A gathering of the tribe

Originally posted in OntheCommon.com:

It's probably been more than 50 years since I walked down the grassy slope to the hall at Sovittaja Park in Rutland. I'd have gone with my parents and a grandparent or two. There were dances almost every Saturday night. Even by that time, however, the immigrant generation was getting old and didn't dance much. Their children, my parents, danced some and the younger ones, such as yours truly, didn't dance much at all.
Dancing, of course, was mostly an excuse for people to gather, to swap stories about the old country, exchange news, meet people. My parents met at one of the dances at Finn Park.
Yesterday, we joined in the celebration of Finnish Kaleidoscope 2010, I saw familiar faces and heard familiar names, even if I didn't know the people. We wandered around, inspecting the vendors tents on the outside, the exhibits inside the hall, and the simple elegances of the bare-wood dance hall and dining area. During the early coffee hour and then during lunch, a woman and a man provided a steady backbeat of accordion and euphonium music.
Within minutes, we were chatting away. If we didn't know the person, we quickly found that we were just a cousin or a classmate removed. Like those puzzles where you try to remember the matching pictures in each square, Sandra matched up a guy whose family name was Hautaniemi with a young man by the name of Niemi, the latter a shortened form of the former. We learned again how common it was for a family to take on the name of the farm where they worked or lived, just what had happened when my mother's father's family moved to a farm in northern Finland farm.
There wasn't a lot of Finnish spoken at Finn Park yesterday, just a few words here and there. We had our phrases at the ready, saying kiitos (thank you) and näkemiin (good bye), but that's all that we needed.
And then, the connections got closer. Barry and Katy Heiniluoma recently visited my aunt, Toini, my mother's sister, in Florida. The Heiniluoma family stayed with my grandparents in Worcester in the 1920s. Barry gave a presentation about their collection of Finnish wood carvings, pieces that were hauntingly similar to the carvings we have in the camp and sauna, hand-crafted pieces of art that might fetch a dollar or two at a flea market.
We heard about people, family and friends, from Gardner, Templeton, Hubbardston, Phillipston all of the Wachusett towns, and places far.
The lunch buffet brought us soup, salad, Sillisalaatti (Sill (Pickled Herring) Salad) or Punajuurisalaatti (Beet Salad),  sandwich, Suomalaiset Lihapyörykat (Finnish Meatballs), a side dish of Lanttulaatikko (Rutabaga Casserole) or Kermaperunat (Scalloped Potatoes), and dessert, Riisipuuro raparperikiisselillä (Rhubarb Soup over Rice Pudding).
After lunch, we wandered a bit more, including a quick trip to see the cottages along Finn Park Road. As we were leaving, I remembered the name of the family that I'd wanted to mention to Barry. These names of people and things, once so familiar, had slipped away from regular use, but came back with a bit of reflection.