Strange Complaints

Well, that was weird.

Last week I celebrated a birthday that reached a number on the old body odometer that neither of my parents reached. Both the night before and the night of, I’ll admit it was difficult to fall asleep because they were both all I could think of until the wee hours of the morning.

Seeing how much they were on my mind my amazing wife decided to do something positive with that focus, and gave me a six-month subscription to one of those ancestry websites. I guess she thought I could obsess over things in a more general fashion than on my folks.

She was right.

So far I’ve tremendously enjoyed digging and seeing what I can find. For instance, it was/is trippy to see not only my grandfather’s registration card for WW2 (where he had to put his mark as he was illiterate) but also his father’s registration cards for both WW1 and WW2. I’m not sure what a 54 year old cajun fisherman/trapper would have done to aid the war effort in that second war, but it was still deeply moving to me to see his signature. He’d learned - as did my grandfather eventually, how to sign his name despite not being able to read or write anything else.

I’ve also found my grandfather’s and his siblings birth certificates.. but I’ve had the dickens of a time trying to find my great grandfather’s. You’d think with a name like Trezamon (or Trezemond or Trezimon) Jones would be fairly easy to find, but it’s not.

Maybe he just didn’t have an official birth certificate so at the moment I’m trying to find (maybe) a christening or baptism record.

It’s more than I think I’ll ever find for his own father, though. My Great Great Grandfather was a man named Henry who came from Ireland (according to the few times I see him and his family in the U.S. Census forms). It turns out that there were probably hundreds of boys named Henry Jones born in or around Ireland during the year(s) I have for his possible birthday.

See. She was right.

I’m going to obsess over this for months and months until I finally find something or lose my mind. What I won’t be doing is wondering what I did to deserve to be allowed to get to this age when I know 1000% that my father was a better man than I will ever hope to be. Honestly, the same might be true for my mother. She was a force of nature made of determination and love.

I’m glad to still be here and I’m even gladder to be a physical reminder in the world that they were here, along with my amazing sister.

DO NOT TELL HER I called her amazing, though. I have a reputation to keep as a big brother, and I don’t need this going to her head and messing things up.

Anyways, let me get back to banging my head against my desk as I sift through Henry Jones after Henry Jones in the Irish Birth/Christening records in hopes of seeing one that kinda-sorta-almost-at-least-maybe matches the dates I think I have.

The added benefit of this, of course, is that I’m staying mostly inside during this second wave of ungodly heat. If you’re foolish enough to read my column then chances are you’re also foolish enough to have to go out into the cruel sun at times, so please stay hydrated and take care of yourself.

I’ve only got maybe four or five people who regularly read this column so I can’t afford to lose any of you or they just might give this space to something more worthy like the betting odds on how many tires will need to be changed during the rest of this summer simply from the rubber absolutely melting from the scorching asphalt?

Until later…