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Prickly Pear
Hello, welcome to the very minor Hispanic holiday of Cinco de Mayo. The battle it celebrates didn’t do much, but in this day it’s a celebration of marketing TexMex stuff. I recommend the fresh salsa.
What is your background in our adopted continent? I am descended from Scotch Irish and Cajun, am Sephardic Jew by marriage. Sadly, no tribal relatives that I know of.
My own heritage is one that I’ve only come to know by accident, because as a child I was taught about True American blood, meaning European.
My grandfather was a very obvious Cajun, a big shock of white hair, and he’s the only grandparent I remember. He was named White, but I have heard the family name was LeBlanc. As a small child, I was given cafe au lait and knew some French words, one being what the kids in the Homer, LA, area called Cajun, ‘labalabas’. La bas means ‘down there’.
I so wish I had native blood, but do not know that I do. Of course, it’s possible, but history was something we learned from our families, and they didn’t care for that sort of factual background.
I have learned that some of my family was Quaker, and part of the underground railway on the Eastern Shore of VA and MD, that helped escaped slaves to the north where they were, sometimes, freed. I am very proud of them.
How did you learn about your background, and what did you learn?
(Photo courtesy of Sarah Jane at flickr.com.)
268 Comments
Good morning Ruth & all.
Great topic since we all come from different backgrounds.
Thanks, it’s a funny subject for me, because I was told lots of stories, but so few of them factual.
Morning Ruth,
Belgian and Polish roots, here. Nothing too out of the ordinary immigrant mix. Polish catholic family traditions, whatever is left of them. Quiet day, light rain has me inside. Hope you are well.
Funny you have ‘quixote’ as part of your chosen nom – of course, a biggie with hispanics.
Let’s see, my dad was descended from German immigrants who came through the Cumberland Gap and settled in Kentucky and Indiana. my mom’s family was minor nobility who fled the French revolution to Louisiana and were absorbed by the Creole people. I told a friend in the Navy that I was half French, half German, half Yankee, half Southerner. When my friend asked what that made me, I said “An American”.
Buenos Dias, Ruth, & Amigos/Perros
Speaking of perros, when asked what our heritage is, my mother used to say You’re a mutt. She was saying that I’m a really mixed-breed.
On my mother’s side, we can trace back to John Howland who came over on the Mayflower as an indentured servant. Lots of German, English, and other Northern European but all blond and white.
On my father’s side, I got Irish, Danish, French and some others.
Nothing very exotic, but, that’s the bag of dna I got.
Ruth and nonquixote…
When I was at my friend’s house yesterday helping him organize for a everythingmustgo garage sale, we were looking at his art and he has a very nice print of Picasso’s Don Quixote. I was admiring it and he told me, of course, he’s keeping that one! Of course.
As a tiny child, I was on Okinawa, and when asked if I was a little Okinawan, in jest, I was said to reply that I was half American and half Texan.
I’ve never gotten the celebration of Cinco de Mayo though to be honest. Didn’t the Mexican army lose that battle? I don’t fret about it though because hey, any excuse for a party I always say…
Mutts Are Us. :<)
Sounds exotic to me! we have blonde hair as kids, but it darkens, in my father’s family.
Good morning, everyone. German and German here. Just a small sprinkling of a few other things on my father’s father’s side, and I don’t know exactly what those are, but he was mostly German, too. Mother’s side is 100% German.
My sister is into genealogy, but I’ve never been terribly interested — not to the degree she is, at least.
The prefix is the important distinction to the nom. :)
Gotta run off to the Farmer’s Market, so I can be back by the time block given by the garage door repair folks. Hope I can get back before everyone has gone!
Fun topic, Ruth!
Weird stuff;
‘ In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo
LMAO! Yeah I think my exact words to Mike were, “I’m half French, half German, half Yankee, half Southerner and all Texan”. Not nearly as proud about being Texan now though.
I had another friend in the Navy named Dean who was half Filipino and half Irish-American. All of the Hispanics thought he was from Mexico and incessantly tried to engage him in conversations in Espanol, which used to frustrate him to no end.
The everything and the kitchen sink sale is today? You must have gotten a decent organizational workout.
Woof, spud.
Hope you are great. :)
More fun all around.
Heck, I admit that I don;t know anything about it but I’d always been told that battle was a loss. Only up for ten minutes and have already learned something new!
My sister goes on trips just to research family history, not my bag either, but glad to learn some interesting things about our background.
Actually, he and his room mate think they have a week extension…so, I don’t know. These guys are really dragging their paws on the move. Can’t blame them, though. They are moving from a beautiful home to a (what they call) dump. But, it ain’t the street either.
Half Polish, quarter Welsh, quarter German.
Polish on my father’s side. Family lore has it that they immigrated in late 1800s. My grandparents were born in Poland; grandmother spoke broken English, grandfather none. They lived in a small Polish enclave in central Massachusetts.
Visited a distant relative in Poland a little over a decade ago. Many stories to tell, but the best is that we drove by the U.S. secret rendition site in NE Poland. Relative said: Russians moved out, U.S. moved in. Didn’t find out it was the site of rendition & torture for another 7 years, though I was embarrassed enough even before that.
Of course! Brilliant minds should be open and curious,
How’s tricks, Peg?
I think my cat is half Smiledon and half Velociraptor. Being super fierce this morning.
Maybe that was the French point of view.
I knew a Polish fellow whose mother was born a Countess, many of his family died in concentration camps. Good reason for coming here.
Thanks for the wiki link Ruth. Really interesting stuff. I knew that the battle was associated with the French invasion of Mexico but I didn’t know any of the details.
since most sephardeem consider themselves all family, I am a tribal relative
your husbands parents probably know my parents parents or something like that
Not Jewish. Just peasant farmers. They came with the late 1800s wave of Germans & central Europeans.
