Genealogy

A man named Owen Metcalf approached me and said that, for single thousand dollars, he would research my family's history and write a short work on them. I said, "How far back would that go?" He said, "Oh three hundr years or more, it depends" I said, "Well, I knew my great-grandparents when I was a little male child but that's about it. No one's at any time mentioned anybody before that." "I'm a professional genealogist, and that's by what mode I make a living, digging up what's been missing along the way. There's usually a certain quantity of great surprises. You can pay me half now, and half when I deliver," he said. We made a deal and shook hands. I didn't hear from the man for six month I contemplation surely I had been swindled. Then, single day he called and wanted to approach by and see me. When he arrived, it was clear to me that he was real nervous. "I'm returning your money" he said. "You advance from a long line of self-satisfied upstanding people. It's just that the records are rather clouded Generation after generation, people were in the habit of disappearing. It's as if it were a family trait. No visible avocation no marriage licenses, no birth certificates. I don't really know in what manner they got on in the world. Then someone is seen in a small town somewhere buying a fire-arm or a bucket, then they're gone for another twenty years. They're like dust blowing in the wind. If you ask me you're blessed to be alive." "I always knew that, sir," I said, handing him his money

JAMES TATE'S greatest in quantity recent book is Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee (Verse Pres 2002)

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