Zihlman Family Reunion

Leaving tonight for Texas to attend the Zihlman Family Reunion in Windthorst, Texas. Going by bus again, which I am dreading, but this time the route goes up to Memphis, then Little Rock and Oklahoma City, so it will be a change of scenery.

It was researching the Zihlman family that got me interested in family history. While in England, one of our teachers did a family tree of the Queen, and I remember correcting her on two points. British teachers don't like being corrected on British history. After that, I thought why not do my own family, so my mother helped me with the Zihlman's, the only extended family group we could consider ourselves members of. Her memory was incredible, spouting off name after name of one remote cousin after the other. Uncle Eddie was the family historian at that time, and he helped me add to it when we returned to the States.

The Zihlman reunion is held in the memory of Lukas Zihlman (1871-1941), who settled in Windthorst in 1893. He had eight sons and daughters, of which my grandmother was the youngest. She would say "Lucy was supposed to be the baby, but Eddie was a mistake, and I came along so Eddie could have someone to pick on." She was the last to pass away, but Lukas' grandchildren have still kept the traditional family gatherings going. One of my cousins developed an interest in family history, so this time around will be the first reunion in which actual research will be attempted. They managed to persuade the current owner of the old Zihlman farmhouse to allow some tours, and we plan to get some of the older grandchildren together and record some old family stories. A few weeks ago, I finished an 18 page history which we will add pictures to and hand out.

Local Politics

As far as I can tell, very few of the people I knew from the Student Government days have attempted political office in the real world. Trey Traviesa, who was FSU's student president when I arrived, is now in the Florida House. I was just getting involved, so I don't know much about him, other than he was the nemesis of the Monarchy Party.

Joel Silver, who was our Video Center director, and son of a State Senator, attempted to run in '04 against Susan Buchert, one Florida's most liberal rep.'s in the State House. His reasoning was that in the current political climate, Democrats should be more accommodating of their Republican masters. Fortunately, he was trounced, and a number of voters in that area were wondering what the hell he was thinking.

Ray Malloy is a conservative Republican, but is fondly regarded as my mentor in my first year in Senate, and remains one of the few Republicans I can be civil to. He briefly filed to run against Ion Sancho, our anti-Diebold Elections Supervisor. He felt that Sancho was not taking full advantage of the technology available, a remark I found rather disturbing. I was relieved that he dropped out and saved himself potential embarrassment. If any of our local politicians have untouchable status, it is Sancho.

Our latest entry is John Dailey, who is running for County Commissioner and has a very good chance at getting in. His father was head of the school board for many years, and he was Student President during our more productive years. He was in the party opposing ours, yet he remains the only SGA president I genuinely liked. He's not in my district, but the least I can do is put out a sign; if I can find out what he thinks about the coal plant, that is.

http://www.votejohndailey.com/

Pictures from July 4th

No news to report, just adding in some pictures from Adam's visit.



Allen does the cooking--

Tammy, Lindsay, and Chrissy

Stumbling to the Warehouse

Visit from "Mad Adam" Kelly

Adam came in to town last Friday, originally to attend Rich's Fourth of July party, which is usually a blockbuster event. Unfortunately, Rich had to cancel due to a family emergency, but Adam already had the plane tickets and was due for visit anyway. Allen took up the idea of having our own gathering, hoping to recreate the KAOS parties of old. Adam spent the weekend visiting old haunts and Monday night we gathered at my place, "Little KAOS." Adam wound up mixing beer and tequila, with the usual results. Fortunately we are familiar with the drill by now, and Geoff was able to secure his credit card when we went to finish up at the Warehouse.

Just as we were driving to the airport on the 4th, Rich called to say he was back in town and wanted to go ahead with a small gathering and fireworks anyway. Adam was disappointed to miss out on the pyrotechnics, but Rich is promising a bigger show in a couple of months to make up for it, and Adam is intent on coming back for it. It worked out pretty well, as we had enough food and beer left over to provide an instant party. All Rich and Grace had to do was light up the neighbourhood with the leftover fireworks from last year.

