Cell Phones & Siblings

[hunter]

26. Irish Catholicism breeds some powerful sorts of anti-authoritarianism and heresy.

Rather like the child of Evangelical Protestant Creationist Fundamentalist parents who grows up to be a Paleontologist. One of my favorite university professors was such.

Our family is still Catholic... more or less. My dad's ancestors largely jumped ship and swam and ran as fast as they could deep into the American Wild West to escape troubles back home with the English.

My mom's family is more complex. One of my ancestors was a mail order bride to Salt Lake City in the earliest days. She didn't like sharing a husband and ran off with a U.S. Government surveyor who was out West because he had his own troubles in proper WASP East Coast society. Lucky for the couple, greater U.S.A. and the Catholic Church did not recognize polygamous marriage or any other obligations my greater grandma may have felt toward the Mormons who had paid to bring her to Salt Lake City. The couple established a homestead outside of Utah. When the Mormons followed, my ancestors were established and the Mormons were the immigrants. My mom's older relatives and cousins became the traditional water masters and discreet sellers of alcoholic beverages, "French" postcards, condoms, and much more importantly, neutral arbiters of otherwise back-stabbing internal Mormon community politics.

My great grandfather maintained the phone lines. If he ever accidentally overheard anything, then he was the person in the community anyone could trust to remain silent.

I attribute my own genetic love of communication networks -- radio, telephone, and internet -- to him.

My great grandma was severely pissed off when her husband signed onto rural electrification in the 'thirties to support his radio habit. She was still complaining about her trivial electric bill into the 'sixties. My great grandma's house (she was the Lord Supreme Ruler there) had two forty watt light bulbs and my dead great grandfather's God Damned radios. Heh. I know she sometimes listened, after he was dead.

Later my great grandma went ape-shit crazy when my mom's cousin, her own grandchild, installed an electric river well pump and more-or-less ordinary indoor plumbing with a flush toilet INSIDE THE HOUSE (imagine that!) and a septic tank, after his new bride insisted. They ordered the entire system from the Sears Catalog and paid it off in installments.

When my mom's parent's moved to Southern California my mom tried to be a re-integrated lost wilderness Catholic, she even wanted to be a nun as a teen, but then she had a bad encounter with a leering, smoking, not-so-bright priest, and she married my dad instead. They had many children Catholic style before they decided maybe birth control was a good idea. It wasn't for financial reasons, my parents don't worry about money, ever, if there are more important concerns, but for concerns about my mom's health. She's the unfortunate sort who would have eventually died in childbirth, irregardless of mid-twentieth century medicine. Doctors told her "don't do this again." Twice. That's when my dad got a vasectomy. I still have a big Catholic mess of siblings.

My wife's family is American Indian, Mexican and Canadian Irish Catholic. Whenever the Catholics and American Indians among them were not feeling welcome in the U.S.A. they moved north or south of the border.

My own cell phone once belonged to my kid in middle school, who is 21+ now and living in Los Angeles with a significant other, both with very incredibly smart phones, smarter than my recycled computers, with jobs that require them.

I don't care about that stuff and I never want to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day

Many of my most treasured personal stories are Dorothy Day moments.