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Pastimes : Where the GIT's are going -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Honor First who wrote (211866)	1/10/2012 2:20:25 PM
From: ManyMoose	3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 225578

Mom was named after a grandmother, Bertha Elsie Roebuck. I don't know that she hated the name but I can't remember a single instance of her being addressed as anything but Betty. Great Grandma Roebuck was a very old invalid lady when I knew her, and I was pretty small then. She was related somehow to the Roebuck in Sears and Roebuck, who sold his interest in the business for $25,000. Which is probably good because I hear Sears in trouble now. Mom's biological father was named Russell Davy. He descended from Sir Humphry Davy, which did not prevent him from being a total jerk and deserting Grandma right after Mom was born. Her 'real' father was William Alff. I don't know much about his genealogy, but he served in both World Wars. I don't know about WWI, but in WWII he served Stateside as a captain. He had cavalry boots, and I wore them when I was a teenager. I also remember a helmet from each war. One story I remember was after WWI and before WWII Germany was prevented by the terms of the Armistice from having warships above a certain beam, which they circumvented by making them very long and skinny. Daddy Bill Alff was invited on board one of them in Galveston. While he was there a German sailor coughed or something and an officer knocked him over the side into Galveston Bay. Daddy Bill was stationed in La Jolla, CA during the War. He spent too much time on the beach on one cloudy day, and got very badly sunburned. I think it damaged his kidneys so badly he died before he was sixty. Mom studied music and journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula. That's where she learned to sing so beautifully. Her voice was so beautiful she was asked to sing from the bell tower in Main Hall. Daddy Bill and Mama Marge a boarder in their house who was a music major. Daddy Bill made this fellow, whose name was Jack, accompany Mom on her dates as a chaperone. Jack was dating Kay, who became a Miss Montana, and Mom was engaged to a young man named Bob. Bob took her to the Forester's Ball, which was the biggest social event of the year on campus (sponsored, of course by the Forestry Students at the Forestry School. It was featured in Life Magazine.) Big mistake. That's where a Marine Corps Sergeant named Jimmy saw Mom. He asked her to dance the "Dance of the Blue Snow," which is the big finale where blue snowflakes come falling out of the indoor sky. After Mom got home, she told Mama Marge "I met the man I'm going to marry!" "Of course you have. You're going to marry Bob!" "No I'm NOT! I'm going to marry Jimmy!" Jimmy took Mom to the Marine Corps Ball and proposed to her there in front of all those Marines. They were married Christmas Day, a month later. That was the beginning of the love story of the century, which lasted until Jimmy died in 1995 quite unexpectedly but so gracefully it is family legend. He enjoyed life immensely right up until his last heartbeat, which throbbed before he hit the floor. The same year Kay died as a consequence of a garage door accident. Mom and Jack reconnected to console each other. About a year later I got the message that there was going to be a wedding. Between the two of them, Mom and Jack had 109 years of continuous monogamous and faithful marriage. Their marriage with each other lasted until Jack died a couple of years ago, none too gracefully. Mom lasted until last April. She was 92. I became a Forester and took several girls to the Forester's Ball, none of whom I married. My brother proposed to his sweetheart at the Marine Corps Ball, in the presence of Mom, our entire family, and all those Marines. See what I mean when I say "We are lucky peoples?" Dad taught us that, and it is true.