Could very well be. My mom’s side are very Gallophile, (a trait I don’t share), and it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve found related history to have been…embellished…by them. I never got that either. They fled France on pain of death, losing all of their money and property in the process and seemed to have spent the next several generations lamenting it.
A late great aunt did an extensive family history and found several slightly different spellings of our last name. My younger brother is updating it and adding to it. Some interesting and some tragic events through our generational ancestors since they arrived in this country. Farmers, fishermen, sailors, educators, manufacturers, hotel owner/proprietors, brewery specialists and cheese makers.
Anyone up for huevos rancheros? I know my Texan friends will like some. Any of you people from The Other Side of the continent ever had that?
Hello, brother/sister! Funny enough that the family was brought up thinking of themselves as Spanish and catholic, were ‘reformed’ – and only found out they were Jewish when a family member, and ex-nun, started studying genealogy. Surprise!
And, now I learned something. Had to google gallophile.
Blessed are the cheese makers!
Some of them probably didn’t make it into the acknowledged history, if my experience is any indicator. My sister found a relative who had been committed to an asylum, so her children all were adopted out to other members of the family, which makes my brother very uncomfortable.
Sounds like the Madeleine Albright story.
In my opinion the greatest thing about this community is the knowledge that is just in constant flow around here. Don’t come to FDL if you wanna spend the day as a vegetable.
I got the cilantro!
What’s so special about the cheese makers?
The only great grandmother I remember made head cheese. I don’t think I ever ate it, I was a young wee pup, but her house had a certain aroma when in the process of making it.
But dairy cheese, Amen.
Sadly, these were ‘conquistadores’ and one of several who took over the area that is Costa Rica now, erasing family histories on both sides of the Atlantic, that we are only beginning to recover.
Blessed are the cheesemakers
Many families have buried stories like that. My SIL, in telling about their family history, talked about one ancestor who had something like 16 children, only the last one was rumored to be the child of the oldest child. Not incest, near as I can remember, just a youthful OW pregnancy. So the grandparents raised it as their own. Don’t remember how it came out that it wasn’t.
My cream starts making itself into cheese after a few hours, that’s as close as I’ve gotten.
The are some super fine minds here, no doubt, but I come for the chocolate chip cookies. (I don’t need a snark tag, do I?)
How do you recover family history from that long ago? Are there documents?
The official records don’t tell the whole story, as I have often suspected.
Yep. I was almost 50 when I found out that my grandmother’s grandfather was black. Something you wouldn’t expect in blond haired, blue eyed me.
In Spain, yes. In Costa Rica, more the family histories passed on orally. But when several stories are compared, some of it gets repeated, and a lot of research is being done along that line.
LMAO! Nah, I’m having a good day. :)
Ah ha! Me too and I’ve got prickly pear cactus.
They sell those at the market too. A friend was explaining to me how to prepare them, but I couldn’t get past First pull out all the spikes. Seemed a little too intensive for me.
I’m looking for the 3 for 1 margaritas. :)
We have a friend whose father is blonde and blue eyed, mother is very black, and she is light complexioned, ChicagoDyke.
I bet we could do a whole thread of Monty Python clips and quotes, don’t you think?
How did you find out?
are the huevos rancheros still hot?
I hope she stops by. She’s another good ‘un, but I don’t see her often enough.
Oooh! Wouldn’t that be fun?
We can scramble you up some fresh.
teh google.
Can be reheated in 15 seconds, greenie.
Her internet is down. She and I talked earlier, she’s feeling cut off, but it will be reconnected tomorrow.
That’s amazing.
Thank you Mararget. :)
Glad to hear about the reconnection. Please pass along my regards if you should speak to her again soon.
100% Scottish here. Dad’s folks from Skye and Mull, mom’s folks Protestants from Glasgow. I don’t think I ever heard mom’s mom say the word Catholic without the word “goddamn” in front of it. Whenever there was a pipe band on TV, she would sit in front of it and cry. Pipe bands still give me goosebumps. And McCallan 12 is the perfect beverage.
Google? Not really. You see, unlike my branch of the family, the branch that is black apparently aren’t a bunch of bigoted assholes. The history has all been laid out by their family member genealogist for me to follow back.
Will do that.
Thank demi. She brought it up. I just linked to the associated silliness. :)
Mine were Scotch Irish, so they were living in the community they evidently took over, wore Orange on St. Paddy’s day sort. Yikes. Had any haggis?
My sister has found a bunch of other members of our family who’ve done some of that, refers us to sites that talk about history never before encountered. It’s great to meet folks we never knew about. One of our immediate family puzzles is about my name, evidently a first cousin of my mother’s was named Ruth, but now the families are estranged, so will never for sure have that story right.
russian jewish on my father’s side, though that part of russia changed back and forth between russia and poland. rabbis going back into the past. my father was youngest of 8 children. his father died a couple months before he was born. his oldest brother came first to the u.s. to escape the pogroms. he earned enough & sent for the next brother. in 1912 the last of them came over – my grandmother and the 3 youngest children. my dad was 3 then.
my mother’s parents were first cousins with austrian/hungarian background – family history of horse thieves. my mom was born here.
great. i’ll go get a fork.
Nope, never had haggis, and no regrets there. There was a fair amount of hostility between the clans, too, not just the orange/green disagreements. I remember uncle Angus at his 94th birthday warning a guest, “careful, there’s a McDonald behind you.” Still sharp, he was.
One can spend a lot of productive time researching their genealogy nowadays. But if, say, a dozen or twenty generations aren’t enough there are DNA tests available for the ultra curious.
