Jeanieology

I've found a new way to spend my time and exercise my brain, while I hope for work and stave off health crises. Thanks to two of my sisters, I've been introduced to the addictive world of genealogy.


My sister Rita has long been the family switchboard. She knows who to call, how to inform, and when and where and why of multiple generations. It's one of the things she does.

My sister Jean is the Family Archivist. This is a job she sort of inherited, sort of fell into, and definitely made her own. If she can't tell you about the dead people in the family, probably no one knows. But Jean will try to find out. She's the one for the job. She knows who to ask for help and how to get others interested.

Between the two of them, I've been seduced into the pastime. They became my drug pushers, and Jean has become my supplier, and I need a regular fix.


Everyone grows up with family stories, hearing about odd aunts and whispered about cousins and disappearing uncles. Have you never wanted to solve those mysteries? Everyone has some vague nobility in their lineage, whether it be an Indian Princess, a German Baron, a gypsy queen. Wouldn't you like to find out the truth about that?
 The medical climate today almost insists that if you don't know about these people, you need to find out. Too much disease is being discovered as genetically linked. Too many character traits are being uncovered as symptoms of diseases, syndromes, etc. There is a social imperative to know where and who you came from.

Besides that, it's just plain fun.

Food

A discussion last night on Facebook about food got me thinking about -- you guessed it, food. The discussion started with an innocent (I assume) question: Do you have any family food stories?
The answers came slowly at first, and were about a word here a misunderstanding there, and then one person's memory sparked something that happened in another family, and the conversation was up and running.

I think everyone has food memories. That's why there is such a thing as comfort food. Every family has food memories, and possibly even food fights. Somebody changed a recipe. To an aunt this change is a delightful discovery; to a sibling it's an act of sacrilege; to an in-law it's a who-cares issue.

Food mobilizes us in a way other things don't. The only other thing as stirring (hee hee) is, in fact, family. Oh, we can get upset over our love life -- or someone else's. We can worry about a roof overhead and room mate issues, even money matters can make us crazy. But not even money has the emotional impact of food and family.

Our first urge is to find food. After the ordeal of being born, we start sucking. We want fed.
And so we go through life. We want our bodies fed, we want our minds fed, we want our sould fed, we want our spirit fed.

While we are feeding our minds we ate milk and cookies, or thought about them. Most churches have communion service on a regular basis. While this is admittedly no great feast for the body, it shows the importance of food. Primitive rituals like breaking bread or sharing salt are important.

As important now, in the land of too much and the time of too many, as when they meant friend or foe.

Nowadays our emphasis is on not eating too much, or too much of the wrong things. It's important to keep in mind, though, that eating is an imperative we are born with. We can't change that.

The Summer Sunday Parade

Wrote this a couple years ago; it's a personal favorite. And while it is Easter weekend this year, not Memorial Day, the brrooomms and bzzzes of the neighborhood, raised voices and banging doors makes this selection seem appropriate for Now. I hope you enjoy reading this.

The Summer Sunday Parade

It's quiet in my part of the world today. A peaceful, storybook Sunday morning. So far. But this weekend is the unofficial first weekend of summer, and the 'parade' has already begun,
Not the parades that will be tomorrow -- those are official things, but along with the unofficial meaning of Memorial Day, comes the unofficial parades.
Every town has not only its own traditions, but also its own little habits. Winchester Ohio has one that I've not seen before.

Like most small Ohio towns, Winchester has one gas station and a half- dozen or so churches. The Sunday morning peacefulness is due in large part to these churches. Parking lots overflow, the curbs are 'fully loaded' yet there are no people anywhere, not even annoying loud-mouths on (or off) their skateboards, standing in the middle of the streets blocking traffic.

On Sunday, even the lawn mowers have a peaceful hum. And everyone knows that, because Sunday afternoon in Winchester is the time to take your lawn mower to the gas station. Not take. Sunday afternoons are when we drive our lawn mowers to the gas station.

Yes, the Summer Sunday parade has begun. Church is out, dinner has been eaten, and it's time to fill up the lawn mower for the week ahead. All afternoon, I can sit on my porch and watch as they trickle by. Even with gas over $4 a gallon, it's easier to take out the lawn mower than take out the gas can, put it in car, drive the car, take gas can out of trunk, fuill it up, put back in trunk, drive home, take can out and empty into mower. Besides, it's much more fun to meander slowly down the road, wave to neighbors, enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

Impractical, yes.
Energy-concious, not so much.
But, sometimes, life should just be savored, and a Sunday drive on a lawn mower fits that definition just fine.

Serpent's Tooth

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

That's the proverb, originating, much to my surprise, from Shakespeare. Like many of his quotes, it's become muddled in my head with Biblical shibboleths, probably because both employ the same language.

A serpent's tooth? Really? Is that the worst most piercing pain Shakespeare could think of, or his contemporaries imagine? I've never been snake bit, so I really shouldn't comment, but I really think there are or were worse pains.

And a thankless child? Does one expect gratitude from one's children? Is that the epitome of parenting? That your child be thankful?

Truly, that's a good start. A gratitude attitude is usually a good thing, and something a parent wants to instill in the psyche of the little mind and heart entrusted to them.

There are things more important than gratitude. A selflessness. Consideration of others. Work ethic, or perhaps any ethics at all. Cleanliness. Independence.

Thankfulness is nice, and if the other things fall into place, it will be there. But Gratitude is not high on my list of priorities.


Many a parent would be glad to forgo the thanks to have their child returned whole and healthy.

Many a parent would forgo the thanks to have their child free and functioning.

Many a parent would forgo the thanks to have their child not shame and embarrass them in front of friends, family, and the world in general.

How did it ever get started that ingratitude is the hallmark of a dysfunctional parent/child symbiosis?

Forgive: Like a 2 Year Old

Dealing with my granddaughter on a daily -- and nightly -- basis, I marvel at the resilient spirit of the child. You can tell, smack (at hands), wrap, time-out, make her do all sorts of things she doesn't want, just because you are bigger (her point of view)and wiser (your angle). When she wakes up from the forced nap, or when she can't reach the fork or scissors she was running with, there she is climbing in your lap or up your back, laughing.

When you have to swaddle her to tame her for sleep, and she screams and bites and spits until she settles, and she finally sleeps -- when she wakes up, it's you she comes looking for. Your name that she chirps from her bed, or calls through the empty rooms.

How great it is to see such love and forgiveness. To know, somewhere in your heart, that this mean and hateful behavior on their part is somehow good for you. That that person is wonderfully looking out for you.
And that when you wake up, or get done screaming, or otherwise misbehaving, that person is going to be there for you.
Isn't that a wonder?

Children seem to know how to hold on to the love, and to let the other stuff go. Or at least to accept that 'other stuff' as part of the person we love.

It's not hard to see that we should all love like a two year old.