St. Clement's Island Prehistory - Part 1. - American Colonial History

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Why did two ships of colonists risk a dangerous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 1633 to flee England for America and why did they bring their hopes for religious freedom to St. Clement's Island Maryland? To understand the history of St. Clements one needs to understand there is another part of the story, the history of events in the 16th Century which a few years later would cause the colonists to leave England for America.

Let's call it the European prehistory of St. Clements and quite frankly you might be a bit surprised by what you learn. This prehistory includes a series of international events involving the most powerful monarchies, legendary family dynasties, and mighty empires in Europe beginning with the infamous King Henry VIII of England.

St. Clements Island was the sight of the first declaration of religious freedom to be guaranteed anywhere in the world, a freedom that in time would become embedded in our US Constitution. A little over 100 years earlier Henry VIII set in motion the series of events that would result in this charter.

Events in Europe during the 16th century led to the fall from favor of the Catholics and Puritans in England and the subsequent journey to settle the colony of Mary Land in 1634 where religious freedom would be guaranteed. Monarchies in England, Scotland, France, Spain and Italy and the Vatican in Rome were all to play a role in this decision to settle in the new world.

A web of intrigue led to a mosaic of treachery, murder, assassination, torture, arranged marriages and more in the alliances and enemies that came and went beginning with the reign of Henry VIII in England who was born in 1491, the year before Columbus discovered America, and was King from 1509 to 1547. Let me see if I can't make some sense of the historic actions that led to the landing at St. Clements.

Henry VIII - King of England (r. 1509 - 1547)



First let's talk about the reign of Henry VIII. He was famous for having six wives, two were executed.  Early in his career he was given the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope for defending the Catholic Church against Martin Luther. Later he was to turn his nation against the very church he defended. When Henry's first wife was unable to give him a male heir he requested an annulment from the Pope.

He needed the annulment so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope refused and Henry was enraged and threw the Catholic Church out of England, creating a Church of England with the King as Divine Leader. When his second wife Anne failed to give him a male heir she was beheaded. His first three wives each gave him one heir, but only the third wife gave him a male. All three children served as King or Queen of England in the span of just one decade, although the last, Elizabeth, continued serving for 45 glorious years.

Henry's battle with the Vatican became the Reformation Movement against the church and by his death England was a thoroughly Protestant and Reformed nation. During his rein more than 72,000 people were put to death.

Charles V - Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1515- -1556)



Charles was King of Spain and heir to four of Europe's leading dynasties, making him Holy Roman Emperor. His empire included Central, Western and Southern Europe and the Spanish colonies in America. Henry's 1st wife, Catherine of Aragon was Charles' Aunt. Charles grandmother was Queen Isabella I who sent Columbus to discover America.

It was Charles who sent the conquistadors to America and they wiped out the Aztec and Inca Empires, sending tons of gold back to Spain and helping Spain become the most powerful nation in the world. The Spanish Armada was considered invincible on the seven seas.

When his Aunt Catherine asked him to help stop Henry VIII from annulling her wedding Charles sent his army to Italy and took the Pope hostage and preventing him from approving Henry's annulment. This act triggered the Reformation against the Catholic Church and the loss of power by the Catholics in England.

Pope Clement VII (r. 1523 - 1534)



This pope was a member of the powerful Florentine "Medici" family, a dynasty that produced three popes. The Medici family was also responsible for the Italian Renaissance in art and architecture. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Galileo were among the most famous family patrons.





Still the Pope was no match for the power of King Charles and when he was unable to grant Henry the annulment it enraged Henry VIII who undertook a campaign against the Catholic Church to drive them from power in England and to confiscate all churches, shrines and monasteries throughout England and the UK and give them to the new Church of England under the King.



Catherine of Aragon - Henry's 1st Wife

As noted, Catherine was aunt to King Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. She refused to agree to an annulment with Henry which caused the English split from Catholic influence. Her daughter, Mary I became Queen of England.

Anne Boleyn - Henry's 2nd Wife

It was Boleyn who demanded of Henry an annulment from his 1st wife in order to marry him. Her daughter, Elizabeth I became Queen but her only son and heir to the throne was stillborn. Henry had her beheaded for treason against the King.



Mary Queen of Scots

The daughter of King James V of Scotland (nephew to Henry VIII of England) and Marie of Guise from France, her father died when she was six days old. Henry VIII immediately sought to arrange a marriage between the infant Mary and his son Edward, Henry's only male heir by his 3rd wife Jane Seymour and future King of England, but the Queen Mother Marie of Scotland stopped him, earning her the wrath of King Henry.

