>From a genealogist colleague: Picture a cold, bitter winter in the ancient lands of yesteryear. The falling temperature has made it necessary for everyone to seek shelter indoors. The men who hunted and tended the fields no longer can spend extended periods outdoors and away from those with whom they disagreed. The women who bickered and gossiped found themselves closed in with others--many of whom they did not care for. Imagine the goading, the wise cracks, the veiled and unveiled insults directed at one another. One man says: "Krill cannot shoot a true enough arrow to fell a blind deer. How do you expect that his errant shaft or his words to find the heart of a maiden?" The others snigger and Krill goes red with shame. The ancients were used to dealing with human nature. One method for bringing peace and good will to the clan was the custom of gift-giving. One must give to receive and one must give to the family and to the clan. One must forgive in order to be forgiven and one must forgive to keep order in the family and the clan. In these cold months when all must coexist and cooperate--when being driven out into the cold of the night sky could have fatal consequence--the wise ones among them declared that there be a period of celebration. The custom of the Yule log arose and the men worked together to drag the huge log that would give warmth to the hearth. The people exchanged gifts, as it is difficult to be angry or nasty to one that has given you something to treasure. Though times have changed, our natures seem not to have changed that much. But let us not forget the lessons passed to us by our ancestors. When the bitter winds howl, when adversity raises its head, when natural and unnatural pressures seem more that we can bear, then it is time to give a gift, spread a kind word, flash a smile and comfort one another. In this spirit, I give you a gift--a gift of personal words, the only kind of gift that can be given in these circumstances. That these words were written about my father who died some twenty-five years ago does not matter, for in these words are the seeds of every persons experience. A MIRROR TO THE SUN (C) 1992, 1998 K.H. Finton Is it the ghost of him I see in the restless dreamscapes of a hollow night? The ghost of him ... or my own flawed impressions? Twenty years ago my world quaked violently when he passed so suddenly from our lives, so quickly there was barely time for tears. A sudden shock ... a stunning loss ... and life moved on without him. With childhood’s end, the world could never be the same. Twenty years ... so long ago I barely recognize that younger, wandering self. Yet, in those silent dreamscapes of the night he comes to visit still. A near-sighted old neighbor said he saw him walking through the tall grasses of the abandoned yard years after we left the old Ohio homestead. “Bunk,” I said, not prone to thoughts of spirits, yet encounters of a kind have occurred in the darkness of many a restless night since. I remember those long evenings in the family home, the easy chair whose arms held up a crude wood shelf, flowing over with papers and notes, my father seated behind this rude table in his work suit, lost from the present in the remote past of other peoples lives. The black and white TV that connected us with the world blared endlessly, while mother ironed the clothes and I shook my head in wonder. How bored I liked to be on those hot and muggy summer days when Dad’s idea of a good time was to walk through silent graveyards, writing the names from time-worn stones on yellow legal pads. Yet, caught up in his enthusiasm, I learned to hold a mirror to the sun, reflecting shadows upon those faded letters. Quite often we were rewarded with a touch of heartfelt sentiment inscribed upon the crumbling stone. Often Saturday would find us in some distant library, digging through piles of dry old books of facts that smelled of yesteryear, but all was not studious and dull escape. All was not the dark, outmoded past, as I feared in the leafy green and anxious days of youth... the family trips brought new, inviting places we ran to once a year ... croquet with friends in the evening breezes of the green Ohio grass ... Is it the ghost of him I see in the restless dreamscapes of a hollow night? The ghost of him ... or my own flawed impressions? His choice in music bubbles through my mind. His choice in pastime rumbles through my mature years like the distant drone of a passing freight. Through the years I’ve come to know him more than yesterday, when I was but his child. And most of all, I learned to hold a mirror to the sun. Kenneth Harper Finton Editor/ Publisher THE PLANTAGENET CONNECTION