family stories

It's freshman year in a very liberal, progressive college and my son is taking a course that teaches about Shakespeare.

The professor says: many of you may not realize that to "die" in Shakespeare's time had another meaning.

My son's hand goes up.

The professor: Yes?

My son: I know what it also means.

The professor (indulgent): Oh, you do?

My son: Yes. It means to experience sexual climax.

The professor (surprised): Why yes it does! Where did you learn that?

My son: From my mommy.

(I feel certain he didn't say "mommy" but it is much funnier that way.)

stories: why I became a theater artist

I struggle in my relationship with my father. Ever since my brother was born, it was clear that as the only son, my brother was also the favorite child.

My dad has tried to be supportive from time to time. My dad is NOT a feminist, but he has tried to be enlightened from time to time.

For instance, when I came home with some extraordinarily high score on some standardized test or other, my father urged me to broaden my horizons.

He said, "These are great scores. You could do anything. You don't have to feel limited because you are a girl. You could do anything... you could become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer... as long as it didn't require talent, you could do it."

So I became an actor.

family stories- death bed promise

I always wondered why my first cousin once removed never married, and even now lives with her nearly-90 year old father and her dysfunctional brother in his forties (who also never married).

Talking with my mom recently I heard that on her deathbed, my great aunt made my cousin promise to always take care of her (my cousin's) father and brother.

HOW could a mother do that to a daughter? According to my mom, our cousin (my mom's cousin) has at least twice had a relationship with a man who wanted to marry her...but she didn't wouldn't couldn't due to this deathbed promise.

This particular great aunt was one I always cared for... it is hard for me to imagine her doing something like this.

Families are strange.

family stories: switched at birth

this is the story that my mom told me about her paternal grandfather:

There were two women who gave birth at the same time at the same hospital. One of the mothers died; the baby of the other mother died. So the ?nurses? switched the dead baby to the dead mother, and gave the live mother the live baby...

So that although I can do the genealogical research, without DNA I won't know FOR SURE how far that line goes back...