Reality Check

Yesterday, sometime early in the day, my newest grandchild, Gabriel, was born to my eldest daughter, Kristy.

He was 7 pounds even and was 19" long.  He makes the 10th grandchild for my wife and I.

Sorry, I’ve not posted much lately.  In the past few weeks, I’ve lost a Grandmother… Granny, Flora Lette Martin, aged 89 (she would have been 90 in April) and gained a grandson.  I’ve been busy with work and traveling.

Wife and I finally made it to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis a few weeks ago, and visited a friend and his family (Brian) in the St. Louis area.  Brian has been rather ill of late and has had several heart attacks.  My wife and I thought we’d go visit him and meet him and his family. 

At the same time, we visited a good friend who worked at the White House with me in days of yore, Mike and his wife Cindy, and their children as well.

We got back and a few days later we turned around and headed back east, this time to Kentucky, a little town called Barbourville, KY, the county seat of Knox County, Kentucky.

I saw many aunts and uncles and cousins I didn’t even know I had, but knew me (I’m the eldest of all the cousins on that side of the family, and second oldests on my dad’s side of the family).

My Granny had as many as 25 grandchildren, and we couldn’t count the greatgrand children, and even a few great-great-Grandchildren.  She lived in the house where we all came together as a family before, and after the funeral for as long as I have been alive, almost 50 years.  I don’t know what year she moved into that old house, but it is going to be sold now and that site of 10 acres (what’s left of the original property) will most likely be the site of a Super Wallmart now, or perhaps a hosptial.

I spent several years of my life living "just down the lane" from her, and I walked to a school up on a hill, where we had running water inside, but no bathrooms. We had outhouses.  In the winter time, the school was heated from coal we burned in Franklin stoves, those pot-bellied things you saw in the movies.  I hunted squirrel and rabbit in those woods with a sling-shot and with bow and arrow.  I learned to fish, hunt, shoot and ride horses there. 

I found arrow heads that the Cherokee left behind, and I killed a pig in those woods with a spear as a child.  I learned to grow corn, and tomatoes, beans and potatoes.  I collected eggs from the hen coop, cleaned the hen coop, and milked cows, hoed the gardens, picked green apples and ate them til I got sick.

Throughout it all, I remember my Granny, my mother’s mom.  I remember my Great Grandmother, Dessie Bond (Dessa Suttles) in the early 1960s, and I remember her passing as well.  I went back to Kentucky in 1978, in June for my mother’s funeral.  She died in Detroit, where I was born was buried in a cemetary in Gray Kentucky.

My family… that line, the Bonds go back to England in the 1400s, and I can trace them back there.  My family, the Donaldsons were there since the 1700s, but I can’t go much further back than 1770.

In short, my family are about as American as they come. They came to this country when America wasn’t really a country, just "The New World" and they lived through the region of Virginia, and the Washington area — before America was a country.

My family has fought in almost every war this country has had, and been proud to do so.  My father served in the Korean War.  I served in the service and saw… "combat" in Central America, and I served as part of a group of people who supported the attempted rescue of the American Hostages in Iran in 1979-1981.  My son, Patrick currently serves in the United States Army and is stationed somewhere in Iraq today.

When Daniel Boone traveled across the Cumberland Gap, my people were with him, and they settled all through that area of Kentucky.  I might have been born in the city, and mostly grew up as a city boy, but I thank my Granny, my mom and my dad for letting me learn of the history of Kentucky, and of Daniel Boone, and the settlers and other frontiersmen and women who helped to found this country today.

So… this year… I lose a Grandmother, but I’ve gained a grandchild.  I’m proud of my children and their children, all of them, no matter what their circumstances are today — and some are going through tough times I know.  But, all of my children are dear to me, as are the grandchildren.  I only hope that my grandchildren will remember me as fondly as I remember my own grandmothers when I was a child.

Good bye Granny… You’re in a better place.

And welcome, to my newst baby grandson — may the world treat you better than it did your forebearers.

Love Grandpa…