I left a week ago to visit my sister and bro-in-law in the countryside just west of Springfield, IL. They live in a perfectly beautiful home on a wooded lot, complete with pool and a lot of amenities that they have worked hard to have...but...as with all good things, there is a price. My bro-in-law has FTD (dementia) now, and my sister struggles every day to get through the challenges while trying to maintain a standard of living. Shari feels somewhat unsupported...and I, in my solitary life, do too. The fact that we morally support each other in our old age, even at a distance, is a good thing. I don't get over there very often, and having them here isn't workable. (Long story. I could always accommodate Shari, but my bro-in-law would not do well here, and she really can't leave him alone for any length of time.)
Most of the time when I go there, I try to earn my keep by doing helpful things. This time, however, was all about me. It was a bit embarrassing but totally appreciated!
First of all, my sister is an excellent cook. When we are allowed to eat at home (because her husband's whole "social life" is geared around eating out with his favorite waitresses), she cooks yummy and fattening meals! One evening, we had marinated pork chops and mashed potatoes and veggies. Another night, we had baked steak with all of the trimmings. She also fixed homemade chicken salad for one lunch and American goulash for another...and of course a wonderful brunch on Sunday. I never come home lighter than I went! She doesn't cut corners with the butter or the mayo. Hence, everything tastes wonderful!! When we ate out, we did Mario's (Italian), Applebee's (in Jacksonville, at least 40 minutes away), The Barrelhead (lunch)...and am I forgetting one? My senior brain is failing to remember if there was another. We also ate at my niece's one night. (Good food, but everything was swimming in butter!)
Shari and hubby recently purchased a 2015 Tahoe. They already had a nice one but decided to trade as their "last car" function. They have purchased their last several vehicles (Corvettes and Tahoes) from Friendly Chevrolet in Springfield--a dealership that hosts the local Corvette Club of which Shari and Roger are members. They have a favorite salesman who has done right by them. Every time I head out on a trip to my daughter's in northern IL or my sister's in central IL, I worry if my aging car will make it. My Impala was 12 years old with much of the original equipment on it. It was needing new tires, had a dimpled fender, 187,000 miles, and was filthy, inside and out. A few months ago, I went about the business of taking a cash distribution on my retirement funds so I could begin the process of looking for a "new" car but hadn't begun the process because I didn't know where to start. I asked Shari to ask her salesman to look for me to see if they had anything that would work. Basically, all I wanted was a set of wheels with less than 100,000 miles on it to serve as my "last car", and set a price range. On Tuesday of this past week, we went to the dealership and met with the salesman. I had no thought that he'd be able to come up with anything, but I did take my car title just in case.
In short order, Salesman Joe brought out a 2008 Saturn with 104,000 miles on it. It was in my price range, but I was a bit discouraged thinking that anything in that range was going to have way too many miles to make me comfortable....so I told him I was going to exercise my female option and not buy the first car I test-drove. He went away for awhile longer and came back with a 2007 Saturn VUE SUV. I test drove it...and thought it said 105,200 miles....BUT...it turned out to be only 52,000+. That sold it! The price was $400 above the high end of my price range, but I quickly decided that I wasn't going to find another buggy that looked as good or had that kind of low mileage. There is virtually no damage on the body, and I think it will work well for me. There are issues--like I can't see anywhere to mount a 2-meter ham radio--but I now own a silver Saturn SUV with black and silver interior...and the shakedown cruise in heavy rain all the way home from Illinois proved it could run like a champ!
That afternoon, we went home and stripped the old car of radios and garage door opener, IPASS transponder, and extraneous junk. The next morning, I called my bank to transfer funds from savings to checking and called the insurance folk before we went to pick up my new wheels. Love it!
Thursday, we went for pedicures. I know a lot of women do pedicures just to have pretty toenails as they wear their sandals and flip-flops. For me, however, it's a different scenario. I can't reach all parts of my feet anymore, so getting my nails clipped is a big deal--plus the fact that the skin on my feet and legs is dry, dry, dry and flaky. Well! The pedicure was just what the doctor ordered! It wasn't that it felt all that good, but it was all about the fact that the above listed problems got taken care of in that one visit! I decided that if I can find a spot here at home that will do all of that for the same price as in Springfield, I'll do the pedicure thing every couple of months. It's worth it!!
Friday, we canned peaches that I brought from Indiana. We probably should have done them earlier in the week because they were getting mushy, but I think they'll taste fine. Poor Shari. We used all of her equipment and messed up her kitchen just for this project (for me)...but it beats trying to do it all alone at home! Thanks, Sis!
The rest of the visit, besides having our nice talks, etc., I got to see all but one faction of the family. It was especially nice to see my cousin Betsy whom I haven't seen in years. I'm sure my sister has to be exhausted, but she holds up well (better than me even though she is older)! I came home feeling so much better than I did when I went!
Thank you, dear sister, for your help and hospitality. You are the best!
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Let There Be Light?
How hard can it be to buy a couple of lamps????
I have two matching lamps in the living room, purchased many years ago to grace my then-new end tables. They weren't exactly what you would expect me to buy, but I liked them and thought they fit the tables and space. Through the years, between the dog and the grandkids, they were knocked over a number of times. The original shades eventually got destroyed which caused me to use smaller substitutes that didn't really fit, but the lamps themselves seemed to be okay. That is, until a month ago.
