended period of time should the need arise. On top of that my goal is to get enough capital built up that I can pay for all my basic necessities on an ongoing basis without relying on steady gainful employment.

Aside from paying the house off and having the capital base to live off of, this target should be reachable before any of my kids get into Junior High School. It excites me to think that I could be debt-free aside from the mortgage and have ample food storage for any emergency within the next few years.

photo credit: OldOnliner

Once upon a time I was a member of my high school cross country team. On the last race I ran with the team (end of the season) I learned a very valuable lesson about running. We had gone over the course in advance of the race so during the race I knew where I was relative to the end of the race – I knew how much further I had to go and how much energy to put in so that I would not run out before the finish line. As I came to the last long incline before the end of the race I knew that I could push myself and I decided to attack the hill. I was a short distance behind another runner, perhaps 15 yards, and I knew that I was in tenth place overall. As I attacked that hill I quickly closed the gap and overtook him shortly before the course turned and went down a steep incline to the final flat to the finish line. As I passed him, he sped up, not wanting to lose a place. I was still ahead when I got to the edge of the hill and I stretched my stride and let gravity carry me down faster than I could have sprinted and certainly faster than I could have gone if I had tried to remain in control of my pace. I got going so fast down that hill that my momentum on the flat carried me to very quickly catch up with two more runners who had not even been in sight when I started attacking a the bottom of that last hill.

A real understanding of the lesson about attacking the hills did not sink in until many years later when I ran my marathon. In that case I started off running much better than I had anticipated for the first seventeen miles but then I came to the first hill of any real significance and I failed to attack. I lost my momentum, my legs turned to jelly, and I took at least an hour longer on the last nine miles than I should have.

I am learning to apply this lesson in other areas of life as well. It seems that there are three ways to make progress on things. When there are obstacles to be overcome it is time to attack the hills. When momentum is on your side it is time to relax and lengthen your stride. When there are neither significant or specific obstacles nor significant momentum to carry your forward it is time to simply run the race, making progress while retaining some reserves for use when you come to face the next obstacle.

For those who are curious about the end of my last high school race, it unfortunately ended as a demonstration of my not giving enough. The two runners in seventh and eighth place saw or heard me coming and picked up their pace. I pushed them hard and was right on their heels but as we came within twenty feet of the finish line I realized that I was not going to be able to pass them. I let up my pace and finished two seconds after the two of them. The tenth place runner never caught me and he told me after the race that he had given it everything he had trying to catch me because he mistakenly thought that he had fallen from tenth to eleventh place when I passed him and that he would not medal unless he could catch me. That was some consolation for me, but in my heart I know that seventh place should have been a three-way tie rather than having me settle for ninth so close to the end.

photo credit: garlandcannon

Sometimes I find myself feeling stuck in life; feeling that no matter what I do I have no real meaningful choices. I have described it as having, in any decision, a choice that is blatantly obvious (like deciding whether or not to wreck my car), or a choice that is meaningless (like deciding between Cheerios and Rice Krispies for breakfast).

Laura has asked me before if I have ever prayed for options and the answer is that I have with the result that I have still never felt like I had a real choice. Either the way was clear or the choice was inconsequential. As I thought about the feeling of impotence that comes with seeing no alternatives, no options to choose from, I realized that I was wrong about never having any options – especially in times that I have prayed for options. There have been plenty of instances where the choices really were black and white such that I would never take one of the options presented (wrecking my car for instance). The other times that I have felt stifled I realize that there are two different types of situations. First is when I have desired something only to be guided away from it. The second is when I have desired to do something and the answer from the spirit when I ask about pursuing it has essentially been “what are you willing to give for it?” The answer has virtually always been “not enough” or at least “not enough for the price that would likely be required.”

Anytime I am called upon to do something I am willing to do do whatever is necessary to complete the task but whenever I am left to choose my own direction I am unwilling to take significant risks for something I feel is entirely of my own choosing. That makes it sound like I don’t trust my own judgment, or that I don’t trust that I will be supported in my own choices.

There have been times when I have been willing to give enough but in the two cases that I can clearly recall – one resulted in me getting what I worked for on something that, so far as I can see, is transitory and unimportant while the other resulted in me putting in a lot of effort and making a lot of progress before I was instructed to abandon the pursuit (at least temporarily – maybe I have not seen the end of that yet).

Now I find myself again wandering in a wilderness of aimless discontent, feeling that everything I am working on is not bearing fruit and that I am unable to work on anything that would bear good fruit.

