webbed toes are normal, right?
kelly | 29 November 2005 - 1:00am
My mom grew up on a farm in West Virginia. This particular area of West Virginia is Redneck Valley TIMES TEN. We're talking coal mine country. We're talking a place where the majority of people still farm for a living. We're talking a place in which the only store that has groceries is a convenience store/mini-mart. We're talking Redneck Redneck Valley. However, it is also one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The mountains? OMG.
Anyway, it's a small community. Everybody knows everybody and everybody knows everybody's business. (When I was a kid, I loved to read the social page of the local newspaper - they printed every social snippet they could get their hands on. "Sue Smith had 8 visitors over the weekend - her daughter Sally and family and aunt Ruth and husband. Sue served ham, potato salad, and green beans." Oh, I shit you not.)
Inevitably, when we're visiting the farm and someone from the area comes up in conversation, a 10-minute discussion ensues among my parents' generation about said person's family tree. "Oh, I remember Bertha," my mom will say. "I went to school with her. Or wait, maybe I went to school with her sister, Bethel."
"Bethel was your year," my aunt will respond. "I went to school with Bertha. And her little brother, Billy Bob, was the same year in school as Carolyn. And Billy Bob married Stella. Remember Stella? She was the daughter of Silas and Margaret."
"Yes, I remember. Margaret played piano at church."
Then the conversation takes an interesting twist as my family plays the "Let's Figure Out How They're Related to Us" game. Because it's not a matter of if these people are related to us. Just how. Over there, everyone is pretty much related to everyone else in some way, however distant. There are only like, 6 last names in the area. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Ten, tops.
If my grandfather is within earshot, he will win, hands down. "Now Bertha and Bethel and Billy Bob's pap was the brother of Harold, and Harold married Martha who is cousin to Ernest."
Everyone nods as they follow along. Except me.
"Who is Ernest?" I ask.
"Ernest is my second cousin once removed," my mom will respond. "Tina is his daughter. You remember Tina?" Blank look from me. "Well Tina and I used to play jacks together. You met her at a family reunion once."
"I thought Tina was my year in school," my aunt will say. And...here we go again.
Given all of this, I think it was probably an accurate statement when my 8-year old cousin asked if he and Rob were "first cousins, in-law" that I responded, "Yes. And you and I are first cousins, in-bred." But what concerns me is the fact that when he proceeded to repeat this over and over again, no one corrected him.
- 980 reads
all comments photoblog
I love you. And I should mention that while I was in Arizona's version of Redneck Valley over the weekend (oh, yes, don't think that the east has the corner on Southern redneckery) I thought of you a couple of times, especially when we drove past the Wal-Mart and when there was lengthy discussion about how the "goddamn Democrats" are ruining the country. Also, being from Utah, there may be one or more verified cases of married cousins in my family tree. Although I will neither confirm nor deny such claims.
The social pages from the newspaper would crack me up, you should try to get ahold of one and post it on here some time.
So when your little cousin told everyone the in-bred cousin thing they at least laughed right...right?
Ha! It'll be funny a few years from now when he learns the meaning of that. The gift that keeps on giving.
Heeheehee. My little Island is like that. I was with a friend of mine who now lives in Vancouver, over 5000 miles away, and we were walking downtown after parking her car. She had just moved to Vancouver and still had Island plates. When we returned to her car, a guy was sitting on her hood, waiting.
"I'm from the Island, and I wanted to see who was driving this car," he said.
Within two minutes, they had determined they were second cousins.
It's actually very educational. Here, people KNOW what to call someone who is the child of your third cousin. (The correct answer: "Mating material")
My favourite line: "If two people from King's County get divorced, are they still cousins?"
Bethel? Bertha? Silas? Interesting.
Okay, so, after the third sentence, I had mental background music for the rest of the post...
Wail, Ah was boooorned a cooooal mahner's dotter.
