Picture

I put your picture away
Sat down and cried today
- Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow

When each of my daughters was in middle school, they had to do a report for art class about a famous artist. Laura told her teacher that her great-great-grandfather was a professional portrait artist and could she do her report on him? We still had some of his artwork in the family. The teacher agreed.

My dad was a little more hesitant. Laura could only take the pieces of art to school if I accompanied her, and if all classmates agreed to put all pencils, pens, and markers away - anything that could damage the artwork. We had a small landscape done in oil, a small portrait done of my grandfather when he was about four or five years old posed laying on the couch and propped up on one elbow, and then a large charcoal portrait of my grandfather as a young man. I also had a three-ring notebook that had prints of many of the large and even life-size portraits Paul Thomas had painted of people. Laura was going to do her presentation, and I would drive over to the middle school and meet her there with the art work.

So I left for work that morning with all the artwork carefully packed in my trunk and drove the four blocks to work. But I'm proud of my family history and wanted to share Paul's art with a few of my colleagues. So I brought them in to my school and showed the pieces to a few close friends. Just before it was time to meet Laura I left, artwork in hand, and went back to my car. I opened the trunk. And as I was placing the artwork in the trunk, the hood of the trunk dropped, creating a large spider-like crack in the glass on the charcoal portrait of my grandfather. I was horrified. It was a clear sunny day without a trace of wind. My trunk hood had never dropped life that before and never has since.

Laura did her presentation, and we apologized for the cracked glass. I told Laura later that we were going to replace the glass and just not mention to Grandpa what happened. The portrait didn't seem to be damaged and Grandpa, for all his worries about the students damaging the artwork, didn't need to be any the wiser. So when I got the replacement glass, and picked out the broken pieces, and then gently removed the charcoal portrait, I got the surprise of my life. Behind my grandfather's portrait was a matching portrait of my grandmother! Well now I had to tell my father. His response was, "Well I'll be darned! We knew there was a portrait of Mom. We just never knew what happened to it." The family thinks that when my grandparents divorced, my grandfather didn't have the heart to get rid of the drawing so he simply placed it behind his.

I thought about you for a long time
Can't seem to get you off my mind
I can't understand why we're living life this way
I found your picture today

I think about that day from time to time. How odd that my trunk hood dropped for no reason. How odd that the glass would shatter so completely but the portrait not be damaged in the slightest. Someone wanted me to find that picture. I don't know if it was my grandfather or grandmother or someone else. The bigger and more fascinating thing is that it happened. It gives you pause, doesn't it? My dad wanted my brother to have those portraits. My brother didn't want them. I asked for them so I could pass them on to Theresa, as she's the artist in the family now.

Over You

I miss you
They say I’ll be okay
But I’m not going to ever get over you
- Miranda Lambert

Sometimes life just slaps you in the face. Full force. Or maybe it's death that slaps you in the face. Full force....

Sunday our paper hadn't been delivered and we had to call in for another one. Not being a morning person, and not really wanting to do anything that required much mental energy while we were waiting, I picked up my laptop to see what people had posted on Facebook. The two most recent posts were from my sisters, about it being the 10th anniversary of my mom's death. And my brother 'liking' their posts. It was a hell of a slap awake and I couldn't hold it in. I just started to cry.

This fall I went to Belgium to visit my sister. I was emotionally and physically shot, having worked 60-70 hour weeks and not taken a vacation in the 4 years since I started my school. Barbara and I took a walk in a nearby park and my mother came up in conversation. Barbara turned to me with tears in her eyes and whispered, "Cyndi, I miss her so much." And we stood there in the middle of the park, hugging each other crying. Because we both miss her that much.

Even ten years later our grief is still that raw. We go on with our daily lives. We talk about our mom. We laugh and we tell stories. And in the quiet moments, our grief seeps out. Because we loved her that much. Because she loved us that much. And you never get used to having that disappear from your life. So how do you deal with it? Each of us deals with it differently. My siblings want to do very public things. Before Facebook became the phenomenon that it is, my other sister wanted to take out an ad in the obituary section of the paper in honor of her passing, as some people do, and was a bit put off that I didn't want to contribute toward this. But I'm too private for that. At least Facebook fulfills her desire to publicly acknowledge my mom. And I don't find solace in commemorating someone's passing. I'd rather celebrate their life. I do that by trying to live up to the ideals she raised me with. I do that by spending time at the places I spent with her and remembering those times. Or sharing things with my daughters that she shared with me.

