The "post reunion let down" came. I knew it would, but it did take about two months. After the reunion, I worked for the remainder of the summer following up on leads gained at the reunion and on other family related projects. It was a full time job. The let down came, when I had to go back to school. As a team leader at Martin Luther King Magnet Middle School in Kansas City, Missoui, I work 12 hour days every day and do counseling in my spare time! Then came six weeks with the "new" flu. I cannot but wonder if such things did not happen in other Fulbright family households.

There is an enjoyable way to get back on track, even with the reunion behind us. It is to record your memories and reflections and the memories and reflections of other family members. It will be invaluable to your family. Let me give you two examples of ways it can be priceless to your family.

In 1968, I drove to Lebanon, Missouri to spend a hot summer afternoon with my mother's parents, John and Mary Van Hooser. Grandpa and Grandma were in excellent health, but I knew the years were passing faster than any of us liked to think about. I interviewed them for abut 45 minutes. On the tape my grandfather told me that there was no photograph of his mother. She had died when he was around nine years of age, and he said, "I can just barely recall what she looked like, David Lee." I accepted my grandfather's story as true, although with disappointment. Imagine my surprise upon being handed a studio portrait of Grandfather John's father, mother, brothers, and sister by a woman in Springfield over twenty years later. The woman's grandfather had been reared with my great grandfather. They were not related, but they were closer than most brothers. Nadine was astonished by my reaction. "Why David Lee, I have had that picture for years. My father had it. I didn't know it was so important." I took her rich gift, went home, dug out grandpa's tape, and checked my memory. His mellow bass voice came across the years with the same warmth and message that I had remembered. I am only sorry that he could not see the picture.

I have a similar tape made on one of my father's first trips to visit his new grand daughter, "Missy Bright", who is now twenty-two years old. On that tape he told about Uncle Mart Fulbright and his floating habits. He "...couldn't swim a lick, and he was huge. The Fulbright men were heavy in those days. He could float like a cork. He would drive his buggy right into the river on hot summer days. Just as the buggy began to float, he would step into the river, lay back, cross his arms across his chest, and float. The horse would pull the buggy on across the river, and Uncle Mart would float down river with the current. The current would take him to a place around the bend where he could wade back to the bank. He would walk back to the buggy and go on about his business." For those who knew my father, it is vintage "Dan" telling the story, and Uncle Mart emerges with humor.

It is fun to record memories. What I hope you will do is to interview the older members of our family (but not just the older members) or record yourself and your own memories and reflections. We are not close to having a central repository for those tapes, but it is my hope that our oral history will have such a home. Del Bishop was the first family member I remember expressing that dream. It is a wealth we can ill afford to lose. Let me know how it goes! It is great to be related to you!

David L. Fulbright