In the past year or so I’ve read a handful of oblique references to research pinpointing origins of Native Americans (didn’t keep links) which seem pretty firm on where in the steppes of Asia a lot of the influx across the Bering Strait came from. Links as far as Uzbekistan seem firm as contributing most significantly. There was also thought to be a migration from Europe penetrating the east coast of America some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
I’m not convinced how important any of this is other than intriguing, but just for that reason it’s worth researching further.
As far as bragging rights about who owns what in the New World, and parsing the breathless claims, I’d return all of it to the now extinct dire wolf, saber tooth cats, and sloths which were here first. Otherwise it’s worth considering the
Well pupples,
The rain has let up, I have a plump cat, melting the glass while staring at me from the other side of the window and I need to get out on a short hike around the place to cut asparagus. I find when I start cutting it, there seems to be a stimulation of output through the season. I don’t know if that is fact.
Thanks for hosting us this morning Ruth.
That’s interesting.
I have a mental deficiency about family trees. When I was tracking down the history of my house, I kept getting confused about the family relationships. Finally the local library got the genealogies on disc and I was able to easily search for the names of the people I was interested in.
Ran into same mental block when it came to naming bee queens on Victoria’s family tree.
It’s a big reason why I haven’t tried to do mine, though I have a bunch of documents on my parents & their parents in the attic.
As many branches of the family are running out, there won’t be anyone who is interested anyway.
English and more English.
We’ve got one guy getting off the boat from Liverpool to New Amsterdam in 1697. He married a young woman born in Albany, probably 1680.
We have one born in Connecticut in 1700, but nothing about his parents.
Three that fought in the Revolutionary War, then no military stuff at all until the 20th century.
One couple in the 1700s had 16(!) children. No imagination, those two.
One grandfather was an orphan, so he could have been anything. I suspect Eastern European, but it’s just a guess.
The family hung out in upstate New York until the Erie Canal opened, then they packed up and moved to Michigan. Got off the boat in Fort Detroit, took a wagon or whatever until they got to some good farm ground and stayed for 150 years.
Back from the market with my fresh fish. Didn’t have time to look around, so I may go back. It’s not too far, and I want some fresh asparagus.
Isn’t it fun that sometimes the horse thieves seem the interesting ones, but that doesn’t get told to the children. I feel a little shy when I tell Jewish friends that my relatives were ‘conversos’.
Bet he didn’t like the hamburgers there, either.
nonquixote just went out to cut some.
Good morning pups,
Just a quick drive by to note that a great deal of geneological research is available through Mittney’s cult. Mormons are big in geneology.
Morning all. Restless night results in a late start to the day. French and Italian on my mother’s side and English and Dutch on my father’s side. Grandfather on my mother’s side was an Italian illegal immigrant to France after the WWI. Left his village with his cousin and crossed the Alps by foot into France.
Same here. I didn’t have kids, both my brother’s kids are married to women with reproductive issues. Looks like we’re extinct.
Have also seen tracing back the DNA to our origins, I do hope some one who didn’t like doing awful things will turn up, and was so glad to find out some relatives were helping slaves escape.
It was an anomaly in the name. The local county courthouse had burned down so the records were recreated by memory so everybody who spells the name that way in this country is related to me. That was the first bit of luck and the second was that a distant cousin of mine was an award winning grade school teacher. From there I could go back to ancestors who my own family had acknowledged.
One of the records my sister turned up was of land given to Revolutionary army relatives, it’s something that got names written down.
In order of arrival:
Pamunky-Powahatan – a long time ago
Scotch-Irish & English – Late 17th century
West African – Shortly after the Scotch-Irish, as in imported by.
Portuguese – Early 20th century
Funnily enough, the branches of the family that are having kids are not ones I have any interest in common with, and vice versa. One of my nieces gets us together from time to time; she’s really into family, but there’s only polite toleration on such occasions.
are you feeling yhat you or your relatives might be judged?
to me, it’s sad that people had to hide their religion to stay alive. many of the conversos kept the jewish customs in the household and many times the descendants, who thought the were catholic had no idea where that family custom came from.
That’s true, and many records are kept in the Mormon church (remarried in perpetuity) that help out if you’re doing research.
do you know anything more about the crossing over the alps story?
I looked it up the other day, probably the same article Ruth linked to @15. We celebrate here in the U.S. because the defeat that the French suffered kept them from resupplying the Rebels for over a year. This is marked as one of the turning points in the civil war.
Good morning Margaret, and firepups!
A friend whose husband was native found out they had to take English names, so they chose one first, found another later they liked better and changed to that one.
same here. neither me or my brother have children.
I do feel like my relatives were afraid to tell their own children who they were descended from, and lost something by that.
I had the weirdest experience a few years ago. A black gentlemen came into my shop in Fremont, CA. He was visiting relatives from Louisiana and needed a tire changed on his truck. I noticed that he was from the same Parish oldnslow’s mother and her people, and bore her family name. I asked him about this, and he said he was a direct descendent of slaves owned by my paternal grandmother’s family. His ancestors assumed the name when they were freed.
We decided we were cousins or something, and had a great time visiting for the next hour.
Only thing I now is they left their village because there was no work in Italy after the war. Sure the trip must have occurred in the summer. Can’t imagine crossing the Alps in the winter. My grandfather never went back to Italy to visit the family until 1962.
Here in TX, we seem to have adopted the date from Mexico, too. Anything to party, as demi has pointed out.
When I was in Poland, I learned that the churches are all built of wood where my family came from. No stone available & not rich enough to make bricks. As a result, records got destroyed regularly when the church burned down. 1911 was the fire in question where my relative lives (a descendent on my paternal grandmother’s side). My parents were already in the States by then, but should I have wanted to trace anything back before that, out of luck.
