Go Fish

As children proceed through life, there is a progressively increasing reliance on memory. Children must become efficient in their use of both long-term and short-term memory. Rules, facts, concepts, procedures, language, and all sorts of social skills are to be learned and placed in memory. Oh...those childhood memories...some are good, some are bad...and some are just there.

It is certainly a rare occurrence that a child has a chance to store memories of his great-grandfather. I suspect that it very few who can remember meeting and talking to theirs. The picture to the right is my oldest grandson, Sam, playing cards with his great-grandfather, my Dad. I believe they are playing a game called "Go Fish". Sam showing his card, asking Dad if he had one like it. If not...go fish! You then had to draw cards until you got what was asked. The one with the most cards at the end would lose. Lose, win, one of those things one must learn. Go fish, I thought. A Chinese proverb tells that if you give a man a fish, he will eat one day...teach him to fish and he will eat for a life-time. Here, great-grandfather is teaching great-grandson how to fish. [Or maybe it is the other way around!] May Sam store this in both his short-term and long-term memory.

The Picture on the Box

Family time at 25 Vine Street was often spent around a folding card table. Here we played Rook and put together puzzles. Rook could be done over several hours, but putting a puzzle together often took several days to a week. We would leave the card table standing, and would work together as a family or independently, as we left for school or work, putting in a piece here or there until the job was done. Each day you could tell some progress had been made. It was kind of a family team effort. There was the 500 piece, 1000 piece, and the mother of all puzzles, the 5000 piece puzzle. When finished, everyone had a chance to comment, and then back in the box it went. It was almost as much fun taking it apart as putting it together, but much less of a challenge.

We usually started by dumping the whole puzzle in the middle of the card table. You then spread out all the pieces and placed the color surfaces right side up. You then looked for the pieces that had at least one side straight. These pieces you moved to the edge of the table because they were part of the outside rim of the puzzle. Next you looked at the picture on the box lid to identified the main theme. It might be the sea, sky, mountains, windmills, or any number of things that became the picture you were trying to put together. If sky, you then grouped the color themes blue to blue, green to green, orange to orange. Once grouped, you then started with the edge fitting and matching the colors and shapes. This provided a frame in which to work, sky up, field down, trees to the right, etc., etc. After all this was done, you then tried to fit the pieces together. The outside rim was usually the fastest, and the large expanse of sky, was usually the hardest. Little by little the puzzle would come together.

Doing genealogy is much like working a 5000 piece puzzle, especially with a surname like Jones! All the pieces seem mixed up and jumbled together. Having a plan helps. Start with what you know, is like organizing the out side edge of the puzzle. Grouping the colors together is like placing family names, maiden names, church groups or other common facts that you have discovered. Some times you have to look from different angles and there always seems to be a piece missing. Getting other family members involved often helps, but if you have the genealogy virus, others in the family usually do not. Work around the table, taking turns with different facts and family members, You do not have to have all the pieces put together at once, but each piece becomes part of the picture on the box.

Possum Hollor (End) They Will Flee

"Edward has a family of four, two girls and two boys. I never have spoke to him since the night about twenty years ago when he said good bye when he lift for camp and France to forget the girl of the log camp. Today the marker over my boys grave bears my maden name and the name of the good old family doctor that delivered him into this world. And when I look back over the past I remember the Bible says

Vengence is mine. I will repay, thus sayeth the Lord.

And I am thankful that God gave me a husband who is true blue and God know I am true to him. I am raising my family the best I know how. And living the life like any other Christian. They can say she made one mistake and has out lived it. And I know by experience that you can out live the past. My advice to any one that reads this it not throw your self away because you have done rong. You will find some to give a helping hand and to look to the one who died on the cross. And let the people of the world say what they may about you. And say, he that is with out sin let him cast a stone. And you will find they will flee as they did when Chrsit asked the same question. And you can go throu the world facing every one. And a smile on your face and a song in your heart knowing that you have over came temptation. You can't forget the past, but you can look forward to the future, knowing that God is with you to the end."