In some ways, I consider it an amazing thing that after this many years we all miss her that much. It speaks volumes about how much she loved us. It's important to me to pass that on.

In loving memory of Patricia Boe Thomas 6-27-1924 to 1-21-2001

A Woman Like You

Last night out of the blue
Drifting off to the evening news
She said "Honey, what would you do
"If you'd have never met me"
- Lee Brice

This is a sweet song, about a man who lists off some things he'd be doing if he hadn't met his wife, but then compares them to things he has because he's with her and how those things are so much better. Today is my 29th wedding anniversary. Wow! Twenty-nine years. I was thinking about how different my life would be if I hadn't married Greg...

Certainly there would not be the stand-alone experiences I've had or we've shared. Things like me learning to fly airplanes because he had a membership in a flying club, or learning so much about astronomy, or being friends with certain people. But it runs deeper than that.

My thinking.... Greg is a deep thinker and an extremely analytical thinker, and he's someone I don't always agree with. To keep up with him, I've had to challenge my own thinking and learn to think on my feet quickly. And I've had to learn to be extremely assertive in order to stand up to his very strong personality. That's served me me very well in so many life instances, most importantly in the work place. Those qualities, coupled with the attributes learned from my parents - compassion and hard work - are things that have gotten me where I am today.

My educational philosophy....an understanding of giftedness and that one-size-fits-all really does not work in our schools. It didn't work for Greg, and it didn't work for one of my daughters. It was from truly trying to understand their world, that I began to better understand all learners and why we, as educators, have to step up to the plate and do what we're doing differently, better, and more thoughtfully.

A sense of routine....I am probably more Bohemian than most people realize, doing things when I feel like it and operating on gut instinct. Greg is rather obsessive about his routines. We truly have a case of opposites attracting in this arena and it hasn't always been easy. But his desire for weekly routines, holiday routines, and special little things we do as a family have been good for everyone. And when I get impatient with his routines (me? never!) I remind myself it's his way of saying "I love you".

My lovely daughters....of course they would not be who they are if I hadn't married, or if I had married someone else. But I see so much of their Dad in each of them. Sarah thinks like her dad, they understand each other in ways I never will. Theresa has her dad's interests in all things science-related. Laura has her dad's insatiable desire for knowledge.

There is an interesting movie called Run, Lola, Run that shows how any single change in events can completely change the outcome of a given situation. We make our life choices, but even with the best of choices, we never know things will turn out. We have to do our best, and we have to be thankful, because there are always things to be thankful for.

Shades of Grey

Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out the less that I know
Black and white is how it should be
But shades of grey are the colors I see
- Billy Joel

I watched a TV show that has completely disturbed and unsettled me. An entire TV series season actually, watched over a very short period of time on Netflix, called "Saving Grace." I wasn't even really watching it. Greg's been watching it while I type on my computer in the corner doing things for work or my class or whatever. It's about a belligerent, smoking, drinking, promiscuous, cop named Grace who ends up with a guardian angel named Earl. She's not happy an angel suddenly appeared in her life and she fights him every step of the way. This season's subplot was about a man on death row named Leon, who Earl is also visiting.

There are a lot of movies and TV dramas that are social statements about death row. They use their medium as thin veils to make their statement and because the veil is so thin, I don't think they're of much worth. The people who believe the death penalty is wrong feel vindicated and the people who don't simply don't go to see them. But because this was a subplot, over an entire television season, it had the time to develop slowly. It also had some elements I've rarely seen: the dialogue between the death row inmate and an agent of God. Although you assume Earl is a Christian angel, when Grace argues with him he calmly and lovingly presents any polytheistic view if that will open a chink in her armor. Leon follows the Islamic faith, the prison provides a Catholic Priest, the angel who walks alongside him honors Leon's beliefs. And it all works. In a very brutal setting, it's a complete acceptance of everyone.

It was also some of the best writing, and best acting I've ever seen, that takes the viewer through the range of emotions that develop in Leon, that develop and swing like a pendulum. And how Earl (Faith) helps him through that, and how sometimes even Faith isn't enough. How the different visitors - the priest, Grace as a cop, an old high school friend - impact his frame of mind. How the prison staff and prison routines as it gets closer and closer to the execution date impact Leon's emotions. How the desire for Hope of a stay of execution has such an extreme emotional impact on everyone that it takes a physical toll.

