Well, the cataloging/authority module is down again, as it was almost a year ago when I started this blog. In that year's time much has changed, especially me. New house, a new outlook and a little less of me. On the negative side Hyphen has been sidelined for as much as a year. Aunt Martha's obit still resides in my inbox, as if it were the last contact I have with the Taylor side of the family. I only hear from my Aunt Marilyn on a regular basis, but she is from my father's side of the family. The Taylors, AKA Siskinovich, was my mother's side of the family. Mother was first generation American, slightly one hundred years removed from Mother Russia. My dad's parents were first generation, my dad's father's father emigrating from what was then Prussia. True to his nationality his dad was very Prussian in demeanor. His mother was of Polish extraction but was born to naturalized parents in Philadelphia. His dad's family always looked down on Celia, my grandmother, because she was Polish and his family felt he had married beneath him. At least he married within the faith. Irvin, my grandfather, was a tiny tyrant, who made a rug out of his deceased pet dog out of love of the dog. He terrorized the next dog they had, forcing him into a life that was limited to the outside and the kitchen. And, literally, Irvin was a tiny tyrant. Just under five foot four inches tall. He desperately wanted to join the fight in WWI but was constantly rejected because of his height. I have the full correspondence he had with the War Department about his height. Towards the end of the conflict they let him into the Army as a secretary stateside. Still he had his chance to serve.
The Taylors, all great aunts and uncles, were more fun and outgoing, probably because there were so many of them. I remember Fridays my grandmother Dorothy would make Sabbath dinner for the unmarried brothers and sisters, of which there were five of the nine. Laughter would ring out and card games won and lost late into the evening. My Aunt Sally would put me to bed on Fridays when I was young and she, without fail, fell asleep before I did. I was closer to the Taylors than I was to even my parents. We lived with my mom's mother, who was more like a mother to me than my mother. I used to slip into Dorothy's room whenever I couldn't sleep, which was often, and slide into the unoccupied twin bed and listen to her radio all night, Mike Whorf on WJR, slipping back into my room before my dad would get up. The parents did not approve of my close relationship with Dorothy. But that is a story for another day. I think my dad approved but my mother was jealous of the relationship but she only had herself to blame, which is another reason I continue to go to and through therapy. A never ending journey to self. Alas and alack the last of the original Taylors, Aunt Martha, passed a December 2013. And soon thereafter the Soul Sucker exited my life; her and her blue fuxing Jeep that she wouldn't drive to Detroit for a funeral. 2013 was also the year of the big ice storm and big it was. Things didn't get back to normal around her until recently. No, really!
So that is a little bit more background, scenery for you to chew. Dang, it is loud in here today as the software has malfunctioned and everyone is chattering away instead of blogging, like good little clerks. Ten minutes more and I can haul ass out of here.
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