3-15-18 MY AUNT BECKY part 6

When you leave the pack, like we did when our family moved from Idaho to Pittsburgh PA, you are prone to feel like you no longer belong. It helps to go visit. The love still remains. But the belonging is iffy.

It always felt to us, the Hansen arm of the Parrish clan, that we were the proverbial black sheep of the family. Mom had proven her rebel soul when she was younger, and moving her family so far away sealed the deal. No one intended to make us feel that way. We just did.

Our dad, Lewis, was apparently a brilliant mathematician. (I did not inherit that gift). He worked for the Atomic Energy Commission out in the Arco desert in southeastern Idaho. When I was five-years-old he was promoted and transferred to Pittsburgh. It was a big shift for us. My poor mom. I didn't realize what a lonely thing it must have been for her to leave that big family of hers and her close friends in Shelley, Idaho. We have old home movies of Thanksgiving dinners where my aunts and uncles sat around the table with us. That never happened again after we moved. Summer was the holy place of reunion. It was always up to us to make our way back home if we wanted to see the people we loved.

But then there was that year when we got the news that the Miskin's were going to come east to visit us! To visit US! I remember the awesome feeling that accompanied that news. Libby and I ran out to the crab apple tree in our front yard and started swinging from our favorite branch. Mom was smiling, and our cousins were coming, and all was right with the world!

I was young then. I don't have vivid memories of the actuality of their coming. We have a few photos to prove it really happened. I don't now how long they stayed. I think we were a stop between Washington DC and New York. But the "happy factor" that came with the anticipation, the feeling of being worth coming to visit, was out of this world!