A month ago, my grandchildren came for a week's visit. One evening, my grandson fell asleep on the couch, so I left him there for the night. He's a thrasher, but I didn't think about that. When I got up in the morning, the lamp on the end table near his head was on the floor, broken. The bulb was broken, the base was broken, the socket was bent way out of shape--basically, the lamp was not able to be saved. My mission, thereafter, was to find two more matching lamps for the living room and give away the one good old one that remained. How hard can that be? I have begun to find out!
About a week ago, my pension check came in, and since the cupboard was almost bare, I determined to shop at the new Meijer store in Plainfield for groceries and new lamps. There were a couple of lamps there (only two) that I somewhat liked, so I put them in my cart, then picked two shades of the mix 'n match variety that said they would go with the lamps. Took them home to unpack a couple of days later. Uh oh...no harps! (In case you don't know what the harps are, I will explain that they are the metal arches that hold up the lamp shade.) I have never, ever bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp, so I went back to Meijer to complain. They told me that harps are sold separately these days. All I had to do was go back to the lamp department to pick up a couple. Which I did...but the lamp harps didn't come anywhere close to matching the lamps--lamps were dark brown burnished brass; the harps were silverish brushed stainless...plus they added $10 to the cost of the lamps. Wow.
I was still determined to make it all come together. When I put one of the harps on one of the lamps, then tried to put a lamp shade on, it would not work! The hole in the frame of the lamp shade was bigger than the spot on the harp that would hold it. No way it would happen. Nothing to do but take it all back to Meijer.
I did that today. I told the gal at the Customer Service Desk that this was a bigger problem than merely giving me my money back and restocking the shelves. They were going to have more customer concerns based on the fact that the harps and lamp shades don't match the lamps that they are selling, but I took my money and went to Target to see what lamp offerings they had. (Unfortunately, not much. Their lamps were uglier; their harps also not matching and more expensive!) I could have shopped elsewhere, but my stamina was already taxed. I went home empty-handed.
I guess I'm a little bit shocked about where things have gone in the whole lamp thing. I've never, ever, bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp. And I've always trusted the mix 'n match thing, whereby the vendors promised stuff would go together. Yeah, right!
Why am I writing about this? Just so you'll be aware. Unless you are someone who can purchase the high-dollar items where illumination is concerned, you are subject to the same surprises as I. Once bitten, twice shy!
I have two matching lamps in the living room, purchased many years ago to grace my then-new end tables. They weren't exactly what you would expect me to buy, but I liked them and thought they fit the tables and space. Through the years, between the dog and the grandkids, they were knocked over a number of times. The original shades eventually got destroyed which caused me to use smaller substitutes that didn't really fit, but the lamps themselves seemed to be okay. That is, until a month ago.
A month ago, my grandchildren came for a week's visit. One evening, my grandson fell asleep on the couch, so I left him there for the night. He's a thrasher, but I didn't think about that. When I got up in the morning, the lamp on the end table near his head was on the floor, broken. The bulb was broken, the base was broken, the socket was bent way out of shape--basically, the lamp was not able to be saved. My mission, thereafter, was to find two more matching lamps for the living room and give away the one good old one that remained. How hard can that be? I have begun to find out!
About a week ago, my pension check came in, and since the cupboard was almost bare, I determined to shop at the new Meijer store in Plainfield for groceries and new lamps. There were a couple of lamps there (only two) that I somewhat liked, so I put them in my cart, then picked two shades of the mix 'n match variety that said they would go with the lamps. Took them home to unpack a couple of days later. Uh oh...no harps! (In case you don't know what the harps are, I will explain that they are the metal arches that hold up the lamp shade.) I have never, ever bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp, so I went back to Meijer to complain. They told me that harps are sold separately these days. All I had to do was go back to the lamp department to pick up a couple. Which I did...but the lamp harps didn't come anywhere close to matching the lamps--lamps were dark brown burnished brass; the harps were silverish brushed stainless...plus they added $10 to the cost of the lamps. Wow.
I was still determined to make it all come together. When I put one of the harps on one of the lamps, then tried to put a lamp shade on, it would not work! The hole in the frame of the lamp shade was bigger than the spot on the harp that would hold it. No way it would happen. Nothing to do but take it all back to Meijer.
I did that today. I told the gal at the Customer Service Desk that this was a bigger problem than merely giving me my money back and restocking the shelves. They were going to have more customer concerns based on the fact that the harps and lamp shades don't match the lamps that they are selling, but I took my money and went to Target to see what lamp offerings they had. (Unfortunately, not much. Their lamps were uglier; their harps also not matching and more expensive!) I could have shopped elsewhere, but my stamina was already taxed. I went home empty-handed.
I guess I'm a little bit shocked about where things have gone in the whole lamp thing. I've never, ever, bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp. And I've always trusted the mix 'n match thing, whereby the vendors promised stuff would go together. Yeah, right!
Why am I writing about this? Just so you'll be aware. Unless you are someone who can purchase the high-dollar items where illumination is concerned, you are subject to the same surprises as I. Once bitten, twice shy!
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Homosexual or Homo Sapien?
