The Last Supper before heading off to Omaha tomorrow for a fun-filled Family Reunion!  Doctored up tempura chicken, steamed pork buns and red bean paste buns…  Quick and easy.  Just like some folks I know.

So, we’re off to Omaha tomorrow.  I think I have only been to Omaha twice in my life.  First in July, 1967 – the family vacation with 6 kids in the Ford Country Squire station wagon.  Without air conditioning, I might add.  Second trip was July of 1986.  Family Reunion at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.  I flew in from Boston, stayed with my cousin, Tom, and caravaned across the state with his family.  We drove his kids crazy singing The Wild Rover.

I’ve been a wild rover for many a year
And I spent all my money on whiskey and beer,
And now I’m returning with gold in great store
And I never will play the wild rover no more.

And it’s no, nay, never, (clap, clap, clap, clap)
No nay never no more,
Will I play the wild rover
No never no more.

I am genetically predisposed to annoy and/or embarrass children.  It was passed down from my father – the master at embarrassing me as a child.  As I grew older, I learned first to tolerate his humor, then to actually appreciate it, and then to really look forward to it.   He told the same 20 jokes for 50 years.  And pity the poor newcomer who came into the house.  A new audience was all he needed to start them all one after another.

He would just start all sincere and reel ’em right in.

We had a liquor store a few blocks from the ancestral home and he always ranted about them.  One day a woman  pulled up in front of the store and, with her blinkers flashing and her baby in the back seat, ran in to pick up a keg of beer. The teenager working there wheeled it out, opened the back door, and threw it in the back seat – right on top of the baby!  Fortunately, it was light beer.

I didn’t say they were good jokes.

There’s going to be a huge void there without him and his two equally crazy brothers.  There’s a new generation out there who needs to know about the little girl who was lost in the woods for several years and raised by wild animals.  When they finally found her she had a deer face and a bear ass.

And more.

And more.

And more.

(It explains a lot, doesn’t it?!?)

So…  Midwest Airlines tomorrow.  Arriving Omaha at 5:28pm.  Hospitality Suite at the hotel opens at 7:00pm.

I have a feeling we’re going to have a lot of fun.

In Omaha.

Wild Rover is on a playlist on the iPod.  There’s a few kids I need to embarrass and/or annoy!