The Baboon Congress

My Lost Weekend

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Today’s guest post comes from Jacque.

During March I experienced a lost weekend. You know the deal—one of those “where did the time go and how did I get to Sunday evening without knowing it?” kind of experiences. It was not alcohol or sex, those common perpetrators of lost weekends. It was Ancestry.com. Now that defines my age, doesn’t it?

As a child I would ask my parents, usually after getting assigned a Family Tree project for Social Studies, “What are we?”

One or the other would say, “Oh, we’re not anything. A little Irish, a little Pennsyvania Dutch, a little Norwegian. Strattons were Quakers. But we’re not anything.”

This cleared a distinct blank spot in my self-definition. We are not anything. After my lost weekend, it turns out we are the Puritans and Pilgrims, the Quakers, and the pioneers like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Now there is a peg for a child to hang her hat. A Pioneer. Like Laura Ingalls. Cool. O! Pioneer?

This round of geneology started as my husband, Lou, the Norwegian-American from Decorah, Iowa, and I began planning OUR BIG VACATION to Norway which will tentatively occur mid-April to mid-May, 2014. Since reading If I Were Going that old Reader from the third grade, I have wanted to visit Norway. Lou’s people are meticulously tracked from the farm near Stavanger, Norway through England to the Big Boat to America in 1879. I am also 1/8th Norwegian through my father’s line, but we have lost track of our people.

I am starting to think they wanted to be lost.

Around 1915: Cyril Stratton (my Grandfather), his parents Anna Lough Stratton and John Stratton; Rose Jensen Stratton and Rex Stratton (Grandpa’s older brother). We call this “The Happy Family Picture.”
Around 1915: Cyril Stratton (my Grandfather), his parents Anna Lough Stratton and John Stratton; Rose Jensen Stratton and Rex Stratton (Grandpa’s older brother). We call this “The Happy Family Picture.”

My father’s parents died fairly young—Grandma at age 57 and Grandpa at age 69. Dad became ill and without memory due to MS before he had much opportunity to become interested in the stories or to pass them on. His Aunts and Cousins have provided much of this to us, but it turns out they are not terribly accurate reporters. When I tried to track these folks on Ancestry.com I found myself at 1858 in Hamar, Norway with Peter Grubhoel, age 14, and his parents John and Petra Amelia Grubhoel. Somehow, they transported themselves here, but the trail has vanished. Dad used to tell us that John and Petra stowed away young Peter on the boat. I thought that was a wild story. HMMMM. Maybe that did happen.

And then while I was examining pages of passenger lists written in spidery, indistinct hand, I got distracted….

Joseph Stratton and his family around 1804 were parked on the Frontier in Ohio Territory, right under Lake Erie. He was so busy fighting the wolves and Indians that were taking his cattle and horses that his family of many children were starving. Then after the last battle, he awoke on a day in which big decisions needed to be made about how to feed the family, to find the very Indians he was fighting left a deer hanging in the tree outside the cabin door. The family did not starve. I find that a good story.

I really got distracted by Grandma’s family, the Jacksons, her Mama’s family. Nicholas Jackson came over here in 1645 to Middlesex, Massechutsetts. Wow, who knew? Then his Great-Grandson, now from upper New York state, Colonel Jeremiah Jackson fought in the French Indian War of 1763 with distinction and apparently was known as real charismatic character. Like my own father. “The Colonel” returned for an encore in 1776 for the American Revolution with three sons. They all lived through the Revolution but one was mortally injured and finally died years later of his injuries. My ancestorm Matthew Jackson, and another brother returned for the war of 1811 for duties as piper and drummer. Then they got restless and started moving West following the Frontier.

And then I came to, and it was Sunday evening and Lou is saying “What are you doing down here? I haven’t seen you all weekend!” MPR was playing reruns of PHC and This American Life. I had fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland and it was time to come back.

Have you had a lost weekend?

