I am thankful that this time it isn’t a person, and it can’t be entirely contributed to Covid. Along with many other beloved pastimes, family reunions and church socials seem to have taken the path to extinction.

Remember the time, probably in your youth, when Aunt Pearl argued for hours with Aunt Martha about who made the best fried chicken? Or having two containers of homemade ice cream because Grandpa and Uncle Ted each vowed that theirs was the best? We kids didn’t care who won. We ate from both. Allergies didn’t seem to enter into the picture at all back then, and other than turnips, no child refused to eat anything.

Many of us may remember the thrill of seeing our extended family each year when the entire horde traveled home and spent a few nights at Grandmama’s. In those days, nobody seemed to care that we only had one bathroom and a private bedroom was unheard of. Loss of sleep for the kids went unnoticed by the adults, and staying up all night talking with cousins was the highlight of the visit. No one got their eight hours, and no one cared.

If you didn’t come from a large family, church socials could easily take the place of gathering with relatives. And the food? Wow. Competition might not have been on the level of Aunt Martha and Aunt Pearl, but everyone had their specialty. And woe be to anyone who brought contenders for first place. You. Just. Didn’t.

If you were raised Baptist, as I was, you were accustomed to food being present at any and all gatherings. Choir practice, food. Committee meetings, food. Prayer meetings, food, even if it was only snacks. Homecoming, food, food, and more food. You were not allowed to get together with more than three other Baptists for a church related, well, anything, without food. I’m pretty sure it’s in the church covenant.

As a kid, I loved all of these get-togethers. Once the cooking fell to me, not so much. But it was still fun to talk to people on these occasions that you didn’t always spend time with on a daily basis. And you heard very few complaints about how bad the food was for anyone’s waistline.

These days we don’t even visit individual families that often, much less gather with large groups of them. Yes, Covid is complicit in much of this. But it does beg the question, once we beat this foul virus, and hopefully we will, is it possible there will be a resurgence of these traditions?

I vote yes, please. I sure do miss gathering with my community, friends and family. Not to mention suffering from an extreme lack of fried chicken and homemade ice cream.