Genealogy Pox
by Sheila Richards, Shropshire Family History SocietySYMPTOMS:
- Continual complaint as to the need for names, dates, kinship and places.
- Patient has blank expressions, sometimes deaf to spouses and children.
- Has no taste for work of any kind except feverishly looking through records at Libraries and Archives.
- Has a compulsion to write letters, swears at the postman when he doesn't deliver any mail.
- Frequents strange places such as cemeteries, ruins, remote country areas.
- Makes night calls, hides the phone bill from spouse, mumbles to oneself, often a strange far away look in the eye.
NO KNOWN CURE
TREATMENT:
Medication is useless. Disease is not fatal, but gets progressively worse, needs a quiet corner in the house where he/she can be alone.REMARKS:
The unusual nature of the disease - is the sicker the patient gets the more they enjoy it.
The Generations
Author UnknownMany, many years ago when I was twenty three
I got married to a widow who was pretty as can beThe widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red
My father fell in love with her
And soon the two were wedThis made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life
My daughter was my mother
For she was my father's wifeTo complicate the matters worse
Although it brought me joy
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boyMy little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad
And so became my uncle
Though it made me very sadFor if he was my uncle
Then that also made him brother
To the widows grown daughter
Who of course was my step-motherFather's wife then had a son
Who kept them on the run
And he became my grandson
For he was my daughter's sonMy wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue
Because, although she is my wife
She's my mother tooIf my wife is my grandmother
Then I am her grandchild
And every time I think of it
It simply drives me wildFor now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw
As the husband of my grandmother
I am my own grandpa !