Game addiction

A number of friends seem to be addicted to the games you can play competitively on Facebook. Others play bridge on the internet with real people. The number of games that adults can play on the computer are seemingly endless. I do several of them each morning just to see how sharp I am that day, but I don't usually sit and play them to see if I can beat someone or get a higher score than I did before. And, so, my internet time is spent more often in looking at new yarns and patterns and following chatter on knitting and crochet groups to discover new ideas.

However - perhaps I should put that in all caps - HOWEVER, Thursday evening we watched Jeopardy as our first TV program since returning from Baja California, and we didn't immediately turn it off after the program was over. Suddenly, I am caught up in this African American dude, a former football star, tracing his genealogy, and he used Ancestry.com at one point. Bad move for me.

So, we tired of that quickly and I moved to my computer where the first thing I did was to examine Ancestry.com. I was immediately addicted. Now this football star was also out interviewing people and looking at cemeteries and hiring good help in his search. I'm online and being amazed at what I can find. This is like a puzzle, and I do love puzzles.

First you put in what information you know. If you can get back before 1930, all the better. Then, the program begins giving you clues - places where that name is found in census records on file up to 1900, marriage records from many states, and more usually, other people's research and public family trees. A little green leaf appears with each "hint".

So, I entered some family information that I remembered (lots more is written down somewhere in my files and stored for safekeeping, LOL). I got several little green leaves, and I clicked on them. As I reviewed the information, I discovered what my grandmother's birth name probably was - she changed it somewhere before Social Security began. I had always heard that here birth name was something like Pamelia; presto, her grandmother was Permelia. Other family records listed her as M. Permelia - so, now I have my grandmother's birth name. Incidentally, she was called Mae most of her life.

I keep clicking on these little green leaves and following people from Maryland, briefly through Virginia, and into North Carolina and Georgia. I can see when they moved from Georgia into Mississippi. I can also see how many brothers and sisters died before they were a year old. I remember lots of little graves in our old family cemetery. And, now I can connect with who they were. I had little interest when we were there. All I wanted then was to see the tombstone for the man who had his amputated arm buried. We used to race to see who could find the graves of both the arm and the man to whom it had belonged.

Tonight as I wait for my antihistamine to work, I don't dare go to that website. Thursday night moved into Friday morning before I finally went to bed at 2 am. I lost most of Friday in sleep and more time on Ancestry.com. I am addicted to following those little green leaves. And, when they run out, I can take names that are apparently dead ends and look for clues in census, birth, marriage records. For instance, Mary Dozier Vick, born in 1775 seems to have no family records on this particular website. So, I began looking for the name Dozier in the area where she was born - lots of them, but all the Marys were married to people whose names I didn't recognize, and few of them had parents listed. But, I dutifully traced the parents of those possibilities until I determined that none of them belonged to my Mary Dozier Vick. My great-grandfather was Nathan Dozier Skelton; so I'm pretty sure that Mary is an ancestor and that Dozier is a family name.

I found pictures of tombstones in Mt. Pleasant cemetery, wherever that is, and census records and lots of people who are related distantly. However, I know I can add lots of data in some places because my Mom kept writing down names and dates and places and spouses and children. She would love this program absolutely - unfortunately, so does her daughter. I am addicted to this puzzle.

Some family names fade away - Skelton is probably a derivative of Shelton - and they fit the Irish/Scottish background that my grandfather Skelton claimed. Ralph Shelton, an Irishman, married a Scottish girl, and their son changed his name to Skelton - possibly due to poor handwriting. My uncle was Ralph Skelton, an echo to an Irishman who may have been our ancestor.

So, what does all this mean for me. I have to ration my time on this website, but, like the football star, I'm discovering more about who I am and what traits I have (like moving around a lot)that may have been inherited from long-dead ancestors. Do I know who I am? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not. But, the puzzle is fun. Maybe I'll go cemetery trekking one day. And, maybe I'll find Mom's notes someday.

Christmas stories

Growing up on a small farm in Mississippi in the 50s, we heated with wood stoves. The only time the living room was heated was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...and maybe the day we put up the tree. Seems like it was colder back then, but, of course, my Dad built the house out of green (unseasoned) wood and it crackled and popped as it dried - for years. Anyway.

The tree always went in the front window. We did string popcorn for it and used the fragile glass balls inherited from my grandmother. We always added things like the little mouse candle by tying a string around its middle. The 5 and 10 cent store where Mom worked also provided some red and silver balls. And, tinsel. Some years we were allowed to just throw it up and see where it landed. Other years we hung each strand piece by piece. But, in the earliest years, I remember that getting the strands of tinsel apart was almost impossible; so small globs were the rule of the day.

My brother and I were sent to bed at a reasonable time on Christmas Eve - usually some time after 10 pm because Mom had to work until 9 pm. Since we did not have a mantle, our stockings were pinned to the back of the sofa, and Santa arrived during the night to fill the stockings and lay out our unwrapped Santa gifts. Sometimes, we could hear noises in the living room after we went to bed, but we never got up, never peeked - especially after we realized that Mom was Santa and that she had to work until 9 pm, drive out into the country where we lived, feed us second supper and then put out all the gifts. After David and I were much older, Mom made us stay in the kitchen while she put out gifts; then we could have them. We all slept late on Christmas mornings then.

