That evening reflects the range and depth of experience, doesn’t it. The exuberance of youth, appreciation of artistry, and the inevitable departure. Sometimes I have to remind myself to be grateful for all of these things, lest I become one of those who revel solely in their grievances.
Such a beatiful letter. I felt like you were writing it to me personally. We all too often do not realize how lucky we are and how many sacrifices and risks our family members have taken in the past to get us where we are today. We are spoiled and most times do not realize it. Like you we need to step back and appreicate it all and thank those before us and teach those ahead of us the lessons we've learned. I just wrote my wife and thanked her for all that she has doen for me. The timeing of this letter was perfect.
This is now my favorite column of yours since I started receiving them a year ago. You strike the the perfect note (for me) of how it is to be walking the balance beam of aging. Clear-eyed about mortality and open-hearted about gratitude. Still time, if diminishing, for amazement to overwhelm us. I am now just days from ringing the bell to complete my 80th year, aware that I could be entering my last decade, and still very much alive. Today. It is an achingly sweet time. Thanks for writing about it so beautifully.
Ah, So! Isn't genealogy an interesting thing! If we search hard enough, we can find somebody interesting in our family trees somewhere! For you, it's a sailor who jumped ship.
For me, it's Mary Baker Eddy, "Mother" of Christian Science! I worked for a while with a Christian Scientist in California. She seemed very impressed with my great aunt Mary Baker Eddy - put 14 "greats" before that title - and she was curious that I hadn't been to visit the "Mother Church" in Boston. The next time I was Back East, I made a point of attending a service there. As I entered, they spotted me as a new face and invited me to put an entry in their guest register. In that register, I put in my note that I was Mary Baker Eddy's 14th generation grand-daughter. That excited the ushers! They searched the audience for a visitor's face, and approached me after the service was over.
It turns out, I was an "also-ran." Asa Gilbert Eddy (1827-1882) was in my family tree, sure enough. Except, he didn't have any children by Mary. Her second husband, George Washington Glover, had the privilege of siring George Washington Glover II. Clearly our gung-ho great-aunt - the genealogist - had missed out on that little detail! Once the usher understood that it was Asa Gilbert Eddy I was alluding to, he shrugged and walked away - as if I had been a pauper walking in, looking for a handout!
You have photographs of your early relatives! Lucky you! And they were probably all nicely married in churches, with traceable records and all that! Oh, well! Or maybe, one of these days, you'll be discussing your laudable genealogy, and they'll dig up a family "Black Sheep" disconnection, too!
Way back when, I went to some DAR meetings, with my lineage tracing back to the New Amsterdam Dutch in the "Wall Street days - the times when the Wall separated the Dutch from the British. When the the DAR found out that my Dutch lineage was sitting on the other side of that wall in the Revolutionary war, they suddenly lost interest, too!
If there's a moral to this story, perhaps it's that we're a "stew pot of immigrants" as a nation. It's hard to untwine the various amalgamations that have been united over the centuries. To me, that's sort of "The Basic Nature of Being An American! " "We're "The Melting Pot!" Viva Hybrid Vigor! Viva International Fellowship! and all that! And, Viva the Prairie Home - even down to the Companions resting place in Minnesota!
Second thoughts about Mary Baker Eddy! IT WAS HER BODY, wasn't it ?????????????
I mean, this whole genealogy thing is a rigged game, isn't it? George Washington Glover II came from the womb that was originally Mary Baker, didn't he???? It might not matter that Asa Eddy wasn't the presumptive father. It seems to me that natural inheritance should have more to do than legal marriage documents. When God created the Lion and the lamb, he didn't require them to have marriage licenses to mate!
Genetically, no matter how far fetched a "fourteenth generation" connection may be, I may still have some characteristics of said Mary Baker, might I not? For instance, the Eddy side of my family tree is populated with preachers and missionaries to India and such. Just because Mary officially became Mrs. George Washington Glover at some point in her adult life doesn't affect her genetic makeup in any way, does it? That "Believer's Gene" is still sitting there inspiring my brain, isn't it?
Harrumph! Shall I write to the Mother Church in Boston and ask to be counted in among HBE's descendants?
Oh, well! It's an interesting "case study", isn't it? I bet many of us out there have interesting acorns somewhere in our family trees. If we could go back far enough, there's always "Adam and Eve!" Just because we don't pass the DAR's or whatever's qualifying tests, doesn't mean there never was anybody worth knowing in our family trees! Chin up, all you fellow Prairie Home Companions who might not have been able to break into some elite genealogical society somewhere! We Black Sheep can have come out of impressive female lineages too!
This is one of my favorite columns of yours because of the way it balances looking back and looking forward. It helps me understand many generations (mine, my kids', my parents').
We'll not have you make room for others yet, Garrison.
Thank you for that befitting tribute to Aofie O'Donavon. Truly, she is a rising star passing on and adding to the talents of the ages.
"...But be prepared to bleed..." She sang that Joni Mitchell classic, A Case of You, so elegantly and with such feeling that I cried (and bled!) a second time upon hearing it. The first time was when I first heard it on the air ways 50 years ago when Joni sang it.
Classics do not get old. Their ability to draw blood ceases not. The necessity to add to that creative act lives. Thank you for carrying that on and allowing others to do likewise.
That evening reflects the range and depth of experience, doesn’t it. The exuberance of youth, appreciation of artistry, and the inevitable departure. Sometimes I have to remind myself to be grateful for all of these things, lest I become one of those who revel solely in their grievances.
So does your writing. Wonderful stuff
Good Morning G.K. ;),
We don't know eachother BUT like all of your fans.....I " feel " like an old friend!