At nine months Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland but was kept in hiding by her mother. At age six her mother had arranged for a marriage in France to Dauphin Francois, heir to the French throne, and Mary went to live with her future father-in-law, Henri II in France. When she was 16 in 1558 she married Francois who became King Francis II of France when his father died the next year.

One year later, in 1560, her young husband the King died. Her mother-in-law, Catherine Medici of the Italian family became Regent and another son, the King's brother Charles IX, inherited the throne leaving Mary an 18 year old widow and former Queen of France. Mary returned to Scotland.

After her return Mary, who was a devote Catholic, defied Elizabeth and married Lord Darnley, her 1st cousin, who was then murdered. Her next marriage was to the alleged murderer of Lord Darnley. During this time Mary tried on many occasions to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and claim the throne. Elizabeth refused to have her cousin put to death but eventually her advisors did have Mary executed for treason.

Ironically, direct descendants of Mary were Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France who were also put to death for treason during the French Revolution.

Elizabeth I - Queen of the Golden Age (r. 1558 - 1603)



Three children of Henry VIII ruled England beginning with Edward VI (1547-1553), Mary I (1553-1558) and Elizabeth (1558-1603). Because none had heirs Elizabeth I was the last of the Tudor dynasty which became extinct upon her death in 1603. The crown of England then passed to Henry VIII's Paternal Great-grandson, James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots, and he became James I of England.

After her predecessor Mary I had restored power to the Catholics and began a campaign to burn the Protestants at the stake Elizabeth then restored power to the Church of England. Her difficulties with her cousin Mary in Scotland led to the Pope excommunicating Elizabeth from the Catholic church. When Mary was put to death the King of Spain, still the most powerful empire in the world, attacked England with the dreaded Spanish Armada of over 100 ships.

Elizabeth sent her small navy to meet the armada while she rallied the British troops on the shore and somehow Elizabeth won the battle ending forever the Spanish dominance of the world. William Shakespeare rose to fame during the Golden Age of Elizabeth's reign and she was one of the most beloved Queens of England.

Her closest advisor who helped save her before she became Queen and served throughout her reign was Sir William Cecil. William groomed his son Robert Cecil to take over for him when he died and Robert stepped in to serve the Queen, coordinate arrangements at her death, the end of the Tudor dynasty, and manage the transition to James I as the first Stuart king.

Robert Cecil - Advisor to Kings and Queens

Robert succeeded his father William in Queen Elizabeth's court and after her death he arranged for the transfer of the throne to King James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, and thus united England and Scotland under the new Stuart King. It was Robert who encouraged his friend George Calvert to work for King James I. With Cecil's influence Calvert became involved in politics rising in the King's court to the position of Secretary of State, one of the top advisors to the King.

James I - King of England and Scotland (1603 - 1625)

James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and Paternal Grand Son of Henry VIII and was the first Stuart king after the end of the Tudor dynasty, the first King of England and Scotland. Because his mother spent so many years in prison while trying to overthrow Elizabeth before being put to death, James had not seen her since he was 14 months old.

Quite odd by English standards, James managed to alienate both the Protestants and Catholics by persecuting Catholics and writing about the Divine Right of Kings along with a book on witchcraft. James had been raised a Calvinist in Scotland.

It was James who made George Calvert his Secretary of State and gave him the title Lord Baltimore for helping settle unrest in Ireland. James also was unable to adjust to the English parliament and his feuds laid the seeds for the Protestant overthrow of the next monarch, his son Charles I. Finally, it was James who granted Calvert rights to the Avalon settlement in Newfoundland and rights to all of Newfoundland after a colony was established.

Charles I - King of England and Scotland (1625 - 1649)



Charles was the first monarch to get a special dispensation from the Pope so he could marry Henrietta Maria, daughter of King Henry IV of France and his Italian wife Marie de Medici of the Medici family dynasty. Henrietta was the first Catholic princess to marry a Protestant prince in Europe. It was a tenuous position for Charles to be head of the Church of England when his wife was Catholic, daughter of the French King and a member of the Italian Medici family.

His authoritarian Protestantism surprised both Protestants and Catholics alike as he rigidly enforced his right to raise his children outside the Catholic faith and was aggressively responding to challenges against the Church of England, thus causing both Puritans and Catholics to seek colonies in the new world.

