January 13, 2004

Shalom- I'm Off to Break a Family Tradition

or... Today Would Be a Good Day to Die-t

Twenty two years ago today, during the worst blizzard (1) in the recorded history of Alabama, my father, S.G.A. Darby, Jr., late of Locksley Hall (2), Weokahatchee, AL, died prematurely(3) of a heart attack.. Twenty-five years to the week, though not to the day, before my father’s death his own father, S.G.A. Darby, Sr., also late of Weokahatchee, AL (though not of Locksley Hall) died prematurely of a heart attack. Forty years before that, S.G.A. Darby, Sr.’s father, J.W. Darby, died prematurely of a heart attack (though at 64 he was older than the other men on this list and the prematurity wasn’t that much in 1917). Fifty-four years before that J.W.’s father (also J.W., but different names, so we'll go with J.W.1(4) died at 30 during the Siege of Vicksburg (5). J.W.1’s father drowned in a riverboat accident in 1842, aged 35.

So why am I mentioning this?

Well, suh, unlike my siblings I never received any significant monies or property from my father (Insert Miss Coco Peru's quote here: "But am I bitter? Absolutely...") but I do seem to have inherited the family heart issues (though I make sure to avoid Vicksburg and riverboats, which should add a few years to my demise).

I just received the results from a cardiological exam and its time to break some family traditions. The “not-good” news from the exam is that some of the news is not-good, but the better news is that much of the irregularity with/damage to my heart is probably, at least to a large degree, reversible through diet, exercise, and a final and permanent farewell to my beloved little cylinders of unquestioning acceptance and security, more loyal than any spouse could ever be...

And today, based on its significance in family history, would seem the perfect day to start.

So, I’m gonna smoke the remainders of my pack (to be more specific, I’m gonna smoke the e’erlovin’ hell out of ‘em right down to the last molecule of smoke- I'll be sucking in light and gravity by the time I get to the last one) before midnight like I was blowing up ammo before the Yankees get to town) and give them up again. (I’ve quit for periods lasting from 2 weeks to over 3 years before; my problem is convincing myself that I can’t handle “just one”.)

And I’m making a few dietary changes. Though I eat most anything (save for most types of steak, collard greens, boiled eggs and kim chee, all of which were spawned in the crevices of the slave kitchens of greater metropolitan Hell), having been raised in a house where “vegetable” is defined as “an edible substance that is less than 40% pork by weight- usually fried” and where any plant or non-human flesh that stood still long enough ultimately got dipped in batter and thrown in a skillet, Whitetrash Cuisine is my comfort zone food of choice, but, alas, its ride is here. (Unlike cigarettes, I hopefully can have "just one" helping of buttermilk battered chops with a side of black-eyed peas and pig-tails and a few fried pickles with ranch dressing" from time to time, I'm sure.)

And I'm returning to the gym (the deepest cut of all). I honestly don't think that a lecture on Byzantine history accompanied by free oral sex from the REAL WORLD/ROAD RULES star of your choice could make a tread-mill interesting, but what can ya do?

I’ve also sworn to my sister the ex-pharmacist (who begins every sentence these days with "You know my husband had a stroke last year... " regardless of whether she's discussing strokes and the husbands who have them or asking somebody to pass the black-eyed peas and pigtails) that I'll actually start using the machines that draw blood and go “Ding!” which she gave me for Christmas and I’m actually going to start taking the pills I’ve had prescriptions for forever.

But then there are a few non-dietary changes more relevant to the blogosphere:

A. I will engage in no more Internet based religious debates on this or any other web-sites. They’re time consuming, they raise blood pressure, and they accomplish absolutely nothing (imho); unfortunately it's a bit difficult to avoid them when some people (I'm not calling any initials) can make ANYTHING into a religious debate. I’ve yet to see a mind swayed by even a nanometer on either side and there are quotes saying the same thing thousands of years old. Ultimately it’s a masturbatory venture and when it comes to those I know a much more enjoyable method.

B. For the next “while”, I’m going to restrict my writing to the 48,321 unfinished projects I have on file (or to that required for tenure, and even that will be on subjects in which I’m interested) as I am determined to have something publishable by year’s end, so while I still may leave comments I don’t intend to blog for a good long while. (Please, please, please... no tears or pleading or sending your children to beg me to return... it's ultimately just awkward and can get you in trouble with Child Protective Services). I do plan on launching my own site in the near future, but it will be less a blog than a repository for autobiographical musings and personal interests.

C. When I do post here again, it will be photos of my new hard earned and head turning V shaped torso. Or my dog. I haven’t decided which.

So meanwhile if anybody would like to leave some tips on quitting smoking and getting healthy that worked for them, please do. So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen for a while and do drop in if you’re ever in my neck of the woods (unless you’re one of the people I can’t stand; if you have to ask, you probably are).

BY THE WAY AND JUST TO AVOID CONFUSION:
The above has been from Jon, who is the least frequent poster here; ANDY IS NOT FOLDING THE BLOG.

