“Every book is an adventure of the mind and an invitation to experience the gifts of the imagination.” Hermann Hesse
Is that not true of life, too?
Mom’s ancestry was solidly German. I tell friends she was 1,000% German. Her grandparents all eventually emigrated from Prussian Germany in the late 1800s. I still have the wooden trunk that carried my maternal great-grandmother’s belongings to America. Swearing off their allegiance to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last King of Prussia, they became American citizens. Then they settled into a life of farming in the southern part of the county in what was then the German community around Waymansville, Indiana. My Grampa grew up speaking German. I still have his confirmation Bible printed in high German from 1909 (I also have my Grandmother’s too).
My Great-Great-Grandmother, Eleanor, gave birth to Darius, my great-grandfather when she was eighteen. He was raised by his grandmother after Eleanor’s soon to be husband, the local schoolmaster, would have nothing to do with an illegitimate child Thus the DeLap name and the claim to a Scottish bloodline. My great grandfather ended up marrying Sarah Nolen from Carmi, Illinois. The Nolen’s were Irish, too. Ancestry and family history often weave a tangled web.
Mom and Dad’s ethnic mix created an interesting dynamic growing up. Formality met frivolity. You learned how to navigate those two personalities. I’m the offspring of this Germanic-Irish heritage—I can be equal parts anal retentive and a good bar mate. I can be alone or in company. I am perfectly fine being alone but would welcome someone waking up with me in the morning.
Age mellowed mom a bit, or maybe it was the four rapscallions who constantly tested her ability to hold the line. Dad was more gregarious. He was the guy you would sidle up next to at the bar, share a drink, and talk about life. It was hard for me to believe that he was the grandson of a Southern Baptist preacher—although, every once in a while, the preacher in him came out.
“The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.” William Hazlitt