English colonies already existed in Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620) and Avalon in Newfoundland (1621) before he became King while Mary Land (1634) would be settled during his reign but Charles had very little interest in the new world. However, he did demonstrate his loyalty to his father's advisors by continuing the grants to the Calvert family for Newfoundland, and when that was not successful he allowed Calvert to try again in Mary Land. In time his feud with Parliament would result in Oliver Cromwell leading a revolt that captured London taking Charles prisoner and he was beheaded in 1649.

Henrietta Marie, Queen of England



As noted, the complexity of Henrietta's position required a special dispensation from the Pope and seemed to calm friction between England and France. However, her devotion to being Catholic was unsettling to the English and a source of conflict with the Church of England. The Mary Land colony was named after her and she encouraged Charles to incorporate religious toleration in the new colony to assure those being persecuted in England would be free in America.

She even is reported to have given a piece of the True Cross of Jesus to the colonists to protect them on their trip, a relic still in Southern Maryland and brought to the Blessing of the Fleet. Her Medici family in Italy was responsible for saving and protecting many of the ancient relics, manuscripts and art work of the early period of Christianity.

When King Charles abolished Parliament it was Queen Henrietta that raised money and troops for the King from the Catholics of England and Europe, an action that alarmed the king's court over the growing influence of Catholics in the English monarchy. The Queen was safely moved to France during the revolt and beheading of Charles and she spent the rest of her life working out of a convent helping to protect the rights of Catholics and trying to influence her sons who became king.

Sir George Calvert - 1st Baron of Baltimore



This friend of Robert Cecil and loyalist to Queen Elizabeth and King James I worked his way up through the court to become Secretary of State under James. With his family long devoted to protecting religious freedom in England Sir George had a deep belief that the colonies offered the best opportunity to establish a haven for religious toleration where it was free of the Church of England and the religious battles raging throughout Europe. Shortly before King James died Calvert resigned from the court to settle the colonies and declared he was a Catholic, a surprise to all those who worked with him over the years.

Sir George had been an investor in the East India Tea Company approved by Elizabeth 1600 and in the Jamestown venture of 1607 so when James granted him a colony in Newfoundland named after the legendary Avalon of King Arthur days Sir George devoted his life and resources to making it successful. The ancient Avalon was the community where the new Christianity was first incorporated into the Druid and Celtic ways in the 4th century.

Calvert purchased two boats, the Ark and the Dove and in 1621 sent the first settlers to the new world. He hired a famous English pirate John Nutt to defend the new colony from the French raiders. Some time earlier he had saved Nutt from being put to death for piracy.

Calvert personally made two trips on his ships the Ark and the Dove to Newfoundland but by 1628 realized the climate was too harsh. He returned to England and consulted with Cecil and others before requesting from King Charles I a charter for the area north of the Potomac River extending to the 40th parallel, just above the future location of Philadelphia. During plans he consulted with Captain John Smith, the first Governor of Jamestown, who had explored the territory north of Jamestown after establishing the Virginia colony.

Calvert also recruited a Jesuit Priest, Father Andrew White, in 1628 to help organize the new settlement even though Father White had been banished from England for conducting Catholic services. Father White secretly helped Calvert draft many of the charter documents he wanted including the guarantee of religious freedom, the first colony in the world to offer such freedom.

After successful negotiations with the King aided by the support of the Queen Henrietta Marie, Sir George Calvert died just five weeks before the grant was approved. It would be up to his son Cecilius, named after Robert Cecil, to fulfill the dream of his father.

(Part 2. to follow)

My Newest Book - Take Me Now God! - on Amazon Digital - Finding Meaning and Purpose in Life

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I am pleased to report that my newest book will be out in the next day or so through Amazon Digital Services.  The following is a puff piece introduction to the book.

TAKE ME NOW GOD!

A story by Jim Putnam

So what happens when one pursues every course of self-enlightenment and discovery available to people with too much time on their hands?  And what happens when they have exhausted their search through religion, cults, mysticism, spiritualism, Native American cultures, prophecies, politics, the psychic world and beyond?

At the journeys end they have only one option left.  "Take Me Now God!"  A demand to the Creator, Source, or God, no matter what you choose to call him or her, for immediate salvation.  As the author says, "In the beginning was the Word, and no one listened."

In the first chapter of this "unauthorized autobiography", he laments; "She's right you know.  I'm not compatible with humans.  Hell, half the time my damn dog loses it's loyalty.  She once asked me if I ever considered suicide.  Who wouldn't after what I'd seen.  But I said no. So she rephrased the question.  Maybe I should consider suicide.  That's why I decided to end it."

