ARE YOU CRAZY?

My brother just threw something in this 92-year old lady's living room.

You want your kids to know how to act in social situations, right?  You want to expose them to all kinds of people, right?  So how come they can always find a way to make you wish the floor would swallow you?  I missed my post Sunday because I wanted to take my children to meet 92-year old Edythe Wright of Warrenton.  She is a wonderful African-American (really!) lady of sound mind and sharp wit, whom I hope will allow me to write the story of her life.  Miss Edythe taught school for generations, yet never had any children of her own.  Ashton looks uncannily like her--she thought he was a girl for half an hour--and Malachi looks a lot like her brothers, all deceased.  Boy, did the sight of them cheer her up.  But back to "Are you crazy?"  I am Hyper DeKuyper under the best of circumstances.  Worrying about my baby bull in China Shop already had me on edge.  I misplaced my camera case.  "Looking for this?" asked the grinning imp in the picture. He was standing at the entrance of the room.  I was seated in its furthest corner.

"Michael Jordan IS better than LeBron.  This Ebony Magazine from 1995 PROVES IT!"

More quickly than I could scream, "Doan throw it!" the thing came sailing across the room.  There was an aching silence as it turned end over end. Calmly, Malachi plucked it out of mid-air at the height of its arc like a Pat Ewing rebound. "It's okay, mom," he rumbled soothingly, all Barry White, Jr., as  I sat supine, folded in half, slumped with my arms over my head like Jack Nicholson waiting for Nurse Ratchett.  Malachi patted my back consolingly for a few seconds.  I will go to my grave with the memory of Miss Edythe's ringing gasp of alarm encoded in my DNA for all time.  She was a schoolteacher. In true sweet-teacher form, she didn't say a word. O. M. G.

This awesome lady knew my great-grandfather, Ernest "Dick" Coker.  She confirmed that indeed, my European ancestors (those of his wife, Jennie Burwell Coker) had a parting of the ways several generations back.  Burwell, Burrell, and  Burelle  do indeed share a common ancestor.  There were several issues--estate taxes, miscegenation, and being more French than British, amid others.  I failed to ask my grandmother and great-grandmother about our family history when they were alive.  Now all I can do is ask Miss Wright.  At least I will know how my family appeared to a contemporary.  I paint pictures with words, and I desire to paint the life of Edythe Wright in broad, bright strokes.  I think she has a secret.  

Is this lady a descendant of Orville and Wilbur?

Having taken a thorough tour of the boneyard less than a tenth of a mile from this lady's home (before I'd met her), I took note of a massive granite marker. "WRIGHT," it proclaims, in solemn stone splendor.  No names, no dates, nothing more .  I am an amateur genealogist, which is why I was there.  There is a knack to African-American genealogy. You have to consult bills of lading and cargo manifests to find your people.  You have to notice what isn't in order to ascertain what might have been. I recall asking myself, "What's hiding in plain sight about that?" The answer woke me at three a.m. this morning.  An incisement of the "Kitty Hawk."  Since the Wright in question could not have it, he had nothing.  I've got the gift and I'm forced to use it, so I haven't any idea whether I was dreaming this, or just thinking about it really deeply as I awakened. Is that crazy?  Maybe not.  There are all kind of travel adventures.  I took my children for an excursion into living history.  As Malachi travels to marvel at the present, his mother has an earnest desire to travel to the past, and unlock its most stubborn secrets--some of which appear to be hiding in plain sight.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.  Have a great week.  #FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass