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.

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?

Today’s guest blog comes from Jacque.

My husband Lou and I both read John Berendt’s 1994 book about Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, with pleasure and disbelief.

“We must check this place out!” we said to each other.

But we were slow to act until I learned my family had a connection to Savannah. A distant relative gathered and published her grandfather’s Civil War letters to his wife, a Jewish-to-Christian convert named Tobitha Klein Hess. This soldier, German-born Frederick Christian Hess, was my Great-great Grandfather. He toured Savannah on Sherman’s March to the Sea, spending time there as part of the occupying forces. His gracious granddaughter, Muriel Primrose Baron, made the transcripts of these letters available to all of this soldier’s descendants—about 2000 people at last count.

The spellings and capitalizations here are his, a mix of English and German. When he wrote this on Christmas Day in 1864, he had only been studying English for nine years.

The City is full of Cityzins fore they didn’t have time to run off this time. There is lots of Jews and they are very strong Sesesh. (Secessionist and pro-Confederate) But the most of the Citizens are wealthy that are living in this City.

We entered Savannah on Highways 16 to 17 to Martin Luther Drive to Liberty Avenue where suddenly a canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss laid before us.

I will send you some moss wich is growing on trees and some rice on the straw and some acorns wich are from a live oak and a magnolia seed. The magnolia is a very nice tree with large green leafs all year.

I expected to see lots of Civil War history, but no. The American Revolution is the war people to refer to in Savannah, where it is heavily memorialized.

“…in one square is the Monument of General Polaski who fell at the Siege of Savannah, Oct the 9, 1779. This is largest Monument I ever seen. It is about forty feet high and about ten foot square at the bottom, with the Inscription, “Polaski, the heroic Pole who was fighting fore American Liberty and fell mortally wounded at the Siege of Savannah, 9 Oct. 1779. And then the General is carved out on horseback wich is very nice work.”

When I first saw this monument, knowing I stood near the place my ancestor stood, I had chills down my spine.

“Now I will tell what I think of the City and give you the Discription of it. Fore yesterday fornenoon I went down in the City and took a good look at it. It is a pretty nice place with some costly buildings in it, mostly brick. It is all level and is close to the Savannah river. The streets are very Sandy and don’t run very strait fore the whole City is laid off of Squares. There is several very nice parks in it and a water fountain….

I took a picture of Lou is standing in front of the Forsyth Park fountain, the very same one Grandpa Fred viewed 160 years earlier, though for us it was dyed green for St. Pat’s day.

F.C. Hess

Though the Civil War is curiously absent from the city’s displayed history, it is alive in people’s minds. During our 2007 visit a lovely Southern Matron who was volunteering at the Visitor’s Center clarified to me, “We don’t call it The Civil War. Here we refer to that as the War of Northern Aggression.”

Hmmm. I thought.

During a tour of Sherman’s Headquarters this attitude was echoed yet again. A very distinguished gentleman lead the tour which was punctuated with resentful comments about “the Yankee Occupation” and “General William Tecumsah Sherman who did us the favor of not burning us out!” Apparently, this resentment has festered for 160 years because Grandpa Fred referred to it as well, on December 29th, 1864:

“And everybody young and old even small Children that cant hardly talk yet are talking about Sherman. The folks down here thinks that he is an awful man. And I guess that they will think more so before he gets through with them. The Citizens say that Sherman has a very good army and that there wasnt as much trouble in town now, as there use to be when there was only a few Companys of rebel soldiers.”

We enjoyed the Savannah Southern Low-Country Cuisine—seafood boils, cornbread, and grits—my favorite is Shrimp and Grits. Grandpa Fred ate some of the same fare:

“I was down in the City yesterday and got something to eat. We can buy rice and cornbread and molasses in town frome the Citizens. Rice is 25cts per quart. Cornbread is different prices but they are big anough you can depent on that. Mollasses is one Dollar per quart.”

