Good hardy American stock

Guv was half German (his father) and half Irish (his volatile mother).

Trish's lineage is more complicated. Her father was adopted, and so it was tricky to trace because his original last name turned out to be something different than the name he went by. I think she and my brothers have traced her heritage to part Norwegian, part English, part Scotch-Irish, a little French, and quite a bit of Croatian.

This picture is her maternal grandmother, Mary, and a ranch hand. It was taken in 1943 in the mountains of Montana, where Mary and her son, George, owned Sky Ranch outside of Bozeman.

Mary killed the bear. I never met her--she lived to be 104, but we never took family vacations (you try it, in a station wagon with ten kids; go ahead) and only one sister and brother made it to Montana. (My parents sent them on the Greyhound Bus.) But I loved hearing the few stories about her that Trish told us, especially how she used to get up and put on her overalls every day and walk down to the river and go fishing, even when she was 100 years old.

I want to be like that, too, when I'm old. Although (a) first I must learn to fish, and (b) Doug has to live that long, too.

I owe you an ice-cream story about Guv. That will come in another day or two. But I wanted to say something here about Trish, too; we don't just spring fully-formed from one parent, unless we are Minerva. I told you my mother was tough. Hell, it's not just my mother who is tough; it's her whole damn family.