The Great Potato Salad Wars of 1996
May 27th 2007
Karen RoseGoddess Classics
Karen Hawkins asked me to post this for her as she’s hiding under a picnic table in Fairmont, WV, during the annual Hawkins Family Reunion. She promises to post comments via her cellphone, so feel free to blog away!
This is Memorial Day Weekend, the 11th anniversary of the great Hawkins Potato Salad Wars of 1996. I would post the specifics but both my Aunt Bess and my Aunt Raye would hunt me down and kill me like a dog. They don’t agree on how it started and there’s no way I can tell you without making one or ther other of them furious.
Every year my family has a reunion. People travel from all over the country to a tiny park in Fairmont, WV, where they come to visit, catch up on news about family members, and argue over everything from who makes the best potato salad to who has the biggest engine in their Chevy pickups.
There’s nothing that a Hawkins family member likes more than a good row. Unless, of course, it’s an argument, a tussle, or an out-and-out fight.
Every time Uncle Bill lays into Uncle Rex for saying Chevys are crap and that Ford makes a better truck, everyone nods and smiles and, while the two are climbing back to their feet and staunching the blood flow from their split lips and swollen eyes, we all say, “Well! That certainly cleared the air. Want some cake?”
So many people. So many personalities. And so much history. Well, something is bound to happen and every year, like a clock, it does.
Sometimes I like the excitement. Sometimes I want to hide under the picnic table until things are a bit less contentious. Either way, I take lots of notes — this is great material for a book!
Is your family the same way? Do family gatherings at your house bring harmony and peace? Or are they a bit more Hatfield/McCoy/Hawkinsish? What’s the tensest moment you can remember from one of your family gatherings? Were you glad to be there or would you like to climb under the picnic table and sit with me for a while?
19 Comments »
19 Responses to “The Great Potato Salad Wars of 1996”
ladydawgfan on 27 May 2007 at 1:14 am #
What are OUR family reunions like, you ask??? Welllll, take the Three Stooges, mix in some Lucy and Ethel, and swirl the whole thing with a HUGE dallop of Barnum and Bailey’s and you get the general idea!! There is a LOT of laughter, some slap stick, a crisis or two, and at least one dish hits the floor before anyone gets a chance to eat any of it!! We don’t have any fist fights at our reunions because the women in our family aren’t above wielding skillets at stubborn skulls to bring the offenders back in line.
Ann in IL on 27 May 2007 at 6:32 am #
Family Reunions are a thing of the past. My Dad’s side had them every Father’s Day - my Mom’s side never had one. Can I say my Dad’s family is - WEIRD?( Don’t think any of them read, so it’s OK to post about them here). All of my Dad’s siblings stayed in their own little sibling groups. It just looked like a bunch of small family picnics instead of one large gathering. What was the point? My generation has tried to resurrect the tradition a few times with the same result. We even tried having a Family Trivia game with each family submitting questions. Didn’t work.
These days it’s tough enough to try to get my own seven siblings and their families together. There is always someone who is “too busy”.
I guess my family is too boring for a reunion.
Keri Ford on 27 May 2007 at 7:47 am #
We have an annual renion (mother’s side). Anywhere from 50 to over 100 people. It’s on the river every year with bar-be-que chicken, fried fish (catfish for you non-southerns), and smoked hog (slaughtered from the wild). And then ALL the trimmings. The afternoon stays tame with everybody catching up. And then the evening falls, the boring people leave, and it breaks loose….
The first year (3 years ago?) we partied until 2 a.m. My 70 year old grandpa and my 70 year old great uncle jitter-bugged the night away with the jukebox (both were highly drunk at the time after spending the afternoon getting themselves that way) My girl cousins and I (six in all) did the electric slide for an hour to country songs. (we danced it once and all the older-more drunker-kept hollering “do it again!”
We usually have a lot of fun and put away well over a fraturnity party’s worth of alcohol.
Julia London on 27 May 2007 at 10:11 am #
All our family is right here, so we are together more than we care to be. Fortunately, my family lives about 75 miles south, so I can claim “other commitments” if it gets to be too much. As it often does. Okay, I’ll just put it out there: I dread the holidays because of the entire extended mess!
Julia London on 27 May 2007 at 10:14 am #
Keri reminded me — my family includes alcohol at all family events, which makes it tolerable. My husband’s family are teetotalers — and they are the ones who really need a belt to take the edge off. Or maybe that is just me. So at Easter, my SIL, who also dreads family holidays, brought a little hooch. She and I snuck out to the garage. We’d just enjoyed a sip when the door bangs open, a little kid pops her head in, then turns around and screams, “They’re in here, drinking aaaallllllcohoooool!” So busted. And before I could take the edge off!
Judy F on 27 May 2007 at 10:44 am #
We are having one next weekend for my niece high school graduation. As much as I love this girl, I am grateful that I have another commitment that day so I can check out early. If there are no family arguments I consider the day a good one. Usually its my mother starting something, you try not to get dragged into who she is currently ticked off at.
elsiehogarth on 27 May 2007 at 11:58 am #
Ahh Family Reunions, Get Togethers, Massacres-what ever you want to call them are just great.
