November 3, 2020

Yesterday's blog dealt with the elections and endorsements (the elections part of which is happening today). Today's blog deals with yesterday, the feast of All Souls. It is also known as the Day Of The Dead in certain Spanish cultures. I don't know if the souls actually return to earth on this day, but Catholic tradition observes this time as a way to honor all the souls, those who've lived in the past, ancestors, the forgotten, etc.

I didn't have money on Sunday to honor all the departed I wanted to for the All Souls Day Mass, so I'll honor them here, in addition to my mother Patricia Faith Clarke (1942-91), who will have been passed 29 years as of this Thursday, November 5.

Donald G. Clarke (1935-95). The upcoming December 27 will have marked 25 years since his passing. I don't have anywhere near enough time or space to detail my feelings on my father here. I wonder how he would react to me being a published writer and music producer, although I can't make money off of either.

Sally Bowling (1943-2017). I didn't know until recently that she was my half-aunt, but she still is my full Godmother. She had health problems for most of the time I knew her, but she was always fun to be around. She even liked some of my music (even though she never knew that the "Memories" song was about her and my Godfather, her husband).

Larry Bowling (1941-2014). My Godfather never got to listen to my music. But he was one of 2 relatives who got me into coin collecting. When I lived in Pennsylvania at the end of 2003, I got him into attending Mass again. I didn't know until then that he was a huge fan of choir music, and it's hard to hear choir music now without thinking of him.

Rodger Barnhart (1938-2017). If it wasn't for Uncle Rodger, my parents would have never been introduced to each other. Uncle Rodger was stationed in the same unit as my father during Vietnam. My last memories of him were of the drive from Chambersburg to the Amtrak station in Harrisburg. I didn't know until then that he liked any type of electronic or chillout music. He never got to hear any of my music, but some of my recent music (especially the Therapy song) was inspired by that trip, and I got the idea for the Tribulation song right after his passing.

Hazel Stokes Clarke (1911-95). She was the only grandmother I remembered, as my other grandmother (Grace Fogal Faith) died shortly after my birth. Grandma Hazel was very eccentric. My 2015 trip to her hometown of Toronto filled in some blanks on her life (born at home, raised in an apartment above a fish and chips shop, her father's ruinous lawsuit against his brother that led to the loss of his business and emigration to Detroit). When I first got my DNA test, I wasn't sure if I was related to her. Now, a good chunk of my DNA matches (and nearly all the ones from the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) are from her branch of the family tree. Grandma Hazel also got me into coin collecting. If she were still alive, I don't know who she would be more disappointed in- me, my sister, or my estranged niece Allie.

George F. Clarke (1908-81). As he died when I was elementary school, I didn't know much about him when he died. I know his health was why my family left Colorado Springs after my father's retirement from the Air Force. I didn't know until well after he died who his parents were, his sales career, his closeness to his mother (who died before my father was born), his military career during WW2, or that he actually was suffering from ALS at the time of his death. Probably the one thing I remember most about him is a song he always sang to my grandmother. I have no idea if he wrote it himself or appropriated it from Vaudeville or Tin Pan Alley.
You'll take Grace with a bulldog face
But I'll take Hazel
You'll take Rose with a turned up nose
But I'll take Hazel
She's the kind of smarty
Who breaks up every party
Don't take Hazel, don't take Hazel
I'll take her myself, by gosh!

Richard J Faith (1915-95). The grandfather I remember most, and the soul on here most likely to still be in Purgatory after 25 years. He was good at building stuff and electrical work. I didn't know until after he died that he was into boating. I found out years after he died that he should have been a Mateer instead of a Faith (as his parents never married, and his father was drafted into WW1 shortly after his birth). My DNA test results show relation to quite a few Mateers at 3rd Cousin level and above. He was not above taking advantage of family, including coercing me to drive him to drive from Chambersburg to the bus station in Louisville, KY, when I had plans to go from Chambersburg to NYC (the opposite direction). He left his tickets to head back in my car, and it took a lot of searching in Midtown to find a FedEx to send off the tickets. About 4 years later, I ended up moving to NYC on a permanent basis. Supposedly he cheated on my grandmother Grace, but DNA tests on one of my Godmother's daughters prove that my grandmother got back at him, and he was forced to raise a daughter that wasn't his. As I am Catholic, I don't believe in Karma. But my mother, Godmother, and other aunts and uncles managed to survive their time with him.

