Tickled Pink

Subtitle: Party Poopers are Not Invited

Perhaps everybody does stupid things from time to time that they regret. Usually time passes and people forget those bad decisions and do not hold those against you. Occasionally though some just stick around and make it into random conversations. For example, Did you do any blob jumping at Miracle Camp this year? may sound like a perfectly innocent question but it is not. I could list at least 100 variations of that question that I heard this summer.

There is another ST that I did that just won’t go away. . . actually there are probably lots but this is another summer one that I am reminded of annually.

Nineteen years ago, in 1991, our family had a reunion. It was my mother’s family—her siblings and their children. I love this old picture. The me in the picture is my mother.



My mother was one of ten children. There were six boys and four girls. I have lots of cousins. Some of us are in this old photo.


And here is another photo of us doing what we do best together.
But I digress.

In 1991, each of the ten families were requested to make a t-shirt for their family of various colors. By the time, I was asked to make
t-shirts for our family, colors like blue and purple and red and white had already been chosen. I don’t know why I did not choose green. That has been my regret for all of these 19 years. I chose pink—hot pink. There is more . . . I used ridiculous little figures to represent our family. You can see them in the photo. I cannot remember what in the world I was thinking. Goodness.

Two of my nephews did not come to that reunion. Brian had a reasonable excuse. I am pretty sure that Jon did not come because there was no way, no how that he was going to wear a hot pink t-shirt for any family picture. I always think of the Boy Named Sue song. Perhaps wearing a hot pink t-shirt would have been good for him.

My siblings and their kids and Dad and Kay all eventually acquiesced and wore the t-shirts and were even photographed wearing the shirts. However no one in our family has ever quite forgiven me for those hot pink-that-should-have-been-forest-green-or-even-ebony-black t-shirts. Remember those ridiculous pink t-shirts that Aunt Brenda made us wear?

It came up again recently.

We have Rupp Girl Cousin Reunions every other year. They are very special and very fun.

This year we were in Shipshewana, Indiana for three days. Our cousins from Uncle Victor’s family were our hostesses. We learned about our Mennonite roots . . .

Played lots of fun games . . .

Some swam in the pool . . .

We ate dinner at an Amish home . . .

Got caught up on family news . . .

Took buggy rides . . .

Laughed lots . . .

And we also prayed for each other.
It was all wonderful and very well planned.

Our hostesses were Uncle Victor's daughters . . .
Jeanann, Janet, Judy and Charlene.

They did a cute skit about the hats that we wear.

And then presented us with our very own Amish bonnets, made exclusively for us by Cousin Judy.

Then out of the blue here it came again . . . Judy told us that
she did her best to match the color of our bonnets with our
infamous 1991 t-shirts.

Our family received beautiful blushing pink bonnets. Thankfully, hot pink would not be appropriate in an Amish world.

My sisters, Sheila, Donna—also a blogger with a hat post and another post as well about this event—
and sister Lou and yours truly, proudly donned our bonnets.

I am glad that only the second generation girl cousins and girl cousins-in-love are invited to this gathering. I am quite certain, that given the opportunity, nephew Jon would have boycotted and refused to be in our photo.