Opening: Crazy Were We

The advantage of living in Inverness, Idaho back in theforties and fifties was the number of churches you could choose from, nine, which averaged out to a hundred souls per religion.The advantage of being born into the Mennonite religion was that you didn’t need to waste your time shopping around for a church with a better plan for working out your differences with the Almighty. The advantage of belonging to the Reisender clan was that you had no end of family reunions; and in those days a family reunion was considered just about the highest form of recreation. In our case a reunion was the only form of recreation, being the one pleasurable activity that could stand up to Grandpa’s two strict tests: a religious connection and affordability.