Look...I'm not a homosexual. In fact, I am somewhat disgusted by the things that my mind imagines that go on in the bedrooms of homosexuals, but the fact is that I probably would be equally disgusted if I could peek into the bedrooms of heterosexuals. Kinky sex was not invented by the gay folk in our midst. I don't approve of the bondage/dominatrix thing, but I also don't particularly want to see laws to stop it. What would be the point? If two consenting adults do what they do behind closed doors, who am I to say them nay?
I am one of those who believes that gay folks are hard-wired to their sexuality from birth, and I think science will eventually prove me right. Unfortunately, we aren't there yet. The conservative Christians among us still believe that homosexuality is a choice. Can you imagine a single person on the planet who would want to put him/herself on the firing line by choice? Gender identity usually shows up in junior high or earlier to everyone else, but each homosexual person I have talked to (several) said they knew much younger. Yeah...every child wants to be a societal outcast among peers.
Indiana--God bless its Bible Belt roots--has lost a court battle to ban same-sex marriage, and the governor has decided to take it to the Supreme Court. The SC can refuse to review the case. We'll see. Meanwhile, it is obvious to ME that the case, should it be reviewed, will lose. Sooo much tax money down the drain, but at least the Gov. can tell his conservative constituents, "See? We tried, but the court shut us down. Not my fault!" It's all about politics. In twenty years, long after I'm dead and gone, people can look back at this and understand that things were different then, in the same way that things were different twenty years ago.
I just get really, really weary of dealing with the nonsense. For what it's worth, I'm rooting for the gay community to win the right to marry. Government should NOT be involved in the bedroom. If you disagree, take heart that the laws can be manipulated to change your life, too. It's all about understanding.
I am one of those who believes that gay folks are hard-wired to their sexuality from birth, and I think science will eventually prove me right. Unfortunately, we aren't there yet. The conservative Christians among us still believe that homosexuality is a choice. Can you imagine a single person on the planet who would want to put him/herself on the firing line by choice? Gender identity usually shows up in junior high or earlier to everyone else, but each homosexual person I have talked to (several) said they knew much younger. Yeah...every child wants to be a societal outcast among peers.
Indiana--God bless its Bible Belt roots--has lost a court battle to ban same-sex marriage, and the governor has decided to take it to the Supreme Court. The SC can refuse to review the case. We'll see. Meanwhile, it is obvious to ME that the case, should it be reviewed, will lose. Sooo much tax money down the drain, but at least the Gov. can tell his conservative constituents, "See? We tried, but the court shut us down. Not my fault!" It's all about politics. In twenty years, long after I'm dead and gone, people can look back at this and understand that things were different then, in the same way that things were different twenty years ago.
I just get really, really weary of dealing with the nonsense. For what it's worth, I'm rooting for the gay community to win the right to marry. Government should NOT be involved in the bedroom. If you disagree, take heart that the laws can be manipulated to change your life, too. It's all about understanding.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Household Archeology
I feel like I'm on an archeological dig. Every day, I am unearthing some new artifact in my house, all of which relate to my grandchildren's latest visit. The kids went home three weeks ago. If I were a better housekeeper or less disabled, these discoveries would have been taken care of by now. Unfortunately, I'm slow, so the treasures just keep on appearing.
I've already written about the black sock that Ryan left behind just under the couch in the living room. Then there was the pair of underwear that I told Ryan to pack at least twice, but after he had gone, it was still on the floor of his room. (One look told me why he didn't pack it. The reason has to do with bathroom hygiene...and I'll leave it at that.) I THOUGHT I had found everything, but noooo...
Wednesday morning of this week, I glanced into Robin's room, which I had already done several times since the kids were here. She had left her bed somewhat unmade. Her bedclothes are white, but my eye fell on something draped over one of the posts of the footboard of her bed--something I had believed was just a sheet but actually looked more beige than white. When I picked it up, it turned out to be one of the four precious t-shirts that I had taken her to buy at Hot Topic when she was here. These t-shirts all had names of her favorite bands on them, and she was quite eager to get them home to wear to school--but here was one of them, left behind at Grandma's house. Did she even miss it? Nothing about it had been mentioned. I grabbed a small box and shipped it up to her mother's house so she could have it this weekend when she got there. Turns out she knew she couldn't find the t-shirt but hadn't realized that she had left it here.
I thought surely I was done with the discoveries of buried treasure. Au contraire! This morning, while picking up some trash that had found its way out of the wastebasket next to my computer "nest", I found what was left of an open bag of butterscotch chips--right under the chair where Robin always sits. That bag had been in the refrigerator for quite awhile, but here it was, quite unceremoniously stashed where Grandma wouldn't see it quickly. Needless to say, the chips have now gone the way of the rest of the trash in the house. It's a wonder I didn't get bugs!!
It seems that the household archeology works both ways. The children leave things here, but they apparently also take things from here. Just yesterday, my daughter sent me an Instant Message saying she had found a beige bath towel in her laundry and wondered if it could be mine. I described it, then counted what I have (I only own six bath towels), and sure enough, it's mine. I think that towel had been in Ryan's bedroom here after his shower, and he just packed it, thinking it was a beach towel. (Who knows?) Then, too, she had found two beach towels that she didn't recognize and wondered if those, too, were mine...but no, the kids came with those from their other home. It gets complicated.
