Fungible Convictions

You weren’t that easy.

“I’m not much of a talker.”

Matter of fact, people took that to mean you were tough — as in a nut to crack.

Yet it was a crack, in your voice, that I’ll remember about you most, two words offered to the air at Grandma’s memorial — “Oh, Nina.” — like you’d arced an arrow over our family and it’s taken all these years for it to find a place to land.

You weren’t that easy, but you were so very good to us. I’m glad you’re where you want to be now, getting your well-deserved reward…she must be thrilled:

Today we said a sad goodbye to the greatest of all vehicles, a 1991 Ford Explorer: the Wee Beastie.

Even after more than 100,000 miles, the Beastie never complained, always performed, and even once saved my life, hurtling down I-93 to get Lindsay to Somerville and me, soon there after, to a good hospital.

It was the car my wife learned to drive on. She and her sister both drove it during college. It drove on the beaches of East Hampton and in the snowdrifts of Cambridge and, countless times, along the roads between us and our families.

Two weeks ago, though, after one of those trips visiting family, the Beastie had some trouble. Our mechanic, who loved the Beastie nearly as much as we did, told us what it would take to make it better…and then we knew. It was time, after nineteen years in Lindsay’s family, to part with it.

So today the American Cancer Society “Cars for Cures” program arranged for a truck to come by and accept our donation of one 1991 Ford Explorer. I watched the driver load up the Beastie along with other donated cars…

…and I watched the Beastie go:

We love you, Beastie.

You yell from one room to the other, to your husband, “I was just talking to my mother on the phone. We found out our family history is totally different than what we thought. Our name was changed. My last name is made up. My great-grandfather was actually Polish and not Irish and changed his name to be able to get a job. God. I’m stunned. We’re all stunned. I’m not sure who I am now.”

You hear him yell back, “So, like, where are my genes?”

“Exactly!” you say. You start to continue the conversation in depth as you walk into the other room. You see him folding the laundry.

“The new button-fly ones,” he says. “They didn’t make it into the wash. Now, what were you saying?”

You punch him in the back of the head. Because he’s too awesome.

Congratulations, Devon and Courtney, on your first lit’lun.

At times like these, I’m always reminded of a touching family story, first told upon the occasion of my own birth:

My mother: “GREG, IT HURTS!”
My father: “Well…that’s what you came here for.”

My aunt and I have been doing some digging to figure out where exactly in DC this photo of my great-grandparents was taken.

But I’m too easily distracted. In trying to find a match for similar buildings in Google Street View, I came across this gem on a photo of 16th St., NW.

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Really, it’s the guy staring down at the dog poop that makes it for me.

And in case you’re wondering where the “Optimum pooper!” post title comes from…

(And in case that video no longer works, it’s also available here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=117774159573.)

Today is my father’s father’s 90th birthday. Lindsay and I returned from DC this morning after a very, very large party yesterday at my dad’s house, featuring Pop Pop and about 60 descendants. We had lots of barbecue. We finished the beer. We introduced Lindsay to people she didn’t expect to be related to.

One person, though, who we sorely missed was my late grandma Nina. In her life, she set a high example for love of family and community, for how to be charitable, for what it meant to be Catholic even.

Most religions—but especially Catholic and Orthodox Christianity—place a strong emphasis on hagiography: of honoring great lives through words and imagery. My father’s family traditionally hasn’t been one for speeches, which makes honoring a great life hard even at a 90th birthday party, but the Scot-Irish in us wants to tell stories, so we end up doing everything obliquely. For example, the family yesterday made a scrapbook. Lindsay, who never got a chance to meet my grandmother, and I managed to design the final page. So we printed out this photo for Pop Pop…

…of me as a toddler with my grandmother. And I had Lindsay write, in her eminently lovely handwriting, “We’re so lucky to have so many great ladies in our lives.”

So Pop Pop: happy birthday. We miss her too.

A few of you out there have asked how my grandmother is doing. She went into the hospital a couple days ago with some pretty scary symptoms. But we just got word that it’s an infection that should clear up with some antibiotics—I won’t say what kind of infection because it gives Lindsay the heebee-jeebees.

So yep, she should be fine. Thanks to those of you who wrote to ask about her.

It can be yours for $180k.

This came up because a Prince George’s County (Md.) teacher I’ve been in touch with grew up a few miles away, so I decided to see what the neighborhood looks like via Google Maps’ Street View (on a creepy note: the Google camera caught a current resident peeking out the front door). I haven’t been there since my grandfather moved to Ohio—I think that was the early 1990′s.

One awesome thing that this reminded me of was a story I have a reason to tell maybe only once every five years—the time I was in a storm drain. I was at my grandparents’ and was playing, I think, with some kids in the neighborhood. A ball or a frisbee or something went into the storm drain, and I was the only one small and stupid enough to go get it. And here’s the exact drain!

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I’m surprised how different people’s knowledge of their families are. Not the knowledge itself, I should say, but the amount of it. I have friends who can tell me what jobs their grandparents had—and when they had them, and even how much they were paid. They know the names of men their mothers dated before the mothers dated their fathers, and they can drive through their hometowns and say where the restaurant used to be where one of those dates happened. Then I have friends who aren’t even sure where their parents grew up or if their grandparents helped pay for college or which anniversary is coming up.

My knowledge falls somewhat to the latter end of the spectrum. I trip over my dad’s sisters’ names, can’t name all my cousins, and have to be reintroduced to people at family reunions. I imagine that’s typical in a modern family.

But most families have, as mine does, a volunteer archivist. For us that would be my aunt on my mother’s side. We’re rather indebted to her for her taking the time to digitize the photographs that were on display at my grandmother’s 80th birthday party last weekend. The vast majority of the images I had never seen. Many of the people represented I had only heard of but now have a face to place with them. So, Evy, thanks.

My great grandfather, a note to my great grandmother

My grandmother (held by her mother) and her siblings

My great grandmother outside St. John’s Orphanage, where she lived and met my great grandfather, in Washington

My great grandfather

Same

Great grandparents together

My great grandmother, on F St. in Washington

My grandmother, at National Airport in 1942, seeing her brother off to war

My great aunt Minnie

My great aunt Dolly, portrait after winning a local beauty contest

My grandfather in 1945

A postcard from my grandfather to my grandmother

My aunt, who collected these photos, and uncle in 1949

My mother in 1950

My mother (left), uncle, and aunt

My mother, having graduated from college, with my grandmother

My grandmother, 1972