Johnny Crash

So one of my twins says to me this morning, "I think there's a new policy that you can't wear shorts to school during the winter."


"So why are you wearing shorts then?"

That was my question to him. Why are you wearing shorts? In the winter? Why, why, why? Especially now that the school has enacted a policy specifically for YOU, and of YOU, and by YOU, and very likely because of YOU, to protect yourself from YOU?


He looked at me like DUH!, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't care about that policy."


Oh me. Oh my. Is this what I've created? Subversion? Father forgive me!

Maybe it's not my fault. Maybe there's a subversive gene in my family line. Maybe me and mine are all simply victims of our DNA. We like to kiss before marriage, wear shorts in the winter, and drink Mountain Dew during Sunday School. And there ain't a thing we can do about it.

I blame it on my great grandfather, Voldemort--the one who must-not-be-named because he had no legal right to be my great grandfather because my great grandmother had no legal right to get impregnated by him because he was already legally and lawfully married to someone else, which in 1923 was neither legal nor lawful, which is why he got busted and did two years hard time in the Utah state prison.

Classic subversive behavior.

Speaking of my great grandfather, I can feel an obsession coming over me. The best way to nurture an obsession is to shush someone from doing or saying or talking about something. Push it way, way, way down, down, down to the dark, dank nether regions of their soul where curiosity is a breeding ground. And then pretend like it doesn't exist.

Why must Voldemort not be named? Huh? Huh? Huh?

VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT!

It doesn't matter how much my family line doesn't acknowledge Voldemort, his subversive DNA is still illegally running through my gene pool!

Great granddaughters may not have legal rights, but they do have genetic rights, and as Gad as my witness, I will exercise my genetic rights!

The way I exercise my genetic rights to my great grandfather is by Googling his name every so often to see what pops up. Once I found his signature on a parole document. He has an exquisite signature, btw. I can totally see why my great grandmother slept with him.

I've done other things besides Google him, like call his children and demand to be invited to family reunions.

Mwuaaahahaha!

Okay, I haven't gone that far, but I have done a little digging over the years, which I keep on the down low out of respect for his daughter--my grandmother--who now lives in the hundred year old house on Tait Lane in Mt. Carmel where she was born in the pink bedroom off the parlor 87 years ago.

My obsessive curiosity about my great grandfather waxes and wanes, but a few days ago it waxed and guess what popped up on Google. A photo. Of my great grandfather. That was uploaded last week. He was old and he was wearing a cowboy hat. And I think he had a pack of Lucky Strikes in his front pocket.

(Do you think he was a bad boy?)

It was so weird to sit and stare at him and think, "Dude! What were you thinking?" I mean fer reals? You can run, but you can't hide. For long. Maybe your daughter won't Google you, and maybe your granddaughter won't Google you, but surely your great granddaughter will. And then she might blog about you, or write a best-selling novel about you, or maybe even an Academy Award winning screenplay about you, starring John Mayer or Ewen McGregor. If that doesn't make you turn over in your grave at the Provo cemetery, I don't know what will.

So guess who my great grandfather didn't look like?

Voldemort.

And guess who he did look like?

Johnny Cash.

That's right. Almost a spitting image. He even had that same angsty look on his face. Like he'd been hardened. By prison. And unattainable love.

Or by smoking too many Lucky Strikes.

I did the math and figured out that if he looked like Johnny Cash as an old man, then when he was starting my secret family line at the tender age of 23, he might have looked a little something like this:

I think from now on, instead of calling him Voldemort, I will simply call him Johnny Crash.