A Page of Family History

Neither my sister Susan nor I, browsing through some family histories last weekend, remembered knowing that our grandfather's parents and 3 siblings were buried in Regina. None of them had lived much of their lives there. But we found Robert and Mina (short for Jemima), the parents, with one of their sons, added 25 years later, buried right beside them.

Like all families, ours carries a number of oddities, too many to mention here (except for the tall guy named Shorty).

I've been thinking it might be fun to explore the stories, maybe give them to Stan Still, a character I've visited lately. I want to keep the garb of fiction in full swirl if do get at those stories--that a nod to my sense that maybe I was a tad too free with family stories in pieces in My Human Comedy.

Fiction or not, most them are rural in setting. I suppose I'd risk tripping on nostalgia or other forms of dogma if I or Stan went on and on about buns, roads, countertops--all of it coated with dust.

So the thing to do, maybe, is start at the gravestones, work back.