It is a Brave New World, that Doth Have Such Paradigm Shifts in It, D-Day +2
First off, before I get started, an explanation:
Winneroux; a Portmanteau of Winner and Roux,
Winner(slang) - a sarcastic way of saying "loser",
Roux - a mixture of fat and flour used thicken sauces.
In this context, this story is both a real downer and is a thick sauce to swallow, hence a Winneroux.
Now, on to the rest of the story:
As residents of the United States of America, most of us tend to think that some things are expected to be reasonable constants:
There is always clean water to drink, even if it is over priced.
The toast always lands butter/jelly/jam side down.
Almost all 7th grade boys hate school, except lunch.
You can always save 15% by changing auto insurance to that provided by Gekkonidae.
Your cup is either half full, or it is half empty; unless you are going to knock it over in a restaurant, in which case it is all-up full every time.
Stop Signs do not turn Green.
The stories about family history you learned as a child don’t always pass muster under the light of adulthood.
I thought I knew this as well, so some stuff is embellished or just plain false, but in the end it isn’t really that important, is it?
Well, this week my own paternal history train went straight off the rails, and into the river, sinks to the bottom, and then explodes.
It is a Brave New World, that Doth Have Such Paradigm Shifts in It, D-Day H-Hour.
3:30 pm, my phone rings, it is my sister who never calls me directly, she usually calls my wife. After a brief Hello, and assurances that there are no immediate emergent crises, she asks me a rather strange question, “Why are we 25% Sicilian?”. OK, Ill bite, just where did this data come from, I enquire. “I just got a genetic test performed and it says we are 25% Sicilian”, why is that? Now my father was born in 1937, and is the last of nine children, three of which died before I was born. There is also a 7 Year gap between my father and his next younger brother who was born in 1930 and is the only one of his sibling that I got to know very well.
“Well, have you ever seen the color pictures of Dad, from his teenage years, I always thought he looked Mediterranean in them”, I respond. I always wondered why his ‘Father’ our ‘Grandfather’ always seemed to despise him so”. My sister who is almost 6 years younger than me never really met our paternal “Grandfather” as he died when she was 5. I had always just surmised that it was due to the Great Depression, and an extra mouth to feed that came along years after he thought they were done with more children. Kind of harsh, I know, but that was all it was, so thought I (Silly Boy).
Now as my father, and just about everyone who would know anything about this, is deceased, there are only two people I can think of who might know anything about this. Our mother, and my youngest uncle’s widow, both of whom are in their 80’s.
I also talk with Mrs. Throckmorton about it and she suggested I take a test from a competing provider, just to verify the accuracy of the first test. As most of us have seen the stories of identical twins getting vastly different results. I was going to order one but didn’t really feel it was a priority activity, just another item in the third sub-basement of my to-do list.
It is a Brave New World, that Doth Have Such Paradigm Shifts in It, D-Day+1
My phone rings, it is my mother, who is hopping mad it my sister. Seems my sister called my widowed aunt, and my aunt, she spilled the beans.
Yes, my father was half Italian; my grandmother had an affair while her husband was halfway across the country working as a cook. My father is the result of this affair, and everyone; even my mother knew it. My father had begged her never to tell us, but 21st century technology made that promise mostly moot. She did not tell us, science did.
Until he was around 18, my grandmother would take him to visit his biological father several times a year. His biological father even gave my father his first car, a well-used 1947 Plymouth Coupe as a graduation present from High School, (Dad went on about this car ad-nauseum when I was a child, never mentioned its origin though).
Now the bizarre part, (if is not weird enough for you already), I believe I even met him at several times, the last time being at my grandmother’s burial in 1969. He was at the the back of the cemetery, just standing there. My father took my hand and walked me back to see him. He gave my father a hug, and picked me up, I had just turned 7, and hugged and kissed me.
I never asked who he was, and if it were not for my eidetic memory, I would never have remembered the event. But it was my first burial, and I met so many people for the first, and mostly last time, it was just a bug splat on my window to that distant past event. It would flash into my memory once in a while, but I did not think it was significant. I do remember that my grandmothers’ husband never said a word to me or my father the entire time we were at the cemetery.
Ok so, throw what I thought for 58 years about my paternal lineage is out the window. Because of whom my ‘Grandfathers’ family was/is, our paternal linage is documented from my ‘grandfather’s’ generation back to 1066. All this being duly recorded in book form in the Harvard Library. Turns out, in the immortal words of Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace: “No, no. I'm not a Brewster. I'm the son of a sea-cook! Ha! Ha! Chaaaaarrrge!”.
It is a Brave New World, that Doth Have Such Paradigm Shifts in It, D-Day+2
I will have to digest this concept for a while. One thing is for certain, except for the big secret he took to his grave, I do not think any less of my father because of this. But it does help explain some of his internalized struggles he fought his entire life. Dad, when I was old enough to understand, I wish you had told me, because as it says in a horribly miss applied John 8:36 “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
So, now off I go into the future, unchanged, except for maybe having a little, (who am I kidding, truckloads), more understanding of my father’s family dynamic. Ha! Ha! Chaaaaarrrge! "
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