I returned to Savannah, at my mother’s request, with my mother and sister in 2008 to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. During that trip we toured gardens and experienced a Southern Tea. Mom was already using a cane and occasionally a rolling walker at that time. The cane and walker caused us to become acutely aware of the brick sidewalks and protruding, bumpy bricks everywhere.

“The churchbells have been ringing this morning and it sounded very much like home. And I should went to Church but I had to get ready fore inspection. And then I was detailed to go on picket.”

Grandpa Fred was more soldier than sightseer. But I find it amazing that I was able to walk in his footsteps 160 years after he viewed many of the same landmarks in this breathtakingly graceful city.

When and where have you traveled to get closer to your own history?

Today’s guest post comes from Jacque.

Most of the regulars here on the the Trail know that I have been a Social Worker for most of my career. I’ve worked in a number of settings, including one of Minnesota’s Chemical Dependency Treatment Centers. This center treated adolescents and young adults ages 14-25 years. In this population substances, both legal and illegal, were never the only dependency. There were young gamblers, porn addicts, Mountain Dew Junkies, cigarette smokers, and the most common dependency of all–male or female romances, gay or straight, depending on orientation. We would often talk to the kids about being “Male Dependent” or “Female Dependent.” These youngsters did not want to be alone and would embark on constant romances, dependencies, that rarely ended well.

The term Male Dependent took a funny twist in my own life after Dale departed from Radio Heartland two years ago. After this occurred I realized I had been “Dale Dependent” for 35 years. What a shock to have that empty space in the morning air waves where funny parodies, eclectic Americana music, and Dale (and previously Jim Ed) once presided over dedications, entertained and comforted me through the years. They developed the show that challenged my intellect and my emotions for so many years that I never developed any other taste for the morning routine. In my family alone Lou and I celebrated birthdays for each other, my son’s birthdays, and our wedding (May 29, 1993) with dedications that Dale and Jim Ed faithfully executed.

From May 18, 1990 to November of the same year I was treated for breast cancer with surgery and chemotherapy. The end of the treatment became terribly difficult as my body responded to the treatment as if it were systematic poisoning, which indeed it was. The veins in my hands where they inserted the IV’s collapsed. Lou asked for encouraging dedications of music that motivated me to endure the last few treatments that caused my body, especially my feet to swell and my hair to become straw-like and sparse. TLGMS became part of my treatment team, whether DC and JEP knew it or not.

It appears that the management of MPR never realized the depths to which a show like TLGMS bonded its listeners to both the on-air personalities and the format. A venue such as The Morning Show builds loyalty because it softens and deepens life’s struggles with humor and the balm of music. For those who listened and participated it was an experience of community. That MPR allowed this to develop over the years was a gift to Minnesota. But when Dale’s tenure there ended I was lost for a source of music and parody.

The Trail Baboon became my Late Great Morning Show Anonymous group to treat my Dale Dependency. Instead of “Rise and Shine Baboons!” maybe I should sign on as, “Hi. I’m Jacque and I’m Dale Dependent.” Then you can all respond with a hearty, “Hi, Jacque!” The development of the blog, though, has been a delight that has also come to challenge me intellectually and emotionally. Now I might even send MPR a thank you note for taking the action that caused this to develop. I’ve learned a lot about any number of trivial subjects (i.e. Haiku), as well as having written some posts. I’ve also made friends with TLGMS and reading in common. Baboon Book Club and the friendships growing there is a garden planted by TLGMS. I always knew those other listeners must love to read like I love to read.

Because of the beloved Trail Baboon, we all get to continue to enjoy Dale’s flights of fancy. However, I am still struggling to find a source of music that fits as well as TLGMS and the Keepers collections. I entertain an on-going fantasy that Dale will produce a weekly podcast with some music and parody, for which I would gladly pay. So this leads to the question for the day. Dale I hope you will answer it, too. I always wondered where you found the delightful music.

What is your source of finding new music to enjoy?