Took the rest of the week off work to slob around the house. My next vacation is the family reunion next month, for which I am writing the historical narrative. Currently, however, I am spending more time not writing it.

News from Allen and Cindy

Just received this e-mail. Was not even aware of bombings in Thailand.

"After receiving a few e-mails about our safety let me just reasure everyone that Cindy and Allen are totaly fine, healthy and in good spirits although feeling a little sad about the people living in Southern Thailand. We left Southern Thailand about a week ago so the 41 little message bombings did not hurt a lot of people but they were meant to scare off foriegn tourists and the evil education system that fundimentalists hate.
We are now in Georgetown, Penang Island, Malysisa in a predominantely Muslim Area with great Indian Food. We are the only Americans we have seen in five days - we will be pointing at westerners when we return to Bangkok tommorrow. While in the south we started a working relationship with a tsunami survival group of mostly Muslim women. We are very happy to start importing their goods through the help, development work and guidence of one of the oldest Fair Trade groups ThaiCraft who are the goods and coop developer and exporter of these Saori crafts. These people will now need even more help since tourism was their primary income 2 years ago - pre tsunami - and these mini-bombings are not much help. But we will be home soon - 20th- and after 12 days of jet-lag will be coherent again. (Doctors claim one hour of time change takes a day of recovery and that has been our experience. Although some claim I have been jet-laged for two years straight!!! )

See you soon. Allen"

Hurricane Alberto

The night Alberto came ashore I heard a loud crack, which I assumed was thunder. I thought it was odd that I did not hear thunder again, but it was the middle of the night, so I went back to sleep. Yesterday, during my lunch hour, I walked around the house to look for fallen limbs and found this--



A tree almost fell on the house. Leaning on the house like a pathetic drunk would be a closer description. Can not see much in the way of actual damage at this point, so we got off lucky this time.

About as much damage as Allen did with the truck when we first moved in. And it is on Rob's side, so my only worry is the leaky fireplace (the plastic bag fix did not work). The landlord needs to have the roof fixed anyway.


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No other news at this point, just looking forward to Rich's 4th of July party. Once again, Adam is coming to visit, and hopefully we can persuade him to stay with Allen or Chrissy, and not sleep in his car or the Progressive Center couch. And of course, food, booze, and enough fireworks to liberate a small country.

Pvt. George R. Dow-8th New Hampshire Volunteers

Memorial Day was originally created to honour the Civil War veterans, so this post is dedicated to my great-great grandfather's older brother, George Dow. He was the second son of Simon Dow, a shoemaker in Hampstead, NH, and was born in 1842. He enlisted in the 8th NH on 31 Dec. 1861, and his regiment was assigned to Gen. Bank's army in Louisiana. They were part of the campaign to cut the South off from the Mississippi by capturing Port Hudson, while Grant was trying to take Vicksburg. Dow's regiment was involved in a big assault on 27 May 1863 in which almost half of the attacking force was killed or wounded, including Dow. He died in Baton Rouge on 12 June 1863 at the age of 21, apparently from blood poisoning. According to family tradition, his mother nearly went mad with grief on hearing the news.

Unfortunately that is all we know of his story. He lingered in the Baton Rouge field hospital for two weeks, possibly undergoing some amputations before gangrene set in. We'll never know if he was an abolitionist, or a patriot, or just bored with the prospect of making shoes for the rest of his life. Did his parents know he enlisted, or did he go out drinking with friends and wake up in the camp?

On my last trip to New Orleans, I had to leave out of Baton Rouge, so I took the time to locate George Dow's grave site. Lord knows if he's had any visitors over the years. Wherever George is now, I doubt he's waiting in Baton Rouge, but I took time to brush the leaves off the grave, just to show that somebody dropped by.