Family Reunion

ESTES PARK, Colo. -- The brothers, all in their 30s and 40s, nabbed the oldest one just outside his lodge room, smearing shaving cream all over him, themselves and anyone else who got in the way, just as they had as boys.That's one family tradition that surely will endure, I thought, as a glob of shaving cream hit me smack on the neck.The six siblings in my husband's family, their parents, spouses and children -- 23 of us in all -- were gathered at the YMCA of the Rockies' Estes Park Center, just outside Rocky MountainNational Park, for a weeklong family reunion to nurture the family connections . . . dumb traditions and all.Like most American families, we're spread across the country.

As a three-sport standout at Wilde Lake High School from 2004 to 2007, Zach Brown stood head and shoulders above the competition. As a senior he rushed for more than 1,500 yards and 20 touchdowns, was a state champion sprinter in outdoor track and was an undefeated state champion wrestler. So it should come as no surprise that Brown is now a Titan. On Friday night at The Greene Turtle in Columbia, Brown watched with family, friends, former coaches and teammates as his name was called by the Tennessee Titans in the second round, the 52nd pick overall, of the 2012 NFL Draft.

It was the first day of the Maryland General Assembly session, but as Baltimore City Council president and soon-to-be-mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake wove through the aisles Wednesday, it seemed more like a family reunion. The legislators hugged, kissed and all but pinched the cheeks of Rawlings-Blake, daughter of the late Del. Howard P. Rawlings, a State House legend. Some reminisced about her childhood, when she tailed her father through the hallways. Many assured Rawlings-Blake that her father was beaming down from heaven.

For nearly a decade, Michael Maurice Johnson dated the half-sister of Phylicia Barnes. He went along on family trips, and played basketball with their brother. He was like family, and considered Phylicia a "little sister," relatives say. He was also the last person to see the girl alive in late December 2010. Now Baltimore prosecutors have charged him in the murder of the promising North Carolina teenager, whose nude body was found floating in the Susquehanna River one year ago this month.

I'm lucky enough to belong to a big family. That means, sur as July brings fireworks, flags and loud bugs, it brings a family reunion.When I was small, and the young generation of parents had just come back from the war, I sat at the children's table with 17 first, second, and collateral cousins aged 3 to 8 (we were allowed at the children's table as soon as we could feed ourselves and talk). Then came the middle table -- kids about 8 to 12. The teen-age table was occupied taking care of children's table one. The men ate first, along with the children.

EAGAR, Ariz. -- Down a dusty, rocky trail and through a knot of pine trees, past a naked guy chewing leaves, a fully clothed Christian choir and a retired Jewish pie thrower, is the meadow where the Rainbow Family is holding its 27th annual gathering to party and pray for peace.As many as 14,000 members of this family of old hippies and young converts, of blacks and whites, of American Indians and recent immigrants, of babies and grandparents have come from across the country to the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, just west of this two-stoplight town near the New Mexico border, for an annual gathering that lasts for about three weeks.

A half-hour into her first summer at camp, 7-year-old Destiny Cooper had lost her luggage but found her big sister. The little girls were beginning a week at Camp Connect, which reunites siblings who live in separate foster homes. While counselors searched for the suitcase, Desiree Cooper, at 9 a more seasoned camper, eased her sister's jitters and showed her their bunks. "This is your bed," she said. "I will make it for you." Desiree and Destiny are among the 60 children participating this week in the camp run by the Baltimore County Department of Social Services.

For the Brown family of East Baltimore, the Fourth of July reunion -- a giant cookout in Druid Hill Park -- was a jubilant affair."I been dancing, helping, enjoying myself, meeting other parts of my family I never met before," said Hershey Lawrence, 18, one of about 400 people who attended the reunion that was fragrant with the smell of grilling meats and rich with signs of family attachments.After beginning preparations in January, the family raised $2,000, corralled the 400 attendees from around the country and rented an 18-foot truck to transport boxes of watermelon, games of Twister and tons and tons of food.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home! This famous phrase has a permanent place in my heart. It's so dear to me that I have even considered having it tattooed across my forehead. Then everyone will understand just how happy I am to be home after riding 18-plus hours (one way) in a caravan with three kids, one husband and a puppy.I have gone far and beyond the call of duty as a parent, wifeand pet-sitter.I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to attend my husband's family reunion in Montgomery, Ala. We traveled through six states, including Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and most of Alabama.

