Finding Toney

Sometimes I am the Queen of sidetracking..  That's partly why I start much of my writing with a pencil and a pad of paper - too many things to distract me on the Internets.  There's always the temptation to see what's on the front page of Reddit.

But I digress.  (See?  Even without the Internet, I get sidetracked.)  One of the aspects of my sidetracking carries over to researching genealogy.  More than once, I've found myself exploring not just direct ancestors but their siblings, their wives, and eventually their great grandchildren who lived just this past century.  Information that isn't necessarily critical to my family tree - but very interesting nevertheless.

So one day I focused on the family of one if my paternal great grandfathers, Benjamin Jackson, Jr.:

I knew some things about his family.  I was also familiar with many, many mistakes about his family on Ancestry.  Unfortunately, while Ancestry is great at disseminating genealogical information, the website also great at disseminating plenty of completely erroneous genealogical information.  Benjamin Jackson Jr. is listed as his own grandfather on far too many public trees (do people ever even check what they copy & paste onto their trees??).

One of the things I learned about Benjamin was the name of his mother.  I already thought that I knew her name was Lorena Toney Jackson up until I found a scanned copy of his death certificate.  Poor Benjamin had died in his forties from tuberculosis.  His father answered the particulars for his death certificate including the mother's name which was America Coleman not Lorena.  It turns out that Benjamin Sr. married America first and they had two children before she died sometime before 1870.

As I had the opportunity, I explored more on Benjamin Jr.'s siblings and half siblings.  Toney Beauregard Jackson, the baby of the family, was the last sibling I focused on and the one that I found the most information.

Ancestry's search tends to bring back everything but the kitchen sink.  I figured with a name like Toney, I'd be seeing every Tony and Anthony on the east coast returned in searches.  So instead of starting with Ancestry, I Googled Toney instead; not really expecting anything except maybe an obituary.  Toney Beauregard Jackson didn't return any hits to speak of.  But Toney B Jackson had a scholarship fund established in his name at the Citadel, a South Carolina military college.

Not one week before, I had the opportunity to see a college portrait of my father's brother - in his Citadel uniform.  This was getting exciting.

So ok, time for that Ancestry search.  Several pages into it was a Yearbook picture with more than a passing resemblance to my father and wearing a now familiar uniform.  Hello Toney.

Finding a photo on Ancestry, other than a headstone or a photocopy of a census page, is actually an uncommon experience for me.  It's funny how I'd always mentioned the Glover resemblance (something with the eyes and eyebrows) that people could see in my family.  Glover, because I always associated it with my father and therefore "Glovers".  Looking at Toney though made me realize the obvious fallacy of that.  It was the Jackson resemblance all along.

Life-Changing books you should read & why they are life-changing

Interesting thread on Reddit so far.

The Bible.
Not for any religious reason, but because it underpins so much of Western art, culture, and literature.  If you have not read it, you will miss out an awful lot.


1984.
Not necessarily because I believe it will happen (in that exact way), but more because it rings to attention many problems that are appearing/being revealed in modern society.  Specifically, the many ills, laws and other regulations inserted by states in many parts of the Western world.


The Republic by Plato.

It lays down so many of the reasons we have now for why we do things. You just have to read it if you're in anyway interested in any sort of academic pursuit.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Brilliant, unsettling and impossible to put down.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. 

Both are war related (WWII and Vietnam, respectively) but they are so beautiful, deep, touching and really give a deeper look into war and it's effects on people, especially the soldiers fighting it.

The prose is enthralling, compelling and if you don't cry in at least one part of either book, or at least have it make you contemplate life and humanity, then I don't know what to tell you.

Siddhartha. 

Each time I read it I learn something new or gain a new vantage point. I grew up catholic and before this book, I had NO exposure to the concept of no-self. I literally never had anyone in my life ever even hint about such a concept. Looking back on how much change has entered my life since then, I consider reading that book to be my "opening the wardrobe to Narnia" moment.

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The reason why this different than your standard fare of self-help book and why it has withstood the test of time is that unlike other self help books, it isn't a simple "read this and it will change your life instantly."

Rather it is a book delineating a regimen for slow, incremental change that requires time to implement, and constant review (the author encourages constant re-reading of chapters.)

But once it is implemented, your life will change, and your social interactions and career will literally change, just not overnight.

Read the full thread here.

Weaverton Cliffs

The week that my Father died was part of a slow, inevitable process. We as a family knew he was going, it was just a question of when. Even with that knowledge, his passing that Thursday evening hit like a hammer. None of us had ever lost a close family member.

I had been playing around with the idea of doing an old AT hike that my parents and I had done 20+ years before.  That had been a hike to Weaverton Cliffs which overlooks Harpers Ferry.

This time, I could use the Internets to research the trail and get a map.  I also read trail descriptions, a six hour hike?  Yeah that I could handle, even though I wasn't in the best of shape.  