Beginning with the opening Post Mortem, the author rushes to dispose of all that is important in his life so God can take him now.  Prepare yourself for a hilarious journey through the world of religions, the metaphysical, spiritual and more, leaving a trail of shattered searches for inspiration and failure to find the hidden meaning in life.

Excerpts:

True love: "I was star crossed from day one, double crossed by day two, and nailed to the cross by day three."

The Illuminati: "The New Age of enlightened beings - the Illuminati.  Often caught up in their own delusional hysteria.  Demanding to be heard. Demanding to be followed.  Judging others as they don't want themselves judged.  Know how to tell the difference between a fraudulent Illuminati and enlightened one?  You can't."

The Rapture: "There are a lot of interesting things in the spiritual world, but of all of them, the Rapture wins hands down.  Think about it, the optimum lift off.  The ultimate high.  No more bills.  No more taxes."

Creation: "Ever wonder about creation?  I do all the time.  Seems the Bible can account for about 6,000 years, back to the time of the big surf, or flood.  The Hopi and Mayan Indian can account for another 250,000 years, including the mystic kingdom of Atlantis.

"Dinosaurs are 60-120 million years old.  The Grand Canyon is 2 billion years old.  Earth 4 billion, while the universe as we know it is 26 billion years old.  I figure that is more than enough time to accommodate just about every version of creation there can be."

Channels:  "I want real proof.  Give me the winning numbers to next week's Powerball lottery and I'll be a true believer for the rest of my annuities.  Those damn lotteries.  Why is it there are only a few thousand possible combinations of winning numbers, yet the odds of winning are 12 million to one?  Where does that math come from?  Pythagoras in a drunken stupor?"

Native Americans:  "I always had an affinity for them.  Was the only kid that ever volunteered to be the Indian.  Didn't bother me to get killed in most battles.  Every once in a while we played Little Big Horn and I kicked some white ass."

Genetic Manipulation:  "I've had suspicions about it since I was 5 years old, when I first tasted cooked spinach.  That shit had to be genetically engineered poison.  And don't you think it made me more than a little suspicious about my mother, who was trying to kill me with it?"

Ancient Prophecies:  "There is nothing I want more than to believe the ancient prophecies.  After the mess we have made of the Earth, we deserve no less than the catastrophic earth changes that have been foretold.  It would be a fitting tribute to our self-aggrandizing ego trip."

From dogs to demons, Christians to pagans, Take Me Now God! takes one on a wild ride through the life of a searcher, albeit, one who came up empty handed but with no regrets.

Here is the opening of the book:

From: Take Me Now God!

Part One

The Fall

  

EPILOGUE

I got to taste the big time

been chasing dreams I thought mine

but then a cowboy he never learns

when to say no, when to go slow

and all those people ‘round me

all those good friends I thought I’d see

they disappeared in the night

maybe they’re right, I just shouldn’t fight

Keep searching for a home with laughter

seems I’ve some upon the final chapter

as I play out the last scene

footlights fade out, an end to my dream

That curtain it - began descending

as that final act was finally ending

that stage of life I had known

left me no home, left me alone

and don’t you know I can’t wait to get out of here

so tired of being alone

don’t you know I can’t wait to get out of here

I’ve got to find my home

  

-  -  -  -  Getting Acquainted  -  -  -  -

First, let me acquaint you with said subject me, the world I am trying to escape, her world, and the great beyond, my world.  Consider the obvious, and the less obvious becomes easier to comprehend.  I was Left Handed, Four Eyed, Small Town, and Catholic, and they called me Lucky.

The second son sandwiched 13 months on either side by much larger brothers.  I was born the first year of the Baby Boomers as the fallout was still raining down from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.  My Mother said I was quite an oddball even in the middle of the helter skelter revolutionary and often anarchist generation of the 1950's and 1960's.  

How many people do you know that start life with four strikes against them?  You see, I would have been most fortunate if those were the only strikes against me in life.  However, my role as entertainer to the gods or archangels or whatever celestial beings needed comic relief, endowed far more strikes against me than just left handed, four eyed, small town, and Catholic.

My maternal side of the family, the Campbell clan, left me with a legacy of the fantastic and mysterious ways of the Dark Irish, a familiarity with the little people from Fairies to Leprechauns, an unsought awareness of the ancient Druid wizards and high priests, healers, and storytellers, and a whole bunch of other weird, mystical, and metaphysical stuff.

Genetically manufactured with the best and worst of Scotland, Ireland, and the Celtic Campbell clan, truly, I was the ultimate hybrid or mutant DNA.

