Do you know ....?

Received from Bob Smith.


The question many of us asked at our mini reunion was who is Jack Schitt, he is not in the 1965 Van Horn year book ? ? ?

For some time many of us from Van Horn have wondered just who is Jack Schitt?

We find ourselves at a loss when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt'! Well, thanks to my genealogy efforts of Donna King Gibbens, you can now respond in an intellectual way.

Jack Schitt is the only son of Awe Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, from Sugar Creek who married O. Schitt, the owner of Needeep N. Schitt, Inc. in Sugar Creek. They had one son, Jack.

In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt. The deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Giva Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt.

Against her parents' objections, and a near riot in Sugar Creek, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later married Ted Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt Sherlock.

Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt, and they produced a son with a rather nervous disposition named Chicken Schitt. Two of the other six children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony. The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens nuptials. The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Horse.

Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left Sugar Creek to tour the world.
He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt.

Now when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt', you can correct them.

Sincerely,
Crock O. Schitt

Wild Things

The greatest part of my childhood was spent living next to a four acre lake in an unincorporated area near Independence, Missouri. There I was first exposed to wild things that became just as natural to me as the other twenty or so kids that shared my idyllic up bringing. Nothing was unusual about how or where we lived according to us.

Even when I was much older and the army allowed me to go on camping trips to Germany, Italy, and Panama, living and communing with the great out doors, nothing seemed that special, I had done it all before.

When I moved to the Alaskan tundra and lived in Eskimo villages next to the Bering Sea, along the banks of the Yukon, and seventy mile north of the Arctic Circle, all seemed normal enough.

I have seen almost all the wild animals in their natural habitat Alaska has to offer, minus a Polar Bear, encountered enough wild things in the jungles of Panama to realize that is where they need to stay, and knew almost on a first name basis all the animals that called my four acre lake theirs.

The odd, some might say sad, thing is that I never really was impressed by any of it. Hiking and camping was just a hazard of the military trade and un-caged animals were just things to be avoided.

However now on the front side of retirement I am beginning to develop an appreciation of our four legged and legless friends, albeit some what grudgingly perhaps.

I live in a gated community that butts up to the desert. I am not sure if the fence and gate are to keep the wild things from wondering in or keep the old people from wondering out. I don’t know if I have just never noticed before or if there is something going on in the far horizon, but animals seem to be popping up all over the place and they don’t seem to want to leave me alone with my nightly Rey Del Mundo and Grand Marnier.

There is a rattle snake that insists on sharing my cactus garden, a desert frog that leaps across my patio each night followed by another sort of long black looking snake that I have yet been able to identify. Seldom seen, except by me it appears, is a desert lynx that sits very close to the fence with a frequency that makes me some what uneasy. He just sort of glares at me. When he isn’t around a road runner comes scampering down my side of the fence followed by a coyote on the other. Of course there is the extended family of creeping looking lizards that have taken up domicile under my shed and meander all over the place day or night. I have begun to find them all amusing, entertaining, and interesting.

As the early evening fades I know longer see my little wild things but I know they are there. The fence vibrates now and then, I hear the pounding paws along the trail on the desert side of the wash, something going through the brush, and all sorts of bumps in the night. I enjoy them immensely and it becomes a soothing event each night.

However every few nights I hear a faint rattle, a thump - like flesh hitting flesh, and a quickly muted squeal coming from the direction of my cactus garden. I then down my Grand Marnier extinguish my Rey Del Mundo and retreat to the inner sanctum of my permanently attached mobile home. The wild things are lurking about.

Seann's Blog

http://seann-mcanally.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2015-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=17

He does a real good job on this blog.  Worth the read.

Basketball, Village Style

Eskimos love basketball.  They have their own NBA, the Native Basketball Association.  The village of Hooper Bay had I think six teams of men and four of women they called the City League.  Why they did not call it the Village League I don’t know.  It was and I am sure still is the ambition of many a young Eskimo lad and lassie to be on the school basketball team thus getting their training for the City League.  The teams are usually made up of family members and best friends.