Turns out I read the hike description wrong; not six miles total - twelve miles over very rocky terrain.  Whoopsie.  

I ran out of steam less than a quarter of a mile from the cliffs.  At that point my knees were tightening up, and I'd had a minor ankle sprain.  Lunch gave me time to prop my ankle up and take a break.  Wisely I decided it was better to focus on the return hike rather than push ahead on what had become the roughest section of the trail.

The return hike became something of a push-my-body-more-than-it's-used-to situation.  I remembered one athlete's description of how he could push himself past his norm on hard hikes; break the hike down into smaller manageable sections.  So I'd look ahead to a particular tree or rock ahead on the trail and set a goal for getting there.  Meanwhile my knees were progressively getting stiffer and more painful with each hill.  Level terrain I could manage almost pain free.  Except for most sections of level terrain I had to navigate over a jumble of rocks.

I had thought that up there on the Appalachian Trail that I could connect with my Father in some way.  Sort of a spiritual ley line.  Understandably, I wasn't thinking of him as much as I had originally imagined. The demands of the hike itself on my out-of-shape body took precedence.  Calling 911 seemed like a looming possibility - especially if I couldn't get back to the trail-head before the sun set.

Then I did start hearing my Father, or rather what he would be saying if I related the story of this hike to him.  Yeah, I never should have taken on such a hike before working up to it with shorter hikes.  Yeah, I should have dressed warmer.  Yeah, it was a bit silly pushing myself to do a hike in January by myself.

Each thought brought a little smile to my face in spite of the pain and self pity I was going through.  Mentally I was starting to compare my pained shuffle to the Bataan death march.  I could see my Dad in my mind's eye snort with amusement and shake his head.

For a while, I hiked with an older couple until my knees couldn't keep up.  We had a cool conversation about different hikes in Maryland.  I managed not to spill out the story of my Father's passing - that was too fresh and too close to my heart.

By the time I took a rest and declined their kind offer to stay with me, I was less than a half mile away from my car.  I knew I could make it and found a little bit of pride creeping in, ignoring the fact that I had been contemplating the very real possibility of having to call for help not too long before.

It was worth it to spend time with my Father.  What the heck, I'd definitely wanted to do it again - on a shorter hike

Improve Yourself

Collated from various sources, here's a list of ways to
Improve Yourself

• Work out every other day.
• Learn something new every day.
• Give back to the community at least once a week.
• Read a book.
• Make your own meals, no fast food.
• Clean out your living space. Get rid of anything you haven’t used in 1 year.
• Make a list of everything you need to do, now or later. Apply a “next steps” to each one with an estimated time to complete and a date of when you’ll do it. Add these dates to you calendar and tell everyone that you are busy at those times if they try to plan something with you.
• Simplify your life. Don’t buy every new gadget.
• Watch a TED talk.
• Listen to Radiolab and This American Life.
• Get a library card.
• Meditate 15 minutes/day.
• Walk to a place that you would normally drive.
• Read something written from a perspective that you do not agree with, and if you still disagree without being disagreeable.
• Think about somebody who has done you wrong. Then forgive them, truly forgive them in your heart, whether they want your forgiveness or not. Whether they know you’ve forgiven them or not.
• Donate money and/or time.
• Do some pushups, sit-ups, and a stretch before bed.
• Listen to an entire album.
• Give somebody the benefit of the doubt.
• Write down a personal 1, 3, and 5 year plan for yourself. Post copies in places that would be helpful to you.
• Watch a classic movie.
• Watch a classic book.
• Yoga
• Watch http://youtu.be/cRmbwczTC6E
• Forgive someone.

Dealing with grief

Dealing with grief. It sounds so melodramatic to me. I've always felt cut off from such emotions having never experienced the loss of anyone close. Until recently.

Now my days vary; I can be be-bopping along doing my thing one minute, sobbing my eyes out the next. It's hard to share, these feelings. It's hard not to feel that the more public I am with my feelings, the more I cheapen the memory of my father. Yet at the same time, the grief is still there.

So what to do? Go on just like this? Does it get better? Because some days it feels like the depression is a very big black hole. Maybe counseling? Yeah that's sooooo appealing. Shit I don't know.

It's that time of year again

It's that time of year again. I'm flipping through various seed catalogs, stalking potential seed swaps, and planning out this year's gardening calendar. Cold January days bring out the hunger for a garden bursting with green. Last year's successes inspire plans an even larger harvest this year. Finally, mistakes from last year will not be repeated this growing season - instead I shall make brand new mistakes!

Things I learned:
1. Don’t plant tomatoes within 2 feet of my fence.
2. Make my fence higher.
3. Deer like tomato blossoms.
4. Wait. Start tomato seeds indoors in March, not early February.
5. Grow extra seedlings and share them around the community garden again.

I have white sage seeds planted that will (hopefully) be sprouting any day. Next up, starting a new indoor herb garden of chervil, chives, and various basil.