Dear Reunion Planner:

The primary driving force behind all reunions is our ability to remember the past. This remembrance is the basis of our stories -- personal stories, family stories, and cultural stories (myths). Family reunions are nothing more than a vehicle for telling the family story.

I've begun to collect bits and pieces from literature that refer directly to "the past," "nostalgia," the value of remembering or recollecting, etc. I will post these here as I find them. Please e-mail me ones that you've found and I will post them, too.

A possible use for these, by the way, is in your mailers or newsletters as fillers.

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"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

--William Faulkner

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"....of all the nostalgias that haunt the human heart, the greatest of them all is an everlasting longing to bring what is youngest home to what is oldest."

-- Laurens van der Post

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"The past sharpens perspective, warns of pitfalls, and helps point the way."

--Dwight Eisenhower (submitted by Marion Roes)