Snapshots from this year's Castorfest

Sept. 4, 2008

Dear Patty,

My feet started to itch on the drive home from the cabin on the Castor River last weekend. Oh no, I thought. Chiggers. But removing my socks at home revealed at least 50 tiny dots on each foot. Some were moving.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Seed ticks.

Living in the desert you probably haven't had much experience with this plague. I hadn't either until last weekend. They are the larvae that grow into the bloodthirsty little monsters we all know from summertime adventures in the woods. A momma tick gives birth to thousands of them at a time. Brushing up against their leafy crib can be unlucky indeed.

Our niece Darci noticed a few on her after we played a game of bocce in the grass at the cabin. The cabin is on the side of a hill, so the trick was to keep the balls from rolling down. Sometimes we accomplished this by tossing them in the weeds. Good bocce strategy, bad idea.

Darci washed away the mobile ticks in the bathtub and pulled off the rest, but she looked uncomfortable all through dinner, uncertain whether her skin was being tickled by the breeze from a fan at the end of the table or by seed ticks on the march.

We were at the cabin for the annual Labor Day Castorfest celebration, when family members from far and wee congregate for a weekend of fishing and food and performances. This fifth annual Castorfest coincided with my mother-in-law Polly's 80th birthday.

The performances this year included a vaudeville joke (my father-in-law's), dancing by the nieces, an original poetic tribute to her mother by my sister-in-law Danel, her husband Doug's Top 10 Pollyisms and Polly's own tall tale about giant squirrels. DC and I presented a puppet show based on a family story involving a tutu. DC's puppet was a work of art, but the show won't make it to Broadway. "This time we rehearse," the motto of a past Castorfest, still applies.

The finale was DC's brother Paul's game show, "Polly's Wheel of Misfortune," in which he and his lovely niece assistant Danica had the audience guess phrases that revealed his mother's peccadilloes, from preferring the summer thermostat on "Off" to making a science of storing food in plastic bags.

One morning at the cabin everyone strained and sweated at the pond to resurrect a swing DC's father had rebuilt. At night we consumed mounds of steak and salmon and homemade blackberry pies, German chocolate cake and ice cream. We looked at the Neosho family's pictures of their trip to Africa and perused my photos from India.

That's what families do when they reunite. They speak of the distant lands they've seen, even if they're only interior landscapes. I love that about the performances, each one a snapshot of a side of the performer not often seen.

The nieces used to be thrilled to go to Disney World and on an occasional cruise. Now they've been to London and Africa. Their eyes were afire looking at India.

My feet are afire. They look like a plague victim's, covered in lumpy bites I'm dying to scratch. My will is weak from loss of blood.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.