I still have more to rant about, but will attempt to refrain as I move on to more pleasant subjects. We have been so busy that I have not taken the time to write. I’m not sure anyone really cares how many dinners lunches and brunches we have had this month. Besides, I would have to get out the calendar and would be bored trying to get that all into print.

The major event was a trip to Hamilton where we had a wonderful small cousins gathering to celebrate Aunt Dorothy’s birthday. 96 is wonderful age to reach with sharp mind, and the great beauty she has carried with her as long as I have known her. We had lunch at cousin Marilyn’s home, Al is gone, with Harvey and Leslie and Arnie and Peggy. It was a fun gathering with plenty of reminiscing and sharing of pictures.

After staying the night at Marilyn’s place , we set out for Niagara on the Lake and the Shaw Festival Theater for a performance of GBShaw’s “Man and Superman” with the 3rd act “Don Juan in Hell” included. This started at 11 AM broke for lunch after the 2nd act and resumed at 2:30 finally concluding at about 5:15. It is indeed a long day of theater. And Shaw being Shaw the number of words would have filled two plays of the same duration. The soliloquys in Act 3 were so long that Shaw even had one character comment  that the length of Don Juan’s speeches were very long, twice! It is amazing that that the actors were able to deliver these lengthy lines almost flawlessly. The program notes reference the nature of this play as a marathon or grand opera. It takes stamina on the part of the performers AND the audience. We were thrilled with the performance and delighted to have had the rare opportunity to see this production in full. It was the first of 17 scheduled performances. After a light dinner in town we had a pleasant drive home.

My major time sink this month has been Ancestry.com. Carol and I did DNA testing a couple of years ago and neither of us has taken the time to do anything about it other than to look to see that we are indeed where we thought we were from with no real surprises. I have spent endless hours building the family tree on both the maternal and paternal sides of my family and assisting Carol in starting to build her tree. From my grandparents “down” it has been pretty easy although I have found a couple of cousins I did not know about and the links to many more at the 3rd cousin level who I do not have names or lineage for. Tackling the pedigree side of the tree is more difficult as there are few people around with any memory and much memory cannot be trusted without some documentation. I will need to upgrade my database access to see documents from out of the US and have been putting that off until I have a couple of months in the US to do the work. 

My only comment on the political scene is that I am sick to my stomach with the hate speech from all sides and I fear for future generations of non-white non-European stock in this country. In all my life I have never seen such raw antisemitism expressed by public figures in public venues. If the blame for whatever failures are  fantasized, is placed today on Latinos, Asians, nonwhite immigrants, how long before the Jews join the ranks of scapegoats?

I promised not to rant. . . . . . . .  promise broken, so sorry!!!!