Every family has legends, every family has legend-keepers.
Personae dramatis of family legends: the Great Beauty. the Genius. the Hero. the Fabulous Cook. the Athlete. the Woman Who Could Cure Anything. the Voice. the Spy. the Talent. the Texas Ranger. and of course, the ever-popular the Drunk, the Lunatic, the Poet, the Artist. Our Dog. Our Other Dog.
Sample plots of family legends: how gramma met your grandfather. how uncle Mike and aunt Bertha almost didn't get married. the Lost Fortune. the Encounter with the King/Queen/Duchess (noble title of your choice). the Missed Opportunity (real estate, minerals). Let us not forget the time FBI agents showed up at the same time the ineluctably handsome Casey Burke [not his real name] was being grilled by my parents, this being Pop's idea of appropriate parental behavior on meeting a boy-person for the first time. The Most Amazing Wedding Ever, with two live bands and souvenir gold coins. The department store where everybody knew your name.
Until recently, it never occurred to me that some of the older generation's family legends could be true. At least, more than a little. I can subtract the exaggeration from the legends in which I figure. First I should get that FBI matter out of the way. Simple, really, one of the neighbors was an engineer and was in line for a promotion. The FBI interviewed all of the "nearby neighbors" to see if this perfectly respectable man had expressed opinions unfavorable to our country while pulling the crabgrass out of his lawn. We were last, so they came to us about 4 or 5 minutes after my not-then, not-ever-to-be boyfriend arrived. This was a lot of company for Our Dog to deal with, plus there was some confusion about just who was the subject of the visit. It didn't help that Our Dog sensed hostility, and as trained by a previous owner, staked out the door, growling, to keep the Hostile Strangers inside while Pop cheerfully called the police and tried to explain that Our Dog was holding some guys claiming to be federal agents at bay... This is a true story.
Examples of legend-keepers: my sister. me, if the then-older generation got sentimental and didn't notice that I wasn't really concentrating on that book on my lap. And of course, the cryptic short diary or autograph book entries that start a chain of madeleine-dipping flashbacks - example: The enthusiastic tribute to my growing beauties penned in a high-school yearbook by an exchange student who went on to become a Very Prominent Person in his country's legal system and is always the first one called to sit on a commission when there is a human rights problem to be looked into. So far I haven't felt the need to travel with Ye Olde Yearbooke, but one never knows.
Until recently, it never occurred to me that some of the older generation's family legends could be true. At least, more than a little. I can subtract the exaggeration from the legends in which I figure. First I should get that FBI matter out of the way. Simple, really, one of the neighbors was an engineer and was in line for a promotion. The FBI interviewed all of the "nearby neighbors" to see if this perfectly respectable man had expressed opinions unfavorable to our country while pulling the crabgrass out of his lawn. We were last, so they came to us about 4 or 5 minutes after my not-then, not-ever-to-be boyfriend arrived. This was a lot of company for Our Dog to deal with, plus there was some confusion about just who was the subject of the visit. It didn't help that Our Dog sensed hostility, and as trained by a previous owner, staked out the door, growling, to keep the Hostile Strangers inside while Pop cheerfully called the police and tried to explain that Our Dog was holding some guys claiming to be federal agents at bay... This is a true story.On to other legends. Themes and plots repeat. The film that was never produced, the discovery that was patented under the wrong name...
In many families, there's a legend of Great Prosperity and Dignity in the Old Country. The Country Place, the Town House, the Servants, the Ballgowns, the Jewels. The Gypsies who showed up every year to trade horses. Typically the legend is dismissed as a form of compensation for what life was really like: unpaved roads, ill health, lack of opportunity, oppression, hunger, danger. No heating, no plumbing. Or, as one of Himself's elderly relatives put it, "He was from Minsk, then, this Hobbes?" (it was the philosopher Hobbes who described the life in times of chivalry as not romantic, but "nasty, brutish, and short.") One of these legends will be the subject of a post yet to come.
What are your favorite family legends? Are there any which, when recounted to you, make you just want to run away screaming?
To be continued, if not right away....
