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!

1 comment:

  1. Huh, the shanghaiing of your gg grandpa Herman sounds like it has the makings of a novel! My mother once told Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrio Fermi, who had picked her up hitchhiking, to stop his car so she could pick wildflowers. (My mom and dad worked on the Manhattan Project.) He also took her to a diner and while there demonstrated Newton's laws of motion with the old card and nickel on top of a glass of water trick (knock the card out and the nickel falls into the water). I thought that was a pretty cool experience.

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