Just wanted to thank you for introducing yet another talented singer to us, your audience, your " other " family! Have a wonderful day!
If you say so, bro...
I am constantly amazed at how much joy your writing brings to me. Your grandma is very proud!
Such a beatiful letter. I felt like you were writing it to me personally. We all too often do not realize how lucky we are and how many sacrifices and risks our family members have taken in the past to get us where we are today. We are spoiled and most times do not realize it. Like you we need to step back and appreicate it all and thank those before us and teach those ahead of us the lessons we've learned. I just wrote my wife and thanked her for all that she has doen for me. The timeing of this letter was perfect.
At 40, I often look forward to old age. Even now i figuratively tell the young TikTok kids to ‘get off my lawn’ 😂😂
This is now my favorite column of yours since I started receiving them a year ago. You strike the the perfect note (for me) of how it is to be walking the balance beam of aging. Clear-eyed about mortality and open-hearted about gratitude. Still time, if diminishing, for amazement to overwhelm us. I am now just days from ringing the bell to complete my 80th year, aware that I could be entering my last decade, and still very much alive. Today. It is an achingly sweet time. Thanks for writing about it so beautifully.
Ah, So! Isn't genealogy an interesting thing! If we search hard enough, we can find somebody interesting in our family trees somewhere! For you, it's a sailor who jumped ship.
For me, it's Mary Baker Eddy, "Mother" of Christian Science! I worked for a while with a Christian Scientist in California. She seemed very impressed with my great aunt Mary Baker Eddy - put 14 "greats" before that title - and she was curious that I hadn't been to visit the "Mother Church" in Boston. The next time I was Back East, I made a point of attending a service there. As I entered, they spotted me as a new face and invited me to put an entry in their guest register. In that register, I put in my note that I was Mary Baker Eddy's 14th generation grand-daughter. That excited the ushers! They searched the audience for a visitor's face, and approached me after the service was over.
It turns out, I was an "also-ran." Asa Gilbert Eddy (1827-1882) was in my family tree, sure enough. Except, he didn't have any children by Mary. Her second husband, George Washington Glover, had the privilege of siring George Washington Glover II. Clearly our gung-ho great-aunt - the genealogist - had missed out on that little detail! Once the usher understood that it was Asa Gilbert Eddy I was alluding to, he shrugged and walked away - as if I had been a pauper walking in, looking for a handout!
You have photographs of your early relatives! Lucky you! And they were probably all nicely married in churches, with traceable records and all that! Oh, well! Or maybe, one of these days, you'll be discussing your laudable genealogy, and they'll dig up a family "Black Sheep" disconnection, too!
Way back when, I went to some DAR meetings, with my lineage tracing back to the New Amsterdam Dutch in the "Wall Street days - the times when the Wall separated the Dutch from the British. When the the DAR found out that my Dutch lineage was sitting on the other side of that wall in the Revolutionary war, they suddenly lost interest, too!
If there's a moral to this story, perhaps it's that we're a "stew pot of immigrants" as a nation. It's hard to untwine the various amalgamations that have been united over the centuries. To me, that's sort of "The Basic Nature of Being An American! " "We're "The Melting Pot!" Viva Hybrid Vigor! Viva International Fellowship! and all that! And, Viva the Prairie Home - even down to the Companions resting place in Minnesota!
Second thoughts about Mary Baker Eddy! IT WAS HER BODY, wasn't it ?????????????
I mean, this whole genealogy thing is a rigged game, isn't it? George Washington Glover II came from the womb that was originally Mary Baker, didn't he???? It might not matter that Asa Eddy wasn't the presumptive father. It seems to me that natural inheritance should have more to do than legal marriage documents. When God created the Lion and the lamb, he didn't require them to have marriage licenses to mate!
Genetically, no matter how far fetched a "fourteenth generation" connection may be, I may still have some characteristics of said Mary Baker, might I not? For instance, the Eddy side of my family tree is populated with preachers and missionaries to India and such. Just because Mary officially became Mrs. George Washington Glover at some point in her adult life doesn't affect her genetic makeup in any way, does it? That "Believer's Gene" is still sitting there inspiring my brain, isn't it?
Harrumph! Shall I write to the Mother Church in Boston and ask to be counted in among HBE's descendants?
Oh, well! It's an interesting "case study", isn't it? I bet many of us out there have interesting acorns somewhere in our family trees. If we could go back far enough, there's always "Adam and Eve!" Just because we don't pass the DAR's or whatever's qualifying tests, doesn't mean there never was anybody worth knowing in our family trees! Chin up, all you fellow Prairie Home Companions who might not have been able to break into some elite genealogical society somewhere! We Black Sheep can have come out of impressive female lineages too!
This is one of my favorite columns of yours because of the way it balances looking back and looking forward. It helps me understand many generations (mine, my kids', my parents').
We'll not have you make room for others yet, Garrison.
Thank you for that befitting tribute to Aofie O'Donavon. Truly, she is a rising star passing on and adding to the talents of the ages.
"...But be prepared to bleed..." She sang that Joni Mitchell classic, A Case of You, so elegantly and with such feeling that I cried (and bled!) a second time upon hearing it. The first time was when I first heard it on the air ways 50 years ago when Joni sang it.
Classics do not get old. Their ability to draw blood ceases not. The necessity to add to that creative act lives. Thank you for carrying that on and allowing others to do likewise.
Beautiful and right to the point. Thank you Garrison.
Your Grandma did goo.
Thank you from a long time fan of your writings. My children grew up listening to the lake woebegone tapes on our family trips
A good one, GK. I must start a "pantheon of wonderment."