In the end, Grace watches Leon's execution. She is there to provide emotional support. Earl is there to support both of them. I know it takes great courage to watch someone die. I held my mother in my arms as she drew her last breaths. I agreed to be the one to make the end of life decision for my father. Emotions aside, that is not as simple as it sounds. You are agreeing to turn off a breathing tube and let someone suffocate, or turn off a feeding tube and let someone starve to death. And yet, sometimes it is the person's wishes and it is the better thing to do. I feel the death penalty is wrong. I always have. And yet I have read John Douglas' books. He started the profiling unit for the FBI. In his books, he makes a strong case for the death penalty and he is the only person who has ever given me pause to question my belief that the death penalty is wrong.

Watching the season finale of Saving Grace left me so disturbed and unsettled that it made me want to "do something" with our prisons systems and prison ministries. I talked to my friend at work about it the next day, my friend whose son is in prison with a life sentence for killing one of his sons, her grandson. I told her that even though I was feeling this way, I don't believe I am the one who should be reaching out in our prisons. I believe my calling is in education. I believe instead the bigger purpose here is to encourage my Baby Girl, who wants to be an attorney and work with our prison systems, to watch this season of Saving Grace so she has this filter. So that she sees these shades of grey. My friend stared at me in silence for several moments. Finally she said, "This is all just very strange that you came to me with this. Last night when I was just discussing with someone that we need to introduce Jesse's son to shades of grey so he will understand that just because his dad's in prison, that doesn't completely define who he is."

Color matters to me in everything. Rainbows, M&Ms, stained glass, Christmas lights, prisms, anything that is a celebration of life and light and color. Grey, however, is an important life skill.

Now with the wisdom of years
I try to reason things out...
Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out, the less that I know

The Whiskey Aint Workin'

They knew my name at every bar in town
And they knew all of the reasons why I was coming round
'Cause in my mind, peace I'd find, when they'd start to pour
But now the whiskey ain't workin' anymore
- Travis Tritt

On January 1, 1919, John Jacob Geisen was one of nine men, along with the chief of police, arrested for breaking into a warehouse in Covington, Kentucky and stealing 14 kegs of whiskey. They took the kegs to Cincinnati, which only added to their crime because it crossed state lines. And it was also after the Wartime Prohibition Act had been passed, and was just on the cusp of the Eighteenth Amendment being ratified.

The men were tried together, and J. Jacob Geisen was sentenced to two years in Federal prison. Newspaper accounts of the incident state that Jacob Geisen had connections in Washington D.C. who got his sentence commuted to 3 months in the county jail. It never said who those "connections" were, but I strongly suspect it was his future son-on-law Roy Boe, my grandfather.

Daddy Jake, as my great-grandfather was known, was a saloon keeper in Kentucky. When Prohibition went into effect, he was effectively out of a job. My grandfather, on the other hand, lived in Washington D.C. and worked for several years as a Page in the U.S. Senate. That's where he met my grandmother who had gone to D.C. when she got a job with the War Department. They married in 1920, just after Daddy Jake got out of the county jail from his 3 month jail sentence.

My grandfather took a job in Minneapolis at the Federal Prohibition Director's Office and in 1921 became the Chief Federal Prohibition Director in Minneapolis. As I read more about Prohibition, I have come to learn about the Volstead Act. Andrew Volstead was the law-maker from Minnesota charged with figuring out how to enforce Prohibition. Growing up in MN, Volstead was a common name you hear throughout the State's history. Now I know why.

Years ago, I was reading a book about the gangsters and bootleggers in the Twin Cities and as I read it, I came across names I recalled my mother mentioning as friends of her father's. I asked her about it. I asked her if she thought her father might have been "on the take" during Prohibition. She was adamant that he was not, claiming that he was a "very honorable man." I showed her the book. She grew more and more flustered as she read the parts I had marked. If he was such an honorable man, why were some of these bootleggers such close friends of his? My mother didn't know.

These are the reasons I do genealogy. There are incredible stories behind the names and the dates and the places. Not everyone has an ancestor who went to jail (or wants to talk about it if they did). I love history, and I have a hunger to know my own history. I want to know the events that shaped the people who eventually shaped who I am. I want to understand how the history I have read so much about impacted every day people in the course of their lives. Prohibition was more than just the 18th Amendment. It put people like my great-grandfather out of a job, in jail, and forced him to move halfway across the country once he got out, starting his life over again. These are the real stories in history.