Wisdom of the D.A.R.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," spotless housekeeping and serious soul-searching in one neat package! Think of us as a melange of Martha Stewart and Mother Teresa pureed in a very clean blender.

You know how to get some good thinking done? Go to a luncheon of Daughters of the American Revolution. The ones with a cash bar are best. Then find a seat between two doddering old Relics whose entire blouse-fronts are covered with official pins.

Admire the pins on Relic One. Then ask her: "My, how long did it take you to locate so many Revolutionary War ancestors?"

Trust me, she will launch into an oratory of Homeric length, all about how her ancestor Jedediah Ezekial Snagglerumpkin married Mary Jones and had six children, but then married Mary's sister, Marie Jones, and had six more, and she had to figure out which Mary was the mother of her ancestor Obediah Jehosaphat Snagglerumpkin, who moved to Iowa after the war and ...

If she runs out of steam, you need only turn to Relic Two, who will regale you with the difficulties of finding her ancestor Ismail Bicker, whose name has been variously spelled "Bicker," "Becker," "Bikker," "Bekker," "Bichter," etc. etc. etc.

Next thing you know, you're staring at her nose and wondering how to get to the next level on Sonic the Hedgehog. All you ever need say is, "Oh, my," and/or "How very difficult for you!"

At luncheon's end the Relics will be telling your Regent what a promising young woman you are, you should definitely be holding an important state office!

Okay, Anne. What's the point of this little ramble?

Exactly this: Somehow, through many dangers, toils, and snares, the descendants of Jedediah Ezekial Snagglerumpkin (m. Marie Jones, 2nd) and Ismail Bicker (Becker) have come to be sitting in advanced old age in a posh country club, with Manhattans and steaming bowls of clam chowder before them.

Think about it. One day, Ismail's running pell-mell from the Redcoats, hoping he can reach the forest before they can aim properly. The next day he's home making babies. (They'd better be legitimate, the D.A.R. doesn't accept love children in lineages.)

Somehow we rock on, no matter how crappy the government, no matter how unpredictable the weather.

This month is sacred to the Celts, culminating in Samhain, our New Year. On Samhain Eve (better known as Halloween), the veil between this world and the other grows thin. If you clear Sonic out of your head and concentrate on your kinsfolk who have passed, you may perhaps feel them gather around you. When they arrive, you can thank them for not being named Jedediah Ezekial Snagglerumpkin.

In preparation for Samhain -- and quite mindful of how such stuff can be more boring than a stewardship sermon -- we at "The Gods Are Bored" will be climbing down the old family tree and meeting and greeting The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of our ancestors. Somehow they found time to make babies while the world was going to hell around them. And it did, often.

You will not get a dull recitation of how many ways the name "Johnson" can be spelled. Promise.

So please join us for our Samhain-inspired series, "Apples on the Flood: Surviving the Apocalypse (Several of 'em)."

FROM ANNE
N.S.D.A.R.