(Please note: I am not making fun of Loretta Lynn's pronunciation. I happen to like Loretta Lynn. I'm just going for accuracy, here. Oh, and humor.)
Small Town has a little section of our newspaper which is the "social" section for a nearby, even smaller town. And yes, entries like "Jimmy Joe and Janie Jean Smith had family visiting this weekend, their son Jimmmy Joe, Junior, and daughter Jenny Jean, with their families" are commonplace. But hey, it's the only news they've got.
And everyone in Small Town is related, too. You have to be careful what you say about people, because someone is likely to overhear you and say, "Oh, that's my [cousin/uncle/brother-in-law/some combination thereof]."
P.S. Your blog forgot me again. I think I've finally figured it out...if I go more than two days without without commenting, it assumes I'm dead.
P.P.S. My apologies for going more than two days without commenting. I wasn't around yesterday.
Oh! P.P.P.S. Webbed toes are completely normal...if you're a duck.
wait up. are you secretly trying to tell us that rob is really your long-lost uncle-in-law, billy bob? i mean, i'm just askin' is all. ;)
And I just got this e-mail:
>On 11/29/05, Allison wrote:
I can't believe you let the webbed-toes thing on klog slip by unnoticed
(well, uncommented)!!!!!<
My daughter Allison has webbed toes. So does my mother. We are told they are normal. The jury is still out.
Hey, I love bread!!!!
Oh, you meant bred. I'm leaving now.
Honestly. Right now I am laughing so hard it hurts because you just described EXACTLY what it was like living in Podunky Small Town, AZ for 6 and half years! Where apparently EVERYBODY is related to TGIM, I kid you not, which I am told made for some pretty dicey dating scenarios in high school. (TGIM did date a cousin, as a matter of fact, but it was okay, because "she was ADOPTED, Cat!") TGIM's parents and grandparents (ALL still iving there) will go on for hours in exactly the same manner you mentioned, I tell you what! You described it perfectly.
Except you forgot to mention that many of these conversations also took place between men at the post office dressed in overalls and mocassins. The post office, of course, rivaling the local Wilbur's Market as the "cool" place for the octogenarians to rest a spell and shoot the breeze a bit.
Oh. I should also mention that I had a student with webbed feet. Okay, her pointer (is that right? we don't point with it, do we?) and middle toe were stuck together-- sorta sewed tightly together with skin, if you will-- which is almost like webbed, right?! Yep. Her parents were first cousins.
Aaaaaaand please excuse my typos. I = mortified.
Ah yes, this sounds very familiar. :D
Yes, this post sounds very familiar. Now, on my side of the family, we have spread out, moved, and kept moving, so chances are good that we won't marry an unknown cousin, plus I am the 10th generation in America, but, my husbands family is another story. His parents were 3rd cousins, (both last name Machado), his father's sister and mother's brother married ( both last named Machado) and the two marriages produced double first cousins from third cousins all around. If that isn't enough, my husbands maternal grandparents were 1st cousins (both last named Machado). He (my husband) has a hard time explaining why his mother and grandmother have maiden names the same as his. We even went to a wedding 20 years ago where his 1st cousin from his paternal uncle was marrying a 1st cousin from his maternal aunt. They were only 5th cousins. They are all Portuguese from the Azores originally and the island was small. lol
You want to start a convo like that? Go up to Desboro, Ontario, Canada (it's basically a corner in very rural farm-land) and say you are a Kuhl or a Klages--you'll find out how you're related to everyone in the area --there are 2 strains of Klages' too, so you can be a Klages and marry a Klages and not be in-breeding--very scary! There are Ruhls as well as the Kuhls and Funks too--all related.
Funny, isn't it?! Something more disturbing was when my second cousin asked me out--I had to explain to him that there weren't enough degrees of separation for me to feel comfortable....but that's a whole nother story!
Ah, this post reminds me of simpler times when nobody locked their doors. Sorta like Little House on the Prairies but with cousins.