Browsing Category Cousins

Trying to Connect the Pieces

A few days ago, I got an IM on Facebook from my cousin, Velda. But, unfortunately, there was no note, just a photo of a certificate that appears to have been yellowed by age. At first glance, I thought, “Why is she sending this to me?”

I examined the document more closely, letting my eyes slide down the page until they reached the name beneath the words:  This is to certify that . . . .

My antennae went up. Wait a minute! I thought. Rewind. Reread the page. The name on the line above the signatures of four officials affiliated with the program offered by the DC Public Schools’ Department of Industrial and Adult Education was mine.

The certificate, dated January 20, 1966, was presented for completion of a 12-hour course in Individual and Family Survival. I stared at it for the longest time. I couldn’t recall ever seeing that document before, but my maiden name in my handwriting leaped at me from the signature line. But how? When? I drew a stupefied blank.

Granted that it was nearly a hundred years ago (You all stop calculating. Of course, I’m exaggerating, give or take a few decades. LOL), my mind is still relatively keen, and I like to think I would remember taking that course. After all, I still remember that Mr. Simmons, the Business Ed teacher, was, in my opinion, the most handsome and sexiest teacher in our high school, but that’s a post for another time.

Since the resurrected certificate was dated six months before I graduated from high school, I can only surmise that it may have been a class compulsory for meeting graduation requirements. But wow! Who would have thought? And what was the relevance of a course in Individual and Family Survival? Considering the decade, a civil defense Duck and Cover course might have been more appropriate. However, since the certificate shows that the study was presented by the Office of Civil Defense Adult Education, perhaps it was developed to show us how to prepare ourselves and our future families for emergencies or nuclear disasters. I doubt if I would have voluntarily taken what appears to be a mundane course unless I was under the duress of not graduating for lack of required credits.

I instant-messaged Velda and asked how she got the certificate. She said she discovered it while cleaning out one of her mom’s closets. Of course, then I wanted to know how her mom, my Aunt Imogene, got possession of it. Velda said it was inside an old photo album that had belonged to one of our deceased uncles, Uncle Henry. Velda’s mom is married to one of Uncle Henry and my dad’s brothers.

Of course, the next question was how Uncle Henry got it. Although he had lived in the same city as my family and me for years before he moved to North Carolina, I doubt if my mom and dad would have given it to him. As I discovered when my sister and I were clearing out my parents’ home following our mother’s death in 2014, mother kept nearly every report card, honor roll certificate, and other achievement documents that my siblings and I acquired while in school.

Since my parents are deceased and Uncle Henry died over 20 years ago, I will probably never learn how my certificate traveled from my parent’s home and wound up over 250 miles away inside the photo album where Velda discovered it. But I sure would like to know. And it may seem coincidental to those who believe in coincidences (I don’t) that Velda, the Parker family genealogist, would be the one to discover a piece of my personal history. Well, Shazam, Cuz!

There is an old aphorism that holds much truth: “Life is a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing.” I would include “with some disjointed pieces that don’t seem to fit.”

Thanks, Cuz, for adding another disjointed piece to the jigsaw puzzle of my life.

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A Private Conversation about a Public Matter

My cousin Butch is one of the most intelligent people I know. But he is also extremely modest, and I can imagine him cringing when he reads this.

I enjoy conversing with him, and although we don’t always agree on things, we are both open-minded enough to listen to each other’s viewpoints and respond civilly. We have had dissenting perspectives on subjects from the death penalty to the COVID vaccine (and now it’s back to wearing masks).

Below are snippets of our (abridged) conversation from about a week ago.

ME:  I am so tired of hearing the talking heads on TV chatter about the COVID virus, its variants, and the insistence that everyone take the vaccine. The folks who will take the shot have likely taken it already, and those who don’t want it will not be convinced to take it. The exception is for those who wish to take it but cannot get it for some reason or another. Although I took the shot, I remain convinced that we all are guinea pigs. I didn’t start having intermittent skin rashes and some other issues until after taking that vaccine – two months after my second shot. My dermatologist says it is likely caused by something that I am allergic to. Uh Huh. When I told both him and my primary care physician that this stuff wasn’t occurring before I got the shot, they fell silent. (What I forgot to tell my cousin is that I’ve talked to at least three friends/associates who months after that second shot are experiencing unusual health issues they’ve not had before.)

MY COUSIN: I know this COVID news gets old but, the fact is people are dying at a rate not seen for over a hundred years. It is terrible, and when we don’t take it seriously enough, it gets worse. Japan would not be restricting attendance to the biggest money-making event (the Olympics) of recent times if there wasn’t something to it. Americans (in general) are less sensitive to this because we have a less community-centric ethos than many other countries. We pride ourselves on our individualism and “every man for himself” thinking imposed upon us by centuries of robber barons and imperialists dictating the rules of the game. “If they die, they die” so long as they (the powers that be) have access to all measures to preserve themselves! Think about Rupert Murdoch. Do you think he didn’t vaccinate as soon as he could? Think about the orange one (I know nobody wants to [think about him], but) he surreptitiously got vaccinated and who knows what else for himself and his family, but what did Murdoch and [the orange one] feed their sheep? “It’s a hoax.” “It’s not that bad.” “You need to be a soldier and get back to work.” “You better go back to school.” “Scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.” “Listen to us or listen to your gut.”