There are other perils of travel. There was the time that I was leaving my daughter's and couldn't find the bag that stores my sleeping bag. I finally just crammed the sleeping bag into a garbage bag and asked Meg to save the missing bag for me when she found it. I asked about it several times. The last time I asked, she said, "I brought it to you when we were there last time." Uh...no. Didn't happen. I had just about resigned myself to having to purchase some kind of a duffel to put the sleeping bag in since the carrying bag had been missing for months and months. And then, on my last trip up to her house, we were going through a box, and there it was! Likewise, Meg lost a pair of support hose that she wears in the car for her trips here. She swore they were at my house, somewhere, but I looked and looked to no avail. Finally, they were found--also months later--at the very bottom of a pocket of her suitcase. Eureka!
I'm hoping that there won't be any more remnants of the grandchildren's last visit that will remind me of my slowness, but I haven't finished cleaning yet. Who knows what could still lie buried in this house? How far down will I have to dig before I hit the ruins of the ancient civilization that used to be my home???
I've already written about the black sock that Ryan left behind just under the couch in the living room. Then there was the pair of underwear that I told Ryan to pack at least twice, but after he had gone, it was still on the floor of his room. (One look told me why he didn't pack it. The reason has to do with bathroom hygiene...and I'll leave it at that.) I THOUGHT I had found everything, but noooo...
Wednesday morning of this week, I glanced into Robin's room, which I had already done several times since the kids were here. She had left her bed somewhat unmade. Her bedclothes are white, but my eye fell on something draped over one of the posts of the footboard of her bed--something I had believed was just a sheet but actually looked more beige than white. When I picked it up, it turned out to be one of the four precious t-shirts that I had taken her to buy at Hot Topic when she was here. These t-shirts all had names of her favorite bands on them, and she was quite eager to get them home to wear to school--but here was one of them, left behind at Grandma's house. Did she even miss it? Nothing about it had been mentioned. I grabbed a small box and shipped it up to her mother's house so she could have it this weekend when she got there. Turns out she knew she couldn't find the t-shirt but hadn't realized that she had left it here.
I thought surely I was done with the discoveries of buried treasure. Au contraire! This morning, while picking up some trash that had found its way out of the wastebasket next to my computer "nest", I found what was left of an open bag of butterscotch chips--right under the chair where Robin always sits. That bag had been in the refrigerator for quite awhile, but here it was, quite unceremoniously stashed where Grandma wouldn't see it quickly. Needless to say, the chips have now gone the way of the rest of the trash in the house. It's a wonder I didn't get bugs!!
It seems that the household archeology works both ways. The children leave things here, but they apparently also take things from here. Just yesterday, my daughter sent me an Instant Message saying she had found a beige bath towel in her laundry and wondered if it could be mine. I described it, then counted what I have (I only own six bath towels), and sure enough, it's mine. I think that towel had been in Ryan's bedroom here after his shower, and he just packed it, thinking it was a beach towel. (Who knows?) Then, too, she had found two beach towels that she didn't recognize and wondered if those, too, were mine...but no, the kids came with those from their other home. It gets complicated.
There are other perils of travel. There was the time that I was leaving my daughter's and couldn't find the bag that stores my sleeping bag. I finally just crammed the sleeping bag into a garbage bag and asked Meg to save the missing bag for me when she found it. I asked about it several times. The last time I asked, she said, "I brought it to you when we were there last time." Uh...no. Didn't happen. I had just about resigned myself to having to purchase some kind of a duffel to put the sleeping bag in since the carrying bag had been missing for months and months. And then, on my last trip up to her house, we were going through a box, and there it was! Likewise, Meg lost a pair of support hose that she wears in the car for her trips here. She swore they were at my house, somewhere, but I looked and looked to no avail. Finally, they were found--also months later--at the very bottom of a pocket of her suitcase. Eureka!
I'm hoping that there won't be any more remnants of the grandchildren's last visit that will remind me of my slowness, but I haven't finished cleaning yet. Who knows what could still lie buried in this house? How far down will I have to dig before I hit the ruins of the ancient civilization that used to be my home???
Thursday, September 4, 2014
"We're Just Playing."
I can hear my mother saying it now, and I have often repeated it myself whenever shenanigans were going on: "Stop that. Somebody's going to get hurt." Nawww...we're just playing. Slam, bam, crash...Waaaaahhhhh! Were Mom and I psychic? No. It's just something that comes with experience, knowing that what starts out innocently enough usually ends up in tears and bandaids.
My daughter and her best friend, Tiffany, would get to horsing around. One such event cost me a trip to the ER with my accident-prone daughter; another cost me $50 for a new bicycle tire. "We're just playing!"
My daughter and her father were throwing a ball at each other in the family room. I told them to stop before something or someone got broken. "We're just playing." The very next throw, Daddy's glass of beer got hit with the ball and went flying, requiring major clean-up. Told ya!
My grandchildren would start out with a tickle-fest...but then someone would get hit in the mouth, and it hurt, which made one of them mad, and the fight was on for real. My admonitions when it was still tickling would fall on deaf ears. "We're just playing." My response always was, "Somebody's going to get hurt." Invariably, someone or something would.
