For my entire life, my extended family on my mother’s side has gathered every other summer or so in some corner of the continental United States for a family reunion. An ambitious planning effort by my mother brought us all to Taos, New Mexico a couple of summers ago, but other than that, we typically congregate in the North Carolina mountains, from which my great-grandmother Florine, the matriarch of this branch on my family tree, hailed.
Three weeks ago, in one of our best turnouts to date, 80 members of the Coleman family descended upon Flat Rock, North Carolina. For three days, 62 adults and 18 children from Texas, Colorado, California, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and beyond wreaked absolute havoc on a little inn perched on a lake about thirty minutes outside of Asheville.
