Morning on the Tideflats

By eight o’clock yesterday morning, four of us were on our way out to the tide flats on the hunt for the Wily Steamer Clam – dinner on the hoof, so to speak. Staying behind at our house were another three who were readying things for the family picnic. The Espy multitudes (possibly thirty) began arriving at ten, laden with more food and drink, with family albums to share, and with stories to tell. The fun didn’t stop all day long.

My second cousin Ruth was most closely related to me. The others were our third cousins, their spouses, siblings, children and a few friends thrown in for good measure. Actually, it was the friends who manned the cameras for the obligatory group photograph – with spouses, without spouses, but always (somehow) including Nyel. I’ve long suspected him of converting to Espy!

Three Generations

We ate, we fired the cannon, we talked and laughed. People played the piano, they played carrom, they walked to the Oysterville Store, they visited with the tourists at the church and with the neighbors up the street.   And over and over people said, “This is awesome!”

The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful – not a cloud in the sky, 82° in the shade, no wind, not even a zephyr. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more and then we began making dinner plans! Typical!

In the late afternoon, we gathered at the Oysterville Cemetery to place my first cousin (one removed) Brad Pearson’s ashes next to his father and his grandmother (who was my mother’s sister Suzita.) Brad was born in Oysterville although he lived most of his life in Arizona. As a youth, he was a bull rider on the National Rodeo Association circuit and forty years ago participated in the Long Beach Rodeo. It seemed fitting that we should say our final goodbye to Brad on this Rodeo Weekend.

Espy Family Reunion, 2014

Many of us regrouped in the early evening at the Oysterville Guesthouse where part of the family were staying. Dinner was made-on-the-spot pesto pasta with steamer clams with garlic butter. It doesn’t get better than that. And then, of course, there were all those “let’s do this again soon” remarks and promises of get-togethers over in the Palouse, stomping grounds of many of the third cousins.

But it’s not over yet. Today some of us are heading out to the Red Barn Arena and the Cowboy Breakfast and will be front and center at Vespers for Casey Killingsworth’s salute to Pete Seeger. What a great weekend!