WRT house history, just one story. There were several Hendrikus DuBoises (Huguenots). I couldn’t figure out, working with the paper genealogies, which one was the relevant one. When I got the computer discs, it suddenly became clear. Turns out, among other complications, the parents of the relevant Hendrikus had two sons with that name. The first died in childhood before the second was born. Try flipping book pages to figure that one out.
I am told that slaves in my father’s family took another last name from theirs, so all the black people in the area have one name, all the whites have another.
He actually DID send me some garlic — sent way more than I could use (12 heads!!), so I shared with a couple of friends. But I don’t think it would work to have him send asparagus!
I am eating a LOT of fish these days, with my “experiment” to give up my statin drug. The guy at the market gets his fish from a merchant in Chicago, and sends an email every Thursday and you can pre-order, so I just darted in, picked it up, and left.
Wow! How cool is that? Ya know, for a comparatively young nation we already have an incredibly rich history.
For some reason, names are often taken only when the one owning it first has died, in some traditions. In my family, not the case.
I had always assumed it was Mexican Independence Day, and asked my wife the other day we we celebrate Mexican Independence here. She said it was not Mexican Independence Day, that it was the celebration of a battle. I looked it up as a result of that conversation.
We celebrate here in the US because of the importance to the Union in buying them time to build an Army.
Great arrangement. I get mine on the sales shelf! Whatever they’re getting rid of.
There’s always the Newhart show classic about Darryl and my other brother Darryl.
We do. It’s a beautiful story, IMHO, and it comes from American immigration. I love the tapestry of our cultural makeup.
I’ve been told that the family on oldnslow’s side can be traced back to an Admiral on a French Naval ship that fought for America during the Revolution. Said Admiral was granted lands and later sent some family over here, and being French they eventually ended up in Louisiana.
I’m also Dutch (Holland), English, German, and everyone swears there’s some Irish in there, though no one can tell me where it came from.
Some day one of us should sit down and trace back our family tree. With all the technology available nowadays it would be a fun and fruitful project.
Ahem! That was Margaret, although I did say I was looking for buy 1, get two for free mararitas. Ha.
Slavery is a blight on our history but what gets me is why the two thirds of us who are ready to co-exist are beholden to the one quarter to one third who still wanna pretend they’re better than everybody else.
We can have the salsa any time though, fortunately. I was surprised in PA to find out how expensive avocado is – and more pleasantly, that there is a TexMex restaurant near by.
That’s a very cool story, Kris.
In some situations, being a yakker can be benefitial. :)
TexMex makes me sad :(
I like real Mexican food. Seems to be almost non-existent in Texas.
Is that where George Foreman got the idea? (All his sons are named George)
Twice I have gotten there to find him sold out of a couple of kinds, but then he told me I could get on this email list. He sends out his available varieties on Thursday night after he’s been to his Chicago dealer, and I can pre-order by email.
There is always a little lineup at his counter (which is just a couple of long tables with ice-filled bins of fish and a fridge and sink behind.
Definitely! If you don’t talk to people, how will you ever hear what they have to say?
oooops. see, when I think of party!! I do think demi.
What a great story! I assume you haven’t stayed in touch with him?
Maybe it’s a good thing you and I don’t shop at the same store. We’d be fighting over the last marked down package.
You may also meet interesting relatives you never knew before, as my sister has.
Don’t know. Also didn’t know that about George Foreman (or are you pulling my leg). How many sons does he have? Naming them all the same would certainly save time when calling them for dinner.
Good morning. Boy, am I late to the party.
Ruth,
My mother’s mother was a LeBlanc. White Castle in south central Louisiana, where my mother was raised. It was said that my grandparents had the first electric milkers south of the Mason Dixon Line. The dairy burned to the ground in 1936 or ’37 and they turned to sugarcane farming.
I be letting them go, not beholden, thankyou.
I haven’t, unfortunately. I did get some info from him about his ancestry, though. I talked to my grandmother later and she confirmed that growing up, there were black people in town that shared her family’s last name, and that she was aware of the same connection. That they were descendent from freed slaves that were owned by her great grandfather. She says that great grandfather freed them voluntarily, before the end of the War.
My folks delved heavily in genealogy in the mid seventies, I was often asked to help decipher acts written in the sixteen hundreds because some of these beadles had iffy penmanship… From french ancestry on both sides of the family, my fathers side ended up in Beauport,QC with the Carignan Regiment in 1694, my mom’s side arrived in 1701, a family of butchers. We lost track of my mom’s family because some went to New-England and changed name. They came back to their senses and country 14 years later.
Good morning pups.
Geez you’re late. Mornin’.
yep, look at ‘Family’, all named George; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Foreman
Yeah. That’s something I learned about California when I was there. No Tex-Mex. That’s like having no air….
A moment of beer geekery: the traditional style of Mexican beer is Vienna lager, which is virtually non-existent in Austria. It’s darker-colored (much redder) than American lager and has a more pronounced malty taste.
The style came to Mexico courtesy of the Hapsburgs, whose puppet, Maximilian I, ruled Mexico from 1864-67. It’s the ancestor of name-brand Mexican beer, though it has been watered down for reasons of cost and mass-market tastes.
Tending to “other things” this morning.
My White/LeBlanc family came from the Homer area. Betcha we’re distant cousins.
I was speaking more of public policy than personal behavior.
A little ego going on there, huh.
Did you have cafe au lait as a tot?
I had no idea. Are there any imports here in the US that reflect the tradition?
And we have a winner of the understatement of the thread award! ;)
It’s funny that those of us raised on the North western peasant Mexican food found in California find it difficult to accept TexMex and those raised on TexMex don’t much care for the California Mexican food. Wierd.
We have Shiner here, native TXn, also dark and tastier than the general run of Merkin sort.
I’m German on my father’s side, Irish and English on my mother’s side.
