The Strange Stories Genealogy Generates

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When I was a kid my grandfather used to sit me down on Sunday afternoons and give me a copy of one of the top magazines of the 1950's.  The magazine might be Time Magazine (1923-present), Life Magazine (1936-2000), Popular Mechanics (1902-present), Harper's Magazine (1850-present), Scientific American (1845-present), National Geographic (1888-present) or Boy's Life (1911-present).  He would quiz me on what I knew about the contents.

 

Since I was the only one in my family who loved to read and learn except Grandpa Pat, I figured he was desperate for intellectual discussions about current events, science or history.  So what if I was a kid, I still devoured magazines and listened to the news on radio and TV.

 

My grandfather was an immigrant of Scottish-Irish descent and he came to America from Donegal County, Ireland.  Of course his Campbell clan had been forced to leave Scotland a few hundred years earlier when England started enforcing the new Anglican religion in order to cover up King Henry VIII and his frisky ways.

 

 

Most of Europe was Catholic in the 1500's when the Pope delayed giving King Henry an annulment from his first wife, a method of divorcing your wife without divorcing her by having the Pope declare the marriage never existed in the first place.

 

Divorce was not allowed by the church.  Annulment was the only way to get out of marriage and remain a Catholic.  But there had to be a good reason and Henry had none except the need to pursue further peccadilloes with all the ladies of the world who seemed to love him.

 

Without an annulment the death of his wife was the only way for him to get married again.  Ironically, it was the death of his brother that forced him to get married in the first place.

 

Back in the good old days of the monarchies when the parents arranged marriages for their children in order to merge with other monarchies, a three year old Catherine was betrothed to Prince Arthur of England, Henry's older brother and heir to the throne, thus setting up a consolidation of the Spanish and English empires.

 

 

They were married in 1501, when she turned 16, and six months later Prince Arthur died after both became ill, possibly from sweating sickness.  This caused a royal mess as the whole succession plan to consolidate the kingdoms was unraveling.  So Arthur's brother, Henry, who was five years younger than Catherine, had to marry his brother's widow to keep things on track.

 

Unfortunately, that same Catholic church had canon law that forbade men from marrying their brother's widow.  Yet there was a way around that canon law as well.  The Pope could grant a dispensation if the marriage was never consummated.

 

Catherine said the marriage was never consummated during the 6 month period and the Pope granted the dispensation.  It still took several years due to monarchy bureaucratic delays before they were married.  Then Catherine never produced a male heir to the throne with Henry, just a female named Mary, and Henry feared the Tudor family was so dysfunctional a woman could never rule the kingdom.

 

Henry's first wife at the time, Catherine of Aragon, was the daughter of the most powerful monarchy in the world, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Argon, the Queen and King of the Spanish empire.  Yes, the same Isabella who helped finance the discovery of America by Columbus.

 

 

One could write numerous more volumes or scripts on the incredible, bizarre and off-the-wall antics of the royal monarchies that ruled the world and in particular the Tudor family in England.  The truth about them is far more riveting a tale than the fiction of Hollywood screen writers.

 

Anyway, finding the young maids of his wife far more interesting and desirable than his older wife, Henry needed an out so for the second time he asked the Pope to waive a canon law for him.  First the dispensation and now the annulment.

 

When the Pope took to much time to act Henry went out and changed the ruling church to Anglican and banned Catholics from England, Scotland and Wales among other places controlled by the British.

 

 

A few wives and numerous peccadilloes later, peccadilloes being the insignificance old Henry attached to the affairs, adultery and general debauchery he considered essential to his monarchy, the old boy died.  The cause of death was long attributed to that deadly old venerable venereal disease syphilis.  Imagine that, being killed by too many peccadilloes!

 

Now historians point to diabetes, obesity, or even brain damage from a 1536 jousting accident.  Aristocrats never stop trying to re-write any history that makes the family look bad.

