August 25, 2008. Western Head, N.S. The people.

We benefited a lot by holding our 50Th Anniversary. But the best aspect of the event was to get to meet and greet and get to know all the people. Just think about what and who we would have missed had we not held the event. Start with our relatives. Now we see my Brother and Sister and their spouses regularly, and we often talk on the phone. The same is true of Kens Brother Keith and sister-in-law Wilma. But I have not seen my cousin from Vancouver Island since 1961. How this has happened is difficult to determine, but Ernie and I decided that we were both just busy getting on with our life, and not paying attention to relatives, especially when they lived a long way away. Dave and Irene's children were all here, along with their children, so we got to see the next generation in action right before our eyes. It was wonderfully comforting to see the energy and enthusiasm and competence of these young adults. In the past we have know well the children Norman, Wendy and Ken and have followed their productive, successful careers, but we have only seen in a quick visit their off-spring. And there they were here, right in front of us, five lovely young woman and a lone tall boy, doing what young folks all do. I would not have missed seeing them for the world. We could have never seen them all together at the same time. For this alone, I am pleased to have held the event.

Of course, not all our relatives could come. For many different reasons, the Barby clan was represented by Marion and Gary, and we missed Ben and Peter and their children. But along with my normal response, I focused on what was able to work out and totally ignore those arrangements could not be arranged. But we missed them. Over the years, we have not kept up with the Ottawa Houghton branch of my Mothers Family, and tho I invited them, they were not able to attend. Someday I will explain, as best as I know, how we lost much contact with the Houghton Family from Ottawa. My sister Carol has done a better job over the years of keeping in touch, and in fact has been the contact for years with Ernie. I will try to do a better job over the next twenty years than I did the past twenty years. Now I have no excuse. Our old friends from Toronto came in force too. In fact, they became a self proclaimed percussion band and singers to the ukulele players in the tent. It is certainly true, that given any opportunity, a Salvation Army trained person will sing and take part, even when not asked. Their spirit contributed to the success of the event. So for these any many reasons, Ken and I are glad we decided to hold our celebration here in Nova Scotia.

But the most important thing about the event was the reason why we decided to hold the event at all, and that was the opportunity to connect to the past and to the future, and in our judgement, we achieved our goal.