Family Reunions

Its been a week already, but our family went to KC for the annual Bubalo reunion, aka Bubalo Golf Tournament and Eating Extravaganza. Our whole family gathers each year for a weekend golf charity tournament, which honors my dad's inolvement with young people. We came up with the idea of this golf tournament shortly after he died of cancer almost 10 years ago.

A fond and somewhat excruciating memory of my childhood was of my dad taking me and my three brothers golfing. The excruciating part of the memory is that these endeavors usually involved 5 hours of running around a course looking for lost balls and generally wreaking havoc on the lives of anyone who was unfortunate enough to have chosen to play at the same time as us. My dad lived life with an eye on the watch, and was afraid of "slow play" like it was the Grim Reaper, about to descend upon us if we should cause someone to wait more than 10 seconds. This, we managed to do alot. We weren't great players, but we were more in shape by the end of the round. That's what jogging 18 holes of golf will do for you.

Somehow we usually ended the afternoon by feeling it had been a great time, despite scores that matched the heat index on a hot Missouri summer day. (It does seem we usually chose the hottest day of the year to play, so survival was pretty much a victory.)

The family of Missouri Bubalos has grown from 2 parents and 4 sons to include their 4 wives, plus their 14 children and their spouses/fiance's/girlfriends. And a couple of their children. Add in the Northen Bubalo tribe from Duluth, Minnesota, where my dad was born - his brother Bob and some of his family attended - and you end up with the scene above. We may have had people who just jumped in the picture for all I know.

We've done T Shirts for all 10 years. My brother Mark plus some of his friends from St. Peter's UMC do most of the heavy lifting for this tournament. All the money raised goes to send kids from their church to camp and on mission trips.

I was happy to be part of winning The Wisk Broom Plaque - won by the team I was on with 2 of my nephews and my brother Al, it will be proudly displayed in Al's office this year in Indiana. Seems a wisk broom was an indispensable tool of my Grandad Bubalo, and genuine mostly-used relic was saved and turned into a trophy for the family team with the lowest score.

The weekend is a reminder of the power of family. Certainly anyone's family background makes a huge contribution to who they are in life. You may spend your life trying to overcome the background or riding its benefits. Sometimes a bit of both. I've been fortunate that what my family gave me balances way out on the positive, for which I am grateful.