 

After his death from diabetes, obesity, brain damage or syphilis his son Edward (King Edward VI), became king at 9 years old and died at age 15.  In order to keep his oldest daughter Mary, a Catholic, from being queen Henry had directed that Lady Jane Grey succeed Edward.  Jane was queen 9 days before Bloody Mary showed up, imprisoned her and then had her executed in 1554.

 

 

Thus his daughter Mary (Queen Mary I or Bloody Mary) did become Queen lasing only until 1558  when she died and Elizabeth, Henry's last child and daughter of second wife Ann Boleyn, became Queen.

 

Queen Elizabeth I, my all time favorite Queen of England, ruled for 45 years and is often considered the greatest Queen of England.  She refused to marry in order to assure there would never be another Tudor on the throne of England.

 

 

It seems Henry's legacy was too much for her.  There is an old English rhyme that summarized Henry's rule.

 

King Henry the Eighth

to six wives he was wedded.

One died, one survived,

two divorced, two beheaded.

For historical accuracy change divorced to annulled.

One of the reasons I thought Elizabeth was great is she refused to enforce her dad's (King Henry) law banishing Catholics from England.  It was not until after she died that Catholics were finally told to denouncement their Catholic faith and become Anglican or leave the country.  They could be imprisoned and even executed for refusing to denounce their faith.

My grandfather's Campbell clan ruled Scotland at the time.  They were Catholics.  In the early 1600's they were ordered to denounce their Catholic faith or give up all rights to ruling Scotland.  Those that remained Catholic gave up all rights to succession and were sent to Ireland, where Catholics still ruled.

So you can see how King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth I had a direct impact on my family about 450 years ago and why my family immigrated to America.  Ironically, while the Campbell's were my maternal family the Putnam's from my father's side were from England and were Anglican aristocratic defenders of the monarchy.

For some odd reason reunions of my family never seemed to work.
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New CPT Columnist

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Fannee Hilander
 

The Barefoot Blueblood Blonde Belle

of Bluegrass Horse Country Kentucky

 

CPT is pleased to introduce our new columnist from Kentucky, Fannee Hilander, a true Blueblood from the Bluegrass of thoroughbred horse country.  This Southern Belle has come a long ways from the barefoot babe of Muddy Ford, Kentucky to matriarch of her Hilander clan, not to be confused with the immortal Scottish Highlanders whose ancestors settled all around Fannee's Indian Summer Place in Kentucky and introduced world-famous Bourbon to the unsuspecting Earthlings.

 

In a word Fannee is "authentic" whatever that may mean to you.  Like most Bluebloods she is also a stickler for etiquette, likes Jaguar sports cars, has a life size coat of armor in her doorway, a massive Indian totem pole tree in her front yard, and huge lion statues at the entry to her little corner of paradise.  Of course the picture perfect setting would not be complete without the spectacular water falls guarding her enchanted farm.

 

 

This is a woman of purpose.  By 16 years old she won a United Nations UNICEF competition and appeared on the nationally famous Ed Sullivan Show from New York City.  The "Really Big Shew" appearance was sandwiched the week between the two legendary Ed Sullivan introductions of a young singer named Elvis Presley.  Imagine that, missing by a week from sharing backstage with the King of Rock and Roll.

 

 

Should one ever receive a coveted invitation to any of the legendary social events at Indian Summer Place Farm you will no doubt wind up sipping mint juleps by the swimming pool as a Blueblood breed of free range and free yard chickens dart between your legs while you discuss the latest odds for the Kentucky Derby.

 

In spite of having a hair dresser and manicurist on full time retainer Fannee is not above getting her nails scratched or make up smudged while searching for the perfect story for her books, movies, documentaries or magazine articles.

 

 

Her favorite literary subjects beyond her mother, immediate family and scantily clad Mayan Indian dancers are world famous or almost world famous celebrities from movie actors to politicians to sports legends to Native American leaders, IF she finds their story interesting.

 

I've seen her in action from the sophisticated New York City skyscrapers to the Smithsonian museums in our nation's capitol.  Of course there were also stops at the National Press club luncheon with the President of Chile to a rollicking evening at a French Burlesque club downtown.  Fannee leaves no stone unturned in her search for adventure, and/or stories.

