One of the largest repositories of genealogical data in the world belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormons. During my ongoing research into my family tree, I’ve used the LDS genealogy website, familysearch.org, extensively and often receive notifications of new findings as they arise.
Continue readingReturn to the Lone Star State
After arriving home yesterday morning at 7:00 am from a road trip to my previous state of residence, I reflect on the week-long excursion. From Muncie to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is roughly one thousand miles, about 16 hours of drive time using the optimum route. Having made the trip many times over the last 4 decades, the distance may not have changed, but my physical stamina and mental acuity sure have!
Continue readingDayton Days
We were in our apartment at Poplar Apartments in Durham, North Carolina, when Dad opted for the Air Force instead of waiting for his draft number to come up. Originally, we were to be heading to San Antonio, which I thought was cool since I’d been learning all about the Alamo, in fact, we had just watched the John Wayne film classic. However, at the last minute the final verdict came in and it would be “Wright-Patt”, so it was off to Dayton, Ohio.
Continue readingBrief History of the Jack O’ Lantern
By ESanders (WMF) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Tonight is officially Halloween of 2017. That means trick-or-treat for the kids, pranks for the juveniles, costume parties for the adults, and of course, the lighting of the carved-up pumpkin. But how did the “Jack-o-Lantern”, become such a traditional part of all this?
Continue readingSecrets of Gimghoul Castle
Some of our family’s happiest times were while living in North Carolina for the second time from 1969 to 1971. Our close friends, the Booth family, were instrumental in the creation of many of those fond memories. Bob Booth Sr., head of the Durham Chamber of Commerce, his wife Barbara, a native Tarheel, their intellectually gifted elder child Susan, and Bobby Jr., who was my age, were extremely knowledgeable of the region which included neighboring Orange County to the west, the location of Chapel Hill. One of the enigmas of Chapel Hill, the college town home of one of the three oldest public universities in the country, the University of North Carolina, was a place known as Gimghoul Castle.
Continue readingTies to the Mayflower
Though it’s estimated that about 35 million Americans are related to the passengers of the Mayflower to some degree, it’s a little rarer to have a direct line to one, and no easy task to be able to prove it.
Continue readingGreatest Rock & Roll Band Ever. Period.
Anyone who’s really known me, would certainly be aware that I’ve always been a die hard “Led Head” for over four decades. There are other great ones of course, Aerosmith, Doobie Brothers, The Allmans, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyd, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, but none have superceded, in my mind, and don’t hold a candle to, what originally began as the New Yardbirds.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, fusion jazz, new age and ambient music were my choices airing throughout the day, but now in hindsight, I realize my heart is still in the music of the 1970s.
Will add more on this topic later – it’s bedtime for Bonzo!
Open Letter to Mr. J. Barleycorn
Through all of these years you’ve been there right by my side. Early
on, I considered you a trusted friend, a confidant – through all sorts of experiences. You were present at my graduations, my weddings, and funerals, each and every major life-changing event I’ve ever known. Did you make things better? No! You put a fog over my eyes where I could not even recognize the importance of the event.
You’ve put to ruin each and every asset that I had been blessed with. Thanks to you, I can no longer hold down employment for any substantial length of time. More resources have been expended on your account in a matter of a few years than most people ever obtain in a lifetime. You’ve broken up relationships with the dearest of friends and my beloved family members, not to mention a couple of wives. You’ve downtrodden any form of quality of life for the pure sake of your want of power, control and your insatiable appetite for more and more dollars, only for a brief respite. You are the biggest of lies.
And I’m most certainly not the only victim of your curse.
You are the most destructive phenomenon in the history of this planet, far more dangerous than any of your cohorts, Henry Heroin, Cranston Crack, Marty Meth, and so on and so forth, mainly because you are condoned by society. It’s all about money and nothing else, pure capitalism. You used your influence to shit on the native Americans, keeping them so inebriated that they were handily coerced into signing over their sacred lands with the scrawl of an “x” on a flimsy bill of sale which was deemed adequate proof of agreement. And there was the Whiskey Rebellion over taxes imposed upon the evil sauce. Hell, you almost tore this country apart before it was even firmly established.
You are hereby discharged of your duties.
It’s been a real pleasure knowing you John, but it is most definitely high time for you to remove yourself from my presence forever.
You and “Spuds MacKenzie” can kiss my entire ass!
Very sincerely,
Stephen A. Dowell
Back to Reality
Following the celebrated end to 2016, as evidenced by my previous post, I sank into a rut. A really deep one. I believe it was a combination of factors, but having a few days off for the Holidays after weeks of daily toil threw me off of my game. Especially when told that the end of the year is the “slow season” and to expect 12 hour days, 7 days a week from then on out! The Holiday season has been a tough time of the year for me anyway, as it has been for decades.
Continue readingIt Must Be the Alignment of the Planets!
With the recent climactic World Series victory for the Cubs and the current record-setting season for the Cowboys which seems to point to another set of Super Bowl rings in Dallas, it appears that the sports gods are smiling down on my teams.
Continue reading