Bringing the family tree to life

Happy 2010! It's taken me a while to acknowledge the transition, but I guess I'll go along with it.

One reason I've been out of touch is because I spent so much time over the holiday in my alternate universe, tracing my family's history.

I am a proud participant in this old person's hobby, as one of my neighbors once called it. Maybe it used to be a geriatric pursuit because you needed a lot of time to research the documents involved. Now, though, online access makes it so easy that I end up spending a lot of doing it because I just can't quit.

My pursuit of my ancestors began in 2007 when my kids asked me a question and I didn't know the answer. We were on a Cub Scout outing, placing flags on graves at Stone River Battlefield in Murfreesboro in 2007. After reading name after name on the headstones, my boys asked if we had any relatives who had fought in the Civil War.

I didn't know, and that bothered me. My parents weren't sure, and I only have one living grandmother whose memory tends to be selective. So I did what I always do when I have a question: I turned to the Internet.

In just a little while, I found my great-grandfather's name on an original image of a 1910 census form, and I cried. Hey, I was surprised, too, but I felt overwhelmed when I saw evidence of a man I knew only from family stories. Here he was listed as a newly married 22-year-old with only one of his five children, my great aunt Allie.

I was addicted.

Since then, I've answered my kids' questions plus a whole lot more. We did, in fact, have several ancestors who fought in the Civil War, both in the infantry and the militia from Virginia through Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. I found out from a long-lost cousin that one of my mom's great-grandfathers fought with Virginia at the Battle of Chickamauga, then walked to West Tennessee where he started farming.

I even found the above photo online of my great-great-great grandfather born in 1822.

Though my dad's side has been fairly simple to trace, my mom's side of the family, in fact, has been quite troublesome. I've traced my dad's side all the way to medieval Scotland. One of his ancestors came over on the Mayflower and holds the dubious honor of being the first person to be arrested in the new world. He apparently went all redneck and got into a fight with a man named Edward Lister. They were bound together by their hands and feet for two days with no food or water, then finally released.

My parents and I have laughed about this and bonded over our checkered past, though they may not laugh when they read it here.

It's funny what you'll remember, though, even when the past seems too cloudy to peer through. One reason my mom's side was so hard to trace is because her relatives all have the most common names in North America. Even with the Internet, it's maddening to sort through decades of documents to determine which James Mills is yours. How many James Johnsons do you think there were in antebellum Mississippi? Plenty. The same holds for William Baker and Charles Mason.

The breakthrough on my mom's side came as I was on the phone with her, discussing a Census form I'd found. As I started reading the names of the many children in one family, she suddenly remembered why old "Uncle Shack" had been called that. His mom's maiden name had been Shackleford. I found someone else's online family tree with another great-grandmother's missing maiden name: Lindsey. That opened a long line leading back to French Huguenots who settled in Abbeville, South Carolina. Fancy!

Fortunately the ladies on Mom's side had charming, memorable names like Almarinda and Arrietta. It's just unfortunate that most record keepers didn't care much about tracking maiden names back then.

So when Census time rolls around this year, don't turn your back on that person collecting your family info. You'll be helping your great-grandchildren connect to their past.

Or you could do it the easy way and keep your Facebook page up to date.

Growing old together is fun!

Last night Tim couldn't find the Chap Stick in its usual spot. He opened the junk drawer and pulled out a tube of Herpecin, which is awesome for cold sores. Even so, the tube looks a little different from Chap Stick.

Since his arms are not long enough to read stuff properly, he held it up and asked me, "Is this Chap Stick?"

I answered affirmatively.

"OK, good," he said. "I just wanted to make sure it wasn't glue stick."

Footwear, above all

Since we took our family vacation early this year, I'm offering my helpful advice on how to go from an "after" to a "before" on your summer vacation.

1) Choose shoes based on looks, not function. I was so excited when I bought my adorable Crocs Patricia sandals. (Crocs also makes wedges now! I know!!!) I stood in Macy's and proclaimed, 'These shall be my Disney sandals!' because they are comfy, somehow very lightweight yet supportive. Also, they're Crocs, so it wouldn't hurt them to get wet since we'd be riding Splash Mountain and sitting in the Soak Zone at Shamu Stadium. I hurried home to plan all my Orlando outfits around these vaunted shoes.

