Affinity

Affinity

While recently reading a magazine I ran across an article about migrating some of your banking business, or perhaps all of it, to a credit union, and how wise that movement might be. The article explained how you'd probably get a better return on your money and how the rates for loans through a credit union were lower than you might get at a bank. It went on to say how easy it was to join a credit union these days as the affinity clause that was necessary for a credit union to exist was generally stated so broadly that it could easily include a lot of people. And how each credit union had different affinity requirements. Some required you to be an employee of a certain company – or in the family of an employee of that company – or a former employee. For others you had to have been a sailor or family of a former sailor. Or an airman. Or a marine. Or... Many different requirements for membership but all fairly broad and fairly inclusive. The article went on to stress the point that there were many credit unions out there, pretty much one for anyone interested in them and that they would fit almost anyone's lifestyle.

That concept of affinity was demonstrated this weekend, at least to me, by two reunions which I attended.

On Saturday evening I attended my 45^th high school class reunion. Going to your high school class reunion is, for a lot of people, a very stressful occurrence. People worry about all kind of things prior to attending and fret over what their former classmates might think of them. They worry about their weight. They agonize over how prestigious (or not) their jobs are or had been. They fuss over how many divorces and remarriages they've been through and how many ex's are still out there. Some men are abashed by their loss of hair. It's amazing the amount of things people worry about. And, to be quite honest, I used to fret a bit about some of them in years past too. But I don't do it any more. Or at least not much. I've reached an age where those concerns just don't mean much any more. My hair isn't going to go back to it's dark brown state by itself nor is the balding spot at the top of my head going to fill in magically. I'm not going to lose a bunch of weight just in anticipation of seeing old classmates. My work history is pretty much a done deal at this time – a number of my classmates are already retired.

I'm just not worrying much about it anymore. So I decided to just go and enjoy myself. Just as I am.

And what do you know?

Almost all the rest of my class did the same! The rich classmates and the poor classmates and all of us that occupied the ground in between looked... well... we all looked pretty normal. I don't believe I saw any expensive suits that evening. And the women didn't seem, at least to my eyes, to be wearing any high-fashion ensembles. And let's face it. We're all at that “certain age” now and most of us in that bracket aren't trying to impress anyone anyhow. There's a whole lot of “been there – done that – got the tee shirt” mentality. What I did notice there were people who wore nice but comfortable clothes and were more interested in renewing old friendships and catching up on what everyone was doing.

And I realized that, no matter what road each of us had traveled, how diverse each of us were in our lives, we were all a member of the affinity group called “Class of '65”. And yes, to be honest, some of my class had taken very different paths in their lives than others. Some had become important people, politically, financially, even on the world stage, doing work that you might have possibly heard about in the news. Others heard a calling and chose the clergy and had a flock to care for. Still others did quite well in businesses large and small and had become the local aristocracy. Or at least what passes for it in these parts. Probably a larger majority had remained close to home and had manned the clerical, technical and manufacturing businesses and had made comfortable livings. Lots of us had raised kids, served on boards and committees, volunteered in a myriad ways and performed various civic tasks, large and small, acknowledged and not.

Some of us had gotten into trouble. Most not.

And an alarming number of us had passed on.

But no matter how far we had gone or how grand we had become, we were all, for all time, the “Class of '65”. We all held that link. That bond. That anchor to the past.

And most of us held that affinity in fond regard.

The theme of affinity continued that weekend as my wife and I attended her family reunion on Sunday afternoon. My wife's mother was ninth out of 14 children, so their reunions are generally very well attended. The original 14 are about half gone now and the ones remaining are getting up in their years, so it's not surprising that a lot of them don't make it to the reunion. But their children and the next generation are quite plentiful and a lot of them do show up. Along with their spouses, their boyfriends/girlfriends, and so on. There were probably 70-80 people who attended this year's edition.

I always like to attend her family's reunions. It seems that all the women who bring dishes to the gathering really know how to cook, and that know-how shows in the scrumptious offerings that end up on the serving tables.

Good eats and lots of familiar faces. I'm such a sucker for good food!

Family. Probably the seminal iteration of all affinities. Whether it's the nuclear family – mom, dad and the kids, the extended family including the uncles and aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins, or the super-extended modern family which also includes the 2^nd, 3^rd or more marriage spouses, intendeds, companions, friends and all the other variations of relationships. It's all the affinity called family.

I looked around the room at all my wife's relatives and marveled to myself on the diversity of their lives. How very different we all were from each other. Even a lot of our last names were different by reason of marriage. But through us all ran the common thread of what we all liked to refer to as “the original 14”. That nuclear family, raised on a farm and tempered through the crucible of the great depression was the cornerstone and lynchpin through which all of us in the room were connected.

Our affinity through family.

It was a weekend for reflections on connections. A weekend for laughing, for touching, for hugging and for possibly shedding a tear or two.

It was a weekend for appreciating our friends and our family, our histories, our yesterdays and our tomorrows.

For enjoying the affinities that touch our lives.