Then there was the paternal side, the Putnam clan, mostly English aristocrats with a touch of German engineering and inventiveness, and pretty much at odds with everything from the whimsical and magical world of my mother's ancestors.  They were the aristocratic ancestry leading to various figures of nobility I dare not mention lest I sully their memories in the history books we read.

Why my father's non-Catholic ancestors even had their own big church near London shortly after the English drove the Catholics out of Britain, meaning back when my father's side in jolly old England drove my mother's side from their ancient homes in the Scottish Highlands to Ireland, and eventually to land here in America.

I do not know a lot about DNA and genetic coding but if we are the product of our parents and ancestors combined DNA then I must have lived in a constant state of revolution and never known who I could trust from my own family.

However, I cannot afford to believe in the children inheriting the sins of their fathers or mothers or ancestors.  From the little genealogy I have dared to research about my family the burden of sins like those are of such tremendous magnitude that us siblings haven't got a chance in Hell of living normal lives.

That sucks...

When I get to the Pearly Gates and confront St. Peter, I expect he will not find my name on the invitation list.  You see, based on the sins of my families my judgment was a foregone conclusion long before I even died.

Still I am a writer and storyteller by birthright, ancestry, and intuitive expectation and I am an occasional believer, when it suits my purpose, that we can create our own reality.  So do not be surprised that the moment of my birth I had the dreadful realization that a very serious mistake took place.

It was a dread that would haunt me through my life.  You see, I just knew there was a serious mix up at God's baby processing facility in Heaven and some absent-minded angel had sent me to the wrong family on earth.

Over time, it was to become obvious.

House of Rothschild

I was supposed to be born a Rothschild in the legendary House of Rothschild in London, home of one of the most mysterious and powerful families in history.  Of course, there is no single House of Rothschild but castles all over Europe and the world.

My real family owned nations, kings, diamonds, gold, banks, and politicians.  Though my palate back in Iowa longed for lobster, caviar, sconces, and tea, I was stuck with pork, corn, hamburgers, and hot dogs.

I did the best I could in a world without soufflé.

Of course, there were serious sacrifices.  I expected armies of servants, limos and trillions of dollars, but I had to settle for an apartment in small town Iowa, parents who were just college students themselves, and a family history of bizarre tragedies and wild magic.

So very reluctantly, I had to accept the cards dealt to me in life and rest assured it was the last time I ever trusted a card dealer.  No matter what my birth certificate said, I was a Rothschild, quite Jewish, an English aristocrat, rich beyond imagination, and lost in the cornfields of Iowa.

My ancestors did not just read the Bible, they wrote it!

However, I never let go of the hope that one day when they audit the baby factory in Heaven they find and rectify the fatal mistake that made a potential Rothschild prodigy into a cursed Campbell-Putnam ancestor.

That "sins of the father" talk hits far too close to home.

Go back to the 1600's, just after the age of my favorite Queen of England, Elizabeth, Virgin Queen.  During her reign she did her best to prevent her father's (Henry the VIII no less her mother beheaded by old Henry) orders to persecute the Catholics by forcing them to renounce their Catholic faith or drive them from Britain.

It just happened that one of the most powerful Catholic clans in Scotland was the Campbell clan, my other folks.  For decades, maybe centuries they had ruled in the desolate but beautiful Scottish Highlands and fought for and against the imperial English rule depending on the mood at the time.

Of course, it was the same English rule that the non-Catholic Putnam family in London was advocating.  After Elizabeth's death at the turn of the 17th century King Henry's rule was finally enforced and the Campbell clan got a choice, denounce your Catholic faith or be banished to Ireland.  Refuse to choose and you lose - you die.

One of many Campbell castles in Scotland

What a choice.  Give up all ancestral religion, rights, titles, and property under Great Britain or go to Ireland.  They made it sound as if Ireland was a far worse fate than losing everything.

The part of the Campbell Clan refusing to convert to the Church of England knew those deceitful Brits were lying about how dreadful things were in Ireland.  The Brits just hated the place because the Irish kept rejecting English rule.  However, where else could Scottish Celts go to be among friends?

Another Campbell castle

My ancestors held to their conviction, then kicked out of Scotland, and banished from their homeland, estates, and titles.  After a few generations in County Cork Ireland, the Campbell family then migrated to America in the 1800's.  They were victims of one side of the family curse.

Once the Putnam's got the Campbell's and other Catholics out of Britain in the early 1600's they migrated to America, arriving in the mid 1600's in New England in the Puritan rush to Plymouth Rock, some 200 years earlier than the Campbell clan.

