Roots

I recently finished reading my mom's copy of Roots, which, I'm told, was a significant influence in her becoming interested in, and ultimately working more than 20 years on, our family history.

Roots is, at its heart, a story about the thread of dignity that runs through the generations of a family despite their enslavement. It was engrossing and had me on the edge of my seat. The part about the slave ship, spanning more than 50 pages and four fictional months, sticks in me like a thorn. Particularly after I discovered something my mom has known for some time - our ancestors in Kentucky were owned slaves.

I began the book a couple of days after my mom died - that was just over a month ago. It's been healing to read it.

The journal
Another significant development was that I finally found my mom's journal - the one she kept for me as a letter, written during my first year or so of life. I was searching for it the day she died. I remember first seeing it and reading a couple of paragraphs when I was a teen, snooping through my mom's stuff. I read enough to know that it wasn't for that time and I put it back, thinking that I'd open it again when she decided to show it to me or when she died. It was the latter, of course.

To me, it's the most precious possession I have from my mom's estate. I cried. It has sunflowers on the front of the book, mom's favorite flower.

Hazard lights
I hate tailgaters. When one runs up behind me on the expressway I have always responded by slowing down to force them to pass. It's unreliable, and, if the tailgater is a real ass, it could be dangerous. I found a better way. Flipping on my hazard lights made the guy pass me when slowing down didn't work. Then, to test it, I tried hazard lights on a person keeping a reasonable distance. They passed me, too. Finally, I got three in a row when I turned on the hazards and sped up to 65 or 70 mph. Still, they passed me.

Miss Humbert
Beck and I closed the week by having dinner on Friday night with my Montessori pre-school teacher, Roseanne Humbert. I haven't seen her in more than 25 years. It turned out that I was her first student (!) We had dinner - Roseanne, my Grandma, Becky, Uly and me at Grandma's home in Price Hill. What a neat time getting reacquainted and looking at pictures. Such an odd and special thing to see her again after all this time. She gave me a copy of the Little Prince when my age was counted on one hand with the inscription, "To Stephen, when he was a little boy.'