Same thing at school. What the students would describe as "play fighting" would escalate into the real thing in short order. "Senior pranks" were often cute and creative--like the student's locker that was filled with thousands of marbles that scattered all over the hallway and down the stairs when the kid opened his locker in the morning. Then there was the time that one of Monrovia's honor students took part in a "prank" where the office door locks were super-glued shut and very liquid pig manure was smeared all over an entire bank of lockers, requiring a delay to the start of the school day while custodians and teachers alike (I was one of them) were all cleaning up lockers with bleach. Yeah...it was just a prank. "We were just playing."
Our school also had a Powder Puff Football contest during Homecoming Week each year, until one occasion when the girls that took part decided to get cute with the staff sponsors and started dumping things all over them. It got nasty and disrespectful. Thereafter, the Powder Puff games were canceled for years. (Not sure if they were ever reinstated.) Same thing with what started as an impromptu water balloon fight in the band practice field beyond the parking lot at the end of the very last day of school. It was great fun, but every year, kids got a little more serious about what they were putting in their balloons. It got to the point that the administration started video taping it from the roof of the school, along with staff stationed all around, watching to make sure that cars weren't damaged and people weren't hurt. But, inevitably, some were...and that was the end of the water balloon fight, forever.
So now, here we are again. What started out as a good idea has been bastardized by a few to spoil the spirit of things. Perhaps you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge, which started out as a fundraising idea for Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease). The crux of the challenge was that people who were nominated (or "challenged") by their friends had 24 hours to have a bucket of ice water dumped over them and donate $10 to ALS, or, if they didn't take the challenge, they were supposed to donate $100. Suddenly, Facebook and the Internet were awash with videos of people getting doused with water. (Not sure how many actually donated, but it looked good anyway.) At its height, the IBC raised $100 million for ALS. BUT--did you predict this?--some students in Ohio thought they would improve on what started out as a creative way to raise money. They picked a classmate with autism and got him to agree to take the challenge, except the so-called water they dumped on him contained feces, urine, and spit. The kids now face legal charges, and the whole Ice Bucket Challenge has been tainted by the stupidity of a few who were "only playing".
I'm still shaking my head over this one...
My daughter and her best friend, Tiffany, would get to horsing around. One such event cost me a trip to the ER with my accident-prone daughter; another cost me $50 for a new bicycle tire. "We're just playing!"
My daughter and her father were throwing a ball at each other in the family room. I told them to stop before something or someone got broken. "We're just playing." The very next throw, Daddy's glass of beer got hit with the ball and went flying, requiring major clean-up. Told ya!
My grandchildren would start out with a tickle-fest...but then someone would get hit in the mouth, and it hurt, which made one of them mad, and the fight was on for real. My admonitions when it was still tickling would fall on deaf ears. "We're just playing." My response always was, "Somebody's going to get hurt." Invariably, someone or something would.
Same thing at school. What the students would describe as "play fighting" would escalate into the real thing in short order. "Senior pranks" were often cute and creative--like the student's locker that was filled with thousands of marbles that scattered all over the hallway and down the stairs when the kid opened his locker in the morning. Then there was the time that one of Monrovia's honor students took part in a "prank" where the office door locks were super-glued shut and very liquid pig manure was smeared all over an entire bank of lockers, requiring a delay to the start of the school day while custodians and teachers alike (I was one of them) were all cleaning up lockers with bleach. Yeah...it was just a prank. "We were just playing."
Our school also had a Powder Puff Football contest during Homecoming Week each year, until one occasion when the girls that took part decided to get cute with the staff sponsors and started dumping things all over them. It got nasty and disrespectful. Thereafter, the Powder Puff games were canceled for years. (Not sure if they were ever reinstated.) Same thing with what started as an impromptu water balloon fight in the band practice field beyond the parking lot at the end of the very last day of school. It was great fun, but every year, kids got a little more serious about what they were putting in their balloons. It got to the point that the administration started video taping it from the roof of the school, along with staff stationed all around, watching to make sure that cars weren't damaged and people weren't hurt. But, inevitably, some were...and that was the end of the water balloon fight, forever.
So now, here we are again. What started out as a good idea has been bastardized by a few to spoil the spirit of things. Perhaps you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge, which started out as a fundraising idea for Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease). The crux of the challenge was that people who were nominated (or "challenged") by their friends had 24 hours to have a bucket of ice water dumped over them and donate $10 to ALS, or, if they didn't take the challenge, they were supposed to donate $100. Suddenly, Facebook and the Internet were awash with videos of people getting doused with water. (Not sure how many actually donated, but it looked good anyway.) At its height, the IBC raised $100 million for ALS. BUT--did you predict this?--some students in Ohio thought they would improve on what started out as a creative way to raise money. They picked a classmate with autism and got him to agree to take the challenge, except the so-called water they dumped on him contained feces, urine, and spit. The kids now face legal charges, and the whole Ice Bucket Challenge has been tainted by the stupidity of a few who were "only playing".
I'm still shaking my head over this one...
Who Do I Think I Am?
There is a show on television that airs on a particular channel every once in awhile called Who Do You Think You Are? The basis of the show is that of celebrities seeking their genealogical roots (with a lot of help), and making some conclusion about themselves based on what they find. The quest takes them to several locations all around this US and overseas. When it's on, I don't watch all of the episodes, largely because I don't know or have any interest in the celebrities being featured, but once in awhile I will take a particular interest in one. Last week, I saw one that featured Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier fame) that I found interesting. A couple of others have caught my attention, as well.