82 thoughts on “My Lost Weekend”

    2. Shocked! Simply Shocked I say! 🙂
      Thanks Jacque for the story! I love old pictures. Thanks for posting that.

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  2. Morning all. Lovely stories, Jacque! I can’t think of a specific weekend, but if there is one, I’m sure it was lost in my studio. I can’t easily get lost in making batches of cards or working on gifts and projects. Last night I got out some craft paint to “just start” one of my holiday projects, put on the Carl Sagan DVD that I’m watching this week… two hours later decided to clean up and head to bed.

    I’m off to the raspberry patch this morning, so today at least will be lost of jam making. “Talk” to you all later!

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  3. i went to ireland on a vacation years ago. i had not planned to go but ended up there as a fallback for a long planned vacation gone wrong. i had origianally planned to go to europe and visit germany austria italy and switzerland and then we got into a military situation where it was appropriate to drop bombs on that mean guy with the curley hair gaddafi. he was awful to his people and ugly for the rest of the world and we decided to bomb his home and we killed a bunch of his family members and let him know he was the target of a focused attack. this was in january or february and the trip wasnt until june or july os we could wait and decide . out tickets were refundable up to 30 days prior to the trip. so we waited. americans were not having any of it and the vacation and business trips planned for europe that year were being cancelled right and left. no one wanted to go over and be the american in paris while gaddafis secret henchmen were in the next room. we looked into masquarading s canadians and were willing to consider going but then chernoble blew up and a radioactive cloud covered the area. i being a vegetarian wud have a hard tome if al vegetables glowed in the dark so we decided to vacation in the us instead. we looked at the parks and the mountains and discovered quickly that with trips to the continent all canceled the us vacation scene a was totally booked up. plan c came into play and it was off to the uk. ireland, on the west side landing in limerick and driving around the clock face form 9 up to twelve where londonderry is down to dublin jump on the ferry switch rental cars and head for wales down to england up to scotland and back to finish up the other half of ireland on the return. it was a wonderful long slow moving vacation . i think it was 5 or 6 weeks and the highlight was the way the irish wanted to make you their own. they would ask about ancestory and get you to talk about your family. i have the same mutt family background as jackie and am irish on my dads side but the name jones is welsh and even though he always thought of himself as irish the irishmen knew he was not from there with a name like that , but the grimes and the hines and the murphy part of my family. those were undeniable irish folks. from kerry and cork and they knew all the little towns where my people hailed from.. how could they know? they follow ancestry the way we follow baseball. they know all the telephone books and how many of each group there are. we know johnson and anderson and swenson take some room in the minnesota phone book. well they know where the murphys an the gimes and the hines hail from. just go into that tow and ask about the area your people lived. they will show you, and they did. everyone we asked had a story and a pointed finger toward a lake or a hill or a stone house. and when we got to a northern ireland my herbison ancestors had a town where they were concentrated. we stopped in front of soe herbison business and i went in and they stopped everything took me into the back room gave me tea and scones pulled out a copy of the herbison family tree and showed me everything they knew and were able to guess which branch my grandfather who hailed from hoople north dakota must have fit into the picture. my lost weekend lasted 5 or 6 weeks and was 25 years ago but i still remember the good vibes and the warm feeling the family ties that the irish were so eager to share provided. i wasnt interested but they talked me into it. now i just need to look ito the american indian ( ojibwa) and polish end of the tree. my first wife gave the kids a german half and the mother of my last 3 is half german half dutch. so my mutt kids get to be irish indian polish german (dutch) with a welsh name and a little french canadian in there somewhere. family tree stuff will get you. even if youre not intending to go there. my indian ancestory is from the red lake area.thats a little scary but my great grandfather did it and its on my to do list to dig into that story. maybe next weekend ill look into it.

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      1. Speaking of hybrid vigor, I am impressed with the Brandyboy tomatoes we planted this year, a cross between Brandywine and either Bigboy or Betterboy.

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        1. I will have to check those out next year. Our Brandywines are languishing this years. The Rutgers are displaying their usual vigor.

