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Jabberwocky

 

Jabberwocky

 

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great question.

                                 Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

 

 

Like Alice in Wonderland, many of us spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out who we are. Some put little effort

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The Grand Society Of Race-shifters: Ode to Grey Owl

The race-shifters are coming out of the woodwork like ants attracted to honey--Hollywood actors, singers, academics, writers, and of late, even a university president--all relying on old family tales to claim one more trophy, the cachet of having a ggggg…grandmother

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It's All Relative

You are of royal descent because everyone is.

                                                                                         --Adam David Rutherford

 

When Edward Longshanks came to the throne of England in 1272, he literally stood out among my 4 million or so relatives in the 13th century. When the average

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Epitaphs

 

 

 

 

Ten years ago, my wife and I visited the tomb of Mahatma Gandhi in India. Inscribed on the slab of black marble at Raj Ghat, New Delhi, are the words, Hai Ram, roughly translated as O Lord. They were

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Strangling Angels and Noxious Remedies: The Real World of Our Ancestors

 

 

 Back in 1899, when everybody sang auld lang syne...

                                                               Steve Goodman, The Twentieth Century is Almost Over.

 

Expressions of sorrow and condolence appeared regularly in newspapers of the day. A notice in The Twillingate Sun in October 1891 was typical:

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My Illustrious Ancestors

 

Someday, you'll be an ancestor too

                                                                                          

 

 

If truth be told, I have always been a Walter Mitty type, daydreaming about my exotic origins, living in heroic times, wielding the pitiless sword of righteousness.

I first became aware of this tendency

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Stories in Stone

 

 Little Flowers of Love, That Blossomed but to Die...

 

 

Stories of survival, determination, and tragedy dominate our history. This one begins at the tail-end of the nineteenth century and continued into the waning years of the twentieth. On June 29,

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Unlocking the Past

The past is never dead. It's not even past

                                                                 ...William Faulkner

 

 

 

The photograph, remarkable for its detail and clarity, was taken at L'Anse au Pigeon (Lancy Pigeon) on the French Shore of northern Newfoundland in the summer of 1910. Many

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