Some years ago my mother tried to research her family history. The cast of characters included a Loyalist who fled to Canada to avoid tarring and feathering (or worse) and a man who was disowned by his family for marrying an actress.
Try the NM version, very nice, tasty and not so full of red colors.
That is exactly what I was thinking. White Castle is not all that far north of New Orleans. About half way between NO and Baton Rouge.
Very little coffee was used in our household, drank a lot of unpasteurized milk though, and still crave it.
Isn’t it? There’s almost no crossover in personal tastes but the foods contain largely the same ingredients.
Speaking of Party! Do we get a pinata?
And, did Kris get his SpongeBobcrackhead pinata for his b-day?
And, what was the cake’s theme?
I am Curious Demi.
Maybe I should have mentioned in the beginning that many families are in the U.S. because they were, one way or another, kicked out of the old country.
Jay Brooks, a beer writer from California, said this about Mexican beer:
“Two of the better Mexican Vienna lagers that I like on occasion are Dos Equis Amber and Victoria, which has only recently started being imported into California.
Another favorite — and an exception to the not-too-dark standard–is Negra Modelo, a Vienna lager variation pioneered by Graf. It’s a great example of slightly tweaking one style to create another. The slightly darker lager has become one of Mexico’s signature contributions to the world of beer.”
Occasionally, a brewpub will make a batch of Vienna lager, but I haven’t seen it on anyone’s list of year-rounders.
BTW, Phoenix Woman has a post on the dirty business of energy, above.
What throws me off of TexMex is the cheese. That and the seeming necessity of a creamy element. Why must there always be sour cream, or avocado, or cream sauce?
I’ll take two corn tortillas dipped in oil, wrapped around some good al pastor and covered in chopped onions and cilantro :) Maybe a little pico de gallo.
I don’t need no stinkin’ cheese.
Do they make General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín pinatas?
About eight years ago I visited the Spoetzl brewery and took the tour–worth the detour. Shiner arrived in Michigan three years ago, but the full range of beers isn’t available. My favorite is their Dortmunder, which is a seasonal beer and very hard to find here.
Ooh! I’ll be very interested in reading that a bit later.
There was no pinata, but there were fast go karts and poker winning. Also, the cake was Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Cycle. It’s hard for me to articulate how much that meant to me. King’s characters in those stories have been part of my life for almost 20 years, and during some really rough parts of my life. They got me through. It was incredible to see my old friends in cake form.
Communist!
One of my co-workers, a raised in CA transplant, will visit CA in July. He says he can’t wait to get “some real Mexican food.” While I do miss the CA variety, I love TexMex.
You know he’s writing another Dark Tower book? Just when I thought I was finally finished reading it.
My grandfather Clarence M. White was as I understand a late comer to the area, married into the McCasland family my grandmother was one of eight (of), looked very cajun, but my sister is the one who’s done the research.
Having been sober for some time now, my choices are very limited. I love the complexity and richness of beers. There isn’t a lot of specialty brewing in the non-alcoholic market, though :(
Guinness has a great imported NA called Kaliber. That’s my favorite.
It came out last Tuesday. The Wind Through the Keyhole. I finished it a few days ago. It was wonderful.
Don’t get me wrong! I love cheese. I just think it has its place, and its place isn’t on everything.
I don’t always use cheese, but when I do, I cut it with my hammer and sickle.
No sour cream for me, I usually ask for more guacamole instead. But I have been told that traditionally, the meat should be goat.
I have seen a w pinata. Really.
Kaliber is the best NA beer available around here. I’ve been told that there are some good ones in Europe, where DUI laws are much tougher than they are here.
Wrong, wrong, totally wrong!
There must always be cheese, and if there is sour cream in the fridge, there must also be sour cream.
Sorry, that’s just the way it is, Kris.
I <3 goat. Especially when slow-cooked, the way most Mexican meats are.
There are Whites somewhere back in my mothers line but I can’t tell you where. I think great, great maternal grandmother was a White.
Just alla youse Mexes keep your cilantro on YOUR side of the table. TYVM.
Mrs. Tiger is Polish on both sides of her family. One of her grandparents came to America to avoid being drafted into the Russian army, others came to escape the almost-certain poverty they faced in the old country.
Cheese goes straight to my thighs :(
Anyone interested in an easy early morning laugh can find one here.
Just bought some raw milk from a local farmer yesterday. I don’t drink that much milk, but going in with a neighbor who will buy enough on a weekly basis to keep me in stock.
Betcha he’d be lost in, say, Mexico City, looking for it. Our versions are not exactly the real thing, as I hear.
Ha!
David Waldeman (I think, goes by @KagroX on twitter) went on a rant last year about cilantro. How it’s the most vile thing in the world and tastes like soap. It was pretty hilarious.
I thought it was scheduled for 2013. I guess King was as unsatisfied with The Dark Tower as everybody else was.
And the rumors are that LeBlanc was too hard to foist on the locals, so it became White, but I can’t be sure.
Must be some hard ass cheese!
Sorry, folks, I haven’t really been keeping up for the last while. Sonny just left to go take his math and english placement tests for college. I was “helping” him remember everything he needed to take. Made him a sack lunch, etc. He’s a little nervous because as he just said, I’m just not used to being an adult and taking myself out into the world. He just came flying back in. I’m driving a convertable, mom, I need to take a comb. Cute. Scary. All of it.
One of the places I visited when I was in Poland was the crossroads where my grandmother’s parents’ farm was. There is still a descendant living there with his family of 4 children, but they can’t make enough farming to support themselves and his brother, who was touring me around, and a prosperous veterinarian, helps him financially. The soil is so sandy it dries up almost instantly after a rain.
Thanks, I’ll have your share.
I loves me some cilantro. However, very much like you, CBL can not stand it.