Critical thinking tells us that the people who manipulate you for personal gain are probably not the most reliable sources for information regarding your personal safety (unless you are part of their “in group”). Dr. Fauci has dedicated his professional life to saving lives. He didn’t do it to be on the cover of “Time” magazine. Now he’s taking outrageous slings and arrows because he speaks inconvenient truths. Unfortunately, sometimes science gives us the information we don’t like or want to hear but listening and taking it always makes us smarter. Denying it could lead to our downfall. Murdoch and 45 don’t care about the meatpacking workers and food service workers dying, so long as they can be replaced. The “sheep” need to recognize this.

ME:  I know why the scientific community keeps quiet about possible long-term side effects because they are trying to encourage everyone to take the stuff. But I think they should be upfront and tell the public that some people are having allergic reactions and side effects lasting longer than a few weeks after the second injection.

MY COUSIN:  We’ve had at least 70 million people here take at least one shot and not anything alarmingly close to that here since the early J&J rare blood clotting issues. [He is referring to a link that I emailed him about some of the side effects of the vaccine.] That is not to say that these vaccinations are 100% safe, but they have never been. And but for vaccinations, the world might well be overrun with polio, smallpox, and rubella right now. I never wanted to get the shot, but the evidence was clear that my chances of surviving the shot would probably be better than my chances of surviving a bad case of COVID; plus, I hate getting sick.

I enjoy debating issues with my cousin and find it refreshing. Interestingly, some laypeople can have a civil discussion about controversial topics when numerous close-minded public figures, including rogue Congressional legislators, behave like temper-tantrum throwing spoiled brats.

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Speaking of Cousins

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” or so the saying goes. So today (and each third Sunday in July) is National Ice Cream Day.

Some folks reading this are probably asking themselves, what does National Ice Cream Day have to do with cousins? If they keep reading, they’ll find out, won’t they?

One day as I wondered if there is any day recognizing cousins, I discovered more than I wanted to know. First, of course, there is a national holiday for cousins. But, in addition, there are numerous other national holidays; and some are not even on our calendars.

I think that society has gone way overboard with all its national holidays. There is a national day designated for nearly everything under the sun.

Animal lovers have National Love Your Pet Day on February 20. In addition, there is National Employee Appreciation Day (the first Friday in March) for people in the workforce. With the exception of two, hardly any of the national holidays that I mention in this post is a federally assigned holiday.

National Hot Chocolate Day is on January 31, National Pizza Day, February 9, and National Coffee Day is on October 1. (Fist pump for National Coffee Day!) The fourth Sunday in July (this year on the 25th) is National Parents Day.

There are also nationwide annual observances for families, like National Family Day on September 26, and who doesn’t know that Mothers and Fathers Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May and the third Sunday in June, respectively.

Grandparents have their day on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Aunts and Uncles get recognition on July 26. Siblings Day is on April 10, and February 4 is Nieces Day. Interestingly, I did not find a national day for nephews. But I did learn that there is a National Cousins Day, and thus, my effort was not in vain.

How about a shout-out to cousins. Some folks think that they are the closest things to siblings.

Like a friend of mine, some people have only one or two cousins. Depending on one’s extended family size, some have none. Others, like me, have so many first cousins, I couldn’t give a precise count of them if my life depended on it.

I have a large extended family. Each of my parents had at least nine siblings that I am aware of, and those siblings produced a tribe of children. (Need I say that was in the days before the birth control pill?) My cousins on the paternal and maternal side could probably fill all the seats in the Apollo Theater.

I don’t know all of my blood-relative first cousins (firsties) as much as I wish I knew. I can do reasonably well naming those in my age group; many of us grew up and played together. But some of their siblings – I wouldn’t know them if I bumped into them on the street, nor do I know many of my cousins’ children. My children and my cousins’ children are second cousins. Unfortunately, unlike many of my first cousins and me, a lot of our children don’t know each other. Only with the aid of a genealogical chart would I know some of my first cousins once or twice removed, second cousins and cousins further down the line. I fancy myself as an amateur genealogist but sometimes, trying to figure out who’s who in the family starts my head swimming in the gene pool.

As cousins go, I can name maybe twenty or thirty firsties on both sides of my family. Those would be the ones I grew up with, played with, and with whom I made memories. Give or take a few years; we are in the same age group. And as for my cousins’ children and grandchildren, I couldn’t identify their offspring any more than they could recognize mine. To its credit, social media has helped with this somewhat.

That’s why I believe that regular family reunions are so important; it helps family members bond with the current and younger generation of relatives and stay connected with the elders.

Friendship among cousins often develops when we are children, and sometimes that friendship extends into adulthood. On the other hand, some cousins who were not particularly close during childhood became close when they were grown. Many things contribute to the ongoing relationships between cousins, including similarities in age, how much contact there is between them, and how near they lived to each other.

After all, cousins run the gamut – crazy cousins, kissing cousins, close cousins, distant cousins, and even play cousins. And let’s not exclude cousins-in-law, the spouses of our blood cousins. Who understands the craziness of our family better than cousins? Sometimes cousins are closer than siblings and may even be best friends

One day I came across the following quote. I love it because it is so applicable to my generation of cousins, “A grandparents’ house is where cousins become best friends.” Indeed this was the case for many of my first cousins and me. Some of us rarely see or talk to each other anymore, but when we were youngsters, the grandparents’ house was where we often gathered during summer vacation, and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So, while many national holidays seem trivial to me, next Saturday, July 24, I must remember to give a shout-out to my cousins in recognition of National Cousin’s Day.

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