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    2. tim, don’t know if you’re familiar with this song by Tim O’Brien, but your story reminded me of it. His experience was obviously quite different from yours:

      Talkin’ Cavan
      ——Tim O’Brien

      A while ago I chanced to roam to the place my great grandad called home
      It wasn’t that much I saw that day, but I learned I whole lot along the way
      I was goin’ to Ireland… retracing my family footsteps… diggin’ up roots
      You could call ‘em tubers

      The closer to the root of my family tree, the more people seemed to look like me
      Saw a sign said Mollie O’Brien’s bar, I knew right then I couldn’t be that far
      I went in there and asked for beer, he pours this black stuff, he says, ‘cheers”
      ‘Guiness gives you strength”, he said, I’ll tell you friends it’s like drinkin’ bread
      There’s a loaf in every pint… I was feelin’ strong… felt like I wanted to sing

      My whistle was wet and my tongue was loose
      When the barman asked how come I’d choose
      To travel such a long, long way on such a cold and rainy day
      I said, ‘I’m goin’ up to Kingscourt town. That’s in County Cavan, to look around.
      My great grandaddy came from there.
      I want to see if the old home place is still there.”
      Well he shook his head up and down
      And then side to side and then he turned around and said
      ‘A Cavan man then… you know, a lot of people wouldn’t admit to that”

      I figured I’d save a little hassle so I booked a room nearby in a fancy castle
      Had a hard time gettin’ my dinner there
      It was full of these people with light blonde hair
      Danish tourists…two big busloads of ‘em
      Now the owner of the place, his hair was black
      When I talked to him, I didn’t get much back
      His people are what you call ‘west Brits”
      They’re the ones that treated my people like dirt
      That’s what lead to the Irish civil war, I didn’t know I’d come back for a little bit more
      His nose was way up in the air… but he took my money all the same

      That night I dreamed I saw the ghost of the one I’d rather have as host
      It was Tom O’Brien walkin’ round the cabin, there in Kingscourt town in County Cavan
      Then the very next day in the hardware store
      I found a cousin ten times removed or more
      But he was no apparition, he wasn’t a haint – he was sellin’ nuts and bolts and paint
      I told him about our family connection, and he kinda stood there still, reflectin’
      I could tell he wasn’t that much impressed when he asked me with nary a trace of jest
      He said, ‘How exactly may I help you sir?”
      I just bought some nails and got the hell out of there

      Then later that day after some detectin, I found the lane in the rural section
      It matched the picture in my dad’s scrap book
      And my heart beat faster as I drove to look
      The sun burst through the clouds just then as I gazed at the current residents
      It was a little sheep dog and an old milk cow
      Yeah the old home place is an old barn now
      It’s ashes to ashes… dust to dust… thatched roof to tin roof… and tin roof to rust

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      2. my introduction to guiness was love at first sight. the problem i ran into wa the reasonable beer serving they do in ireland vs the assembly line us traditions. in ireland when thy pour or pull the guiness they fill the glass and let it sit for a couple of minutes to let the foam go down, then they fill it again and let the foam go down, then they fill it again and let the foam go down. this process takes 10-15 minutes. i got a raised eyebrow or two when i would order another as i received the first. i told the i had it timed out and i would certainly be done with the first byt he time the foam was finished on the second an i was fairly certain i was the only person who had ever ordered this way. after the second it slowed a bit but i still has a hard time waiting the 15 minutes waiting while the foam went down. that part of the irish tradition is their version of designated driver essentials. you cant drink 3 beers and hour in ireland it cant be done. unless…..you tell the bartenter to start the next a you receive the first and so on. i find an irish bar is the meeting place for almost every location int he world. hong kong, germany amsterdam prauge, all have wonderful irish bars some with music some with soccer all with guiness but in prauge when i ordered a black and tan they didnt know what i was talking about. i couldnt believe an irish bar that didnt know black and tans but they were serious. i had the bar maid ask the bartender and he had never heard of it either. i laughed in ireland when i switched from guiness to harp because it was a little less filling and a bit more refreshing after a couple of black bush irish whiskeys with a harp chaser the bartender did ask me to dip my head toward him so he could discreetly tell me ” i dont want to offend you but i thought you would like to know in ireland only women drink harp and you shouldnt be putting ice in your whiskey either. ahhh that was a fun trip. getting to know the folks and the traditions. i learned penny whistle and lots of irish guitar tunes. i fell in love witht eh uilleann pipes which seem to be a native derivation of the bag pipes from across the bay. my kind of family research.