My Dad’s side of the family are very snooty. That’s cause they are French. Need I say more. My Mom’s side of the family are Spanish. Need I say more. We’re a very volatile group, especially the women: My mother is the oldes of 10, so I have 6 Aunts. We talk with our hands (is there any other way?), we drink, sing & dance (in another life I believe most of us most of been Vegas show girls), we cook (the kitchen is the best place for gossip during holidays & get togethers),we talk loud (people think we are fighting when we are actually talking), we fight, we get our points across, we blow steam, we’re almost killing each other and in the next breath we say: “So, Monday-Lunch?” “Yeah, see you there”. I just love my family.
MizMacgyver on 27 May 2007 at 12:02 pm #
Karen, I live in South Charleston, West Virginia and am very familiar with Fairmont, my BF works there often, is your family from West Virginia??
Nicole Jordan on 27 May 2007 at 2:18 pm #
Oh, I am so envious of all you goddesses who have family reunions! They sound like such fun.
My family is scattered all over, not only the country but the world. So we haven’t all gotten together for years. Please eat some potato salad for me!
Oh, and by they way, I like mine a little tart… German potato salad with sweet vineagar is just yummy, although my dh doesn’t agree since he hates vineagar and mustard. In fact, he tells a story about his dad trying to get him to eat a McDonald’s hamburger when he was a very young kid. Threw a huge tantrum right in the middle of the restaurant. And to this day if I put mustard in anything, I can’t tell him it’s there.
Also, Julia, I don’t think I would like at teetotalling reunion at all! But that story about you getting busted is just too funny.
NicoleJ
MizMacgyver on 27 May 2007 at 2:20 pm #
My family used to be like that but they are all pretty much gone now, my mother’s generation, loved the holidays because we all went to one aunt’s house and pigged out. I am an only so I have no siblings to catch up with and all the cousins just don’t get together. More than half of them moved to other states anyway. Dad’s side of the family are all gone now too and we didn’t gather with them anyway. I have cousins on both sides that I wouldn’t know if I saw them.
MizMacgyver on 27 May 2007 at 2:23 pm #
Nicole, I don’t care for mustard either but I will eat it in potato salad and deviled eggs, that is the only way. My mother made the best potato salad ever, that was always her contribution to the family gatherings. Potato salad and German Chocolate cake from scratch, my mother didn’t believe in cake mixes.
Julia London on 27 May 2007 at 3:28 pm #
I am definitely on the side of yellow potato salad. mustard, vinegar, eggs and pickles. Yuuuummm…..I think I will put a bug in my mother’s ear.
Sabrina Jeffries on 27 May 2007 at 6:39 pm #
My family is scattered all over, and that’s a GOOD thing. Don’t get me wrong–I love being with them, but too much togetherness can sometimes be … well, too much. I do wish I could see them more at holidays, though. It’s difficult for a variety of reasons, so my dh and son and I have spent many a holiday with just the three of us, and I don’t really like that.
Brandy on 27 May 2007 at 9:20 pm #
My family is boring as heck. Everyone is quiet, but still catching up with everyone else. It’s my grandmothers family and there are a mix of some rednecks and some, well, ‘yuppies’. I dread going every year. Everyone just sits in their own cliques. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is nice. But, good golly, BORING!
Kay on 28 May 2007 at 10:03 am #
My mother’s family has their reunion on Easter. Everyone goes to their respective church’s sunrise servce (who knew there were that many small churches and that each family has to belong to a different one!?) then we all troop over to my Aunt & Uncle’s house for ice tea (super sweet) too much food, and lots of fun.
The afternoon ends with the egghunt for the little kids.
I like my relatives in a large group, because to unpleasant ones are “diluted” and you acan escape.
TheNightPoet on 28 May 2007 at 6:39 pm #
I don’t like family reunions. So many people telling you that they “remember you when you were just this big”. lol As cliche as that sounds, it’s true. I haven’t been to a family reunion in a long time. (a big one that is) With my immediate family (uncles, aunts, cousins), it’s not so bad. But there is one side of the family that it seems like everyone has to be the center of attention. Well maybe right now that’s just my aunt who is acting that way, but that’s a long story. lol
I love getting together with my family and seeing everyone. Family has always been a big part of my life, so I hate it when I have to miss out on a family get together. Some days I do wish I could crawl under the picnic table as well.
Hope you survived Karen!
Andrea
Karen Hawkins on 30 May 2007 at 7:32 am #
I’m back! I made it out alive, but whew. I hid under the table for so long, my legs fell asleep and when I climbed out, I staggered and now there are rumors that I was drinking.
Which I might have been. I’m not sayin’. But I heard ya, Julia, on the hooch!
Ann, your family isn’t too boring to have a reunion, but too busy! It’s TOUGH getting everyone together.
Elsie, sounds like you have the perfect oil v. water of family reunions/massacres! What a culture mix!!!
And yes, MizG, a good solid dollop of my family is from the Morgantown/Fairmont area. I was born elsewhere, but both of my parents’ families come from there.
Kay, I like your thoughts on ‘dilluting’ the crowd. And you’re right — when there are a lot of people, you can always find at least ONE you’d like to hang with.
Gee, it’s nice to be back here, among friends.
MizMacgyver on 30 May 2007 at 4:30 pm #
We are so glad you made it out from under that table. It would be terribly difficult for you to write from there.
TheNightPoet on 30 May 2007 at 10:55 pm #
Woo-hoo!!! She survived! Glad to have you back, Karen!