(HOST) Many family reunions take place this time of year. Commentator Peter Gilbert tells us about some of the features that make his family’s reunion special.
(GILBERT) Like many families, mine has had an annual reunion each summer for many, many years. For the last 33 years, they’ve taken on a specific form and ritual that seem to bind us together and contribute to making the occasion feel more special.
The event is called the Bean Hole. Every August on a Saturday evening, fifty to sixty of us gather after supper at a cousin’s home in southern Vermont. We light a campfire — a carefully stacked tower of maple and ash three feet tall. When the fire eventually collapses in on itself, the embers fall into a hole dug in the ground. A heavy Dutch oven full of baked beans is then lowered into the hole, covered with hot coals, and buried over night. Then it’s time for the kids to toast marshmallows and make S’mores.
The next day, in the afternoon, we gather again, and with great mock ceremony, dig up the beans; the Chief Bean opens the pot of beans, tastes them, and, each year, declares them, "Better than ever."
Then comes a potluck supper, with homemade strawberry ice cream, made by the Queen Bean. A senior member of the family "the family genealogist" makes brief remarks about family history. A cousin gives out awards, including Green Bean awards for people attending their first Bean Hole. Five-year olds help by delivering the tokens to the recipients. Then comes an auction of family-related objects, things you don’t want but perhaps someone else might – a cane that was Cousin Alfred’s, or a painting by an amateur artist in the family. Sometimes there’s music or other activity. One year, the Chief Bean, a retired philosophy professor who had become interested in Tai Chi, led the young kids in Vermont Tai Chi, four exercises that corresponded to the seasons: the winter exercise looked a lot like someone shoveling snow in very slow motion; spring bore an uncanny resemblance to waving black flies away.
We peruse photo albums from previous years’ gatherings, and see just how much younger we were then. Each year someone makes a small commemorative banner, and they’re all displayed on a clothes line strung between the barn and an old maple tree. Most of the banners have something to do with beans. For example, the 1997 banner – the year that the comet Hale Bopp came close to Earth – shows a flaming comet shaped like a baked bean. Many banners incorporate figures that symbolize family members who had passed away that year – a rooster, for example, to honor Frederick, who raised chickens with his brother.
Despite all the hoopla about burying the beans and digging them up, of course it’s really not about the beans at all. It’s about connectedness, family, and fun. And the tradition and ritual – silly as they may be – are the frame and glue that help it happen.
Peter Gilbert is executive director of the Vermont Humanities Council.