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        1. Paddy Keenan is an Irish Uilleann piper who comes to the Twin Cities quite often to visit his friend Patsy O’Brien, another Irish musician who has settled in the St. Paul and with whom he performs often. House concerts where they both perform are usually arranged when Paddy’s in town. While some Irish ancestry may be a prerequisite for enjoying the Uilleann pipes, I am usually in the loop when they perform here, so if any baboon would like an invitation to one of those house concerts, I’ll be sure to announce them here.
          Paddy is an Irish gypsy, Travellers as they refer to themselves, a very interesting man. He was a founding member of The Bothy Band. Here’s a link to a Paddy Keenan performance:

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        2. I have heard Uilleann pipes played by Paddy Keenan when he was here several years ago. Paddy puts on a great show and those pipes are amazing instruments. I would be interested in a notification from you, PJ, if you find out that Paddy is town and is playing some place.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Please excuse my lost punctuation. I had marked “If I Were Going” in quotes that did not transfer. it was my third grade reader that featured travel and other nations. I see a few other errors, too. Oops.

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  6. Nicely done, Jacque. I got swept up in family genealogy too, but it didn’t turn into a lost weekend. The closest thing in my life was probably that time when I was writing about my parents. I kept hitting walls that made it seem that the book would never get written, but then there were romantic moments when the words seem to flow effortlessly. On those occasions I might start writing at 5 AM and then notice that the world had gotten dark when I wasn’t looking, and that way I learned that 12 hours had gotten away from me while I was lost in the pleasure of reliving old times.

    It would be fun to report that my genealogy research was intriguing, but on the whole I was disappointed by how dull my family’s ancestors have been. The most interesting story I turned up was about a guy named Frank Grooms of Waterloo, Iowa. Frank fancied himself as a ladies man. He was so clever that he managed to be sleeping with two checkout clerks from the same grocery store! He seems to have been surprised when one of them figured it out. She went into the town park, where Frank was intimately involved with the other clerk on a blanket, and shot them both in the head. Her rival died, but Frank–defying the Darwin Principle–lived to regret his indiscretion.

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    2. We did have one quite colorful character in the family tree: our grandfather, Clarence from Manchester, Iowa, but it’s
      not the kind of family lore that we’re proud of. Clarence was quite the lady’s man in his youth. By the time grandchildren came along, he’d become a depressed, melancholic, often weepy fellow. My mom eventually asked our grandmother, “Why is Daddy always to sad?”. The story finally came to light as my grandma said very matter of factly; “Oh, that’s because he’s ashamed of himself”.

      The story continued that she’d caught him in bed with a housekeeper, the last of a long string of “anyone in skirts” in their small town. She’d finally had it enough humiliation in this very small town and struck a deal with him: he could have a week end mistress but only if she was an “out-of-towner”! And so, Clarence pursued his needs in Cedar Rapids – a good hour’s drive from Manchester. My mother recalls getting in their model T with her daddy, brother, and mother week end after week end and making the drive to Cedar Rapids where they sat in the hotel lobby while Clarence was upstairs doing his thing. I’m only guessing that part of his wife’s “deal” was no more sex life with HER. This coincides with my grandmother’s answer to a question I posed when she was 89; “How did you handle birth control when you were young?” Her answer; “Oh – we just didn’t sleep together”.

      At times I’ve felt a bit bereft that my ancestry was boringly homogenized except for a few choice stories like this one.

