69th Journey

We had our 11th family reunion in June in Turlock, Calif. We had the 1st one in Ft Worth in 1982. We had 30 show up as follows.
Billie’s family 1918 – 1997. Raymond Paul (born in 1935), Anita B ’61, Alex B ’92, Shawn B ’89 and girl friend Katy, and Caitlyn B ’95.
Johnnie’s family 1919 – 1973. Susan B ’39, Jordan ’89, Connor B ’93, Clay ’98,
Mac B ’41.
Dale’s family B ’22, Madell B ’26 Marcus B ’48, Dawn B ’52.
Virginia’s family B ’24, Jim B ’28, Jo Lee B ’52, Kevin B ’52, Lane B ’80, Neal B ’83
Jon B ’53, Deborah B ’55, Brad B ’83 and girl friend Shannon, Mary and Martha twins B ’57.
Doris’s Family B ’31, Suzanne B ’56.

The Reunion was hosted by Jo Lee, Kevin, Jon and Deb. They did a super job. Several flew in from out of state and stayed at a local motel – all except Madell and Dawn and I. We stayed with Jo Lee in their home. The only complaint I had was room service. I never could get it when I called. In fact the management wasn’t receptive when I complained. They have a lovely home and great place to have a reunion. They have two outside siting – eating areas around their pool. The weather was perfect – temp didn’t get over 90 the whole time we were there. When we landed in Oakland on the Thursday the 21th at 5pm it was 47 degrees. When we landed back in Austin on Tuesday at 5pm it was 109.

We missed the 1st night meal on Thursday – I think it was ham and all the good trimmings. On Friday night we had barbecued Chicken and all the good stuff to go with it. Sat was Hamburgers and all the trimmings and deserts. Kevin and Jon cooked the chickens and hamburgers outside. Sunday night they had Pizza catered in the driveway. They brought the brick oven on wheels and did all the work right there. They got that oven up to about 1900 degrees and then shoved the thin shelled pizzas in for 90 seconds and they were done. They fixed some 6 or more kinds of pizza and 2 kinds of pizza deserts – Chocolate and caramel. That was something to watch and enjoy. It was very good. We had lots of pizza left and had it the next day and Monday night. I got the last caramel pizza desert on Monday night.

Several of the group went to Yosemite Nat Park on Friday. Some of the same group went to Monterrey to the aquarium on Sat and then some went to the local Cheese plant on Sunday. One night Jim showed picture slides of old reunions. Another night Dawn and Lane showed some movies that was remade down at Dawns from from old movies we had made of some of the reunions. A volley ball game of the ’82 and baseball game of the ’93 on the coast were in it. I think Jim and Dawn both had copies for others to take home with them. Each had a 2 disc set I think. Doris said that they couldn’t play Dawn’s movies when they got home. The first ones they made wouldn’t play on my dvd player either.

Mac, Jim and I went out to the Jon’s family dairy on Friday. Some of the group went out there on Sat. When we went, we got to see Deb’s family again. Her mother and dad – Joanne and Manuel and her sister Tammy and husband Mike all greeted us and showed us around in the milking room where they milk 1300 cows twice a day. They have 3 8 hour shifts of 2 people to do the milking. They showed us the office where remote camera’s all over the place are monitored. Then Deb and Jon gave the 3 of us a driving tour around the place. Jon and Deb live in an old lovely 2 story house on part of the dairy’s land. There is an old old shell of a dairy barn right behind their house that used be a milking and housing barn for a dairy. It is probably close to 100 years old. They grow most of their feed of Corn green chop and silage, Alfalfa and Oats. They have very little rainfall there. All of their crops are irrigated by irrigation channels from lakes up in the mountains. They get 7 crops of Alfalfa a year and 2 crops of corn off the land each year. I think they have around 1200 acres of irrigated crop land for the dairy. They buy the other ingredients and mix all their feed in a big mixer truck that is monitored by a computer to be sure they get it right. They feed out of the truck on the slab along side the pens for the cows and replacement heifers. All of the animals are kept up in pens. There is no pasture land for the herd. They bring all the feed to the pens.

I wanted nephew Mac to see this operation in detail, since he had not been on a dairy since they closed their dairy barn when he was in high school. He was impressed to say the least. They produce over 75 lbs per cow per day. It takes about 10 lbs of milk to make a lb of cheese. They get about 15 cents per lb of milk. Each cow produces about 7 1/2 lbs of cheese a day. They sell their milk to the local Cheese plant. The local cheese plant is one of 4 that makes it the largest cheese maker in the U. S. Nearly 1/2 of all the milk produced in the U S is made into cheese.
It was good good reunion and we all enjoyed it. Our thanks to Jo Lee, Deb, Kevin and Jon for their great hospitality and all the work they did on it.
July 2012 by Dale Whitson.