After waiting for what seemed like years for it to arrive, the Scatchard Clan of North America finally pulled off its big Family Reunion on June 23-26 at the Hacienda Hotel in Old Town, San Diego. This was the second gathering (at least that we know about) held in the last 50 years, and the first since 1992 when the clan met in Ventura, California. Attending this time were 45 family members plus a surprise cameo appearance from the indomitable Barbara Krepps, a long time and very close friend of many of the guests on hand.
Surprisingly enough, however, if you look at the roster from 1992 you'll find, of the 44 attendees then, only 16 repeaters in 2005: Mike, Susan, Dessa, Ryka, Bill, Viki, Jay, Willary, Steve, Jane, Julie, Mark, Nikki, Jill, Leslie and Scatch. The years in between have extracted their toll (deaths, illness, divorce, etc.) but we managed to fill the vacancies with new members from the Thomas and Walter wings, plus a couple of ERDs (Larry and Ann Steimel), plus London Bill who flew all the way across the pond to be on hand, and some new names in the Joe wing: Rhoda, Tom, Ebeth, Ross, Eric, Brian, Zeke, Ted, Aimee and little Audrey. All of the above mentioned folks were not known to exist or actually didn't exist in 1992.
Meeting all the new cousins seemed to be the one factor that made this reunion much different from the last one. Before, the party was largly the Joe Wing of the Joe Tree-- without a new face to be found. This time we got Bruce, Leigh, Emily, Luke, Gary, June and Celeste from Canada (Walter) and Dave, Jean, Julia, Shawn, Jacob and Lauryn from Northern California and Texas (Thomas). As a result the hospitality room 'morphed' from a spot where the teenagers snuck into the booze closet in 1992 into a gathering place that was bustling with cousins exchanging information and stories for hours and hours both on Friday and Saturday afternoons and nights. In addition, a lot of the cousins brought family documents and pictures which were so numerous and interesting that it was all a body could do to review them once in the time allotted. The walls were covered with several different Family Trees and old pictures were being passed around from cousin to cousin hoping for positive IDs of those photographed. (If the old folks would have just jotted a few names down on the backs now and then!) The guys with the best collection I saw were Eric and Brian who showed up with a treasure trove of old stuff from Pennsylvania. Kudos also go out to Dave Anderson, Gary Scatchard, Jay Scatchard and London Bill for the docs they brought along. The single most astounding item, however, came from Tom and Ebeth (Vermont) who had a book titled "Memoir of Thomas Scatcherd" published in Canada in 1878. This could turn out to be a gold mine of information, especially for the ERDs.
In between planned events, San Diego did a pretty good job of entertaining all on hand. Some of those with kids (and fat wallets) made Disneyland and Sea World trips, while others went to the beach, while still others found Old Town to be an interesting place to browse and shop. The place seemed to be abundant in fine restaurants as well. The harbor cruise on Saturday, however, did not live up to expectations. Of the 23 who ventured out to sea, only about 10 completed the trip. The other dozen or so took the opportunity at 'half time' to jump ship and head off to more interesting venues. One attraction in particular (the nearby Midway aircraft carrier, now a museum) turned out to be a '10' for those taking it in and obviously it would have been a better choice for the entertainment committee to have scheduled..........but who knew?
But not to worry, because this minor glitch did nothing to dull anticipation of the big Banquet that rolled around on Saturday evening. The Accapulco caterers did a pretty decent job with the fare (the Fiesta Combinacion) which included salad, Yucitan chicken, carnitas, enchiladas, rice, beans and all the usual Mexican side dishes. (I thought the brownies were damned excellent, too.) The entertainment portion of the evening was kicked off by Leslie Scatchard who recited a fantastic poem of her own creation that mentioned just about everyone on the Family Tree. Then, the reigning Patriarch of the Clan, Scatch, took over and retold the Wrigley story (as ONLY he can do it) for the benefit of all the new cousins in the audience. (Yes, at tale's end, most WERE pissed off that the relatives HAD blown the chance of a lifetime and that we should all be RICH now and watching the Cubs play at Scatchard Field.) Ha-ha, not really.
The planned entertainment then concluded when Steve rolled out a game (now there's a surprise) which was intended to crown a mythical King and Queen of the Reunion while at the same time reveal what sort of people populate the clan in 2005. A survey was taken earlier which asked Scatchards about themselves-- their hobbies, habits, likes, dislikes and arrest records-- among other things. The one male and one female player who most matched the majority positions of the group would be the winners. Ryka scored highest of the gals while Bruce triumphed over the guys. They both received Scatchard prizes including an autographed Dave Scatchard hockey card (provided by Dave's mom, Jan) a couple of inspirational books written by Dick Scatchard, a copy of the William Wrigley Bio book, a copy of the classic English novel Jane Eyre in which Miss Scatcherd is a character, a commorative button from the 1992 reunion, a video tape of the 1992 reunion (we all looked so young!) and a whole lot of Wrigley gum which, to the credit of both winners, was handed out to the happy crowd. To wit, when the group photo was taken later, there was so much gum chomping going on that the photographer snapped, "A little less chewing and a little more smiling, please". Worthy of mention too was the boobie prize (a bowl provided by the famous lampmaker George Scatchard of Vermont) which was won by the LEAST Scatchard-like answers-- those of Celeste. She won the thing (mostly) by virtue of being the ONLY Scatchard in the crowd who has been abducted by aliens and taken aboard a flying saucer. Good for you, Celeste!
Floating in on the San Diego tide was a rumor that the Canadian connection just might be hosting the next big reunion in and/or around Vancouver in anywhere from 3 to 10 years. This sounds like a big winner and we'll all be looking forward to it. Let's just hope that more than 16 of us can attend the event whenever it DOES show up on the calendar. And finally, caps off to cousin Mike Auer who was instrumental in putting this party together. He arranged everything with the hotel and personally fronted mucho dinero so that this get together could be the success that it was.