Looking Ahead to Surfside

On Saturday, June 15, for I believe the 37th straight year, the Cooper Clan will get together at Surfside Beach, SC, arriving from all parts of the states (and maybe even from Japan). My two sisters in Sumter, my sister in Fort Worth, my brother in Jacksonville, FL, and Louise and I, all with grandchildren and a few great grandchildren, will converge on and take over most of Surfside Beach. It seems to me that my parents started this in the summer of 1982, but I may be wrong by a year either way. What actually began in a single house south of Surfside, at Garden City Beach, and later moved to a much larger house at the north end of Surfside, has now expanded to four large houses and a condo. For the past two or three years, our attendance has exceeded 60 people; this year we may be down a little, but we still expect about 50.

For the past few years (since Leigh died) this week has been a bit of a mixed bag for Louise and me. We love to get together with the extended family, but it’s hard being there without Leigh. She loved this reunion so much, and she was such an important part of it. Leigh was always the organizer-in-chief, the moderator (if any issues came up that needed moderating), and above all, the sparkplug of the extended family. She had the unique ability to make everyone, no matter their age or position in the family, believe that they were her favorite person in the family.

Whenever we mention this event to people outside the family, the first question is always, “How do you feed all these people?” That’s the challenge. We worked out a plan many years ago, where each of the five main families (that is, me and my four siblings) is responsible for preparing a main meal one day of the week. That leaves one day of the week for family members to group together however they want for a meal (either eat in or go out); and the last day, Friday, is pot luck night where everyone brings their leftovers. The family that is responsible for the day’s meal makes the decision on time of day and whether they will prepare a brunch or dinner. And there’s never been a complaint about the food.

We’ve always managed to get houses within two or three blocks of each other, so the beach lovers congregate on the beach, the younger generation splits time between the beach and whichever house has the nicest swimming pool, and the older generation (when it’s not their cook day) get together to tell lies and reminisce. In the early evening, the more athletic ones set up and play beach volleyball (if the tide is out), usually followed by a cornhole tournament, and later Spades until the wee hours. In years past, we have had some hilarious Charades games and even some talent contests.

Lately, we haven’t been quite as organized or as coordinated as in the past. That’s certainly due to Leigh’s absence; or maybe we’re just getting older. An interesting dynamic over the years has been seeing the primary influence gradually shift from my (the older) generation to what we now call the second (Leigh’s) generation, all of whom now have children and even a couple of grandchildren.

I’m very proud of my extended family, as are we all. There has only been one time in all the years that we’ve been doing this that we seriously considered discontinuing it. That was the summer of 2013, the first summer after Leigh’s death. There was just too much emotion bottled up, not just among my immediate family, but throughout the extended family. There was a pall over the entire week. On the last day of that week, we had a very emotional family meeting and discussed whether we wanted to continue getting together at all, and/or whether we should try a different location. The final consensus was that Leigh would not want to be responsible for breaking up what was her favorite event in the world.

Of course, Leigh is not the only person we’ve lost since we began. We’ve lost other key family members over the years, to include the two who started the whole thing, and the husbands of two of my sisters. All are missed greatly every year.

The only trepidation I have concerning our beach reunion is the dreaded pedicure. Every year, Grandma drags me to the local Mama Ho Chi Minh salon for my pre-beach pedicure. We did that today. As usual, the attendant who began working on my feet was unable to complete the task. She had to hand it over to the Mamasan. This one was probably the least injurious of all the pedicures I have had, but if you see me in the next couple of days, you’ll see that I’m walking with a limp. No blood was drawn this time, but the bottoms of my feet are beet-red raw. It just blows my mind how these ladies can sit there calmly reading a magazine while someone is grinding their toenails with a Dremel drill or sawing away at the bottoms of their feet with a cheese grater.