My Family, Extended and Otherwise

My Family

My dad's family, he says, is Bohemian Czech, but a friend of mine tells me the family name is Romany, and my dad won't talk to me about it. I understand that his family had some problems with my mom being Jewish and wouldn't talk to him after, and he won't talk to anyone about it much. So go figure.

My mom's family were Jewish socialist atheists in the 20's in NYC. It was a soap opera.

Leave it to say that much of my family is extended and chosen. However, I am closer to my parents than anyone I know my age...

Early History

I was born in Dayton, OH on 7/29/59. My mom had survived a 35 mile ride in a veternarian's WWII jeep to the hospital from rural Montgomery Cty. She never got a chance to get prepped, so I was a natural childbirth in days when that was infrequent.

There's a picture of me as a babe-in-arms, at my dad's graduation from div school. He was ordained a Universalist minister in 1960, the last year before merger. Then he was reordained a Unitarian Universalist a year later. My life was to be saturated with denominational and parish politics from there out...!

We lived in Ohio until I was 4.5 yrs old. Then we lived in Wisconsin until I was about 8, and then moved to Vermont.

Vermont

It was the best damn place to grow up. I was a child of the 60's even tho a little young for it, since it's still clinging to the mountains up around where I grew up in central Vermont!

Teenage Years

Carl Hommel dug up this picture of me from my late teens. Ye gods. I remember that shirt...! This is the only extant picture of me wearing a watch. I think.

Cambridge

I dropped out of my first semester at Bryn Mawr College and ran off with my best friend, Skia, to Boston. I got stranded at MIT during the blizzard of January '78. Parts of me have never left. I miss MIT, but I couldn't live in Cambridge again.

NC

A bad idea that took me six years to figure out.

OR

Got here in April. Love it.

Last modified: Jul 24, 1995

These are *my* opinions and such.