For Thursday, July 11, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 724 words

Oklahoma

My wife and I flew in two hours ago from a three-week relative run. We spent a week in Oklahoma and two in Pennsylvania saying "Hey" to my kin. We also attended the wedding of Holly, a niece I've never seen, daughter to a brother I barely know.

Had you come along, you would probably have been bored because you don't know anybody. Our time was spent mostly sitting around in people's kitchens talking. It wasn't a sightseeing tour. Other than visiting the federal building bomb site, the cowboy museum, and Niagara Falls, we generally got in a car only to drive to the next relative's kitchen.

For me it was a gas. I like my relatives and it was a joy to see them. I got to tell them all the stories I've already told you -- about my rafting trips, my hikes around California, the strange people I've met, Benicia and its schools. They got to tell me their adventures and update me on who's married to whom and who works where.

A special treat was meeting a whole passel of young'uns. All my Oklahoma cousins grew up and had great cousins. Some of them are big. Cousin Connie said, "I have 700 pounds of boys." I also got to pay back my 20-year-old debt of $8 to my cousin Donna. That's a load off my conscience.

I got to see all my mother's brothers, the Riley boys, big-chested six-foot guys who were constantly trying to be funnier than each other. Uncle Bill, a retired oil-field supervisor, knows more jokes than I do: He knows a woman with four kids -- Adolph, Rudolph, Getolpf, and Stayolpf.

Uncle Kenneth, a retired councilman and one-man snow-cone tycoon, is the practical joker: We called him first when our flight landed and got directions to his house. He called the others and said, "Hey, git on over here. Steve and Susan are coming." Several relatives rushed miles in a heat wave to his house. When they arrived, he said, "Ah, I was just kidding. They never called."

Uncle Gary, the musical carpenter, came to Holly's wedding and left with his suit pockets full of boxes of souvenir cake. He tried to get Bill and Kenneth to fill their pockets, too. "It's good cake," he said. "We can eat it on the ride home."

My Uncle Jack I barely saw. His car broke down driving to the wedding. He's retired from the oil fields, too, and his ears are shot. He didn't have much of a chance to be funny.

I got to meet my half-brother Harvey for the second time in my life. The first time was for a week when he was 20 and I was nine. He came to PA to meet our mother and spent most of his days chasing my older sister's girlfriends. Now he's 55 and a director at GM. He lives on 80 acres of grassland east of Oklahoma City in a 5,000 square-foot house he built himself.

Get this: He got the lumber by purchasing a barrack at Tinker Airforce Base for $104. It took him 45 days to tear it down and transport the wood. With it, over the next few years, he built his family a palace. He's still finishing up the back. Every evening after work he lays 20 bricks. I’m impressed.

His daughter/my niece Holly is beyond beautiful. She is radiant. Her wedding dress and brilliant smile at the altar branded my brain with a vision of absolute loveliness. Holly is all that can go right with a human being and a life. Her sister/my other niece, Heidi, stood beside her and sang like an angel.

We spent the next two days alone with Harvey and Brenda, getting to know each other. We thought we might have silent spots, but we didn't. We laughed and talked. The best part came when we broke down in Tulsa and celebrated by renting a brand new white Cadillac.

Susan seems to have faired well. She represents you, the reader. She didn't know anybody either, but she sat through it all, just like you have obviously done if you're still reading this far down the page. She used the encounters to gain more insight into the man she married 12 years ago last Sunday.

Next stop: the Pennsylvania homestead.