September 13, 2015

As far as the residence and job, nothing has changed since April. But almost everything else has changed. I now am making enough money to afford such niceties as DNA testing and vacations. The fact that I am getting paid vacations helps too. I found out I probably am a nicer person when I'm not in New York and not around this culture. And after my vacation which ended 10 days ago, I could survive outside the United States (and probably thrive, if not for international immigration requirements).

In May, I took an autosomal DNA test sponsored by Ancestry.com. It showed I was primarily of Western European (i.e. German, Dutch, French) and Irish origin. I had so little British/English DNA in my sample that it made me question whether the woman I knew as my grandmother Hazel (who was born 104 years ago in Toronto to Worcestershire native parents) actually was my biological grandmother. I later found a Worcestershire DNA match on Ancestry that could only have been related to me through my grandmother's family. For most of the matches that showed up on there (and GEDMatch and the free version of FamilyTreeDNA), I have no idea how I'm related to these people. And the autosomal DNA test never showed me where exactly my Clarke ancestors originated. I have since ordered a more expensive Y-DNA test that should reveal where the Clarke family came from and hopefully find other Clarkes. As far as I know, I'm the last one. My parents are long gone, and my estranged sister is technically a Johnson (of the Tennessee Springer-esque branch). In June, after she threatened to have me arrested over calling a welfare check on her (which resulted in her institutionalization for being suicidal), I cut her off completely.

I figured out how to get vacation time from my job, and used the money I was saving for a car towards my first extended international vacation. To Ireland. In a lot of ways, Ireland is similar to the US. They speak English (with accents just as hard to follow as Americans from the rural South or Northern Appalachia). They listen to the same music that Americans do. They have HD and satellite television, internet, wi-fi, malls, buskers, nice cars, western style housing, and a more advanced bus and railway network. But cars are driven on the left side of the road. The currency is in euros, with anything smaller than 5 euros ($5.50 US) in coins instead of paper money. And the locals are super nice and polite- to the point that they would be easy pickings for con artists and evil-doers if they ever stepped foot in New York. I probably felt more at home in 5 days in Ireland (where I had never been before August 29) than I did in the last 10 years in America, even with the bilingual signs and instructions in Irish (a language I am far less familiar with than Spanish, or French, or Creole). But it would take a high paying job offer, a Mega Millions jackpot, or a marriage offer (from an Irish woman who could still tolerate me after several weeks) before I could ever think of renouncing my American citizenship and move there.

And wherever I end up, I can now claim to be a published writer. Not for my musings on the obscene state of New York and Washington politics, but for my songwriting and poetry abilities. Two of the lyrics to my songs (Ask and Piping Plovers) and 8 other original works were added to the Holy Apostles writers' workshop anthology that was published in June. I got to read some of my works at a public reading on June 25.

The workshop is starting up again on the 17th. However, I don't know if I can attend any of the workshops with my current work schedule.

January 10, 2009

It's been a quick 10 days of the year so far. I put in a bit of time at work. I finally got the title to my car, but now I need a starter. There is supposed to be a snowstorm in NYC this afternoon. And I got the first serious genealogy inquiries into the Essex County Clarke families since 2006 this week.

It seems I am not the only Clarke who has had a newspaper column. I knew my great-great grandfather Edgar A. Clarke's cousin Almon Taylor Clarke wrote a "Meditations" column for the Palm Beach Post in the early part of the 20th Century. But it turns out that Almon's son (also named Almon Taylor Clarke, but better know to the upstate NY literary community by his pen name of Rufus) was a major columnist. He was well known for the "Old Timer's Column" that was syndicated in several upstate Newspapers, including the Tupper Lake Free Press. But despite what it says in several upstate New York obituaries, these Clarkes did not have an ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence. Their ancestor (and mine) who lived around that time was Abraham Clarke (1736-1817), who spent his first 50+ years in Middlesex County, MA (and served in the Continental Army around 1782). After his wife's death, Abraham started what would be the first of 218 years of Clarke migration- to Sullivan County, NH, Springfield, VT, and to Essex County, NY. His grandson James Madison Clarke's bible is what definitively connected Almon Taylor Clarke to my ancestors, most of whom were not prominent, certainly not prominent enough to go to Philadelphia in 1776.

As far as I know, while I have sent submissions to the (recently deceased) New York Sun and to a few websites, the only newspaper which has printed any of my writings regularly was the Brooklyn College Excelsior, and I stopped sending stuff to them over 9 years ago.

Also, my friend from Japan-by-way-of-Owensboro, KY, Steve Peak, is in the United States right now. I doubt he will get to New York before his wife's and daughter's travel visas expire. But New York had to deal with Al Qaida in 2001, I don't think it is ready for Al-Boaida now.