Knowing one’s roots is basic, at least in my opinion… It boils down to single lines of cause and effect: but for the lives of two people who sprung from separate and random origins, but for the alignment of fate, I would not be here. Maybe that’s a bit overblown, but as I have studied, with the help of my elders, the lines of cause and effect that resulted in my life, I have discovered interesting things. For one, the luck of an intrepid man-servant plying the Atlantic ocean along with 101 other souls, roughly 400 years ago, swept overboard but lucky enough to have grabbed hold of a halyard and pulled back aboard-ship: that man was John Howland. He was mighty prolific in his day along with his wife Elizabeth Tilley, and through their first born daughter Desire, I am certainly grateful and certainly not the most famous of their many ultimate descendants.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. Be safe and be grateful.