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      1. Maybe he was running around with our family rogue in Grundy Center where my Gr uncle Bob lived. Same story, second verse which ended with a tragedy when his ex-wife committed suicide. Not a pretty story.

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        1. Yes, PJ – that would be “Chicken Mert”, my grandfather’s older brother. Seems that, while most were suffering the effects of the Great Depression, Mert was raking in millions. His great wealth in the face of other’s misery apparently went to his head. Meaning, he went crazy and for reasons no one ever understood, took up residence in his dank, dark basement while allowing countless chickens and other assorted farm animals to occupy the upstairs of a very nice home.

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  8. Nice story! I recently cancelled our ancestors.com account since I didn’t have enough time to devote to it. I plan to start it up again when things settle down some. I lose weekends to gardening, cooking, and activities for daughter and son. She is gone this weekend, We aren’t planning any travels, and the garden is not needing too much attention. What am i going to do? I may have to relax!

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      1. Ditto. I can never reconcile the fact that he and Julia Roberts were married for a brief time. An unlikely pair.

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        1. i can understand the attraction. and the discovery that stuff isnt perfect. she was able to get past beauty because she knew more than most that its in the eyes of the beholder and he well obviously is a romantic.. it was worth a shot.

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    1. What a teriffic collection of photos! I realize some of them are from films, but not all of them…

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  13. Greetings! I can easily lose a day or a weekend to Netflix. Jim or Lucas will pull up an old — or a perhaps a new series from TV — and we will just sit and watch one episode after another. Just like Lay’s potato chips — once you start you just can’t stop. By the way, anyone else seen the series Netflix put out with Kevin Spacey called “House of Cards?” Absolutely outstanding — although it is rather R-rated. Sex, politics and wheeling & dealing in Washington, D.C. Great stuff!

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  14. OT – who’s planning on BBC tomorrow? I thought I’d borrow some chairs from my neighbor so we could sit out back, since the weather seems like it will be nice for that. Just trying for an approximate head count!

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    1. I am doing my best to find a play date for Miss S (or an appropriate bribe for her if she is willing to come and sit quietly with her own book for a bit). Darling Husband is at a bridge tournament tomorrow and Grandma has tickets to a show. First-up babysitter is busy. So trying the “can I dump my kid on you for a couple hours” route. 🙂

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    6. Addendum: Miss S would like to come tomorrow. I think she’s curious about what happens at “grown up” book clubs. I will be sure she has a few age-appropriate things along to keep her entertained. I hope that’s okay. 😀

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    8. I’m iffy. Daisy, our old yellow lab is having some bowel issues (read a bad case of diarrhea) and depending on how she’s doing tomorrow, I may or may not be coming. Also, I have no wheels, my car is in the shop, but I’m hoping that if Daisy is OK I can call on Linda to pick me up. It’s all up in the air at the moment.

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  15. Weekend? Heck – I just lost most of a week. Daughter was away at Girl Scout camp, so I figured this would give me acres of time to lounge about, get some tasks done at home, dinner out with college buddies one night…yeah. I got the dinner out taken care of because that was scheduled. I lounged I think more than I realized. But, really, 5 nights all to my own and I don’t have more to show for it? I just now sort of managed to excavate the dining room table. Boxes are still waiting to be sorted, stuff in the basement to be dealt with…oy.

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  16. One way to lose a weekend is to completely rearrange the house – create a “new room”, as it were. Let’s see, there’s been the Library, and the time I completely switched the living and dining rooms… then when I decided to make our former bedroom into it’s current “all purpose” room. This weekend we’re painting the basement floor, which of course required moving the entire “pantry”, etc.

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  17. I’ve had weekends that were similar to yours, Jacque, but rather than thinking of them as “lost”, I prefer to think of them as “found”. It is nice to occasionally find the time to really sink into something that interests you.

