My favorite place to escape . . .

Today, I am back in reality.

Breaks from reality for me come in different ways throughout the year — from Christmas visits to hockey trips to birthdays to weddings.

But none of them — possibly combined — allow the break for me that the summer family reunion does.

Amid 50-plus people in an eight-bedroom cottage on Lake Erie, lives merge, souls grow and realities change.

Technology and work addiction kept reality streaming into my respite. I engaged it when I had to. But a good conversation — or a good Jarts match — were always an arm’s reach away.

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The core, without question, is the cottage.

It’s a 100-year-old hand-me-down of a place. Nothing about it is special, except the people who fill it.

The walls seep with family history from generations of photos. I’m on the walls as a 12-year-old, as a fianc and now as a dad of three sons.

A large dining/living room is central to all activities — getting a clean sweep up to six times a day so as to provide a place for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, board games, craft activities and the occasional child performance.

A smaller TV room keeps 20 or so kids engaged in all installments of “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

A pool table fills another room, and it’s there where boys become men.

The bedrooms upstairs officially sleep 20. But we’ve slept more than 40 in the place some years.

And three bathrooms handle us all ...

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While the cottage is the core, it’s the people that are its soul.

My great-aunt made it there through her 80s. Two uncles and an aunt are currently in their 80s.

Their gifts to my generation were many.

But the biggest gift was a handful of cousins who long to be together to throw Jarts, make crafts, but mainly, just laugh.

And with us cousins come our children — a throng of more cousins. Other families seem to distinguish second cousins and third cousins. We’re all just cousins.

For many reasons, the biggest thrill for us is when newcomers arrive — boyfriends, girlfriends, teammates, or in the case of one cousin — whoever might be on his couch come each July when it comes time to pack for the cottage.

Newcomers provide fresh fodder in many ways — to hear old lies, to target with fresh barbs, etc.

Trevor and Chad were this year’s fresh faces. And while they endured their share of hazing, they expressed the same this week that other newbies feel: “Is it really time to go?”

When one in-law returned to the cottage after a few years of marital separation, he remarked that one of the things he missed most — besides his wife — was this collection of faces at the cottage.

The top 3 brackets of the Greatest Golfer are now filled.

“Live, Laugh, Love” is a sign that hangs in our Poland kitchen. Fittingly, we won it at a family reunion contest years ago.

Stiff competition, shrieking loudness, stealthy shiftiness, and, hell, even some lewdness are common themes for our 72 hours of reunited humanity.

Old boyfriend photos get taped to coffee cups; precise Jarts scoring brings out rulers; 50 people watch as a joke is sprung on you, and more.

Several special-needs folks are among us, and we don’t miss a beat with them. They’re in Lake Erie. They’re at the zoo. They’re trying out Jarts.

That’s the laughing and loving that’s infinite.

The living — it’s finite. And it’s the one reality we struggled with this year.

The aunts and uncles who were the lions of my youth are fading faster than we want.

While it’s the cousins who make the reunion, it’s the aunts and uncles — forged from the coal and steel of western Pennsylvania — who seeded it back in the ’70s.

They can be seen at various times over the weekend huddled with various cousins telling various stories or lending odd bits of advice: If there’s a fight, they’ve fought it; if there’s a wound, they’ve healed it; and if there’s a broken part, they’ve fixed it.

If my aunt, who’s 85, lives for 10 more reunions, the last one she’ll have remembered was two years ago. But she’s still in attendance.

My “worked at Fords” uncle, 81, took on the strongest of chemo and radiation last September, then played 18 holes of golf with me last October. His cancer is back. An implant protrudes under his collar bone where chemo injections go in. His departure this year was a bit more tearful.

My country uncle, 82, still throws Jarts like a champ — finishing in third place this year. His first-places are likely tales of the past as we eagerly await his grandson’s first championship.

He said win or lose, the cottage is just a wonderful “sense of place” for him.

“I figure I’ve got another four years in me here.

“Then I’m coming up in my wheelchair,” he said, a smile wider than Lake Erie.

I’ve got birthdays, sports trips and the holidays to come. But the clock is already ticking. Only 360 days till my favorite event of year.

Time cards are due Monday.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on Vindy.com.