I think the show is highly scripted because, as I have found in my own genealogical escapades, it just "don't" happen as easily as the show makes it appear...and in every case, someone else has done the archival legwork. Ha! I could do that, too, if I wanted to pay a genealogist to TRY to find information that might not even exist, but if nothing were found in the case of the show, there would be no episode to watch. The network would have to abort that episode.
Here is the pattern for the show:
1. A celebrity meets with a parent or other family member who shows him/her one or more pictures of a particular ancestor with some family lore about that ancestor, which starts the quest of finding information.
2. The celebrity starts out in an historical society or county seat somewhere near the origins of the ancestor in question and sits down with an historian or genealogist in front of a laptop computer, searching on Ancestry.com for clues as a jumping off place for the quest for information.
3. The celebrity travels from place to place throughout the country and overseas, based on clues obtained from the last place, to talk to other historians/archivists about the ancestor.
4. The genealogist at each location presents books or documents--and sometimes hand-written letters, etc.--that give a little more information about the ancestor and his/her life.
5. The celebrity ends up, alone, in a cemetery or a field or a highway where the ancestor once lived or traveled, musing about what life must have been like for the ancestor and his/her motivation for doing what he/she did in life.
6. Sometimes, the celebrity ends up back at home with the parent or other family members from the beginning of the show in order to report what was found in the search.
Easy, right? Not so much! I've already mentioned that archivists don't do genealogy research for free. (If they did, they would be swamped with requests to look up Great-Great-Grandpa Harley or someone else of minor import in the grand scheme of things.) Here are some of the other pitfalls of doing genealogy searches--and I'm only hitting on a few of them:
1. Name duplications. Do you have a clue how many Davids and Johns and Josephs there are/were in the world, or how many generations name their children after family members? Combine that with a common sir name, and you already have a research problem on the very first level. Is this Joseph Armstrong from a couple centuries ago my grandfather, my uncle, or my cousin? It takes quite a bit more research to figure out! (I love it when ancestors name their children something less common. My daughter has a relative whose first name was Greenberry!)
2. Mistakes. Mistakes? Surely census records and other documents don't have mistakes. Say it ain't so! Sadly, it is--everything from misspelled names to inaccuracies that are reported to the census taker as truth. I have a relative that was listed on a census as a child of my grandmother's who was, in reality, one of her grandchildren. I have another relative whose tombstone shows her to be Mary Ellen Corron, when in fact, her last name was Curn. It was changed at the whim of the daughter who bought the stone. (Long story.) Then there are the Bryans of Kentucky...also spelled Bryant and who knows how many other ways?! The family Bible shows one of my relatives as "Amanda Elizabeth" when all of the other records show her as "Elizabeth Amanda." Can't even believe the Bible on this one! Dates can be wrong. Names can be wrong. Even places of birth can be wrong. And so it goes...
3. Dead ends. There are a lot of details of the lives of the ancestors featured on the TV show that were simply assumed or filled in by the archivists. They are probably very good, educated guesses, but no documentation can or will ever be found to prove them. It is frustrating, at best--especially so for someone who is as curious as I and wants to recreate some events in order to understand what made some of my ancestors tick. My grandmother, for instance, was born out of wedlock at the Carroll County Poor House, near Savannah, Illinois. This was a secret that she took to her grave. It was decades after her death before I/we found out the truth. What she told her children--which was either what she was told and believed or something she fabricated in order to hide her humble beginnings--was that her father was killed in an accident when she was two years old. His name was rumored to be Peter Morgan or John Peter Morgan, but my great-grandmother entered the Poor House under her maiden name in order to have her baby, and my grandmother's birth was recorded there also under her mother's maiden name. Was there really a John Peter Morgan? We'll never know. I don't know how they came to be in Carroll County or how long they were there before moving on to Wisconsin. We have no place to start in trying to find Mr. Morgan, and no way of knowing if any Mr. Morgan we should find was actually my great-grandfather, since he had nothing to do with the family. Dead end.
4. Broken, unreadable, or missing tombstones. Old cemeteries--particularly those that are small and in the back of a property rather than in a dedicated spot--can get overgrown. Old tombstones get lost in the foliage of the place, or get broken and removed from the grave to a safer spot up against a tree somewhere else in the cemetery, or erode to become unreadable. Or sometimes, the family that buried its loved one couldn't afford a proper marker for the grave. A year or so ago, my daughter and I spent the better part of an afternoon traipsing through cemeteries in a couple of tiny little Illinois towns looking for the graves of my father's parents (not buried together). We had documents to show that they were buried there, but after hours of searching, could find nothing. (Later, a genealogist offered to send a lady who knows the cemeteries well to look again for us. She confirmed that there were no grave markers for them. I wish I were a rich person and could afford to buy tombstones for them!) My daughter has a direct-line ancestor who fought and died of disease at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. No one seems to know where those men are buried. Likewise, I had an uncle in the generation preceeding my grandmother's who died at the Jacksonville State Hospital (for the insane) in Illinois. His unmarked grave is somewhere over there in a grassy area where many are buried.
