Today's thank you is for growing up Noon and Kennedy.
When my mother was still in high school, my father spotted her at a skating rink. He had just graduated from college (at age 19) and right after Pearl Harbor they got married and had a bunch of children - seven, six of whom made it. To explain my childhood in the words of my favorite therapist, "Damn! You had great parenting!" I was the oldest, and for most of my childhood I really wished I was an only child.
The Noons were my mom's side of the family. My grandmother claims they came over from Ireland when they emptied out the jails, and that our ancestors landed someplace in the Carolinas as indentured servants. We all called her, not grandma, but "Tootsie", a name I gave her and it stuck. And she loved the ponies, being a fixture at Pimlico. She and my grandfather (also a character) had six children and so many grandchildren there are a few I've never met. But it's a wild and crazy extended family that I love to bits.
The Kennedys, my dad's side, were a bit more patrician, and his mother did a whole ancestor search so my sisters and I could join the DAR. We never did join. Oh well. Her first husband, my grandfather, died young leaving her with five children who had another bunch of first cousins, many of whom I've never met - but I really like the ones I have gotten to know.
I'm planning a Cousins' Party in January around the time of the Inauguration. There are a lot of Noon kids in the area, and as the oldest cousin, it's my job to make sure they are at my house drinking beer and eating guac and chips - and not down on the Mall getting arrested.
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