"The Future's All Yours, You Lousy Bicycle."

Two literary references traded relevancy and importance over the weekend.

The first is from Norman Maclean: "Being back in my father's church seemed to complete my return. More than anything else, I realized it was my father's words that made me feel most at home."

The second is from Thomas Wolfe: - "You can't go home again."

This past weekend was our family's annual reunion to remember and pay respect to the lineage that runs through my paternal great-grandfather and beyond. It's always held at the campgrounds run by the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy and named for a Confederate general of local lore. Likewise, it's held a week before the opening of the Confederate Reunion, which has been going on almost since Reconstruction. To say that this gathering is steeped in tradition and rich history is a gross understatement.

After all, this is a place where a family's campground is reserved in perpetuity by placing a wooden placard inscribed with that familyÂ’s surname on a tree .

When I first took Melissa to Camp Ben several years ago, she was almost speechless at the re-enactment of the CSA cavalry surrounding and overpowering the Union soldiers. IÂ’m not sure if this gathering is held in honor of the patriots that passed before us or one anticipating the rebirth of the Republic of Texas. Maybe a little of both.

As I've been going to Camp Ben for years upon years for either the family reunion or the Confederate Reunion, it's obvious that I'm able to recall several stories from my childhood. Either swimming in Onion Creek, playing baseball out in the field, or puking from too much carnival fare, there isn't much we haven't done out there over the years.

A part of me feels a return to "home" when I go back and visit the same places our family has been visiting for several generations. This is a place where my grandmother played as a child and where her relatives played long before her. A small monument near the pavilion dedicated to the Confederate soldiers from that area contains many names of my family's ancestors and serves as a reminder that family is not just a passing of blood and genetic coding. It is often defined in geographic terms, as well.

However, this is not the same "home" as where I spent and misspent my adolescent and teenage years.

People and places change. The creek is now barely a trickle. Many of the old-timers have since passed.

Maybe the locales of my youth are not mine anymore. Perhaps they belong to the next generation - the children of my siblings, my cousins, and my own (future) children.

Maybe these places are for me to remember and for them to discover.

And IÂ’m fine with that.