I get lost in all of this because I find it so fascinating, but also frustrating. I have no clue how people succeeded in doing genealogical research before the days of the Internet! In all of my searches, most of which have been greatly enhanced by my daughter's efforts and knowledge, I've had three moments of reverence and revelation. The first came when I found the Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where some of my Armstrong ancestors joined the Revolutionary War effort. And there, in the churchyard cemetery, was the grave of Joseph Armstrong whom I thought was a grandfather of mine. It was a beautiful day. I stood at the foot of the slab that marked his resting place and talked to him. I told him that I hoped he would be proud of the family that became his descendants, had he ever known us. It was an emotional couple of minutes for me, like standing in the face of greatness.
The second moment came after my daughter scanned a very, very faded old family picture on her computer. I'd had the picture for decades and had seen what was common in those days--my great-great-grandfather sitting in a chair in front of a house, with my grandmother as a child standing next to him. What I hadn't seen before because of the faded nature of the picture was a detail that only showed up with the computer enhancement: at a side door by the back of the house stood a woman on crutches (my disabled great-grandmother) and a tall, bearded man (her husband??) with a basket of laundry at the clothes line. Wow! What a moment of discovery! My great-grandmother had been in that picture all along, looking toward the camera--at me! I was awestruck. Can't explain it.
The third moment came with the discovery of my grandmother's humble birth. That happened almost by accident. My grandmother had told me, years before she died in 1975, that her birth records had been lost in a fire when the Carroll County Courthouse (Illinois) had burned down. I never inquired about why she was in Carroll County since her family was from Tazewell County, and she had later been raised in Wisconsin, but "Carroll County" stuck in my mind. Just a few years ago, with the advent of the Internet, I looked up the Carroll County Courthouse. And there it was in all it's red-brick splendor. It dated back to 1859 and had never burned. (My grandmother was born in 1890.) I reported this to my daughter on Instant Messenger, and what seemed like only a few minutes later, Megan had found the records of the Almshouse (Poor House), with my grandmother's birth recorded. Her mother had been admitted, "crippled and in the family way". I was struck dumb. A great family mystery was solved. It was there all along. We just had to find it. My grandmother was orphaned by age 12. I'm quite certain that she worked hard all her life to hide the circumstances of her birth, fearing that people would think less of her. She was a proud woman...but knowing the truth only made me love and admire her more for all of the obstacles she had overcome in life.
I would love to have a situation like that TV show in which archivists are doing the legwork for me. I have so many questions about some of my ancestors, most of which will probably never get answered--but it's so much fun to try! Unfortunately, since I'm not a celebrity, people wouldn't watch a show about my family, no matter how fascinating I think it is. So much for that!!
Who do I think I am? I'm still trying to find out!
I think the show is highly scripted because, as I have found in my own genealogical escapades, it just "don't" happen as easily as the show makes it appear...and in every case, someone else has done the archival legwork. Ha! I could do that, too, if I wanted to pay a genealogist to TRY to find information that might not even exist, but if nothing were found in the case of the show, there would be no episode to watch. The network would have to abort that episode.
Here is the pattern for the show:
1. A celebrity meets with a parent or other family member who shows him/her one or more pictures of a particular ancestor with some family lore about that ancestor, which starts the quest of finding information.
2. The celebrity starts out in an historical society or county seat somewhere near the origins of the ancestor in question and sits down with an historian or genealogist in front of a laptop computer, searching on Ancestry.com for clues as a jumping off place for the quest for information.
3. The celebrity travels from place to place throughout the country and overseas, based on clues obtained from the last place, to talk to other historians/archivists about the ancestor.
4. The genealogist at each location presents books or documents--and sometimes hand-written letters, etc.--that give a little more information about the ancestor and his/her life.
5. The celebrity ends up, alone, in a cemetery or a field or a highway where the ancestor once lived or traveled, musing about what life must have been like for the ancestor and his/her motivation for doing what he/she did in life.
6. Sometimes, the celebrity ends up back at home with the parent or other family members from the beginning of the show in order to report what was found in the search.
Easy, right? Not so much! I've already mentioned that archivists don't do genealogy research for free. (If they did, they would be swamped with requests to look up Great-Great-Grandpa Harley or someone else of minor import in the grand scheme of things.) Here are some of the other pitfalls of doing genealogy searches--and I'm only hitting on a few of them:
1. Name duplications. Do you have a clue how many Davids and Johns and Josephs there are/were in the world, or how many generations name their children after family members? Combine that with a common sir name, and you already have a research problem on the very first level. Is this Joseph Armstrong from a couple centuries ago my grandfather, my uncle, or my cousin? It takes quite a bit more research to figure out! (I love it when ancestors name their children something less common. My daughter has a relative whose first name was Greenberry!)
2. Mistakes. Mistakes? Surely census records and other documents don't have mistakes. Say it ain't so! Sadly, it is--everything from misspelled names to inaccuracies that are reported to the census taker as truth. I have a relative that was listed on a census as a child of my grandmother's who was, in reality, one of her grandchildren. I have another relative whose tombstone shows her to be Mary Ellen Corron, when in fact, her last name was Curn. It was changed at the whim of the daughter who bought the stone. (Long story.) Then there are the Bryans of Kentucky...also spelled Bryant and who knows how many other ways?! The family Bible shows one of my relatives as "Amanda Elizabeth" when all of the other records show her as "Elizabeth Amanda." Can't even believe the Bible on this one! Dates can be wrong. Names can be wrong. Even places of birth can be wrong. And so it goes...