I am not a sports writer so I can only try to make a few comments and a couple of observations about what I observed that night. 

After the team introductions the crowd grew quiet.  Everyone stood for what I assumed was going to be the national anthem.  Instead the packed house turned in the direction of the flag near the main entrance and in walked the eldest of the Elders.  He took a seat on a folding chair that appeared with great fan fair next to the entrance.  He looked over the crowd, smiled, waved and sat down. Play soon began. 

Referees call the games in the bush a little looser than they do in the rest of the world I think.  Not being a basketball fan I am not real sure, but few high school or college games I have attended did not have a representative from the health clinic strategically placed.  I heard later that the particular game I was watching was a lot less physical than most.  Only four players were treated for minor cuts and abrasions.

The game seesawed back and forth.  It was one fast break after another.  This continued until about the last thirty seconds of the game.

The score was tied 87 to 87.  Hooper Bay had the ball.  Barney passed to Obadiah, Obadiah to Masontoo, back to Barney, up he went with a jump short  when from out of no where a Chivak player bounded off the knee of one of his own teammates  and grabbed the ball out of mid air before it started its downward decent, thus eliminating a goal tending call.  Now the Comet’s had possession, fast break back to the Comet goal, up for a lay up but missed because number 32, Barney, got in the way.  The ref determined that Barney had fouled.  Two shots.

Chivak missed the first shot but made the second.  88 to 87.  Back toward the Hooper Bay goal.  Passage down the court went like clock work until Barney had the ball within five feet of the net.  Up he went for a sure two pointer when again a Chivak player grabbed the ball out of mid air just as it was leaving Barney’s hand.  But then Obadiah grabbed Masontoo lifted him up in the air.  Mansontoo made a gesture toward the Chivak player that loosely interpreted meant, “May you mother be mistaken for a walrus.”  The Comet got mad and through the ball at Mansontoo, who caught the ball in mid air and just as his feet were ready to hit the court he tossed the ball up toward the goal….nothing but net.  The Warriors won 89 to 88. 

All slept well in the village that night.

A Christmas Story of Sorts Again

Family Secrets - Homecoming.

I do not recall the day or any special events leading up to the time Dad got home from Korea.  I am sure there must have been some discussion about Dad’s homecoming but I do not recall any single event except Christmas morning of 1954. 

We had as usual put up a tree and had plenty of presents underneath.  I was as excited as a second grader would be for Christmas morning.  My grandfather and grandmother were not happy at all.  A sadness permeated their face.  I was eager to open my presents and was allowed to do so, but they told me that they wanted to wait and open theirs when Dad got home.  I remember thinking why would they want to wait with all those packages just begging to be opened.  I cannot recall any particular present I got that year.  It would be a nice touch to this narrative for me to say the best present I got that year was Dad coming home and it was but only in retrospect.

While I was playing with whatever I got Mama and Baba just sort of went about their business trying to pass the time away and even going to the front door now and then to see who had just pulled up in front of the house.  I remember Baba going out in the front yard just standing their smoking cigarettes looking up and down the street while Mama busied herself in the kitchen. 

I don’t know how long it was after Christmas when Dad did arrived, but it must not have been that long, like two or three days, because I was still on vacation from school and was allowed to stay up late at night.

My grandfather was working the night shift at Westinghouse and Mama was in the kitchen when I heard the porch door open and though the window pane of our house Dad looked though the glass smiling. 

I am sure that my grandmother must have cried while they hugged and the only thing I remember is Dad telling her it seemed like home had been a world away the last two years. 

My Grandfather got home around midnight and they sat down and opened all the remaining presents.  I even had a couple to open that Mama had hid.  I was glad to get them and while they stayed up and visited I sat next to Dad on the couch and drifted off to sleep.

The Adventures of Conley McAnally: mi, amiga

The Adventures of Conley McAnally: mi, amiga

mi, amiga