Pondering on the problem leads me back to the doctrine related to desire taught by Elder Maxwell in October Conference of 1996 that “what we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity.” What is more condemning to me is when I consider the implication of that doctrine which is that as we navigate the vicissitudes of life, the ups and downs of the refiners fire shake loose from us the passive preferences or fleeting feelings that we think we want which are not really desires of our hearts as described by Elder Maxwell here:

Desire denotes a real longing or craving. Hence righteous desires are much more than passive preferences or fleeting feelings. Of course our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability. (emphasis original)

If I cannot articulate any desires that must mean that either I have already shaken loose those passive preferences, or else (more likely) I have abdicated to some degree that inner zone where I am meant to be sovereign. And I realize that simply saying, “I’ll do anything the church asks of me” does not qualify as exercising my sovereignty within that inner zone.

Do you know how much people watch you?

Of course you are Eyrings and with that I guess you would have to expect that people would pay attention to what you do just because of your parentage. But are you aware of how much you are watched not because of who your parents are, but because of who your children are and because of the choices you have made about who you will be?

I can only speak for myself, but I pay attention every time I see your van on the street – watching to see who is driving and how happy they usually are. When I see the van parked somewhere I stay alert for the opportunity to see the Eyrings going about their daily lives.

Why do I do this? Because unlike so many, you have chosen to have more than three children. Unlike so many, you have chosen to have mother stay at home and devote her full energy to raising the children. Unlike most that we know who fall into the previous categories, you have some children old enough for us to get a good glimpse of how they have or will turn out. It is because of some of your older children that I pay attention to your family.

I have been blessed to see one of your daughters regularly as a Sunday School teacher. I am under no illusion that she is perfect, or that there is something about her that cannot be achieved by any young woman who is well taught at home, but I could clearly see through those interactions that she is the kind of young woman that I would hope for my daughters to grow up and be like – intelligent, affable, and good.

I have not known any of your sons so intimately as that but I have observed and clearly see that the oldest of your sons is clearly among the good examples of young men whom I hope my sons will emulate as they grow older. Like the sister I know best, he seems intelligent, affable, and good.

You stand out because your children are very good. Their goodness is a testament to the value of having a mother who knows that the greatest good she can do is to be fully engaged in raising the children rather than being lured out into working in order to provide some extra material goods.

Your children stand out, not because they are perfect, or even better than all the other youth around them, but because they have turned out so well while being raised with many siblings rather than few – and that gives me hope that our children may turn out to be very good even though we have chosen not to stop at three or four. It is because I have seen the results of your efforts that I watch in case I can learn any clues about what you do, and also to give me comfort that your have done so well even facing similar challenges to what we find ourselves facing.

I have been reading the series of articles published by the Deseret News about the consequences of pornography addiction. It has been pleasing to see the problem explored publicly. One of the things that has interested me is in reading through the comments from readers. Some are obviously still in denial about how serious, dangerous, and pervasive the problem of pornography is in our society. One comment in particular caught my attention as it highlighted the kind of attitude that can completely hobble a discussion of how to address this issue. I’ll save my readers the trouble of trying to wade through the poor grammar and rambling thoughts of the actual text of the comment. Here is the idea it was conveying:

“who has never thought about, or done, from birth onward till today, any activity that results in erotic stimulation. Even after you read or heard about the Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.”

The comment implies two things: 1) that anyone who who has ever done anything that could cause them to answer “yes” to the above query is unqualified to speak out against pornography, and 2) that virtually everyone has to answer yes to that query. The problem with that metric is that even if the second implication were 100% accurate the first implication is completely wrong. I suspect that the comment author considers it hypocritical of someone to answer yes to that question and then publicly speak against pornography. If a person is willfully and unrepentantly indulging in pornography then that is undoubtedly hypocrisy. On the other hand, The metric of that question ignores the option of repentance. It wrongly eliminates from the discussion those who have to answer yes who have subsequently rejected the legitimacy of whatever forces them to answer yes. That kind of thinking would reject the opportunity of an ex-gang member speaking out against gangs when the truth is that ex-gang members can provide an authority on the subject that others never could.

That comment reminded me of how dangerous quick and thoughtless judgments can be in hampering our efforts to seek truth and in hampering the process of repentance for ourselves and those we interact with.

I would bet that almost all the people who have read The Fourth Turning have wondered at one time or another whether 9/11 was our nation’s crisis as predicted in that book. I know that I read somewhere that the authors of the book indicated that they believed that 9/11 was the crisis that marked our passage into the fourth, or crisis, turning for this saeculum (for those who have not read the book and may be unfamiliar with that term, a saeculum is composed of four time periods, called turnings, which each have distinct characteristics and last for the length of a generation – roughly 18 to 25 years – and the saeculum is equal to a long human lifespan – between 80 and 100 years).

I have long felt that if 9/11 was our crisis then we failed because nothing changed – we have not addressed any of the issues that have been pushing us toward crisis over the last generation. Today I stumbled upon 9/11 – A Fourth Turning Perspective by James Quinn. He does a great job of identifying the things that made me think that 9/11, if it was our crisis, was a failed crisis. As he talks about the book he mentioned that a fourth turning crisis ALWAYS leads to substantial change. That gave me hope (and dread) that our crisis had not come. Certainly 9/11 had the potential to be such a crisis, but apparently we were not ready to enter the next turning at that time.

