Family Ties

To my mind there are two kinds of family: family through blood and family through choice.

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You get born into a family with people you like or hate or a mix of both, but you're pretty much stuck with what you were given.

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My sister Kemmer is family like this, but it's okay because I like her. She was up visiting last weekend. We didn't do a lot, but she's one of the few people I seem to be able to sit and talk with for long periods of time, so we did a bunch of that.

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Many years ago, when I was managing a comic book store, I hired a guy named Shannon Slate. We became friends and apartment mates and I went out to his family's house a number of times for gaming sessions with Shannon and a few of his other friends. I am not always good with new people or authority figures, but Shannon's parents immediately made me feel welcome and a part of the family. Enough so that if they called me up and said I needed to come up that weekend to help with the haying, I would've. When Carrie made her first visit to me, I brought her there. They were family by choice. Decades later I still feel that way.

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Bob and JoAnn (Shannon's parents) were up in Augusta yesterday and managed to squeeze in a quick visit. It was, of course, great to see them. Except for JoAnn's hair being gray and Bob having less hair, they looked the same as I remember them. I got caught up a little on some of the other members of their extended family and then they had to move on.

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PS: I brought Carrie to see Kemmer during that first visit too.