Yet another of the dozen or more surviving Campbell castles

Specifically the Putnam family arrived in New England and once unpacked, some chose to settle in a Puritan place called Salem, Massachusetts, just in time for the Salem Witch trials.  Thus, set in motion the other half of my family's ancient curse.

Here it gets quite complicated.  Look at the court transcripts of that fateful and tragic trial in the 1690's.

You see, there was a Puritan Putnam family who spent years creating a safe and isolated haven to protect the "witches" from harm by the village church fanatics.  They successfully hid those suspected of being witches for decades in their remote estates.  At the time of the trial, supposedly 6 of the 8 largest property owners in the Salem area were from the Putnam family.

Then into the story comes a young Putnam girl named Anne, but not from the Putnam family creating the safe haven, rather she was the minister's daughter from town.  She told her Putnam Preacher pop the witches possessed her and made her do evil things against her will.

It was a rather ingenious story perhaps but with deadly consequences.  Soon a bunch of other local kids joined the chorus and suddenly all those witches protected by one Putnam family were arrested and tried for practicing Black Magic on those poor innocent children of the villagers by the other Putnam family.

You probably heard the rest.  A couple of dozen witches were burned or hanged to death, later the kids admitted they made up the story, and thus began the curse of the Salem witches cast upon the immediate and all future Putnam descendants until the Putnam blood line was wiped out.

Seemed to me our family should have got some metaphysical credit for protecting the witches all those decades.  However, as far as the curse was concerned all Putnams looked alike.  It was as good a curse as any ancient Egyptian curse (King Tut) or medieval curse from the Spanish Inquisition.

At any rate, I would not have thought much about the curse except one day I was reading about Amelia Earnhardt, the world famous airplane pilot, and I realized that Amelia married a certain George Putnam of the New England Putnam family when she was 33 years old, and six years later, she disappeared off the face of the earth.

Well, so goes the story of my ancestry as passed down from generations of Celtic and thus Irish storytellers.  My Irish grandfather on the Campbell side used to tell me one should only half believe any good story told.

I can tell you this.  Where I was born, Iowa City, Iowa, was home to the University of Iowa Scottish Highlanders Marching band, one of the most famous bagpipe bands in the world.  Why a Scottish band was far from the magical land of the Loch Ness monster and located in the same town where I lived in Iowa is a mystery?

Okay, in spite of the curse, we survived which was somewhat unusual but I do feel the DNA coding with its highly conflicting Campbell and Putnam elements, which we did indeed inherit, is an important clue in the story of the wayward Iowa Hayseed.

Think about it.  DNA just might be the direct link to God since most of us blame Him or Her for giving it to us in the first place.  In fact, we do not control a number of critical life elements, like inheriting the DNA.  Did you pick the family you join, the country, state, town, or village?  Did you choose your family status in your town, rich, poor, or dependent?

Then there are the race, income, religion, language, and a host of other major cultural, religious, and demographic classifications in your life, and again you have no control.  Then, wait a minute.  What are the most significant influences on your life?

There is Survival 101 - your parents.  Then there is Survival 102 - your grandparents.  Finally, we have Survival 103 - your elementary, secondary, and higher education teachers.  What do they all have in common?  You did not choose any of them.

Add to that the millions of variables that make up your life, for instance the number and gender of siblings, their smarts, and their attitudes.  Toss a few dozen relatives, priests, ministers, mullahs, or rabbis into the mix and you have yourself one powerful cocktail.

What do these amazingly varied and seemingly unrelated components of your life all have in common?  On Judgment Day, any or all of these variables provide unintended consequences in your verdict.

In spite of the fact your Day of Atonement and moment of judgment will come from whoever your divine God might be, your fate relies on a whole bunch of factors and standards you did not control, select, or endorse!

You did not create!  You did not choose!

Yet they are the measuring sticks for your judgment.

Do not know about you but I feel I have just made a powerful case against the use of "free will" as a determining factor for judgment day.

There is nothing "free" about those varied components we inherited in our lives and it is about time we not be held responsible for all those impediments to the exercise of genuine "free will" on our part.

They are all someone else's "will" being unfairly imposed on our life.

That compelling argument and consequential attitude should get me off the hook on a whole lot of stuff when I stand before St. Peter awaiting judgment at the gate.

Youth is, wasted on the young.  If only we could have waited until we piled up all those experiences, feelings, joys, failures, loves found, and lost loves before we lost our innocence, our ability to dream, and our faith in the unknown.

