I'm in North Carolina, at my grandmother's house. She's wonderful: smart and sweet... unless you tell her you might not come for Christmas, then she's just smart.
She's the oldest of eight and one of her younger sisters took decades compiling the family's genealogy. There are some famous people hanging on the branches, way back in the 1400s and 1700s, but, last night we were examining those closer to our part of the trunk. Great Great Grandpa Jesse spend quite a bit of time in jail for being a 'Tippler'... which was the 1800s Kentucky Foothills word for 'Drunk'. Great Grandpa Harvey was a school teacher, but in his spare time he charmed warts. What? Yes, he charmed warts off of people. What a handy skill.
I asked Grandmutti (a name resulting from the only word my dad learned in high school German) about the other side of the family tree: Her husband's. She said Grandpa Ed looked into it once, but stopped when he got to a horse thief.
As expected, I come from quality stock. Apparently, what the British didn't send to Australia, the rest of Europe packed off to America.
Right now, Grandmutti is cheating at TV. She's borrowing every phone in sight to stuff the "Dancing with the Stars" ballot box. Not for Bristol Palin..."because she's not that good of a dancer, it's just that all the Tea Partiers are voting for her."
You can't blame Grandmutti for cheating, it's probably in her blood. It is comforting to know that my family bears transgressions and oddities well. Let's just hope they keep this spirit in mind as I negotiate going abroad for Christmas.
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