That’s because in DC they put cilantro on everything and call it TexMex. If that was my sole experience with cilantro, I’d be inclined to agree with him.
He may be writing more that I haven’t heard about yet. The ‘Future Works’ section of his site doesn’t show anything.
I think he is dissatisfied with the overall work. He really rushed the last 3 books and they didn’t feel right at all.
The most recent, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was really magical. It’s 3 short stories, essentially, wrapped around each other to form a novel. King at his best, writing shorts.
Good morning.
I went to school with a Leblanc in Cicero IL. Blanc in French means white, and white in Polish is Bialek, which is my maternal side of the family. Funny how connections show up!
I noticed the photo of Prickly Pear. It figures in a novel by Elmer Kelton based on a huge West Texas drought called “The Time it Never Rained”. Prickly pear was a food of desperate, last resort which the ranchers fed to their animals by burning off the spines first. I just finished the book yesterday and wow! you post the photo of the Prickly Pear.
It’s a stunning, moving novel of the West which far, far outdistances any other I have ever read, and I’ve read many.
There are various theories, but I’ve heard from reliable sources that the extreme dislike of cilantro is genetic.
I can detect (with revulsion) a fingernail-sized bit in a vat of something, and it makes the “something” inedible. It goes well beyond simple dislike.
The antipathy to cilantro is genetic. Did you know that?
awwwww
good vibes at him.
Good luck to you son!
Still have distant cousins named LeBlanc. (and Landry)
I took that from an interview I read on boingboing I think. It was just a few days ago but apparently the interview was done last year.
Thanks, good to know. Prickly pear is edible if you are realllllly hungry, I understand, but I also think it fits in with talking about relatives. Hello, cousin.
Gonna get going. Be well.
Sounds sorta like The Drawing of the Three. Good. Thanks.
I had no idea that it was genetic. eCAHN says the same thing @186.
We typed at the same time. Yes, I have heard that. I’ve heard other theories, too. A guest on The Splendid Table on NPR explained something to do with the compounds in cilantro and the association with first exposure to it, and claimed one could learn to like it.
My grandparents are from Puerto Rico, Ireland, Germany & Scotland. Underneath that is Taino, Welsh and reportedly a smattering of Dutch & French via my German grandmother.
The family oral history is that my Spanish (Castillian) great grandfather married a native Taino in Aricebo. My grandfather from that Union moved to NYC where he met a girl fresh over from Bremerhaven. Both families disowned the others for their ethnicities.
The Irish grandfather was from a tiny spot outside Ballinamore in County Leitrim and had the type of horrible childhood they write books over. Malnourished, beaten regularly, sold out as farm laborious at six, no schooling. Some unspecified involvement with the troubles. He ended up in Scotland working in a Glasgow shipyard where he met my Grandmother. Her grandfather was a Welsh merchant seaman who ended up their & was not Catholic – which was slightly frowned upon by the family. She would talk about the gangs when she was young asking P or C? The wrong answer got one a beat down. She said she was part of the first ever girl scout group.
Her family frowned upon her seeing ghat Irish guy & sent her to NY with a brother to break it up. He followed, they married, had thirteen kids and fought every night.
My Mom was working in the main NY post office during WWII – her supervisor was my Puerto Rican granddad & folks wrote to the troops to try and lift their spirits. She wrote to my Dad while he was serving in N Africa & then Europe through some 9f the more notable battles. When he returned – they fell in love – married – had nine kids. Dad was Lutheran as he was raised in his Mom’s religion – we were raised Catholic. All leading to your humble narrator of transsexual history.
I’ve traced most of the history back via marriage, birth, death and SSA records which confirms the oral history.
More coffee anyone?
I’ve also heard that. Like being a cousin!
The former provost at the U. of Cincinnati was the first to tell me it was genetic. I can’t recall his educational background, but it was in a scientific field that made his opinion pretty reliable to me.
It’s a lot more condensed than that. 300-ish pages in hardcover. It’s got all of the great elements of Wizards and Glass with a feel from The Little Sisters of Eluria. It was a new form for him, almost. He did it really well.
Damnable autocorrect
I look forward to it after finishing my current.
Thanks for the vibes and thoughts, Ruth and Peg.
You do know that I’m going to need some serious hand-holding come September, right?
Hey, what the heck, maybe I’ll have to come and visit Texas for a little bit. Maybe a little train ride to visit my girlfriends.
Terrific story. What ever happened to the boy next door?
Just looked him up. Anthony Perzigian, education is Biology and Anthropology. He’s retired now.
Running behind now from hanging out too long. Great post and thread Ruth. (or should I say Cuz)
Have a wonderful day all. Have been unable to convince the CBL that we should celebrate Cinco de Mayo by going to see the Gipsy Kings tonight. (frowny face)
Don’t promise you I’ll be in TX then, though.
That would be fun!
Y’all come, y’hear.
That’s wonderful. Hugs to both of you!
Gotta scoot. Garage door repair STILL not here. I must be last on their morning list.
I’ll go see the Gypsy Kings with you!
Yeah, I gotta get going too. Great topic Ruth. Have a great one pups.
I finally got around to using Cilantro in my own cooking and I have to say we really like it.
It does stick you your fingers as an after odor from cutting it.
No Spanish, Mexican or similar in my family. Strictly Slovak and Polish. Both all grandparents were immigrants; both males and females. I lost my mother when we (I’m a twin)were born so we were raised by a stepmother who was Czech. I never really learned the languages, except to cuss!
Why is the time stamp on this thread 3 hours behind CDT? Is there any time zone 3 hours behind CDT?
Fine then! I’ll just think about hanging with Peggy and Neko.
:)
And, we do have a few other Texicans I would love to meet.
