Horse Manure Park

When I was a kid, I remember looking through an old photo album that my parents used to have.  The pictures inside were black and white, full of unfamiliar faces.  One picture in particular always stood out to me and I often wondered who in the world that distinguished looking man was. The picture was obviously taken in a professional studio.  The man didn't have the rugged looks of a laborer or a farmer.  He had a thick mustache and heavy eyebrows under a nearly entirely bald head. He appeared comfortable in a suit.  He looked, for lack of a better word, wealthy . All I knew was his name.  Written below the picture, in neat but unfamiliar handwriting, was "Samuel Gray." Samuel Gray I remember asking Mom if I was named after him, but she said no, I wasn't.  She knew this was a relative on Dad's side of the family and the picture was very old, and my dad really never said much about the picture. Well, thanks to some rather relentless research

It's back to work tomorrow.  I am getting the itch to make myself useful again.  I can only be off work for so long and I need to do something.  I could not stay at home all day every day.  It's not for me. So today, since I had the day completely to myself, the task at hand was to do laundry.  And do laundry I did.  As I write this, every article of clothing in the house is clean, folded (mostly) and put away (kind of). My job here is done. While completing the menial task of washing clothes, I had the television on as a distraction.  As usual, since it's not football season, I dialed up Turner Classic Movies. The Singing Nun , starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban, was on, so I casually watched it while waiting for clothes to dry.  Aside from being a nauseating mellow drama, I knew enough about my 1960s music history to know it was based on a true story.  Yes, there really was a singing nun. In fact, we used to have a record of the Singing Nun's bi

The last couple times around the sun, this has been an unpleasant time of year. Last year at this time, we were preparing to go to the funeral of my mother's sister, Bev.   This year, we've just returned from the funeral of my wife's grandmother, celebrating 93 years of a life well-lived. Luckily, the weather was fine (you never know this time of year in North Dakota).  We spent good time with family, but it's always nice to come home.  As the Boy said last night, "I missed my house." At the funeral, my father-in-law delivered a very thoughtful, eloquent eulogy to his mother.  His words about the Greatest Generation were especially meaningful to me because my parents were of the same generation as his mom (my father was born in 1915, my mother in 1928).   Interestingly enough, I have been doing a great deal of research on my family tree over the past several weeks.  I've been receiving help from my cousins when I encounter sticking poin

DISCLAIMER:  If you're not interested in ancestry or family trees, you will want to skip this post; this won't be interesting to anyone other than my immediate family (and even then it might be a stretch to call it "interesting"), but that's okay.  It fascinates me and that's all that matters!   Get your own blog. It's funny how the little things in life can turn into the most unexpected and pleasant surprises. Case in point:  I was corresponding with my cousin, Debra, on Facebook a couple of weeks ago when she sent me this incredible piece of family history: my grandfather's World War I registration card. This card was fascinating to me for a couple of reasons.  First, I had never seen my grandfather's handwriting before.  Second, it solved a long-standing personal mystery for me.  I'll get to that in a  minute. There is no doubt in my mind that my dad never saw this; he was two years old when my grandfather filled i