Oh, Grandma's got a hobby - she's climbing Family Trees!*

An Ode to the Hauck/Guenther Clan
Martin Hauck was a brave young man,
He led his family to this strange new land
They liked it here and they certainly thrived
For there were many more Haucks before Martin died!

Some remained in Canada, but certainly not all,
We know Jacob and wife Mary moved - on to St. Paul,
Jacob fought for the North in the American Civil War,
He was hospitalized with malaria before he got too far.

Jacob and Mary had six fine sons,
But as for daughters, Julia was their only one.
John and Julia Guenther moved west to Spokane,
They logged in the woods and they also farmed the land.

Jake, Henry, Fred, and Will had stores -
Of one kind or another,
While Dick was a farmer and carpenter -
Different from his brothers.

The Haucks now occupy these lands,
From sea to shining sea,
From Canada to Texas -
And places in between.

They work at many different jobs,
Musician, rancher, teacher,
But it's obvious when one looks at this group
That good citizens are their best feature!

By Marlys Chutich 2004

That is the poem that prefaces a book I have about half of my ancestry. Inside the book, there is a photo of my family and some other Haucks at the Hauck family reunion circa 1996. Most of the photo's occupants sport Hauck family reunion tshirts, and I was distraught upon finding out that these shirts have since been disposed of by my mother**, who is widely regarded as being anti-Hauck. She was not repping the shirt in the photograph, and I suppose she doesn't rep it nor approve of its repping to this day.

Another notable of this is that my great grandfather started an insurance company, which is logical because it seems that many of my male ancestors' lives featured untimely deaths. Particularly due to various cancers, malaria, and ruptured appendices. I was almost a victim of this last one, and though the rupture was thought to be conquered, I was again brought near death and then also saved due to modern medicine and my overbearing mother (who is widely considered anti-Hauck). The battle with my overbearing mother actually continues, and it is assumed that it will end in one of our deaths and be chronicled in the next edition of the Hauck ancestry. Assuming that I survive and write that edition, it will be noted that she was widely considered anti-Hauck during her lifetime.

The final notable find in the book was that one of my German ancestors was named Balthasar Hauck, and he lived in Sinsheim, Germany circa 1750. He is eight generations removed from myself. All I can say is, hoo boy Balthasar, what a long strange trip it's been.

* This title is the final line of the first stanza of the other poem that prefaces the book. The full poem is just as campy as that line implies.

** Widely considered anti-Hauck.

It's hard to remember.

Two girls from my class died over the weekend. They were drunk and they tried to drive home and crashed. I've gone to school with one of them, Sierra, since kindergarten. I keep remembering this time in elementary school when she taught me how to draw horses in art class. Michele, the other, moved here later, but I had some class with her in middle school.. I can't even remember what it was, but I just remember I used to talk to her everyday in it. I barely even knew them outside having whatever classes with them, and maybe seeing them with people once or twice, but it just sucks. They were both so nice and they just didn't deserve to die so young. Today for most of our class I think there was just a tangible sadness. Most people probably knew them as much as I did, but we all grew up in the same classes and everything.

It sucks.

serenity*

Every now and then, I'll have a day where I experience a feeling of serenity. It won't be a day free of obligation or responsibility, but it will be a day that I realize that things are alright, they're going to work out, and there is no point in worrying about the little things.

I try to operate with an overarching outlook that emphasizes this, and one of the things that helps keep me calm and collected is just grinning about it. I don't think the physical grinning is what helps, but it's the measure of the idea of resolve. When I tell someone that I have a million things to do in one night and that I'm screwed, it's the big smile afterwards that shows that it's not that big of a deal.

*I'm pretty exhausted, and this post might just be the corny sum of my exhaustion and my good feeling right now.