Instead we spend a lifetime being beaten down, educated I guess they call it, tricked, fooled, disappointed, and occasionally, well, we might even find a moment to get happy.

That is not to say everyone is that way but now that I am much older and wiser I have noticed there are fewer and fewer happy people.

She is right you know, the Pretender.  I am not compatible with humans.  Hell, half the time my damn dog even loses its loyalty.  Every time I try to relate to anyone, I just seem to blow it.  Guess the only thing compatible with me is my cactus, and lately some of them have even taken to dying.

She once asked me if I ever considered suicide.  You would after what I had seen.  However, I said no.  Therefore, she rephrased the question.  Maybe I should consider suicide.  That is why I decided to end it.

My termination seems to be the only way to protect the human race from further contamination by me.  What did she call me?  Oh yeah, the Devil Incarnate, better known as the Prince of Darkness.

Once wrote a book that talked about the Prince.  Guess she finally figured anyone that knew as much about the Prince as I wrote about must be speaking from first hand experience.  She might be right I reckon.

Makes sense that the Prince would know all the details of Jesus’ life.  He was there tempting him in the desert, trying to seduce him with riches, power and women.  Finally, when he gave up on Jesus, he was there nailing him to the cross.

That could explain what I saw.  All the time I thought I was the reincarnation of Joshua, the friend and scribe of Jesus.  Never crossed my mind I might just be the Prince of Darkness.  It took the Pretender to wake me up.  Her insights take all the fun out of the end of the world.

Therefore, this must serve as my final will and testament.  Consider it my great escape.  This sorry world has hit such a subterranean level of degradation that anywhere can only be better.  It is the final plane ride to Neverland.

Some might call this a “Living Will” or something like that, but how could a living will be serving the dead?  Never did figure that one out.

That might have been my problem, always trying to figure things out.  My persistent questioning of anybody and everybody got me in more trouble than I could ever imagine.  That and telling stories.  When I was a kid, my grandfather and a bunch of other old men used to tell me stories, for hours.

They made me laugh.  They made me cry.  They even scared the shit out of me.  However, they always made me feel.  Nothing else ever did I guess, except those old stories.  It was a gift.  Made people feel good.  Made some like me feel for about the only time.

So there I was, just a kid, and already burdened by twin curses.  Curses, by the way, that would haunt me the rest of my life.  Figuring things out and telling stories.  Yes, maybe she was right; maybe I was the son of Satan.

You see there is no other logical explanation on why this Iowa Hayseed set out on his Quixote-like adventure through life as reflected in this story. 

I had a couple of advantages over my brothers to offset the many disadvantages and most important was my obsessive compulsion to read and write, something they found overly demanding with little downside reward.

Thus, I was the gatekeeper for all the knowledge of the universe found in books and I could communicate what I learned to others through the ability to write.

For quite different reasons they both settled on me being rather odd, although Bosco did find my adventures far more interesting and challenging than the Archangel did.

In my fantasy world, getting dirty was normal, getting in trouble was noteworthy, and getting someone mad was worth a merit badge.

For the most part our childhood memories consisted of observing the Biblical life style of the Archangel and causing as much chaos and confusion as possible for a couple of Afterthoughts.

Except for the scripted interaction from the parents in which the Archangel was to bestow on us his favor, we lived separate lives.  We were so separate in fact, that neither the Archangel nor we remember being friends or hanging out throughout childhood.

I did with my brothers what the laws of God and nature required, but that was the extent of it.  Beyond that I created a new world of boundless creative endeavors, the aggressive pursuit of knowledge, and the ability to instantly leap into the Land of Oz, Wonderland, Camelot or even the Alamo and still escape.

By kindergarten, my highly disciplined path began by joining the Public Library Book Reading Club where I won many honors reading the most books each month.  It was the first of my activities intended to separate me from my siblings, as the thought of joining a library book club terrified both.

My pursuit of information taught me what the kids in Russia, China, and Europe learned long ago; do not overlook our grandparents as a source of information and knowledge.

Interestingly, my grandparents on both the Putnam and Campbell sides found my curiosity to be charming and spent a lot of time sharing their knowledge with me and I shall forever be grateful.  I was far more comfortable in the company of adults than other kids were.

By the time third grade came, I found kids to be quite naive as they were clueless about world affairs, politics, or history.  Yet every weekend Grandfather Campbell would test me on current events that week expecting me to have read Time and Life magazines before I saw him for Sunday brunch.  Of course, he did not know I also read Popular Science, National Geographic, and Boys Life.

