My Mom and Dad have the car packed and will be hitting the road in the morning to head to Mississippi.  On Saturday, October 4th, the Hines Family Reunion will be held outside the town of Forest.  It has been this way for as long as I can remember.

The Hines family is a unique lot.  My maternal grandparents were made up of Walter Earl Hines and Levi Jane Robbins Hines.  My Grandmother Hines died in 1965.  Ironically, on the day of the reunion Saturday she would have been 114.  Granddaddy Hines died in 1979.  I remember that time.  It was the last time all of their children were together.  I am proud to say I was there.

There were seventeen Hines children.  Same mother.  Same father.  Same patch of Central Mississippi.

My mother, Tressie Hines Johnson, is the youngest of ten girls.  Eight of those girls are still around.  Most of them will be attending the reunion.  These girls had seven brothers.  Three of these gents are still with us.

I suppose the greatest regret I have in the time I have traveled on this orb is that I don’t know any of my cousins all that well.  I can’t tell you off the top of my head how many first-Hines cousins I have.  I don’t know.  I think I could find out very easily.

Why have I not had close relationships with my cousins?  Proximity would be a good…safe answer.  I am in Indiana and they are not.  A scarce few of them have ever stepped foot onto Hoosier soil.  I can’t blame them.  What is here for them?  An aunt and uncle and a few cousins they know little about.

Last fall I was very excited when Dale Fulton, the husband of one of my first cousins, and his son Cam came up to do some deer hunting.  Cam and his family came first.  He did some scouting.  Later he and his Dad came to hunt.  I remember walking through a cornfield explaining to Cam how delighted I was that he was there and how he was the first of the Hines branch that I had ever walked a cornfield with.  It was a special time.

We’re all busy.  We all have our own lives.  We all have our own interests.  We cousins.

We also have a great deal to live up to and that is kind of intimidating, to tell you the truth.  This Hines family is the stuff of legend.  A Mom and Dad that had seventeen kids living a life of meager economic means…but plenty of love and life’s lessons to live on.  They went to church on Wednesday nights, Sunday morning, and Sunday night.  I used to do that too when I was a kid.

Seventeen kids.  Not a single Aunt or Uncle I can look at a say weird things about.  Oh they may say side-bar things about us grandchildren or even the ones they married.  Still…when you are among this group you know you are in the presence of greatness.  I can’t say that very often.  Perhaps I should look a little harder.

Perhaps I should just shut my mouth and be thankful that I can convey anything about a special family like the one brought forth into this world by W.E and Levi Jane Hines.

Speaking the Rights, indeed.

Grandson-Son-Nephew-Cousin (many times over) Danny Johnson