I’m out of here too, pupses. Coaching softball, then heading down to San Antonio for a nephew’s birthday party.
demi, best wishes to your son today. If intelligence is genetic, he’ll do great :)
Good day to all of you pups, and thanks for the post and host, Ruth.
The time stamp here on the West Coast is one hour behind.
How I would have loved to speak any other languages! Sad, that.
It’s got something to do with DST, but can’t say for sure.
You are all so nice. Just a wonderful bunch of folks.
I think I shall get on with my day as well.
Ruth, you did a great job. Again! Thanks for everything.
For all of you who have to get things done, now, thanks for stopping by.
Alaska and Hawaii are 3 hours behind CDT, but I think the problem lies elsewhere.
1. She’s now the girl next door?
2. The census records for my Irish transact list a Costello family next door. I wonder if we have a little Elvis in us. My mom was supposedly some kind of cousin to David Cassidy’s dad. But if there’s a music gene – it’s recessive in my case. My voice is classified as a wmd.
I hope so as well. But who knows what unsavory event any of us might turn up in our ancestry if we look too closely? I’d bet we all would find something searching back far enough.
Even an escaped slave in the 19th c. could have had a forebearer in the trade long before and far away. Exploitation seems endemic among humans, at one level or another, whatever can be gotten away with in it’s own time.
Irish grandad
The time stamp indicates Yukon time zone.
FDL is on Pacific time, and I suspect someone didn’t set the clocks on the servers for DST. Ergo, an extra hour off.
see margaret at 44 above.
Quite possible! My talents are not musical, either, but my son got it all, that’s my excuse.
If there’s something bad, probably there’s good too, but usually not the sort of really, really good that gets us sent away.
BTW I’m inclined not to look further into my own ancestry after finding out my great granduncle killed someone out West in a saloon in the 1870s. Hit the guy over the head with a seltzer bottle during a brawl. At least it wasn’t a gun, but the victim was just as dead.
cilantro was put on earth to annoy the yankees.
Getting back to Elmer Kelton and his Texas novels, another one I read “The Man who Rode Midnight”, the protagonist was named (I kid you not!) Jim Ed Hendrix! The copyright date says to me Kelton had to know Jimi Hendrix at least exists!
He deals with the problems between government and the ranchers and all I can say, whatever gos around comes around. Makes me pretty depressed about ever solving it so that a real democracy results.
Some people have War Heroes who did a lot of that held up as good examples, and as I’ve mentioned, some of mine got rewarded with land for that.
i’m planning to go to the library in a little bit here and my trusty online library database says there’s a copy at my local branch. i’ll try to nab it.
is one of the cousins by any chance kit landry?
well, if yer acomin to texas, we got some mighty fine hospitality here in austin.
The Man Who Rode Midnight” is a sequel of sorts to “The Time it Never Rained” They can be read out of sequence, as I did, but if both are available, I would start with “The Time it Never Rained”
The protagonist in that novel, Charlie Flagg, is one hell of a character.
And speaking of names, Flagg was the last name of an obnoxious military office in M*A*S*H TV series, which seems again to be contemporary with the time of the novel’s publication. Total opposites, I might add!
I generally breeze through novels but in both cases here, it took about 4-5 days each. The stopping places really said stop.
I have a sketch and the beginning of my own Western, but after reading these, I am completely revamping the shape. It is unique so I have been told by a prominent Western editor who has encouraged me to plow ahead!
Someday, I want to come to Texas and especially Austin. But you already know that!
I would really like to compare notes with you once you have read either/both.
Sounds like a great plan, and have you ever been to Caprock Canyon? That’s on my horizon for a truly western venue.
I’ll look for ot in Google Earth. I assume Texas but in any case, can you pin point it for me? Locations like Palo Duro and such figure into my ideas.
Not family but just met and have gotten to know a retired (90-ish) Judge Landry from Texas.
Near Palo Duro
https://www.google.com/search?aq=1&oq=caprock+&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=caprock+canyons+state+park
Thanks you for coming by, everyone. Out to do things, myself, now.
Thanks, Ruth. I found it.
Been ages since I have been in Texas…1962 probably when I spent a week in Dallas for a tech training session for Tektronix. Before that I traveled with my family and then on our honeymoon through Texas on the way to Arizona and California from the Chicago area. Mostly through the Panhandle. Too bad I didn’t know about Palo Duro and Caprock then.
just back from the library. i didn’t put a hold on it and someone else took it out a half hour before me! it’s now being sent over from another library. it’s not easy driving with one hand (broken wrist) so i was hoping to do it all in one trip. ah well.
Have a good day!
Hey Starbuck, thanks for the tip abt Elmer Kelton, I will certainly have a look at his works. And you, *write that novel*. Just do it.
Me, my great-grand-somethings on my dad’s side were Prussian mercenaries who came to fight w G Washington, got land in PA instead of pay. It was a good deal — no possibility of getting your own land in Germany. Later they fought for the Union, two grand-cousins died in Andersonville and the family got land in Michigan as compensation. So they moved there. Married into a recently arrived German(actually Bavarian, as they will insist at the drop of a wurst)family, later into a recently arrived Irish (County Clare)family. Story is that g-g-whatever grandpa came out with his last load of whisky, just ahead of the Black-and-Tans. Maybe.
My dad’s dad was a shoemaker, there is a family story of how during the depression he accepted payment in the form of a live goat. For a long time after he brought it home in the car, Grandma would *walk* the kids the four blocks to church on Sunday, Grandpa would motor alongside them as escort.