If you were I, how would you feel about having the four strikes against you at birth?  As you can see, my life was not just the four strikes against me but the fascinating DNA issues and the myriad of other factors dumped on me at birth and for a long time to come after.

I was born with a bull's eye on my back.

Before my mouth even opened, confusion and torment already threatened my existence.  Back when I was still in the womb I'm sure I sensed the foreboding and when I was jerked out into the world the first thing I saw was a woman doctor, quite uncommon back in those post-war days.

Then there was my religion.  Of course, I already mentioned I was really a misplaced Rothschild kid due to the screw up back at HQ.  That left me a Jewish-Catholic.

In my reality show family back in Iowa the ancient battles between my maternal and paternal ancestors were renewed, the battles where my non-Catholic father's English family helped drive my Catholic mother's Scottish family from their birthright, titles, castles, and money.

Now fast forward to my birth.  My father was a recent convert to Catholicism and when it comes to embracing religion, there is nothing like a new convert for enthusiasm and a bad case of religious fervor.

That meant instead of going to church once a week for Sunday services, my fanatical father decided he needed to go to church every day, probably to make up for all those years he had not seen the light.  Therefore, he dragged us kids along for the ride.

Whatever he expected from the hyper-Catholic activity, it did not seem to help us in God's favor.  No matter how hard I prayed, I was never going to hit the game winning home run or score a date with the beautiful rich girl.

Unfortunately, my dad's family never got over the traitor, my dad, who would forgo the eternal security of being non-Catholic to switch sides and join the dreaded mackerel snappers.

When we would visit the rest, of the Putnam family, I always searched around for any signs of cross-burning or voodoo dolls, knowing the deep-seated conflict between these surrogate families for the English and Scottish/Irish causes.

Oddly, both sides of the family accepted me, perhaps because I reminded them often of my true Jewish heritage, which thus made me much less of a card carrying Catholic threat.

Now the fact they seemed to accept me thus cast suspicion on my motives by my mother's Campbell side of the family who seemed to think I had been spiritually hijacked by those dastardly Putnam's and was probably already indoctrinated into the Masonic 50th degree secret society.

I did nothing to discourage the rampant rumors and innuendo, choosing to remain silent.  I am a great believer in the Tip O'Neill philosophy about saying little, "it is better people don't know what you know, than to know what you don't know."

On the other hand, I could always strike terror into the hearts of those Putnam's by threatening to join their Moose Club Lodge or Masonic Order, also secret societies I suspected of having a rather negative view of Catholics. They never had the heart to tell me I was ineligible.

Throughout my life, I was a most curious person about everything, which was another of my many demonic virtues according to my mother, and especially according to those priests and nuns.

Speaking of which, in spite of the Putnam pressure against it I actually joined a Catholic secret society, the Knights of the Alter, God's army for Pete's sake.  Okay, okay, so I was just an alter boy, but I was armed to the teeth with bells and smoke bombs, oh yeah incense I mean.

It was during my early Dark Ages, when the memory of my true Rothschild heritage was beginning to slip away in the chaos of growing up.  It was in the latter part of grade school.  At the time, I actually harbored the thought of becoming a priest, which I soon rejected based on observing those of the faith I personally experienced.

Then I figured I should not waste all those pious years of training to be a priest and I decided to be a religious brother, but there were far too many rules for such a simple life.  My idea of saving the world was not learning how to weed a garden.  I was thinking of being more like Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine, theologians, not gardeners.

Therefore, my last grasp at retaining a link to all that Catholic education and training was to become a religious hermit because by this time having a conversation with me in a cave would be far more intellectually stimulating than remaining in my environment.

What ever happened to those glorious dreams of thinking I could save the world?

A fabulous world of classical literature, ancient Greek mythology, empires, kingdoms, warlords, and dragons drew me in.  So I am stuck with brothers who hated to read and abhorred the very thought of writing.  Intellectual stimulation to them was sticking your finger in a light socket.

By now, I had experienced the mysterious Catholic world of Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, and Exorcism; I was ready to try something new.  It was time to experience rowing, croquet and polo instead of kick the can, cowboys and Indians.

By the time I reached the end of grade school, it was obvious I had greatly miscalculated my potential and possibilities.  I needed a fresh start.

Pity the child who knows no better, who taught himself everything.  Pity the child in the shadows, who taught himself how to think.  Pity the poor boy you never noticed, nobody really cares.  Pity the child you cannot see, in his world nothing is fair. 

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