3. Dead ends. There are a lot of details of the lives of the ancestors featured on the TV show that were simply assumed or filled in by the archivists. They are probably very good, educated guesses, but no documentation can or will ever be found to prove them. It is frustrating, at best--especially so for someone who is as curious as I and wants to recreate some events in order to understand what made some of my ancestors tick. My grandmother, for instance, was born out of wedlock at the Carroll County Poor House, near Savannah, Illinois. This was a secret that she took to her grave. It was decades after her death before I/we found out the truth. What she told her children--which was either what she was told and believed or something she fabricated in order to hide her humble beginnings--was that her father was killed in an accident when she was two years old. His name was rumored to be Peter Morgan or John Peter Morgan, but my great-grandmother entered the Poor House under her maiden name in order to have her baby, and my grandmother's birth was recorded there also under her mother's maiden name. Was there really a John Peter Morgan? We'll never know. I don't know how they came to be in Carroll County or how long they were there before moving on to Wisconsin. We have no place to start in trying to find Mr. Morgan, and no way of knowing if any Mr. Morgan we should find was actually my great-grandfather, since he had nothing to do with the family. Dead end.
4. Broken, unreadable, or missing tombstones. Old cemeteries--particularly those that are small and in the back of a property rather than in a dedicated spot--can get overgrown. Old tombstones get lost in the foliage of the place, or get broken and removed from the grave to a safer spot up against a tree somewhere else in the cemetery, or erode to become unreadable. Or sometimes, the family that buried its loved one couldn't afford a proper marker for the grave. A year or so ago, my daughter and I spent the better part of an afternoon traipsing through cemeteries in a couple of tiny little Illinois towns looking for the graves of my father's parents (not buried together). We had documents to show that they were buried there, but after hours of searching, could find nothing. (Later, a genealogist offered to send a lady who knows the cemeteries well to look again for us. She confirmed that there were no grave markers for them. I wish I were a rich person and could afford to buy tombstones for them!) My daughter has a direct-line ancestor who fought and died of disease at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. No one seems to know where those men are buried. Likewise, I had an uncle in the generation preceeding my grandmother's who died at the Jacksonville State Hospital (for the insane) in Illinois. His unmarked grave is somewhere over there in a grassy area where many are buried.
I get lost in all of this because I find it so fascinating, but also frustrating. I have no clue how people succeeded in doing genealogical research before the days of the Internet! In all of my searches, most of which have been greatly enhanced by my daughter's efforts and knowledge, I've had three moments of reverence and revelation. The first came when I found the Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where some of my Armstrong ancestors joined the Revolutionary War effort. And there, in the churchyard cemetery, was the grave of Joseph Armstrong whom I thought was a grandfather of mine. It was a beautiful day. I stood at the foot of the slab that marked his resting place and talked to him. I told him that I hoped he would be proud of the family that became his descendants, had he ever known us. It was an emotional couple of minutes for me, like standing in the face of greatness.
The second moment came after my daughter scanned a very, very faded old family picture on her computer. I'd had the picture for decades and had seen what was common in those days--my great-great-grandfather sitting in a chair in front of a house, with my grandmother as a child standing next to him. What I hadn't seen before because of the faded nature of the picture was a detail that only showed up with the computer enhancement: at a side door by the back of the house stood a woman on crutches (my disabled great-grandmother) and a tall, bearded man (her husband??) with a basket of laundry at the clothes line. Wow! What a moment of discovery! My great-grandmother had been in that picture all along, looking toward the camera--at me! I was awestruck. Can't explain it.
The third moment came with the discovery of my grandmother's humble birth. That happened almost by accident. My grandmother had told me, years before she died in 1975, that her birth records had been lost in a fire when the Carroll County Courthouse (Illinois) had burned down. I never inquired about why she was in Carroll County since her family was from Tazewell County, and she had later been raised in Wisconsin, but "Carroll County" stuck in my mind. Just a few years ago, with the advent of the Internet, I looked up the Carroll County Courthouse. And there it was in all it's red-brick splendor. It dated back to 1859 and had never burned. (My grandmother was born in 1890.) I reported this to my daughter on Instant Messenger, and what seemed like only a few minutes later, Megan had found the records of the Almshouse (Poor House), with my grandmother's birth recorded. Her mother had been admitted, "crippled and in the family way". I was struck dumb. A great family mystery was solved. It was there all along. We just had to find it. My grandmother was orphaned by age 12. I'm quite certain that she worked hard all her life to hide the circumstances of her birth, fearing that people would think less of her. She was a proud woman...but knowing the truth only made me love and admire her more for all of the obstacles she had overcome in life.
I would love to have a situation like that TV show in which archivists are doing the legwork for me. I have so many questions about some of my ancestors, most of which will probably never get answered--but it's so much fun to try! Unfortunately, since I'm not a celebrity, people wouldn't watch a show about my family, no matter how fascinating I think it is. So much for that!!
Who do I think I am? I'm still trying to find out!
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