GROWING UP

They just announced that Hostess is liquidating.  My first temptation was to go to the nearest store and buy up everything that I possibly could get in my freezer and hoard!!!!  No more Ding Dongs, no more Twinkies, no more cupcakes, no more donuts for breakfast. 

Now if you have had anything to do with my blog you will realize that I have Celiac disease.  Someone with this disease should know better.  But if you will recall in one of my first blogs, I listed everything off that I would miss and one of them was having a diet coke and hostess donut in the morning.  Yes I did cut back when the doctor said no more, but for some reason I felt the need about every week at least once to have some of those coconut cinnamon donuts on my way to work along with my diet Coke/Pepsi straight out of the machine.  It usually didn't make me happy in the end, but it was great going down. 

I sometimes hate corporate America, it takes the childhood out of all of us.  I remember when Tab went off the market, everyone was buying them as fast they could and it was sad day when your last can was drank. 

I saw a news real on Bevin Bros. who are the bell making company out of Belltown, Connecticut that supplies all of us with small to large bells each year for Christmas.  They are the ones that have been supplying bells to the Salvation Army for years.  They have been in business for 130 years.  They were hit by lightening this last year and the whole factory went up in flames.  Now Matt Bevin said on this that he would never seize to give up making bells and still has some of the employees working for him in makeshift factory to supply those bells this year.  You hear these stories of how a President of a company losing money would rather cut back certain benefits or money to keep his employees employed.

I am sure there is a lot more to this story than just keeping people employed, the greed of many will take down everything.  I defended against the Canadians of how many chemicals and preservatives were in them.  I didn't care as long as it preserved not just my body, but my childhood.

I think of my obsession of peeling food came from Hostess.  I would slowly take the frosting of the cupcake off.  Slowly eat the cake to finally getting to the cream and then eat the frosting up to the white curlycues and then finish it off in eating them last.  The Ding Dongs weren't just ate quickly, it was slowly peeled hopefully in large chucks of chocolate and then I would eat the cake and then finish it off eating the chocolate.  The pies were only purchased for a treat when I went on field trips, no more field trips.  The Twinkies what can you say about a Twinkie other than every child ate them and I even made a wedding cake out of them for my daughter's husband.  And of course the best for last, everyone was raised on the Hostess white bread.  It was soft and the taste lingered while it stuck to your teeth.     

I am sad and I don't want Hostess' grownups to make stupid decisions to offend your memories. 

The People Behind Me

For years now I have wondered about my genealogy.  I am not into investigating my history with names and dates, but more along the lines of actual stories.  I talked with my family members in somewhat detail in trying to get something out of them.  For some reason ITS A BIG SECRET.  I know this sounds stupid but it is almost like pulling teeth when you ask about it.  They make you feel that they did the work, so now you need to.  NOT. 

So after a few discussions I decided to get on Ancestry.com.  I was curious and no one was going to ease that curiosity other than me.  As soon as I started entering in names, other names and information started popping up.  I couldn't go fast enough.  I didn't have enough time in the day.  I realized that someone had to put this information in beyond me, cause all I was doing was linking people to information that was already put in.  I had not done any research. 

A friend of mine was doing her genealogy at the same time I was and so we would compare notes periodically.  She would look at me with forelorn (do you like that word, it reminds of days gone past).  She had not found even close to the links I had.  I really have to contribute my genealogy to those individuals somewhere in the tree that had done their research and had put a lot of information in some database.  Beyond those individuals I am sure there are institutions, historians, and religions that have inputted information of what they have in their deep dark chasms.

Yes I will be the one that lets out the information to anyone that wants to know, I am a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-daughter of Henry VIII.  I know it is hard to believe. I am also a decedent of all the kings and queens from every country possible in Europe from Denmark, Sweden to Turkey.  I am also a decedent of the pilot and doctor of the Mayflower.  I even found my way all the way to Adam and Eve (twice), now I don't know where you came from, at least I know I came from Adam and Eve.  It's these kinds of stories that intrigue me. 

It was hard to comprehend this entire thing when so many names came up.  I will never know all of their stories.  I will never understand how I was the great something grand daughter of a king, and now I am a pauper.  I don't even get that concept.

I have to laugh sometimes when I will see a private ancestry line and you have to email them to ask for information.  The one time I did that they sent me information I did not know about my own grandmother.  You feel so personally offended when someone has information about your own grandmother that you don't have, but then you realize that if my grandmother had 12 children (10 lived) with how many of them had 4-10 children and how many of them had 4-10, there is a lot of people that you are related to right now living that you don't even know. When you think of it in that way, this world seems so small and so large at the same time. 

Now since I know my ancestry is linked with so many known individuals, I look at history in a whole different way. 

I am so grateful to so many that really did this research, and that enjoyed sharing.  That is what Ancestry.Com is all about or any other genealogy site, is sharing.