ASHLAND — As my wife and I have done just about every two years during the 36 years we have been married, we have traveled more than 2,000 miles to attend the Slaughter Family Reunion. And this reunion had the same effect on me as all the other Slaughter reunions I have attended: It made me envious of her family.

 While my wife meets with her aunts, uncles, cousins and other kin in different locations every two years, I have first cousins who I have need seen in more than 50 years and would not recognize if I met them on the street. While I have wonderful childhood memories of attending the Reno Family Reunion at the Grassy Run Quaker Meeting House in August of each year, those reunions ended when my grandmother died when I was 10. While Grandma Reno had married into the family, she was the glue that held the family together, and when she died, no one stepped forward to do all the work and planning for the annual family gatherings. So they ceased to be. How sad.

 The Slaughter Family Reunion continues to be a tradition in my wife’s family, and if nothing else, I have seen the country because of the reunions. While the 2012 reunion was in Lincoln, Neb., where my wife is from and most of her family still lives, past reunions have been in San Antonio and Galveston, Tex., in Estes Park, Colo., in Hot Springs. Ark., in Nebraska City, Neb., at a great state park in Nebraska and at various locations in Lincoln.

 While I have been making regular trips to Lincoln for more than three decades and thought I knew the city well, the Saturday night dinner and talent show was at a beautiful park just a few blocks from where my wife’s sister lives that I never even knew was there.

 More than 120 people attended the 2012 Slaughter Family Reunion. They came from as far away as Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania and Texas. They ranged in age from 3-month-old babies to three who were 94, including my mother-in-law, who despite her advanced age did not get the award for being and oldest one there.

 There also was a contingent of eight from Kentucky: my wife and her “outlaw” husband, all three of my children, one daughter-in-law and my two granddaughters. It was the first time that all my children had attended the same reunion since they were little. That made this reunion just that much better for me.

 The reunion was based at a hotel in Lincoln, and there were enough options for everyone to do their own thing. As one might suspect, the large group of relatives divided into smaller groups according to their age (children, teens, young adults, oldtimers, etc.) and by what branch of the family they were from.

 As a “outlaw” who had married into the family, my only job was to serve as master of ceremonies at the talent show on Saturday night and as song leader during the worship service on Sunday morning. The talent show was great, not because of me but because of the performers. They were all quite good. This is one talented family.

 The theme for this reunion was “A Slaughter Family Christmas” so during church Sunday morning, I led the crowded room in singing Christmas carols. I am sure the people having breakfast in the next room must have wondered who the weirdos were singing “Joy to the World” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” on a hot day in June but that just made it all that much more fun.

 The most boring part of the reunion is always the annual business meeting, which I have learned to avoid like the plague. Nevertheless, I was seated next to my wife waiting for the start of the business meeting, when my wife asked if I minded taking my 2-year-old granddaughter and a couple of other toddlers into the next room during the meeting.

 Minded? It was just the invitation I was hoping for. The kids and I had a great time while the adults attending the business meeting, somehow managed to stay awake. They are stronger people than I am.

 During the meeting my daughter was elected vice president and it was agreed that the 2014 reunion would be in August of that year in either Washington or Oregon. The branch of the family who lives in the northwest will do the reunion planning.

  This will be the second reunion in the northwest since I married my wife, but my wife attended the earlier one with her mother while I stayed home in Ashland. I plan to attend the 2014 reunion in either Oregon or Washington. It will be yet another example to the Slaughter Family Reunion causing me to go somewhere I have never been.

As she has done at every reunion since right after we were married, my mother-in-law announced that the 2012 reunion could be her last one.  I would not bet on it. I would not be the least bit surprised to see her in Oregon or Washington in two years. After all, she will only be 96.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.

com or at (606) 2326-2649.