Vietnam

When I was growing up the Vietnam War was on TV every single day. We ate TV dinners on portable tables made for the task. Body counts, combat deaths, propaganda, and manipulation were an every day experience. A kid moved in across the street and we would play together until my mom found out that the reason there was no father present was because he was flying B-52’s in Vietnam. I was never allowed to cross the street again. When the Tet Offensive happened in January 1968 we were soon told by the press that it was an unwinnable war. I asked my mom how they could predict the future like that and got my ass beat for not just believing what I was being told. Over the years I have met many Vietnam Vets and cherish the friendships that I still have with many of them. I have watched many movies about the war and I wish I had had a chance to fight in Vietnam. That being said, I am not a fan of accusing people of murder in any combat situation. Nobody knows what is on everybody’s plate or what their entire mission involves. Like the movie Apocalypse Now stated: accusing people of murder in Vietnam is like passing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

 

73. The Daffodils _ William Wordsworth — optimisticlifeat30

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the Milky Way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw […]

via 73. The Daffodils _ William Wordsworth — optimisticlifeat30

Poet

I self-identify as a Poet. I hear this goes well with Memoir and other non-fiction type forms. My problem with writing seems to be that I do not want to lose control of what I am doing and the fact that I wrote next to nothing in junior high, high school, and by testing out of college I also avoided a lot of the writing need there as well. If I am a writer, I am a writer who hasn’t written a whole hell of a lot. If I am a Poet, I am a Poet by birthright and by temperament. Perhaps I just need to let go?

Patriot Ancestors

Allen Valentine
Allison Alexander
Bailey Carr
Callahan Edward
Cawood Berry
Cawood Stephen
Coombs John
Cornett Nathaniel
Cox Cary
Crow William
Davidson Daniel
Duff Shadrack
Gilbert Thomas
Gilbert Thomas
Hardy John
Haynes George
Haynes William
Hunseker Abraham
Isaacs Godfrey
Joyce Elijah
Joyce John
Lumpkin Dickerson
Lumpkin Dickerson
Shook Jacob
Tillman John
Turner William
Upton Robert
Ware Henry
Wilson James
Wilson Phillip
Wren George
Wren William

Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the ques-
tion:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the
rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may
come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of
time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s con-
tumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
ls sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

Moving

Now that we are retired we are thinking about moving. The Caribbean is our first choice. There has to be a beautiful island down there that is affordable to live on. We will see.

I am going to get my PADI certs.

My Family

By 1981, my mom and our cousin, Barb Riipi, had been making trips to the national archives in St Louis, MO for the last few years. My mom handed me a pile of papers: some were hand drawn pedigree charts, and some copied papers of information that they had found. She told me that John Lewis was my immigrant ancestor (not true), that he had given 5 sons to the American Revolution (not true), that he had killed to Irish lord in Ireland and had fled to America (mostly myth), and that we did not descend from anyone who had served in the American Revolution, at least not yet.

 

                I first discovered the Valley Manuscript written by Margaret Lynn, wife of John Lewis, but further enquiry shows this to be a hoax.

 

In 1996 I decided to get on the internet for the first time. One day I typed John Lewis into Infoseek and the second website down was a website dedicated to my 6th GG, John Lewis and his descendants. This website was run by Brenda Lewis, now Gervais. After a few days spending time on the discussion board, someone asked if it was possible to get a copy of The Family of John Lewis, Pioneer compiled by Irvin Frazier. Within the hour I had purchased a copy from a small bookstore in West Virginia and put all of the information on the John Lewis, Pioneer discussion board. Within 4 hours all of the copies had been bought from that store. 5 generations of my family are completely documented in that book. Now the book sells for upwards of $600.

 

                The book Kinfolks of William Parke and Synah Perry & Josiah Wilson and William Crow by Margie Ellis Howell is the best resource for our family from Miller to Lewis. It is available on familysearch.org under BOOKS just type in: Parke Perry Wilson Crow and you can find the book. Try Google as well.