 

 

She prowls the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico and the theaters of southwestern film festivals with occasional side trips to Paris, France or Yucatan Mexico.  I was even with her at one of the most incredible of all Native American events in the canyons of Arizona where the Hopi nation hosted a fulfillment of sacred prophecies by the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni nations of the US, the Algonquin from Canada, the Ute from Columbia, South America and the Aborigines from Australia along with Tibetan monks sent by the Dali Lama.

 

You get the idea.  Another writer with way too much time on her hands whose subjects may be anyone from a Sheik in Dubai (just another fellow horse person) to our most powerful politicians in Washington (good old Kentucky boys).  Her stories are as colorful as her personality as you will discover and she brings us a fresh new perspective behind the scenes in the mysterious world of the elite.

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Obamaville - June 14, 2013

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 Obamaville - June 14, 2013 - The Midterm Check Up

 

Halfway through the first year of his second term as President of these United States, just what have we realized of the Obama Dream we were given when he first ran to be chief executive, commander in chief, the husband of the First Lady or maybe biggest spender in our history?

 

Is writing this story a journalist's "dream" ticket to a Pulitzer, or a "nightmare" demotion to writing those dreaded obituaries?

 

My a lot can happen by the 5th year of a presidency --- or not.

 

First you have to get elected, and then elected again.  It means the people might have been fooled once, but they presumably knew what they were doing when they re-elected you.  Now what happens really is the fault of the people who voted for Obama.

 

Ages ago a newly elected Barack Obama promised a lot and did some pretty serious Bushwhacking in the process.  In his first year as the first minority to ever be elected president he promised to deliver things like comprehensive Immigration Reform and closing Guantanamo Prison in Cuba.

 

 

Of course the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be ended immediately with a high degree of success.  The dastardly Bush recession would be fixed and everyone will keep their homes and get back their lost jobs.  In the meantime he would give everyone in our country health insurance and lower the cost of healthcare.

 

There might have been some mention of a new concept of redistribution of wealth from the "elite" class to the middle class, which in Obamaese means anyone making less than a million or two million dollars a year.  Truth is very difficult to find in the fog in our nation's capitol.

 

Now where I come from about a hundred miles from where Mark Twain grew up, if someone told me the middle class was everyone except the rich, powerful and very few "elite", I might scratch my head in wonder.

 

 

So if the middle class is everyone else, how many "elite's" are there?  Of course the wealthy "elites" have mastered hiding their money from detection by IRS or any other criminal or social tax deductible organization.  The truth is no one really knows this answer, including the All Omnipotent NSA since they REALLY are watching you all the time.

 

So it is a guess by anyone that 1-5% of Americans belong to the so called "elite".  Yet these people control all the wealth of America and much of the world according to those who know and speak the truth.

 

 

 

Now, back to my most recent line of thought, if no more than 5% are "elite" and we are going to redistribute their wealth so we all get what we deserve, then everyone becomes a card carrying member of the "elite".

 

Guess we might need all those illegal immigrants since none of the "elite" work like the middle class has been doing ever since we first drove out the British.  That's one way to drive down the unemployment rate, just eliminate the middle class.  Won't be any jobless if everyone is home managing their money instead of making it.

 

One other big Obama promise was to throw those crooks on Wall Street or Main Street, where ever they might be carrying out their predatory practices, in jail.

 

Then reality set in.  Suddenly, when he was elected president, he was expected to do what he said he would do.  Like nothing counted when he was just a presidential candidate.  Only if you were the final one elected would your promises have to be honest, truthful and delivered.

 

No first year Immigration reform or prison closings.  Five years later they are both just as he found them when he became responsible for all Americans as president.

 

 

 

As for ending the two wars being fought to end the bigger war on terror, our president's words of peace and cooperation for all Earthlings got him the coveted Nobel Peace prize a couple of weeks later as the one person in the world who did more than everyone else to bring about peace.

