I feel dark inside, and it is not on account of the gloomy weather. I woke up around 5am and had a bare gimlet, no lime, while taking a lukewarm shower. That is a stupid and even dangerous arrangement. I could not sleep, though, and it was making me crazy. One day last week I slept for over 12 hours, solid, did not wake up once. Next night I barely got 7 hours. I don’t know how much I actually slept last night but I was out until 12:30. Not a good routine, especially considering how early it gets dark… and that of course is on days when there is any sun at all. My soul feels dark.
I made a somewhat unsettling discovery the other night. I’ve concluded it is wholly innocuous but it provided some intrigue regarding something I do not really think about too much: my family history.
Someone had told me he moved to Nashville. I responded that my father’s side of the family was from Kingsport, in East Tennessee. There is a Thomas family cemetery nearby in Rheatown. This reminded me that a couple of years ago I looked up my dad’s name at newspapers.com and found a picture of him at 4 years old on the front page of the Kingsport Times. He was one of a bunch of kids at a birthday party for another 4 year old. Why was this news? Because it’s Kingsport. Not exactly a hub of newsworthy activity. It was somewhat haunting to see this heretofore unknown picture of my dad, one which he himself might never have known existed. I went back to newspapers.com thinking I would rediscover that photo. Instead I entered his name and found a weirdly worded Public Notice concerning my father and his parents. It was published in August, 1972, when I was 4 years old. The notice said that Georgia and Earl (my grandparents) were filing suit against Georgia’s “UNKNOWN AND UNBORN CHILDREN” and that if said individuals did not appear before a court then they would be considered to have “CONFESSED.” The Notice still makes no sense to me but I think that is on account of its succinctness. The lawyer who posted it seemed to have left a lot of details out, possibly out of discretion or else because of the column inch and the cost of posting a lengthy Public Notice… or are they required to even pay for those? I don’t know. I read it and thought that Georgia had maybe given up someone for adoption, which would have been a family secret unknown to anyone. My father’s name was also on the Notice, which made no sense to me. Why would he be there but not his twin brother, George?
If details were intentionally left out then my guess is that it was done so as not to provoke any estate vultures from circling, so to speak.
Amazingly, the lawyer mentioned in the notice is still around and has been practicing law in Kingsport for 57 years. I did not contact him but I noticed that he specializes in real estate law. Assuming that has always been his specialty I conclude that this notice about “UNKNOWN AND UNBORN CHILDREN” was intended to make certain no distant relatives from the past present or future or whatever crawled out of the woodwork to make a claim on some piece of property that Georgia and Earl had inherited. The only mystery remaining is who died in 1972, or thereabouts. I don’t know of anyone in the family who died around then, but of course probate and estate machinations can drag on for years. My guess is that Georgia and Earl’s parents died and they inherited a house, and that my father is only present on the paperwork as some kind of Witness.
I asked my sister if this Notice rang any bells but she had no idea, either. She mentioned something that I’ve been curious about myself: she has a box full of letters that our mother and father exchanged before they were married. I will read those, one day. Mother described them to me once, saying that she read her side of the correspondence and that she sounded like a cloying, sycophantic child kissing up to her husband-to-be. She seemed disgusted with herself on account of reading those missives. This was in the months after our father left us, when feelings were still raw. I don’t think those feelings of disgust at having been abandoned by him ever went away. I mean, how could they?
I think she would not have been surprised if I had told her dad was gay. I remember her making comments to the effect that he sounded effeminate at times. I don’t concern myself with it any more but I sort of wish I had told her. But then, it really did not matter, did it?
…
I have not been to the ghetto coffee shop for a few days. I’ve been working on obscure things. My brain is my strongest muscle and I’ve been working it pretty hard. I guess that’s why I slept so hard the other night. I discovered a shockingly beautiful and classy “Elegie” by Russian composer Sergei Bortkowicz. I think I’m spelling that right. How that piece is not better known is a mystery to me, but the piano literature is filled with overlooked jewels. I am considering buying another piano. Prices on Yamaha hybrid pianos have come way down, and I could probably get a decent trade-in value on the current Roland. It’s still in damn good shape. I would try to finagle a no-interest payment plan for the thing, though. I don’t have $5000 to spend at the moment.
God, this weather sucks.
Going back home to work on obscurities until I die.