Mr. Quinn goes on to speculate that our crisis was really the market crash of September 2008 and that our reaction to that crisis is not yet resolved. We have not come to a point where the outcome of our crisis can be known. In fact, the crash might even be viewed as the catalyst for a coming crisis rather than the crisis itself. Quinn goes on to describe the types of crises we might yet face in the near future (and keep in mind that there is no guarantee that we will face only one crisis) and some of the potential outcomes.

I won’t pretend to be smart enough to be able to say with certainty how accurate his speculation is, but it is certainly worth a read and some careful consideration.

In the Old Testament there is a fascinating story about two and a half tribes from the 12 tribes of Israel.  These two and a half tribes (Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh) were promised an inheritance by Moses that lay outside the promised land on the condition that their men would not reside there until the remaining tribes had taken possession of their inheritance lands in the promised land.

When Joshua took Moses’ place as the leader of Israel and was preparing to take the people across the Jordan River into the promised land he called the leaders of those tribes and reminded them of their promise to Moses. They responded by saying:

All that thou commandest us we will do, and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go. (Joshua 1:12)

As I read that response I realized that if they truly believed that Joshua had authority from God to speak for God to them there was no other answer they could have given. Any other answer to be given would be an indication that they did not truly believe that Joshua had the authority to speak the word of God for them.

People of faith need to consider that just because they recognize someone as having authority to speak for God to them does not mean that others believe in the authority of that person to speak for God and they should not seek to compel others to act according to their belief in the authority of that person. Likewise, nobody should ever be surprised when some people take that kind of approach to being obedient to the words of someone that they acknowledge as having legitimate authority to speak for God.

For myself, I found it to be very inspiring and hopeful to hear my feeling articulated for the only possible answer I could give to those few people who I see as having the authority to speak to me in behalf of my Heavenly Father:

All that thou commandest me I will do, and whithersoever thou sendest me, I will go.

photo credit: chaim zvi

I was recently reading in Deuteronomy chapter six where Moses instructs the people thus:

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

As I read that, the thought struck me that there are some laws and instructions that must be followed literally, such as the command that the people mark the upper and side posts of their door with the blood of their Passover lamb (Exodus 12) but that commands such as this, which are literally kept by wearing phylacteries and having a mezuzah on their door, are more important to be kept figuratively if the people are to become covenant people with the Lord than they are to be kept literally.

Of course it is hard to truly keep a command figuratively while ignoring the literal interpretation but ask yourself where the saving power of this command is. Is it in nailing a box to your doorpost and tying boxes onto parts of your body or is it in speaking and thinking and acting upon the law even in casual situations such as sitting in your house and walking by the way?

Even a casual observer could walk down the street of an orthodox Jewish neighborhood and notice the mezuzot on all the doors. If they knew nothing of the Jewish religion they would still recognize that there was something going on in that neighborhood. Should they enter a Jewish synagogue they could notice the phylacteries tied on arms and heads even if they did not understand the meaning of what they saw. It would take more careful observation to notice how dominant religious discussions are among the orthodox people than to notice the boxes on the people and on the buildings.

Just as it is easier to see the boxes than hear the conversations, so it is easier to imitate the boxes than to infiltrate the conversations. Anyone might place a mezuzah on their door and have the home mistaken as a Jewish residence but to constantly speak of the laws and traditions without coming to understand and appreciate their meaning would be virtually impossible.

Christians have no command that they should wear phylacteries but if they wish to become people whom their Lord would side with in a day of reckoning they must talk of the law while sitting in their homes and walking by the way, and not just when they are attending their worship services. How else can we expect to have the law written upon our hearts? (see Romans 2)

I hope I live what I believe in a way that it is as obvious in my life as if I were wearing phylacteries and had a mezuzah on my doorpost.

Wayne and Etta, for those who don’t know, are my paternal grandparents. Both are deceased. After Etta’s death some of the cousins apparently thought that we should have a reunion so that we could get together. In the whole course of my life I can recall perhaps five brief interactions with any members of that extended family so I was reluctant to attend. Some might expect that reluctance to come from an expectation of animosity or dysfunction based on the fact that I have never succeeded in forming a functional relationship with my dad, and this is his family. Truthfully the reluctance was based on the complete lack of prior interaction and the expectation that we would feel like strangers among other people who had some level of common identity.

Over time my reluctance turned to ambivalence and shortly before the reunion I decided to go as a show of support for the one of my brothers who was planning to attend and who had put some work into pulling the reunion off – after all, the reunion was not 25 miles from my house.

I must say that when we went I was very pleasantly surprised to feel right at home talking with uncles, aunts, and cousins whom I have rarely seen and some of whom I had never met.