 

Clearly words speak louder than actions for a few weeks later he ordered tens of thousands of more American troops and billions of dollars in military expenditures in Afghanistan.  What a difference a few weeks can make.

 

Eventually, long after he had promised, we are pretty much out of Iraq.  Now that the war on terror between the US and Al-Qaeda is over the people of Iraq can finish their Civil Separatist war which is far more brutal and deadly than our Geneva Convention based efforts.

 

One thing the Obama administration did learn from all the war efforts is the value of drones, those unmanned airplanes that can successfully kill terrorists without risking the lives of American soldiers.  Any deaths of innocent civilians including children are just collateral damage to the mission.

 

Afghanistan, after billions in bribes, is just now winding down.  Both wars cost far too many lives of the brave American soldiers, men and women, sent to the war zones.

 

 

Fixing Bush's financial recession has been a little bit more complicated than Obama might have suspected since it seemed to take several years to find everything that could be blamed on Bush.

 

In Detroit he saved the world auto industry by transforming General Motors Corporation into the Government Motors Corporation.  His AIG bailout gave billions of dollars to those barons of Wall Street like Goldman Sachs.

 

Millions of Americans lost their jobs and millions of Americans lost their homes since Obama was elected.  The economy is declared to be stable and safe.

 

But people have not found new jobs or replaced foreclosed homes.  And those who have suffered most are the very middle class he promised to save.

 

Seniors saw their retirement savings vanish away.  Minorities by the millions lost their jobs and homes.  So did the Caucasians.  Ironically, many were the very special interest groups who overwhelmingly elected Obama to office.  I guess you can't bite the hand that feeds you when you are the one doing the feeding.

 

No major crooks have been sent to jail.

 

 

As for health care and costs, after a brutal couple of  years Obama Care did get approved but all the tough promises to keep were delayed until after the re-election campaign.  Now we are beginning to see that much of it is impossible to implement.

 

Neither health insurance or medical treatment costs have gone down but continue their upward trajectory.  Americans spend more being sicker than nearly all other developed countries.  We also spend far more on legal drugs than anyone else meaning we are either much sicker or love being legally "stoned".

 

 

Obama might have another first to his credit, not having a budget approved the entire time he has been president.

 

On the other hand, he has had a few trouble spots he did not expect.  The Benghazi attack in Libya left four Americans including the Ambassador dead.

 

The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) targeted Tea Party conservatives for harassment while the NSA (National Security Agency) targeted just plain people for about everything with their cell phone and internet tapping and hacking initiatives.

 

 

The Office of the Chief Executive and Commander in chief (the White House) of course knew nothing of such actions by their own agencies and people.

 

Then there is the Mexican drug war and Syrian civil war in which the big news is we have done nothing in either case.  As a result of our inaction or intellectual constipation 93,000 people have died in Syria and between 60,000 and 90,000 have died in Mexico.

 

Need we say more about the state of affairs of the nation?  To be perfectly honest there are a lot more good, inspiring or entertaining stories we need to cover.

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Obama DOD Nominee Chuck Hagel

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January 7, 2013
Dateline: Washington, DC

Obama DOD Nominee Chuck Hagel

Lightning Rod or Voice of Reason?

Today President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense and the first enlisted soldier to ever hold the office.  The nomination met with instant criticism from liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans alike.

 

I believe no better nominee could be considered for this critical cabinet position and I say that not as a journalist, former political junkie or political party member but as someone deeply concerned about the future of America in a time of fiscal austerity.

 

Also I say that as someone who worked with Chuck when he first began his political career in Nebraska as we both served as congressional staffers and learned political warfare Midwestern style.

 

What does that mean?

 We served a Republican congressman from Omaha Nebraska in a congressional district that was dominated by Democrats from the city of Omaha with a non-partisan mayor and non-partisan state legislature.

 

In fact, from 1969 - 1973 I worked for three different mayors of Omaha, first a Republican, then a Democrat, then a Republican who turned Democrat in order to run against our congressional boss for US Senate in 1976.

