my job yesterday was to take three boys across the state, to gary indiana, to their friend's birthday party. starting in galesburg, we go north to moline, where we are only about ten miles from the river. but then, straight across illinois, through joliet, where they are doing major construction on eighty, across the indiana line about twenty miles, then straight down broadway, south, and then east to their house. a straight shot, right?

the trip was actually somewhat pleasant. illinois is wide with green farm fields, all west of chicago; it's busy and full of orange cones in the chicago area; joliet, as i said, was a mess. the boys were pleasant. they have a train ticket back today and our fingers are crossed that they'll actually be on that train.

meanwhile a major heat wave has descended; tomorrow will be worse than today, and people are talking relief centers and such things, as we have visitors and are afraid that various aircon systems won't work or won't be enough.

after seven hours on the road, i've got a sore back. i'm not sure where i turned it or how, maybe the whole thing was just too much. there was a court appearance in the morning, so it was an hour or so on a wooden bench then.

in court, my son basically admitted to driving off with our car, something he has done several times, without a license. they were easy on him, telling him to get his license and they would forget about it. this may be easier said than done, but for now, he's feeling a weight off his back. he felt strongly about going to gary but we agreed to it; i wouldn't have done it if i wasn't willing. i like traveling. i like seeing them get out of here, if only for a day or two. i like them seeing the world a little. to me, train tickets are money well spent and will give them memories. we're lucky that the train goes straight to galesburg.

late at night, however, it was just me, the car, and the summer night. i started catching myself drifting off as i drove. no! can't let that happen. i pulled over at an illinois rest area, as they actually have pretty good coffee. about nine at night, the place was pretty empty, but it was steamy and green, and there was lots of room; the walking felt good. the large coffee felt good too though it almost didn't work well enough. i've been drinking way too much coffee again, but there's no way i'm going to allow myself to drift off in western illinois.

western illinois is orange-cone land, as i remember well from my travels. that much hasn't changed. joliet was terrible, but western illinois was simply one lane for miles. and again, i was scared to death of drifting off, even with a large coffee in me.

now i'm home - sore back, but airconditioner to help me avoid the heat. the boys will be getting on the train later this afternoon.

may everyone have a happy, safe summer!

i think juneteenth is my new favorite holiday, and i'll explain why.

i was in the insurance office the other day, and the insurance office is like this: the guy talks too much, though he's very personable, and his daughter (maybe) runs the desk while lots of us wait in line. this older woman comes in and she knows everyone, but she reads the sign on the door that says "we will be closed for juneteenth" and she says, "june-a-teth - what's june-a-teth?" the young girl explains correctly that it's been a holiday for a few years and that it's to commemorate the freeing of the slaves. june-teenth comes to Galesburg, if people are still figuring out what it is.

so for a day or two i went around thinking to myself, june-a-teth, june-a-teth...the thing is, it doesn't really commemorate the end of slavery, so much as it does certain texans finding out that they'd been freed, when in fact they'd already been free for a while. i think it has a kind of allegory for life. we have been struggling with the idea that as parents we are trapped in a kind of always-give-them-what-they-want cycle, when in fact giving them what they want is sometimes bad for them, and it by nature teaches them not to go out and get it for themselves. it's a kind of slavery of the mind, and it means i've been delivering up a lot of bad food for example for years, when what i feel like saying is, if you're so eager to kill yourself, go get a job and buy it yourself. why should i keep deivering up bad stuff? well, mostly because we're caught up in this cycle. and it's time for emancipation.

but it's the kind of emancipation where you've been free for a while, all you had to do was recognize it, and free yourself. if i can't do such things without resenting it, it's better just not to do them, because i build up a large resentment. and i'm tired of it.

and my wife is really really tired of it.