I did not anticipate 95 degree weather in early May or the Florida humidity. These, coupled with a 12-hour car ride and many more hours standing and walking than I am used to, caused my feet to swell and the evil Crocs sandals rubbed a nickel-sized blister on the top of my left foot. Actually, I knew by the time we walked across the concrete prairie from our truck to the Seaworld entrance on our first day that my feet were in trouble. Of course, I'd packed Band-Aids in case THE BOYS needed them, but I used at least a dozen that day.

2) You might not think a blister would affect your look. That leads me to tip #2, which is the blister walk. I had to modify my walk to compensate for that blister as much as I could, so other Seaworld visitors must have thought I was smuggling baby sea lions out between my knees as I hobbled across the park. I resisted complaining audibly and instead chided myself for thinking I could be cute at a theme park. On Day #2 at Animal Kingdom, I still refused to succumb to tennis shoes and wore my bathroom flip-flops because they didn't rub the blister spot. After only an hour in the simulated jungle, my legs were so tired that I walked like the 80-year-olds. Actually the 80-year-olds were doing great on their scooters and Hoverounds. Between the motorized old folks and the stroller brigade, we were about the only people walking!

3) Ride the wettest rides first, so your freshly sprayed hair will get soaked and form an impenetrable crust that looks wet all the livelong day.

4) Drink much more lemonade and Diet Coke than you usually do since that's what you can get in your refillable Disney mug.

5) Accidentally leave your expensive face soap at the Hampton Inn in Cordele, Georgia, so that you have to use the super fatty Mickey soap provided by Disney resorts.

6) Slather sunscreen on your face, especially if you usually don't, then try to put on blush as you normally would. Coppertone does wonders for powder makeup, making the colors more vibrant and clownlike.

7) Finally, accept the fact that no one at the theme park except your youngest children ever looks at you. They are all just trying to survive the crowds with their own family members intact. Fashion is not a consideration. If you want proof, scroll down to the photo of my boys in front of the Animal Kingdom gate, click on it and look at the crowd in the background. That's what everyone looked like. See the grown man wearing Mickey's magical wizard hat? People wore that stuff all day. I saw dads wearing rhinestone-studded, princess-themed Mickey ears that their daughters had discarded on the Peter Pan ride. NO ONE cares what you wear. By the third day I did something I would never do in Brentwood. I pulled out the only pair of capris I'd brought and wore them with my tennis shoes, which mercifully did not hit the blister. And I walked from Pirates of the Caribbean all the way to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin with nary a limp.

8) Don't forget to pose for pictures without sucking anything in so you look pregnant. Clutch your giant lemonade as if life depended on it. Be sure to turn so that the angle showcases the fleshiest part of your arm. Ahhhh, success! I've included the above photo for demonstration purposes only. You results may vary.

Five-Oh Plus Club

WHY OH WHY OH WHY do I go to Kroger on Senior Day? I mean no disrespect to senior citizens, of course, because on lots of days I feel like I already inhabit that demographic. I am just WAY too impatient to grocery shop with that many people who are not in as big a hurry as I am.
My goal when Krogering is to get in, get stuff, get out. If I forget and go on Wednesday, though, I have to build in an extra 10 or 15 minutes. After dodging the vans from the various assisted-living facilities nearby, I must kindly sidestep the big lady who's test-driving the motorized buggy as well as navigate the multitudes of slow-moving carts like I'm in a life-size version of Frogger.
Everything in Kroger is ten times harder for old folks, and it makes me sad. Some can't reach the stuff on the higher shelves. Many can't read the aisle signs, the price tags or the food labels. They can't get the plastic produce bags open. (Actually, I can't do this either.) If a senior couple goes together, the husband who's relegated to pushing the buggy and watching the purse usually looks pretty miserable. Then the lady stops to talk to a long-lost friend and forgets what she is doing on that aisle.
Once I realize what I've walked into, like today, I get over myself and offer assistance to whoever asks for it. But I also get a glimpse into the lives of some of them who can't do stuff I take for granted, like yell for a husband or an able-bodied child to open a stubborn jar for me.
Today, for instance, while I paused to choose from the perplexing varieties of chicken broth, I heard two ladies who apparently live alone discussing how difficult it is to open a can of soup with a screwdriver.
I wanted to run run RUN home. One lady giggled as if it were just another daily inconvenience, like changing the toilet paper roll, then asked me if I could reach the tomato soup for her. I should have offered to get her a can opener as well.
I'll tell you one thing. I'm well on my way to being one crabby old lady.