ENDNOTES

(1)Very strange morning, January 13, 1982. We lived in an all-electric house 20 miles from the nearest town and got our water from a pump, so when the power lines snapped from the snow we had no electricity and no water. The only heat was from a rarely used fireplace and the logs piled outside were frozen solid under a glass like blanket of ice, so to warm myself and my mother and the Pekingese while waiting for the body’s removal (the ambulance took well over an hour to arrive due to the roads) I burned the posts from my sister’s (non-antique) canopy bed. (Later casualties in the day included some retired kitchen chairs and the antebellum slats from an antique bed.) When my sister arrived later she was in her usual low-scale hysterical mania (much like any other day) and I remember her saying “I just cain’t b’lieve Daddy’s daid, he’s daid, he’s da…Where the f*ck are my bedposts!?”. Very strange- most of my memories of that day are funny (including “Crazy Aunt Ida” and how she decided to “help with the remains”).

Odd coincidence: my father died at approximately 4:40 a.m. in the morning. (I think it was the only time we ever shared a bed; I’m positive it was the last.) Seven years to the day later, at 4:40 a.m., my niece, his first (legitimate) grandchild, was born. My mother was terrified that it was a case of reincarnation and would actually say to the baby while holding her “Remember darlin’, just in case you are Steve in there, the contract clearly read ‘til death us do part’ and I don’t owe you a damned thing anymore…”

(2)So far as I know, the only beef cattle farm in Central Alabama named in honor of a Tennyson poem.

(3) In all of the above, the phrase “died prematurely” may be read as “his age at death was far less than the average life expectancy of a healthy teenager at the time when said decedent was a healthy teenager” (though the age at death of my father was under the life expectancy of a newborn born the same year). It was always a pet-peeve of mine when “educators” in the high schools and colleges I attended made such comments as “If you were born in 1870, your life expectancy was only 38 years- if you made it to 50 you were considered really old!”, which is absolutely false. A cursory examination of any old cemetery will demonstrate that there was no shortage of octogenarians and even the odd centenarian walking the earth at any given time in our history; the absurdly low ages was due to high infant mortality and death from childhood illness/injury and not because most people dropped dead before 40 like Neanderthals.
In point of fact, 50 was in many ways not viewed as geriatrically at the turn of the century as it is today and in fact, due perhaps to the fact that the absence of reliable birth control and the larger norm of families meant that a man of that 50 was more likely to have young or even infant children in 1900 than a man of 50 is today (the post-Viagra Baby Boom as evidenced by Tony Randall, Scotty and Saul Bellow notwithstanding). There are many instances of politicians being referred to as “a virile young man of 48” or similar comments and Teddy Roosevelt was on many occasions during his presidency ridiculed for his youth. For a more accurate view of what people could reasonably expect to live, go with the “life expectancy for 15 year olds” charts that are available in some publications.

(4)The reason I don't post the actual names of my ancestors: genealogists (from the Latin for "legion of the walking dead"). These people learn about Google at the "Revenge-on-the-Young-Elderhostel", find the name of my great-great grandfather (J*o*h*n W*e*s*t D*a*r*b*y)- a cotton farmer in Muscogee County, Georgia about whom I know nothing other than his wife claimed he was fertile, and the next thing you know I'm besieged by requests from the 89 year old step great-great-granddaughter-in-law of J.W.'s father's sister's husband's brother's third wife's first husband wanting all the info and pictures and medical records and receipts for sausage biscuits and hand-me-down T-shirts I have of or from him and they won't take no for an answer. This sounds paranoid, but it happens; once I posted some stories to SDMB (in a post about "Civil War oral history in your family") about my one of my mother's ancestresses (who as a very old woman in the 1950s recorded a tape about attending one of the last slave auctions in Alabama as a small child) and I made the mistake of using her real name; she was from a large family and had about 13 children of her own and I swear I heard from all of her descendants as well as the descendants of every brother, sister and third cousin, literally getting DOZENS & DOZENS & DOZENS of e-mails over the next two years from people who conjured up her name through Google. Another time one of the thousands of descendants of another ancestor whose name I'd mentioned on the Internet began a correspondence and actually told me he wanted this ancestor's farm journal (which my mother owns) to help him in his battle against colon cancer so would I please drive it up to Nashville and drop it off! (Aw'ight, you tell me Dr. Koop, how a buncha records bout hosses that done died 120 year ago gonna hep heal yo ass?) I e-mailed him a scan of it, but he still wanted the real thing (request denied).

(5) Either from being vivisected by a cannon ball, if you go with the family’s oral tradition,or from “disinterry (sic)” if you go with the Confederate records. The exhumation of his (probably intact) remains would solve the question once and for all but isn’t really worth it to me. I’m content that had it not been for the Civil War he would have lived for about twenty more years and then, while telling his children “You wouldn’t believe how close that cannon ball come to me over in Mississip’… man, I thought I was gonna shit myself to death!” he’d have groped his chest and fallen dead into a bowl of black-eyed peas and pig-tails.

PS- BTW, somebody e-mailed me a few days ago asking for my pics of Flannery O'Connor's home, Andalusia, for use in an assignment; I accidentally deleted the message. If you're reading this, here they are. I have lots more that aren't on the web (though at the request of the family none are of the interior of the house), so if you're interested- just e-mail me and I'll send them to you f.o.c.. Otherwise please feel free to reproduce them anyway you see fit in your project.