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Yes, and it's quite hilarious if you are in my family, but you'll probably just find it to be worthy of a smirk. The hilarity derives totally from how my grandmother is MORTIFIED by this. Keep in mind - I come from a Minnesota barely working-class family background on both sides. My grandmother has always been the one concerned with appearances and is appalled to think that some family secret that she married into without knowledge is a source of shame. It has to do with my grandfather (her husband) and his grandmother on the paternal side. Meanwhile, my grandmother's mother was a notorious roustabout who had, at various times, been arrested for prostitution (which, in Minnesota during the late 1800s, could have been sitting next to a man in a saloon and accepting a shot of whiskey - who the gently caress knows) and had spent a couple of stints in the nuthut for generally being a whackjob. I knew her - she was a cracker. In any case, my grandmother's husband (my grandfather; he passed away 10 years ago or so) comes from a steadfast, morally upright stock. He was a protestant minister, and his father and forefathers were farmers and frontiersmen. My grandmother at one point became obsessed with genealogy. I think she had the bright idea that she could trace family lineage back to nobility in the 1300s or something. But, she hit a snag as she was researching her husband's family. Apparently, my grandfather's grandmother (on his father's side) was notorious for her loose moral character. I would not go so far as to say "whore," because again - Minnesota, and now we are talking Civil War era. Who knows what the case could have been - perhaps she held hands with the mayor under the mayor's wife's jealous gaze. Could have been anything. Well, apparently, there were letters from about a certain time to my grandfather's grandmother that called into question the paternity of my grandfather's father. If it sounds like that episode of Black Adder, it is pretty much the same plot. However, instead of Edmund blustering into the throne room to dramatically recite the damning evidence of his mother's infidelity, my grandmother (in her 60s at this time; this was about 30 years ago) burst into the room, where a family dinner was ongoing, clutching a crumpled, decades-old piece of personal correspondence, and shouted at my grandfather:" You're not who I married! Your grandmother was a whore and instead of marrying a [my family's name, redacted] I married the son of a bastard Dufresne! You're nothing but the grandson of a scoundrel beaver-bagger!" [apparently this "Dufresne" character was a trapper.] There was about 30 seconds of silence, and then as all 20 (20!!!) people in the room realized how utterly ridiculous my grandmother looked, standing in the doorway, clutching a crumpled manuscript in her shaking fist, crying with shame and indignity because she married a man whose grandfather may or may not have been a beaver trapper (a very lucrative trade at the time the alleged infidelity would have happened), everyone tried to contain their laughter. But, it was hard. Yes - that's the big scandal. Oh, and my uncle had to go to state prison because he didn't report to the state that his two children had gone to live with their mother and he kept receiving state assistance money intended for the care of the children. But that was just stupid; it's not even shocking. My grandmother's sheer outrage abnd shame? AMAZING. I wish I could go back and relive that day over and over. KaiserSchnitzel fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 16:36
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 18:41 |
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Tendai posted:And I thought the family reunion where my uncle kept sneaking out to shoot up was dramatic The most amazingly hilarious thing about it was her complete and total devastation about something that happened probably 80 years or so before, was {allegedly} done by a person she had never met, and that the other 20 people in the room literally cared less than two shits - my grandmother was MORTIFIED and HAD to announce it at Thanksgiving dinner like it was something that changed EVERYTHING!!!! My father still laughs about it and calls grandma Mrs. Dufresne sometimes - she's still around at like - 97, I think? And there are so many more stories...she is truly a piece of work. I absolutely hated visiting them when I was a kid because of the way she was, but now it's only hard being around her because you have to try very, very hard not to laugh at her and her ridiculous ways. Who knows how long she's going to be around...she's been telling all of us that she's "not going to be around for much longer" for the last 35 years that I remember (I'm 44, to put that in perspective...she could have been saying it for much longer), but yet she's fit as a fiddle. An incredibly kind-hearted, charitable and generous woman, quick to judge on the superficial matters of the world but always the first person to bring a stranger in need into her home, and absolutely has no grasp whatsoever on the words that come out of her mouth. A TREASURE. Drives my father crazy. Edit: I just remembered: two years ago she sent me a birthday card. It has a picture of a dog with this big shiteating grin thumping his tail on the front with a caption that says "I was just thinking of you," and then on the inside it just says "NAKED." Now, the woman is blind as Mr. Magoo, and so I am quite sure she had no idea. I really wanted to post it on facebook, but her two sisters would see it and would definitely giver her endless ribbing. It is great to bring to meetings at work to start off the conversation when working with a new team; I tell the story and people just start crying with laughter when they see this card. It's definitely coming to the funeral, and I'm definitely reading it from the pulpit. It's just too good not to. KaiserSchnitzel fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 23:21
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Holy poo poo.