Mum’s side is all Irish, potato-famine recent. The story is that they got to the Irish Hills in Michigan and said, “Look at all the trees! We’ll never be cold again!” Wood burns way warmer than peat fires, I am told. Farmers, mostly, and a bricklayer (chimbly-builder is what he called himself). Family stories include those who fought in the Civil War for the $200 substitute money. Back then, it was the landowners (and their sons) who were required to ‘raise the levy’ of soldiers required of a county or township. They could avoid personal service by paying a fee, it was usually $200, which would be paid to a non-landowner to sign up to fight. I have read that in some cases immigrants would be enlisted and not know of the arrangement, in which case the recruiting sergeant would pocket the $200. I never heard of that in my family, but, how would they know?
My maternal grandfather once told me that his ancestors had been sailing people, ship’s captains, he said. |And, in a whisper, he confided that they had transported slaves. He seemed very ashamed of that. I told my mother, she was disgusted and said he’d been drinking. I didn’t get much time with my grandfather after that until he died.
There are several counties in central MI where I could introduce myself as so-and-so’s daughter (or grand-daughter) and be instantly welcomed. As opposed to my rural Canadian community, where I am sure we will known as “the new people” for three generations :).
Now I am Canadian.
Hey, Green, Mind if I ask which local Lib you are near? Im fairly near the Yarorough that had been an old movie theatre earlier.
That would be Yarborough….ya’ know.
interesting topic, Ruth. thanks!
my paternal grand parents born in Michigan and grandfather assumed from England. grandmother adopted and her mother’s last name was “French,” so grand mother claimed that (assume France) as ancestry.
maternal grandparents also Michigan near Grand Rapids. Grandmother ‘s family Irish.
i think my great grandfather came from England with his folks to Canada, and then to Michigan and had 80-acre farm. He became well known in agricultural circles –esp. fruit trees. he sold farm to my grandfather and moved to nearby Lowell, MI. i recall visiting him “in town” with my grandmother as well as him visiting the farm and walking around. still had about 7 acres of peach trees at that time –delicious peaches picked and eaten direct from the tree. my grandmother started 55 years as a teacher in one-room schools at age 16; and she was the main support of the family and farm over the years. lots of good memories from the farm and family gatherings.
Isn’t it amazing, here in a small town things are like that, we were latecomers, so never are really seen as members of the community. The goat was probably a great price, you know.
So glad you like it, always fascinating to see how many different things go into making us up. Michigan really impressed me last July 4th, the lakes are just wonderful. Also I have fond memories of fresh peaches right off the tree.
Great topic and speaking of novel writing…
I’ve long thought that the adventures of my ancestors would make for a brilliant novel. Isabelle Allende’s House of Spirits and other works is inspiring that way.
A friend of mine’s family landed on Dauphin Island, AL in the late 1600′s. They were aboard a Spanish ship and thought they were all Spainish. Turns out they were Jewish and had been hiding in plain site in Spain for years. It has only been in the last decade that they rediscovered this part of their history.
I am English, Irish, Scots, and French. Heinz 4 sauce.
Why not make a start and see how it goes? Always fun to try.
That does come as a surprise. My sister in law was not completely pleased when I told her, well “Shalom” sister once.
The Brits were bastards in the 1800s; exporting 300,000 of the underclass to Australia as supposed convicts (ie, the poor) and up to 100,000 children as orphans, called “Home Children”, who were emigrated to Canada–most to work on farms.
My forbears on both sides made their way from Europe to Nova Scotia, and from there to the Boston area. Now settled in California with wife of 40 years from Taiwan, our daughter’s been living in Australia. Seems no end to our wanderings.
i’m closest to the hampton branch. they’re sending me the book from the yar branch.
In the 1800′s children who were orphaned in our big cities were loaded on trains and sent West, as well. Some did all right, but no thanks to the ones who decided this was the solution to their problem.
http://www.kancoll.org/articles/orphans/orphan_t.htm
When I was a little boy, my DAR grandmother showed me a huge genealogy chart with my name on a little outer sprig. I was mostly impressed with the number of people, but she pointed out to me that the couple at the top were great-grandparents of Thomas Jefferson and great-great-grandparents of John Marshall. I sort of assumed that everyone was related to a President. When I was a little more sophisticated, I figured out that the founding couple accounted for something like 0.5% of my DNA.
An ancestor was an early settler in Alabama where he married a woman named Lee. Not the family of R.E. Lee. That family in due course made me a distant cousin of the novelist Harper Lee. I like to tell people that my most famous relative is Atticus Finch. When they remind me that Atticus is fictional, I point out that the same is true of a lot of genealogy.
Seriously, it’s now easy to get a lot of information from the net. The LDS site is free, as are census records. For anything before 1900 or so, the passenger lists have been lost, so it’s hard to jump the Atlantic. I’ve found that I read parts of history with more attention if I know an ancestor was around. But not everyone has my lack of imagination.
My DAR and Daughters of the Confederacy aunt drove everyone bananas with family history, but bless her heart, she did put together a print version and we all got one, so have a lot of family history down. It’s good to know about the famous ones, but I admit, I like the ones who were good to each other best.
Thanks, glad to know…several have hinted at an Austin meetup. I think you mentioned UT one time. Im really quite near Yar…..
Oh RevBev, you make me so happy. I’ll be at the austin meetup. Well only if I can go with you. I think I’m close. if only I can remember.
That’s great…what will be need to remind you?;)
political issue for me right now and also my broken wrist. there’s a development threat to a sweet open space in our community and we’ve been going through the process. so far, the nbhd assoc recommended keeping it open space and so did the environmental board. tues we go before the planning commission and then may 24 starts 4 weeks of it being before the city council.
after that, let’s talk austin meet-up. maybe by then i’ll be driving.
Good luck…where is the space? I was trying to think of anything I have been reading. Do you need any driving help? Take care.
Dad’s side came from Germany in late 1870′s. There is a great-great uncle that was a cannoneer at the siege of Paris. Mom’s side came over from the Emerald Isle in the 1850′s.