Stories That Need To Be Told

Saturday we had what I believe to be the 14th annual Papili Family Reunion at my house.  Each year it's held at a different location, depending on whose family has the banner at the time.  It became a tradition not long after my great grandmother passed away at the age of 99, because her birthday parties were the only time, aside from weddings and funerals, that the entire family was together.
Grandmom had 12 children, of which 6 brothers survived, my grandfather being one of them.  Now only Uncle Johnny, Uncle Louie and Uncle Leo are still around.
All weekend I caught snippets of conversations between the cousins, and it dawned on me that I need to seriously consider sitting down and writing a collection of stories about our family.  I miss my grandparents immensely, and I love hearing stories about how ornery my PopPop could be - like the time a cop pulled him for tailgating an ambulance and he flipped out on the poor guy.
The Papilis are something else.  I don't know too many families quite like ours.  We band together when things get tough, and we share all the good times.  It's completely normal for the 4th (my) generation cousins to all be out together on a Friday night.  Unfortunately, the 5th generation that is quickly expanding, will only know how things were "back in the day" through story telling.
I would love to sit down with my great uncles and record all of their stories. The same goes for my mom's first cousins.  We have our ups and downs like any other family, but we are truly a blessed bunch of Guidos, so I'm going to start talking to family members and get our long, crazy, funny, tragic, beautiful story down on paper.

63 members of the Pip Family; there was 20 or 30 of us who weren't able to be there.