I'm at my parents' house for the weekend, preparing to go to a family reunion. The turnout is expected to be large this year because Aunt Alice, bitten by the geneaology bug, has been doing a lot of research on the family tree and has contacted branches from all over the place. Many of them will be turning up at this reunion for the first time.

"They might have so many people that we'll need to wear name tags," Dad told me.

When I mentioned this to April, I told her I was tempted to write "The Gay" underneath my name.

"God, I'd pay money if you'd do that."

"Maybe I should be subtle and put "Bastion of Gaity."

Dad was surfing around and found Prenter.net, a site devoted to the Prenter area near our home and where Dad works. There are pages devoted to Prenter families and the businesses which were there. He's pretty sure the baby "Catherine" shown on the top photo of The Bradley Family page is actually his mother Kathleen, who is in her early 80s and has a birthday coming up.

There's also a picture of No. 5 Tipple back in the 50s, which is now the plant where Dad works. "It has a lot of the same steel in the structure," he told me.

Side note: I'd forgotten I was distantly related to Stacey Deal (formerly Stacey Lambert), one of my high school friends. Looking at The Lambert Page, I see she has kids. Her husband, Bobby, was a pseudo-nemesis back then, although he later found religion and apologized for being a jerk when we ran into each other at the mall a few years back.