 

Politics in the Heartland forced one to be accommodating of different views.  Once elections were decided the political party labels and political philosophies dissolved or nothing could be accomplished for the good of the people.

Compromise was a way of life and working together was far more important than party litmus tests.

When I worked in the mayors office we coordinated extensively with the GOP congressman and I got to know Chuck and appreciate the independence we all had to master in order to do good for the people.

After a stint in the Executive Office of the President I joined the same congressional office as a fellow staff member and Chuck worked in DC while I stayed in the district working with the Democrats and coordinating with the Strategic Air Command headquarters also in our district.

On many trips to Washington to meet with federal agencies Chuck let me stay at his apartment on Capitol Hill as we were both compulsive workaholics.

Chuck Hagel, though a Republican, is one of few Washington political veterans with no strings attached in terms of being beholden to special interests.  While most of our national politicians were owned by defense contractors and special interests Chuck was a former enlisted man, not career military politician, who understood the underbelly of the military and defense industry.

Because of his experience he also understood the financial implications of federal policy and was never afraid to speak his own mind, not parrot the will of the political party or president.

President's Lincoln, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan all warned of the dangers of a military industrial complex, one in which our politicians and military leaders became senior executives or rich lobbyists in the defense industry when they retired, got defeated or driven from office.

Today more than ever we need government leaders who can stand up to the military industrial complex and make changes that no political party loyalist would ever be allowed to support.

Our federal government is riddled with conflicts of interest, special interests and greed because our public policy is determined as much by how much money can be made by individuals, foundations and politicians as by how well the policy serves the public good.

We need government officials who refuse to play the game that has nearly destroyed our ability to govern America FOR THE PEOPLE instead of for the political party or special interests.

Defense, like all government functions, has to be cut back and made affordable.  There are more American soldiers stationed overseas than in America and nations around the world are charging us excessive amounts for the bases we maintain to protect them.

Chuck Hagel is a pragmatic person who tells us the truth about wars and relationships and he has demonstrated consistently that he is far more patriotic than political, dating back to the two Purple Hearts he was awarded for service in Viet Nam.

We need a Defense Secretary whose first concern is for America, who is not a hack for either political party, who will not sugar coat the truth and will never forget the people and needs of Main Street America.

We also need a Secretary not interested in advancing his political career but in serving the public interest.  In the 42 years I have known Chuck Hagel and followed his career he has never been a yes man or someone who sucked up to the media to enhance his own agenda.

Hagel is an All American patriot from our nation's populist Heartland who never lost his perspective on the needs of the people nor catered to special interests in Washington.

The Senate should confirm him because of his differences with politicians and party platforms in Washington.

Jim Putnam

Publisher
Coltons Point Times
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Left Handed, Four Eyed, Small Town & Catholic - and they call me Lucky???

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Note to the reader:

If you want to read these stories in order you can click on the following story links:

Part I.  http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-handed-four-eyed-small-town.html

Part II.  http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-handed-four-eyed-small-town.html

Part III.  http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-handed-four-eyed-small-town_4.html

Part IV.  http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-handed-four-eyed-small-town_5.html

Part V.  http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-handed-four-eyed-small-town_8.html

Part V.

I had more than my share of mystical challenges thanks to my maternal Grandfather of the Irish Campbell clan.  Of all his grandkids, he picked me to be entrusted as the future custodian of the family secrets in the ways of magic.

Maybe he did it because I, like my mother Patricia, shared his Patrick given Christian name, my middle name and Confirmation name.  I might have lost the Campbell Irish/Scottish surname but at least I kept the Irish Patrick name.

As far as magic was concerned, in Grandpa Pat's world it was impossible to distinguish between the magic used in ancient (Pagan) days or the more recent Christian era.

What he taught me through stories, fables and fantasies seemed to transcend time as if it really didn't matter when it began, the magic was real if you believed in it.

Perhaps an unexpected benefit of the blending of the Campbell (Irish) and Putnam (English) DNA was my interest in both the ancient Irish and British Celtic cultures, which made me feel at home in Newgrange Ireland or Stonehenge England.  For that matter I felt the same up at Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands when I was searching for Nessie.

