October 8, 2018
“Three little children who were playing on the sidewalk near 118th Street and Seventh Avenue Tuesday afternoon jokingly shouted to two women riding in a ten-year-old automobile, ‘Get a horse! Get a horse!’
“A few seconds later they were frantically scrambling from the path of the old machine as apparently out of control, it plunged across the street toward them like a juggernaut.”
“There was a moment of silence and then from the front of the car…came the screams of a child.” Continue Reading
September 12, 2018
One thing I have struggled with while uncovering my family’s complicated past is the lack of consistency in naming conventions before the digital age.
In the Information Age, if you type in your name or ID with a single letter missing or out of place, your application gets rejected by whatever online program it is you’re trying to get access to. We all have numbers assigned to us—social security numbers, student numbers, worker numbers, case numbers, credit card numbers, you name it.
The past?
Thhppt. What’s a number? What’s a name? That which we would call a rose… Continue Reading
September 11, 2018
It has been said that men write history but women live it.
In my family, it’s also been the women who were the keepers of family history, the tellers of tales and stories. The saver of old photographs and documents.
Which is why I have this photograph of four generations of women who brought four different families into our lineage. Thank you, Aunt Linda, for saving it. Since they are gone, I have an obligation to tell their stories. Who are they? Continue Reading
September 6, 2018
Since I wrote about an ancestor on my father’s side (one of his side’s anyway) from the 1920s, I thought the next story to introduce should be from someone on my mother’s side, from roughly the same time period.
But one generation later. And with a theme of religious intolerance. And possibly related to 19th century Irish-American history. Continue Reading
September 3, 2018
So where to start the family stories?
How about with a working man and the mighty engine that could (kill him)? Continue Reading
September 3, 2018
My family name is Apple, but I am not related to anyone by that name.
Well, legally, yes. And by marriage. But genealogically no. So the old adage is definitely NOT true. At least not genetically.** Continue Reading
August 31, 2018
While visiting Montreal and Upstate New York for summer vacation, my family were greeted by an unhappy surprise.
My mother has Stage 4 cancer.
I’ve been spending the past two to three years researching my ancestry (at, you guessed it, ancestry.com) and I had already hoped to talk with my mother about her memories of our Irish and French Canadian heritage.
I’d already managed to find quite bit online via various databases, both public and private. But there’s no substitute for family stories. And now I have a time limit.
July 25, 2018
It’s the end of the spring term (finally) at my university in Kyoto, which means I’ll be getting ready for my yearlong sabbatical in Montreal soon. From September I’ll be back at a North American university for the first time since 1997.
Ah, Notre Dame. Mixed lapsed Catholic-cum-agnostic memories. Continue Reading
July 19, 2018
I was going to say “it’s so hot you can fry an egg” but it turns out that the temperature needs to be at least 130F for that to happen.
But still…it’s hot here in Kyoto. It’s freakin’ hot. And not that “dry heat” blah blah. The kind of heat that makes me use up three hand towels just to wipe off the sweat from my arms on the way to work. The kind of heat that makes it painful to breath, let alone walk to work.
Naturally, I’ll be going to my martial arts practice later. This is because I am basically insane and enjoy losing 10 pounds in sweat within 30 minutes. Continue Reading
June 29, 2018
I remember the only time I met Harlan Ellison.
Well, “met” is perhaps too strong a word. Talked with. Listened to. Got a signature and shook his hand. I was nervous as all hell. Continue Reading
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