sunday morning, ten a m, the world's at church, but my meeting is tonight, so i'm not at church. i am somewhat restless. last week my wife took the 8-year-old to her church, and i forgot to pick her up. forgot! it so happens that sunday morning is the only time i have to really write or concentrate on anything. a few hours to click together so to speak, and i get involved in something, and....well, not this week. i have to concentrate on picking up this girl at 11:20.

her church is large, organized, aggressively friendly. they want your soul and they want you to get involved. she's happy there though and has been going there all her life practically. i have no way to teach her quaker anything, and have taken to explaining things when i have the chance, to her, and her older sister, and her older brother. not much in the way of religious training to be honest.

yesterday's no kings rally was good for galesburg, a lot of people. we walked downtown (9 blocks), marched about five and back (10 more) with the protestors and signs (i will post pictures), walked the 8 blocks home. i wanted the police to read my sign which said i believe in the law, the courts, and the constitution. i believe some did read it. one guy circled the parade (it was in the public square roundabout) and they actually pulled him over. but he was back about a half-hour later, menacing us in his own way. some protestor gave him the finger. i just kind of went my own way.

overall demonstrations i think vastly outnumbered parade attendees, and imo they show the possibility of a national movement. this would not mean "democrat win" but that might be involved. this would more be like people who demonstrate regularly get organized and do something about the tyranny. not sure exactly what we would do. but i do know that for every one of us out on the street there are three or four more like us not willing to risk anything but still opposed to the regime. you have to admit that the party in power is actively punishing its enemies. they wouldn't mind getting locals to take pictures so they could remove government funding and do tax audits for every one of us. read 'tax audits' as 'made up charges for made-up crimes and indefinite punishment of whatever they wish.' it's the hallmark of fascism.

i am seventy-one; they can have me if they want it that badly. I'm going to every demo.

If it becomes a culture, good; if it catches on, better. We need to restore democracy.

 

i'm having fun deep in the heart of scotland, about 1700, but i'm having trouble getting out of it and doing anything productive. i'll give you a kind of loose overview of the problem i'm working on.

it's generally accepted that our ancestor was from scotland, came over with possibly three brothers/half-brothers in about 1770, went back to have a family in Northern Ireland, then brought that whole family over in 1797. by that time some of the brothers/half-brothers had settled. in fact about six total seem to have given up scotland/ireland to come over in that era, and i've spent considerable time tracking each down. there's no guarantee that they're all fundamentally related.

however the trail leads back into scotland where either their father was the grandson of the head of the clan of the cairnhill wallaces, or was some other william wallace who married some other mary, and there are several combinations of those. i'd actually like to find a more obscure william wallace because family lore says they were from ayrshire, which in some people's mind includes cairnhill but in mine doesn't.

the date given for that william wallace was 1711, but there were plenty of william wallace (1711)s in both ayrshire and glasgow and if i'm willing to accept divergent dates i can get even more to choose from. one seemed to have a grandfather. a lord high chancellor in fact, who seemed to move to pennsylvania, with his wife, a noblewoman, way back in the early 1700s or even earlier. he would have been great grandfather of the six boys who came over. but he seems to have disappeared entirely in pennsylvania, as did his wife, with scanty or divergent accounts of the kids they had on the way and where they might have ended up. One that they left behind (or seemed to) would have been father of william (1711) and grandfather of our six. but in trying to say they went to pennsylvania because that's where their ancestor was i'd have to modify that to had been or give up the theory altogether; he just seems to have disappeared.

a lot of these accounts are clearly wrong and not backed up by ancestry.com's substantial database of birth and marriage records. i like that database because it clears up contradictions (shows who was careless) and gives us more to work with.

i might be able to find the william (1711?) that is our ancestor, either from the heart of the cairnhill wallaces, or from glasgow and the ayr countryside, who knows? that's what i'd like, to feel better knowing who some of my ancestors were if not their reasons for coming over. the reasons are probably common to every scottish immigrant of the era, and are not that surprising. there are patterns too. they go where their family has gone. they settle by finding a place very carefully that will sustain them. the part that's geography is probably most interesting to me.