When I think back of my Grandfather, I often wonder if he was really a Leprechaun in disguise or perhaps a magical wizard.  My first memories of him came when I asked him why he didn't have a thumb?  It seemed like a good question to me, even if I was only about four or five.

First his always smiling rugged Irish face broke into a mischievous grin.  Of course at that age he already towered over me.  Then he started laughing.  Then he just stared at his missing thumb for what seemed like an eternity.

Much later I would learn it was his tactic of stalling while he made up some wild Irish tale to spin on me.  At long last he shrugged, slowly shook his head, and admitted he lost his thumb when some nasty gnome popped out of the old clothes washer and grabbed his hand, pulling his thumb right into the clothes wringer looming menacingly over the washer tub.

Oh my God, I thought at the time, Grandpa must have powerful magic to fight off an evil gnome and only lose one finger.  He must be like my hero Merlin.

And that is one of the problems of bouncing freely between my fantasy world and reality.  I had no reason to doubt his veracity.  Even after he told me all good stories are only half true.

Don't think any other grandkids shared my strange world but my Irish grandfather most certainly did, as he was not a bit surprised I was so gullible.  So I passed the entrance exam to become custodian of the magic world of the Campbell clan et all and here I had no clue I was even being tested.

One of the reasons I'm sure he was a wizard was his ability to enchant me with his stories, as if I were under some spell.  I remember story after story of the world of the little people of Ireland but I have no memory of my grandfather telling me the stories, even though I knew I was with him at the time.

Sometimes I would have this faint recollection of having experienced the stories with him rather than being told by him and that was a most peculiar and unsettling notion.  I could just imagine the trouble I would be in if I could leap between worlds or dimensions at will.

From Alice's Wonderland to Tinker Bell's Never Land to Arthur's Camelot and back home again.  In truth most times it was hard to tell the difference between them.

Grandpa Pat made it okay to lose yourself in all those other worlds.  He also made it okay to create your own worlds as well.  There was one thing he was never going to lose and that was his right to his individual freedom.

There was a big difference in what those words meant between his grandson and his daughter, the grandson's mother.  Me and my mother in case you were confused.

I said it was a noble declaration of individual rights as well as a validation of the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution by my Grandfather whose very own heritage taught him the tragic consequences of being denied such rights!

His daughter just sneered at me.

Then she said don't you patronize me with your intellectual nonsense or your idiotic conclusions.  What my father and your grandfather meant was if you don't like the truth - then change it!

I never would have figured that out on my own.

So I accepted her interpretation as her interpretation knowing full well mine was far more concise and consistent with how he lived.

Old Pat had that Scottish resolve and that Irish flair for living.  He met a number of my "how to spot a wizard" criteria beginning with the missing thumb tale.  By now it had magically transformed into how he used his thumb to plug up the hole in the Holland dikes like in the fairy tale.

I was not about to question my grandfather.

To my absolute delight and amazement, both my grandfathers were world class pack rats.  It was in the DNA.  There was no rhyme nor reason to what they "saved" as they called it.  They taught me the greatest of all collections you can have are fond memories you have known.

To share their world was to leave behind all rules, regulations, laws and definitions.  That was the single most powerful gift I had been given.  To understand I could step beyond definition knowing it was just another mechanism to limit your perception of truth, was a great and lasting legacy from my grandfathers.

They also taught me how to lose and how to survive.

I'm sure there are a lot of things they taught me I should not have learned but that remains to be seen.

Whatever else it was they shared, when Grandpa Pat said to never, ever tell my mom or anyone the things he shared with me I was marked for life.   Throughout his life and beyond his death my mom and her sisters never quit trying to get me to spill the beans on their father.

They were convinced because I spent so much time with him over the years that I knew everything about the "secret" life he kept from them.  Convinced I was a co-conspirator to hide assets and protect people in his life he did not want them to know about, they could never accept that someone like me could go through life without spying on people.

