Catching Up

No doubt some of you expect to hear something from me about the election. No comment. Sorry to disappoint but I ain't going there. You'd think I'd be happier considering it was such a great year for crotchety old white men.

You'll be glad to know I have now confirmed that everyone in my family tree is indeed somehow related to me. Now I'm working my way through the duplicates. In the process I made a rather startling discovery. I'm related to the same person through two different relatives!

Bartlett Haggard (my 5th great grandfather) was born in Virginia in 1764. He married Martha Dawson in 1785 and moved with her to Clark County, Kentucky where they had three girls: Mildred, Mary and Sara. Mildred and Mary are BOTH my 4th great grandmothers!

My paternal grandfather is Mildred's great great grandson. He married Mary's great great granddaughter. I'm pretty sure nobody knows this but me, and now you. Judging by the number of duplicates remaining on the family tree roster, it looks like I'll probably find another double relationship before I'm done. Is thinking that is super romantic just a Kentucky thing?

Progress on the book comes in fits and starts, due mostly to challenges with my memory. I know I came out in September or October 1979. My journals start with May of 1982. Piecing together what happened in 1980 and 1981 has involved digging through college transcripts and old tax returns for clues and hints.

I wouldn't bother, but the year or two after I came out are fairly critical to the overall story. Fortunately, this far into writing the book I've learned not to be a slave to the truth. I've taken a lot of liberties for the sake of clarity and to keep the story moving.

The book started with the Trauma Car Tales posted here in April and May of this year. I dumped all the blog posts into a file and since July, have been working to craft them into a book. It may have been easier to start over, but working with the blog posts meant I was well on my way before I really even started.

Having worked through the big blank (1980-1981), I'm moving forward again with only a few more posts to work into the book. Once I reach the end of the blog posts, I expect the writing to go a lot more quickly. Unless I hit a wall, it's a lot easier to write from scratch than to work in something I wrote months ago before I had any idea there would be a book.

I like it. Up until this last revision, I didn't, so that's saying something. Maybe I should use a nomme de plume. I could always go with...

The Crotchety Old Man