What I Need Is Everywhere

I just got a call that my aunt - my mom's sister - has died. And yeah, in case you're wondering, I would rather go to a funeral than a wedding.

I've written about my dad's family ties and the curse a couple of times, but my mom's family may really have one. There were eight siblings who survived to adulthood. The oldest has polio, the next died from multiple sclerosis, the third has spasmodic dysphonia (like Diane Rehm), the fourth has chronic back problems, the fifth (the aunt who just died) had cerebral palsy, my mom died of lymphoma, the next has Parkinson's and the last one has severe complications from the ravages of substance abuse. And let me just say they're all saints. I've never heard one of them complain. Never seen anything but smiles and hugs.

This aunt was really a piece of work, though. She was 68 and she wasn't even expected to live into her teens. She had cerebral palsy and lived her whole life in a wheelchair. What I remember from my youthful visits was her crossword mania, encyclopedic knowledge of all genres of music from 1960-1975, incessant smoking and moments when the quiet was punctured by a spastic shudder or kick. But her affliction wasn't genetic. It was man made.

My grandparents lived way out in northwest Oklahoma and medical care is scarce out there even now, but in 1938 with the Dust Bowl at gale force, there was, for all intents and purposes, none to be found. The midwives from a local church (which I will not name) made all the deliveries in their area. This is one of those off the radar type churches which hold among their tenets a refusal to seek medical care.

So when the time came to deliver, my grandpa summoned the midwife. When she arrived she got really agitated and said that God told her the baby wasn't ready yet. Some or another prophecy was at play. So she left the baby partially delivered in the birth canal - nearly a whole day by time it was all over with. I've talked to people in the medical know about this and most believe that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my aunt's neck or something rather common like that and the midwife was probably too inexperienced and panicked or something. My grandpa was so angry that he yelled at the midwife and told her to leave his house and he followed her down the road on foot screaming at her for what she'd done.

He swore he'd never enter a church again. And he damn well didn't. Every wedding picture I have of those kids shows them cutting the cake in the farmhouse kitchen. Which was all well and good because the elders of the church all got together after he'd let fly on the midwife and decided to curse him. Unfortunately, no one could or would tell me what exactly the curse was. All I know is that it really did scare him for the rest of his life.

Here's the clan, except for the yet-born last child. My mom is doing her Home Alone impression (hands on her face) and the aunt in question is the ragdoll in the foreground ( click for larger):












Also there was som discussion of wanting to see me in a suit. Here goes:

My Shangri-la Beneath the Summer Moon

Purple Bunny pointed out today that it's possible that YHWH's wreck on Friday was an attempt by the transportation curse to get me. Her theory is not without merit since YHWH was driving my car. Hmmm... I'm getting a donkey.

I'm having World Cup withdrawals. I've gotten used to following the games during the day and now I can't remember how I made it without them to get me through the day.

Super Giant Killer asked me yesterday if Kashmir was still contested (not exactly sure where she picked up that it was or when she mastered the use of the word 'contested'). I told her it was still contested and she said, "Good! I've decided to be the queen of Kashmir when I grow up and it will be much easier to take over if it's divided." I used to joke that she was going to take over the world someday and now I'm starting to worry.

It's Not the Fall That Kills You

Adjective Queen's latest flight of fancy brought to mind some portion of my own youth. I wanted to fly, but I didn't necessarily want to join the Air Force. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a sniper, preferably a paratrooper/sniper, but a Marine LRRP sniper or Thirteen Cent Killer would've been fine. And then after I retired I was going to do freelance work. So, no Air Force for me. I realize that's a long way from being a librarian, but that's another post.

Our cult had two pilots in it and I naturally gravitated to them. One was an ex-Marine aviator who flew corporate lear jets. It wasn't unusual for him to be gone to the Orange Bowl or the Super Bowl or Hawaii, but mostly he was taking oilmen to meetings in Houston and back. The other guy was also a corporate pilot, but he flew turboprops and those were fun. He was also more of a pretty hang-loose guy - probably had a lot to do with with the 3 or 4 million dollar difference in the prices of their planes. When I was about Lego's age, I acted eager enough to learn that the second guy took me under his wing, so to speak. He gave me the flight manuals and the ground school coursework and told me if I could sit in the cockpit and 'fly' the plane in the hangar, he'd let me do it for real and help me get a license. So I studied them. I learned about pitch and yaw and lift and drag and at 14 I actually passed the ground school portion of the licensing process. I was so ready to fly for real.

And then the ol' family curse reared its ugly head. Actually, we have three family curses. One is that any time I was about to embark on some great endeavor, we would have to move. Another one is that any time I wanted to do something fun (i.e. dangerous), my mother's fear factor kicked in and I usually lost out. The last one, the big one, is the Male Transportation Curse. My aviation career was cut short by a perfect storm of all three of these. By way of explanation, the Male Transportation Curse involves the fact that all the men in my direct line of ancestry have died young via some form of transportation accident. My dad is the death cheater, the Ronald Reagan of the Transportation Curse. I hope he broke it anyway.

Here's how the curse plays out in reverse order: one of my dad's stepbrothers died in a car wreck in Montana, the other died in a plane crash in Kansas. My dad's brother died when the parachute of his dragster failed to deploy during a race.



My dad's father was killed in New Mexico when his car was run off the road in the desert in a hit by the Mexican version of the mafia. His brother, my dad's uncle was killed near Reno, in a hit by some sort of organized crime outfit in Nevada. And various male ancestors died in the pre-car age after being hit by wagons in the street and one even died when he was kicked in the head while shoeing a horse. None of them lived past their fifties. My dad is in his sixties. So that, plus my mom's fear of me being dangerous (to be fair, I had already walked away from a motorcycle wreck), lead to the demise of my nascent piloting experience. The final phase was that a couple months after that we moved anyway. Not that you can't be a pilot anywhere else, but I didn't have access to the pilot who had taken an interest in me. I did finally jump out of a perfectly good airplane a few years ago, though. That was sweet. I've never felt that wonderful before or since.

So, Queen, get the boy a flight manual and let him see how he likes the science part of it first. If he doesn't, he'll be buying a lot of passenger tickets. There's something about the air here that makes people achieve great things in the air.