Oh there was a lot I did know, learn or observe over the years but nothing like they wanted to hear.  He did take me to obscure places in Texas to see cotton fields and citrus fields he owned, or a motel in Springfield, Missouri he owned, or farms in Iowa and Nebraska.

It wasn't my fault he didn't want to tell his own kids.  Besides, I was sworn to secrecy in a pact with a wizard.  You do not violate such confidences.  And I had no desire to wind up a frog or something.

Grandfather Putnam was equally eccentric and just as fiercely independent.  His life was a whirlpool of constant activity built around his many business ventures all connected to his long lineage of engineers, inventors and members of secret societies.

There was the Loyal Order of the Moose, the Masons, his own Moose Club Orchestra, the car dealer, tool and die shop, welding supply business, machine shop, beer distributor, apartment owner, nursing home owner and inventor.

I got to use his machine shop.  And his beer distributorship long before I was of legal age.  And Grandpa Put gave me my first American car, in a way.  He had a '49 Chev with a blown engine sitting behind his distributorship and I asked if I could buy it.

He said I could have it if I could drive it out.  Of course I was still a year from getting a driver's license and by then my family had been banished from the hometown and sent to live in exile in Southern Iowa.  Boy does that story sound familiar.

The exile left me 80 miles from Iowa City where the dead car sat behind the mountain of beer.  It took me less than month working on weekends with the help of my good friend Turtle and thanks to the genius of a son of my uncle's brother, or something like that.

Bobby, my relative and about ten years older and one hundred years wiser knew how to get anything done as fast as possible with the fewest questions.  He was a legendary fixer in Iowa City and his was the first place I headed when I got to town.

One time I broke a windshield in a borrowed car and he got it replaced in the middle of the night and no one knew it was ever broken.

This time he guided my repair of the old Chev and one Saturday my Grandpa stopped by the shop and the Chev was gone, eleven months before I turned 16 and got my license.  In a quiet town 80 miles away the Chev was parked two blocks away from my house where it remained a secret until I got my license.

Grandpa Put was not a bit surprised.

One night when we were working on the Chev Bobby, my somewhat wayward relative, told me if I really wanted an interesting care I should ask his dad, Frank, to give me an English Austin he had given Bobby for high school graduation years ago.

That got my attention.

Seems his day Dad was an electrical contractor who helped keep the lights on in London during all those years of bombing by the Nazis.  As a token of their gratitude, they gave him an Austin from the first production of passenger cars after World War II.

That would be 1946, the year of my birth.  Bobby hated the little European car.  Called it a sissy car.  Bobby would know, he was a grease monkey with an attitude.  A dead ringer for Jimmy Dean who had recently died.

As for the Austin, of course it was not the sports model he might have liked but the four door sedan that looked like an English taxi.

Bobby drove it less than 3,000 miles then permanently parked it in one of their garages, his dad owned several homes and properties.  One day I found it in the garage on a farm, again when I was 15, and though it had not been moved in 14 years I wanted it.  I of true Rothschild lineage was destined to have and to drive a vintage English classic.

So I asked Frank, Bobby's dad, if he would sell me the strange little car I found in his garage out on the farm by Indian Lookout Mountain.

He asked why I would want a car like that?  His own son called it a sissy car.  Fourteen years later and it was still a sensitive issue between Bobby and his dad.

When he said he would let me know sometime it sounded like a complete blow off, I would never be able to afford or get the car.  Later that year I got a birthday card from Frank.  Taped inside the card were the keys to the car.  There was no note.

The Putnam's were like that.  If they thought something was right they just did it.  No fanfare, no notes, just the keys taped in a card.  Within months of first getting my driver's license I had two cars licensed and running and paid for neither.  Yet another reason my mother said I was always lucky.

Of course she never considered the fact I had searched out the two cars, checked them out and pursued the owners to make a deal.  Then I had to fix them up.  Initiative was not her strong suit.  Of course it had to be luck.

Then again she was the one empowered to change the truth if she didn't like it.   We just never saw eye to eye.
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