Which Reminds Me

Maybe it was the summer of 1970 when, I remember that while my cousins were doing other things, I spent some time reading through my grandmother's collection of Reader's Digest magazines, which was fairly complete starting from about 1929. Interesting how the 1930s had a different tone and then the 1940s were mostly about the war and then onward to the 1950s and 1960s. Of course nowadays it is a slick formula packaged to perfection seemingly almost without the aid of human hands. But a hundred years ago there were other preoccupations, some of which are perennial and others which will never return.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I noticed that Heather was trying to shove me into some imaginary role of being her opponent or grouchy character of some sort in her imaginary drama, when actually I really don't care what those people do. God forbid that I should attempt to argue with some immensely wealthy person who has millions of dollars at her disposal with which to make my life utterly miserable. No, that would just be too ridiculous. Of course I couldn't care less. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing Jill and Linda talking about how some people had gone to, or they were considering going to, an Anglican church there in California. I never did that, only heard them talking about that. Whether they eventually went Anglican I really have no idea because I never really checked back with them to see what happened. I do remember that people were making some points about Anglicanism being considered somewhat treasonous and anti-American due to it being directly supervised by England, whereas Episcopalianism somehow avoids that problem even though it is also considered an offshoot of the Church of England as also Methodism or Wesleyanism, which offers immunity from Catholic meddling, although I do not understand what is to fear in that regard when the AG is just another Protestant denomination, although with a certain Evangelical Pentecostal distinctive, and yet not Roman Catholic. Someone upstairs has gotten their wires crossed, obviously, notwithstanding the quadrangular punning.

Which reminds me that the high school classmates who attended the Union Church were somehow confused on this point, imagining that to be the only Protestant church on the planet and that all U.S. citizens were somehow required by law to attend only the Union Church, doubtless an unwritten law that no one ever heard of, where did they get that idea? Don't you know that my parents were AG missionaries there and that we of course attended only AG churches? Wouldn't that look sort of weird for us to attend the "Union" church there when our job is to be serving the AG churches in various ways? Why all of this ridiculous hullaballoo from clueless Tom and Tinkers? I am very annoyed with their attitudes. Needless to say. Why is it that my clarifications never get anywhere?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, sometimes we forget that the United States is really not a Christian nation in the sense of formalized government institutions for the most part, as compared to the United Kingdom, where the King or Queen is the head of the Church of England, so they have a more institutionalized government form of Christianity, and can more rightly in that sense regard themselves a Christian nation, someone was saying, whereas in the United States it is up to us as individuals and churches to make our voices heard in an individual sense, even if the government may or may not decide to be helpful depending upon the circumstances. Someone was talking about that, and yes, I suppose that is true in a way. They started sending missionaries before we did and the treaties that facilitated that in some cases were originally negotiated by them, someone was saying. Yes, I suppose that may be so. England certainly has much to grateful for even if the individuals there often fail to appreciate their own heritage and if only Americans could inspire them in that way, but then again, as in every generation, it has to be their own idea and voluntary will to live out their Christianity in a way that works for them.

Which Reminds Me

And all of this nonsense because it was Debbie's idea to make up lies to throw pestering little sisters off track. I could have told you that myself, and how I was the one that little sisters came to later for clarification because I wasn't so hard-nosed about that. But no, you just wanted to kill me first and then ask questions. So whatever. Why do I still have this photo of Debbie somewhere? We never talk.

Which Reminds Me

I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great-grandparents.

Interestingly, one of my great-grandparents sets was Mr. Barth, a butcher of mostly German or Swiss descent, who married Miss Levines, who was the daughter of Caroline Smith and Mr. Archibald Levins or Levines, a Canadian in New York. He died in 1895. Levins is a name that I do not know very much about. Is it a French translation of "the vines" or is it some other ethnic derivation? Yes, I imagine that someone will perhaps want to make jokes about bottlers and bakers and candlestick makers. I am getting that there is more to that story than what I originally heard, but I was not there very often so I probably did not hear everything about that. How can I be expected to "do" something about that when I am not sure what else happened. Caroline was his second wife, whom he married after the death of his first wife, nee Little, mother of Esther Levens. After Caroline died, he married Margaret Mitchell. Even so, I have no idea who those people are. They never tell me anything.

Which Reminds Me

And if the Lord should have need of a Maltese donkey, what is that to you, Italian whiners? Would that be a problem for the Italian whiners if the Maltese donkey should have job to do?

But of course that has nothing at all to do with me. I have no interest or place in the internal life of Sicily v. Malta. I am neither Maltese nor Italian, nor do I have any thought of the British Traffords who maintain a house there, not exactly the castle in England where Tudors were hosted but probably a nice place to go on vacation if you are a Trafford. However, unlike the Traffords, our Strickland ancestors are very far removed from any thought of Malta or Italy, fortunately for us, having come to America in the 1600s or 1700s. Italy is the farthest thing from our minds, most of the time. Our lives are in America now.