Next to a huge, round bowl of pasta salad, steaming ears of corn are cooling on a long, wooden picnic table. There are platters of hamburgers and hot dogs and chicken and greens and a great big sheet cake, too. Sodas and fruit drinks in huge Thermoses stand ready to quench parched throats.If they had come just for the food, the hundred or so folks who have trekked to Druid Hill Park this cool August afternoon would say the trip was worth it. But it's not the tempting spread that has drawn members of the Brittingham, Sneed and Moye clans here.

Planning an outdoor wedding, or a family reunion picnic? AccuWeather is unveiling a new 25-day forecast to help you out. The feature was expected to launch today, once technology to get it on the Web is in place. Sure, it won't give hourly forecasts that far out, but it is intended to help people plan . Much like the National Climatic Data Center's long-range forecasts predicting the odds for warm, cold, wet or dry spells, the forecast will follow broader weather patterns.

Jodi R. Mister, an entrepreneur who established a home cleaning business, died Sunday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center of brain trauma after a fall in her Baldwin home. She was 44. Jodi Robyn Holthaus was born in Baltimore and raised in Glen Arm. She was a 1985 graduate of Dulaney High School and attended the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1993, she married David F. Mister, who is a partner in Mister, Winter & Bartlett, a Timonium law firm. About a decade ago, Mrs. Mister opened a home cleaning business.

They first met in college - where he played halfback for the football team and she was homecoming queen. Donald and Jennye worked together on civil rights issues and remained friends after he graduated from what was then Morgan State College in 1956. After his first wife died of cancer in 1987, he was principal at Greenspring Junior High School and she was the assistant principal. They married, and Donald E.L. Patterson Sr. and Jennye Patterson lived in his house in Northwest Baltimore.

Marian Shriver McSherry, long-time devotee of Maryland's Catholic aristocracy and mother of 12 children, died on July 24 of breast cancer at her home in Frederick. She was 85. A second cousin of R. Sargent Shriver, Marian Macsherry was born in Baltimore and grew up in Roland Park, spending her summers at Union Mills, the Shriver family homestead. She graduated from Noroton School of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Conn., and attended Manhattanville College in New York for one year before she got married.

It was a family reunion of sorts. I was in College Park on Saturday with my wife and our older daughter and a couple of family friends to watch the Howard High softball team tangle with Calvert County’s Northern High School for the  3A state championship.  My father, who was the home plate umpire during the 1A matchup between Loch Raven and Catoctin later that day, arrived early, and our brother-in-law and nephew showed up unexpectedly. All attended the game knowing it was very unlikely that Howard reserve outfielder Julia Miller would see any action.

The family reunion held in a pavilion of Patapsco Valley State Park on May 15 was, in many respects, typical. Succulent aromas ascended from the grill; adults chatted; bees buzzed the dessert table; and kids played in the grass, their orange ball and blue bat waxing exotic against placid fields of green. This was, however, an extraordinary event, for not only has this annual May procession and family reunion been held continuously for 65 years, it was born from a mother's prayers for her children.

For nearly a decade, Michael Maurice Johnson dated the half-sister of Phylicia Barnes. He went along on family trips, and played basketball with their brother. He was like family, and considered Phylicia a "little sister," relatives say. He was also the last person to see the girl alive in late December 2010. Now Baltimore prosecutors have charged him in the murder of the promising North Carolina teenager, whose nude body was found floating in the Susquehanna River one year ago this month.

To a hilly clearing in the woods near Monkton they came yesterday, bringing their contributions to a genealogical work in progress, an African-American family's search for itself amid the old homesteads and modest churches of rural Baltimore County.The Walton family reunion -- billed in a flier as "the real Waltons," to distinguish them from a figment of television's imagination -- drew more than 100 second-cousins-once-removed, great-great aunts and long-lost nephews from as far as Texas and Florida and Ohio.

What makes nearly 3,000 fans show up to a late-season girls basketball game between two teams with a combined three wins? The answer is tradition, and it was on full display Friday night at what's become known simply as "The Game," the 45th annual matchup between Mercy and the Institute of Notre Dame. Long before the teams even took the court, alumnae, their families and supporters of both Catholic schools packed the Towson Center in a scene more reminiscent of a family reunion than a heated sports rivalry.