Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Family History

I was chatting with my dad the other day. I love doing that. Even though we lived in the same house my entire life growing up, I never really felt like I knew him. He worked a lot. But I knew he was a cool, interesting, guy; we just never really talked all that much.

Sometimes when we did talk, I would find out some odd random thing about him. Example of a conversation with dad:

Me: "Blah, blah, blah, talk about school, blah blah blah, did you hear James Brown died?"

Dad: "Oh yeah? I met him once."

Me: "Sure you did."

Dad: "I did."

Me: "Where?"

Dad: "In the bathroom at Richard Nixon's inaugeration."

Me: "Ha ha. Whatever, Dad."

Dad: "I'll show you." [Goes to his room, rummages around a bit, returns, hands me something.] "Here's the program. Look, there's where he signed it."

Me, reading: "Stay cool. James Brown."

Dad: "And here's where Tony Bennett signed."

So the other day he told me a story about my great-great grandfather Herman, who was shanghied while picking up a kitchen stove in Tacoma, Washington. He returned 2 years later. I'll have to post more on that later, I must give up my computer at this time.

But I will quickly say that researching stories of west coast shanghai-ing, I came across a really interesting blog called bldgblog. It's here on blogspot, and the stories are faskinating. You should check it out!