Monday March 11, 2002

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.

Mike got picked up at 0630... I have to start the day dealing with a flat tire on the Tarus... two nails in the right rear, the last time I took it in there were three nails in it... Cindy's IEP is at 1300 today... it should be very interesting. 

I am a member of the USS Cogswell Association, eligible members are anyone who ever served on her. I was aboard the from ’63 to ’66.  Coincidentally, I was born in June of '43 and she was commissioned in April. The word used to describe a person who served on a ship when she was commissioned is “Plank-owner”. We have identified 267 of them from Navy Records and actually found 69 of them, 24 of the men we have located are gone now, 39 are active members and another 8 are inactive, just not interested or are unable to join for one reason or another. One of the active members  is a fella named Don Peirce, we got to swapping e-mails and discovered we were both very interested in genealogy, he is bordering on a professional genealogist, I am merely a  opportunistic, plagiarist, packrat, hack by comparison. His wife is very ill and he cares for her "24-7”.  He has some interesting stories to tell,  his father was 100 years old when he died in 2000. It struck me as odd that I have met two people recently with 100 year old fathers. I mentioned a month or so back that I have a (distant) cousin, Richard Daggett, who's father Ray turned 100 last November. I hope some of their genes finagled their way into my DNA. Richard will be on TV pretty soon he participated in a documentary a year or two back...  when he tells me when it will air I will post the date and time.

I sent Don a list of ancestors and he has, to date, found 2 links, tortuous ones to be sure but links none the less.  I have really enjoyed exchanging e-mail with him, there are only a few folks in my address book that  put much effort into writing… most use e-mail for what it was originally designed, sending short abbreviated memo's written like each letter co$t's a buck. Hurried little snippets of thought. I appreciate them too but the long thoughtful e-mail

I think writing a decent letter/e-mail is a lost art, before computers and, more importantly, before spell-checkers and grammar-checkers, I was far too embarrassed to write a letter… I have never been able to spell worth a damn and as far as grammar is concerned, I gave up years ago. I have adopted what my sister diplomatically calls a stream-of-consciousness style of writing…

My father and both grandfathers were excellent letter writers, I especially liked to read my mother's father's letters, I have only received a few but my mother used to let me read some... full of information and written with dry Down East humor. I doubt that she saved any, she wasn't very tuned in to that sort of behavior, I was amazed that she actually saved as much stuff as she did.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist(1811-1863)

Mister Thackery appears to have concisely stated what is happening to me, I can’t seem to stop this inane drivel from coming. I have been plodding along with my webpage and writing to anyone who will write back (even some, like my sisters, who won’t) for so long now that it’s bordering on obsessive. I am probably driving people nuts. I wish I could find more people to write to, even argue with... I am not a very good arguer. It seems like I have to get pretty passionate about something

Tuesday March 12, 2002

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.