Of course, finding where she had hidden the gifts was a real challenge. She usually left the larger gifts at the store, hidden in the back among all the stock. But, our stockings were not always full; sometimes Mom forgot where she had hidden our stuff. When I was 15, we moved away from the farm and, in moving, found some coloring books that had been destined for our stockings when we were much younger - also some blunt pointed scissors and a few other things. What a laugh we had!

My Mom loved fine china and silverware even though we were "dirt poor". I usually got a plastic set of dishes and plastic or aluminum silverware. My first set had fluted edges on the dishes with flowers in the middle. I don't know how many sets of silverware I got but I have remnants of at least four. Finally, when my Dad was stationed in Cuba, I got a set of real china toy dishes. They had a deep red border with flowers, and I loved them. I still have them in the original box with not a single piece broken. That was the year that Mom got her Bavarian Linen tablecloth and a set of silver plate flatware...with daffodils. Getting real china took much longer for her. If I felt like ironing, we'd use that tablecloth for Christmas dinner, but the embroidery on it is so detailed that we had to hire someone to iron it when I got married.

My Uncle Lester and his wife Aunt Clyde loved me dearly. Aunt Clyde sewed beautifully, and she made a lot of my clothes. But, Uncle Lester was a farmer. He learned something of the carpentry trade the year I was six, and he made me a wooden stove. Each detail was carefully painted on and the door opened to reveal a wooden rack inside the oven. That year I got aluminum pots and pans with the baking pans being actually usable...still have at least one of those, too. Uncle Lester was kind and gentle hearted. He also made one for Mother's step-niece.

Aunt Edith also cared about me - I was the only granddaughter in the family. She gave me silk pajamas and then - one year she gave me a large jewelry box - black with two small and one large drawer and a top that opened with a mirror. It was not a gift for a child, but I loved it. And, I suspect that it's in one of those tubs in the garage marked "MM childhood junk". I used that jewelry box for years and years - well into my 50s.

One year, David got a horse for christmas. The horse arrived early in the Fall and David had learned to ride passably well enough for both of us to ride the horse. After Christmas one year, we rode down to Grandma Woods' house so that I could show her my new tea set. I didn't repack the tea set well, and it rattled loudly on the way home. The horse was spooked; David was a relatively new rider, and the horse dumped us. Mom was so frightened that she sold the horse. I cried and cried and apologized to David for making him lose his horse.

me with David's guitar

David wanted a guitar, and his first one was from Sears - a big ole thing with clef note holes. Later, after he learned to play well, Mom went to Memphis to the pawn shops on Beale Street and bought him the sweetest little Martin guitar. I've forgotten who went with her, but he was so pleased with it...and such a great sound. He and his two buddies, Jimmie and Jack, played for hours on our front porch or in the kitchen in winter. The only songs I remember from their practice was "Maybelline" and "Thunder Road", but they tried all the country/western songs. And, they played at Jimmie's pentecostal church on Sunday nights; so I learned a lot of good gospel songs.

Death

On Wednesday a friend in another city died after a long effort with cancer, but we couldn't find out any information until Saturday. Go, Annie, Go!!

On Sunday, an online friend committed suicide and left us a note on his private blog. May he find peace and acceptance.

Tomorrow is my mother's 91st birthday; I hope she's enjoying it in heaven; she didn't enjoy a lot in her lifetime.

I've been re-membering the people in my life who have died during this Lent. I don't want their memories to die for me. Some are pleasant; some are not. But, none deserve to be forgotten.

The bootlegger's son who taught me to shoot a bow; he died in a car accident shortly after we graduated from high school.

Kaffee, who prompted me to try for a loan for divinity school and helped me through the process - encouraging me all the way - from breast cancer a year later.

Alison, who was my pal in divinity school - the cigarettes eventually got her through metastasized cancer.

Tim, my next door neighbor in divinity school, who died of AIDS and left his walking cane by my door.

Chelsea, the organist at my wedding, who also died of AIDS and was ashamed to tell.

Bill, my godson, who was older than me, but called me "Mom" because I sponsored him for confirmation, a Vietnam vet who died of illnesses contracted there.

Debbie, a church friend, who let me walk her "helping dog" after the church service and became a special friend.

Bill, who put me on the road to good sobriety, good counseling, good medical help, and offered me his vulnerability in seeing his dark side - of prostate cancer.

David, my brother, who died needlessly in an accident on a oil line repair barge in the Gulf when I was 16 years and two weeks old.

Marty, my nephew, deaf after a baby illness, who committed suicide at age 34.

Sue, my sister-in-law, who tormented me through young adulthood and became my sister in the process - in an operation to repair a stomach ulcer.

Martha, a patient in the Alzheimer's Unit in Wallingford, CT, where I did my CPE - she forgot how to eat and I sat with her for two weeks.

Dixie, an elementary school buddy, whose mental illness finally caused her to end her life.

Aunt Clyde, who loved me and was ashamed to tell me that she had sclerosis of the liver because she didn't want me to think she drank - she did when she was young but not for many years.

My first husband's niece who died at birth because both her parents had used many drugs and she was born with a partial head.

The child who was buried in a pasture in a shoebox, wrapped in a new baby blanket that my Mom bought for the family.

Untimely deaths. Yet, one by one, I remember all that I can and hold them to the light, knowing that they live.