Issue 1 is a lot like a bad reunion

Planning a get-together with the Ohio branch of the family is a vex on my soul. A bunch of them last year said no more meetings in August, it was just too hot and not enough of us showed up anyway. They put their collective foot down, citing cost of traveling, what with gas just going higher and higher. Let's just wait until November, everybody said at the time. This blasted summer heat will pass us by and maybe we can think clearer, everybody said. Or May. That's a good idea, too, the cousins and aunts and great-uncles and everybody started saying at once. Just do it in spring or fall. What could the rest of us do? We had no choice but to give in to them, and so we put away our picnic gear and started thinking of places we could host a big gathering later. Then this year we heard from that bunch down in Columbus that nope, they've changed their mind again, apparently it suits them just fine to have a big party in August after all. After all that talk about how nobody shows up, everybody's on vacation, it just costs too much to rearrange schedules and find a picnic shelter big enough to host everybody and have you seen the price of last-minute hotels and gas these days? A lot of us got to talking about how ridiculous this was, right at the height of our back-to-school spending and scheduling those college move-in days and tuition payments. The half that didn't have kids had already planned to be out of town on vacations, happy to have the second week of August free for once. But then Frank sent out that group text and set up that Facebook page. Hey everybody, get your coolers ready! We're getting the band back together! it read, enough to raise suspicion right there. Nobody ever really could suss out how Frank was related, he was just some far-flung cousin of so-and-so's branch, three-times-removed or step-cousins or some kind of family tree math I could never figure. In all these years I have never known anyone who really embraced him, introduced him as one of their close kin, or come to think of it, sat with him at a family gathering that didn't show up with him. He likes to run them, though. In the last few years, Frank and Mike and Brian, Matt, Jason and the rest of them, you know those cousins that never bring anything to the party but their big mouths and their obnoxious ways, the ones that line up before the elders and the kids and take the last chicken legs and eat all the strawberry pretzel salad, they have just gotten more and more brazen at these family shindigs. Maybe it's just us, but you know how there are those relatives you try to avoid having "certain" conversations" with at holidays? Well the Columbus cousins, as we've all taken to calling them, are that bunch. There is no such thing as civil conversations any more with that group. It's like when your friends start hawking health supplements or join a cult or just get real mean. They get riveted in on something and they can't let go and if you get cornered by them it just ain't gonna go well for one of you and in my case, being who I am, it's usually them so I try to stay out of those corners for their sake. It would be manageable if Frank and them just wanted to convert us all to a new kind of vitamin, I guess, but it's always something much more than that. This summer it was no less than our rights as a people. Hey cuz, the invite said. Can't wait to see you all. Bring your volleyball nets, cornhole sets if you got it and your baked beans. Please note this will be the last picnic for varied dishes. Exciting changes are in store for our beloved family reunions, the invite lied. Now is the time to review. After this event, a family representative from each county will be required to attend. If this is not possible, all future events may be in jeopardy and/or your family's standing and any say in family matters will be severed. From now on, there will only be hot dogs. No hamburgers. At our last get-together, 59 percent of you chose burgers and 34 percent chose brats, with the rest choosing dogs. Therefore we chose for you. Also, potato salad with raisins will be the approved side dish, because Barbara requested it. "MacArthur Park" is the background music. There will be no other song played. We know there are outside influences, i.e., these teens and their "TikTacs," that want to bring in other music and ideas but they can have their reunion when they pry it from our cold, dead hands, Frank said at the end, kind of ominously. I called Frank up on the phone, thinking things were taking a little bit of a weird turn there. And also because I take my potato salad seriously and I don't understand living in a state that doesn't let me freely express my right to vote the way I want to. Frank, I tried to reason with him. You and Mike, and Matt and Jason, all you Columbus boys — you guys have this whole state locked down so tight. What gives with this newfound power play kick? Why are you so invested in making sure us, your brothers and sisters in the great state of Ohio, don't have a voice any more? Surely we got a right to say what goes in our government? I mean ... it's been our right for Constitutional right for all these years, why take it away now? Is this about something else? "This is 100 percent about keeping a radical, pro-reunion amendment out of our way of doing things," he said. "Those agitators want to jam one in there this coming November." Except it's not a reunion they're blocking. It's your voice. It's your vote. It's your power. Funny how the state House and Senate work off simple majority votes to advance bills. But that's not good enough for we, the people. Sounds good enough for me. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.