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  18. One Friday in January 2012, I asked my daughter who was home on winter break what she was watching on her laptop for so many hours. She told me “Downton Abbey. It’s a show that a friend of mine likes.” So on Saturday afternoon, I looked this show up…and saw that Season 2 was starting the next day. So that evening, I started to watch it…and kept watching episodes late into the night. The next afternoon, I started up where I had left off, and finished watching all of Season 1 shortly before Season 2 aired on TV that night. I have no idea what was going on in the world, the country, the state, my neighborhood, or even my house, during the time I watched all those shows.

    I’ve also lost an entire weekend to sickness a few times (thankfully, all those times were very long ago – much longer ago than April). The worst was when I had a couple of gall bladder attacks and ended up in Urgent Care on Sunday morning with various tests lasting well into the afternoon. That was the worst, most relentless pain I have ever experienced and I was truly “lost” while in its grip. Nothing was real except the pain.

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    2. Edith… I’ve lost three weekends to Downton Abbey so far. Steve lent me the DVD for the first season and I watched the whole thing in less than 48 hours. So then I got Season 2 from the library and watched it over another weekend. I was on the waiting list for Season 3 for almost 3 months… so figured I’d better get that watched or it would be another 3 months before I would get the DVDs again from the library!

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      2. you all sing such high praises i feel like i should check it out. i dont get that feeling about a television offering very often. thats the way tv should work but it so seldom does.

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        1. Mostly what it tells you is that it’s addictive. I experienced that too when I glommed onto the first season. Then watched part of the 2nd season and forgot to catch the rest… when the 3rd season started we weren’t up with the plot, and didn’t get back to it.

          On the other hand, Channel 2.1 (I think) has started to rebroadcast Doc Martin, Saturday nights, 8 or 9:00…

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  19. Morning!

    I’ll have to say theater ‘tech rehearsals’. Not much else matters except getting through tech and dealing with whatever issues arise. They’re worse than milking cows and planting crops ever was. At least for those I still had a chance to pop in the house and see the family. Tech rehearsal and the dishes pile up and clothes don’t get washed. Mail and papers go unread… it’s terrible. And we love it. Sort of.

    I’m getting ready to light ‘Spamalot’ in Chatfield MN for their Western Days production (as a side note to that space, this is one of those places where I cut my teeth on set building back in the late 80’s. So lots of memories there; good and bad.)
    And in production meetings to light ‘Les Mis’ in September here in Rochester at the Civic theater. I’m excited about that.
    Plus ‘The Miser’ also in September at the Rep Theater in Rochester. So I’ll be loosing a few weekends…

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    1. sounds exciting ben, wonderful list of shows. that should keep you busy for sure. and you ghave a day job. 2 30 is going to have to turn into your regular posting time huh?

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    2. I cannot either confirm or deny the absence of weekends lost to time spent in a dark theater. Nor can I confirm or deny if paint fumes may have been involved in this loss…

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  20. Hello to all. This has been kind of a lost week for me because I have been wrapped up in doing several things that demanded my attention and I haven’t had much time for other things I usually do. The weekend visits of some people related to me, who I will not name, can create a lost weekend because they keep me very busy and don’t leave much time for my regular activities.

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        1. Yes, I’m afraid those visits from relatives can be long enough to create a lost week.

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  21. I’m wondering why I’ve never known about or been invited to your book club gatherings? I can read. I can drive. I’d like to meet some of you in person, too. I guess that my junior high school feelings of being outside are tweaked here.

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    1. Cb, the Blevins Book Club isn’t the sort of organization where you need an invitation. Did you somehow miss Sherrilee”s post on Friday? “In response to BiRs comment last night — reminder that Blevins Book Club meets this Sunday at 1 p.m. at my house. If you don’t have my address, let me know. shelikins at hotmail. Book is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Bonus book is People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.” I have been to only two BBC mtgs. so far, and I can attest to the fact that they are a friendly, rag tag bunch of avid readers who like food. Read the postings under the Blevins Book Club tab if you want to know what’s going on, where the next meeting is, and what the assigned book is, it’s all posted there well in advance of the following meeting. No need to feel as a outsider.

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