Who Am I?

Happy late Father's Day as well as happy late everything else since I last entered a blog. It's been a while because I don't like forcing things. Well, that and I'm lazy. So I've been waiting for something unusual to happen. It happened on Father's Day.

I called my grandfather to wish him a happy Father's Day. The man's one of the oldest in his nursing home and likes to remind me of how much I don't call, but I love him probably more than anyone else in my family. (I know, my inconsistent phone calls prove it. Well, you should see how rarely I call the rest of my family. Never said I was a saint.) So we get to the small chit chat stuff and I tell him about the guy who owns the place next to me. He was renting it out but has decided to move back. The guy tells me his wife is still teaching in another state and as he starts to tell me the name of small town she teaches in, I finish it for him. So he looks at me all confused as if I were a stalker that had been going through his trash. I quickly explain that my grandfather lives in a small town in that area so I'm familiar with the town names. This puts him slightly at ease. My grandfather then offers his tales of similar stories.

He tells me of a man at the nursing home who wanted my grandfather to tell him about the city he used to live in 20 years ago. I guess the guy was from there as well. Then my grandfather tells me another story of how he was recently introduced to a man at the nursing home with the last name of Baker. He told me that when he met the man, he told him that he used to be a Baker too. Now at first, I thought my grandfather meant "baker" as in the profession, but my grandfather has never baked a thing in his life as far as I can remember and our last name is not Baker so I got a little confused. He goes on to explain that his great great grandfather (or somewhere around there) was an orphan boy by the name of Baker. He lived with a family and decided to take on their last name. From then on, my family line was no longer known as the Bakers.

To be honest, I like my last name. It's almost a source of pride. My cousin has all girls as far as I know, and my only brother is gay which means he probably won't be having any children. So my son is the only one to continue the family name, and I just learned that it's not even our real family name. A small and petty thing considering a family is a family no matter what the name reads. But still.

My grandmother was big into her genealogy before she passed. It drove my grandfather crazy. He got no pleasure of tracing family lines and was very reluctant to talk about his. The information I got about his family line was sparse and given to me by my grandmother, so when my grandfather does offer information, I treat it like gold. A while back, he sent my son an arrowhead he claimed was made by his great, great, great grandmother who was full blooded Souix. I took that information and tucked it away. Now I get the Baker story. I guess I'm not shocked that someone in my family line was adopted. It happens all the time. But it does make me wonder about this new family name and where we started.

Oh well. To be continued, I hope. As for now, I'll sign off. Baker. Out.