Originally broadcast on CHED radio Sunday August 12th, 1964

At least once every two years, I thumb through the old family photograph album.  This precious volume has been in the family for fifty years and it was passed on by my mother to me.  there is one picture in this album that always gives me pause for thought.  It's a photograph taken at my grandfathers modest farm in Innisfail.  In the picture are twenty seven brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, all in one place at the same time.  The picture was taken in the early thirties when cars were slow and not too dependable and roads were gravelled, and could be counted on to be dusty and dirty.  And yet, somehow, because we all cared, we managed to get together three or four times a years, for a sort of a family reunion.  Some of the old-timers in the picture are gone but youngsters have come along to fill in the gaps.  And yet, today when cars can travel swiftly and roads are smooth and straight; when the Bay of Fundy is only four hours from Vancouver Island; we never manage to get together.  Each of us claims to be too busy to "get down there for the weekend".  And so weeks slip into months and months into years, and the family grows farther and farther apart.