Bad Day

This is a photo of the Apache warrior Geronimo. It is in the public domain and has been reprinted in many places.

Geronimo and a handful of insurgents were the last of the Apache to surrender to the US Army. Shamefully, they we eventually removed from Arizona to Florida and then to Oklahoma. Geronimo died in Olklahoma and is buried there at Fort Sill.

I came across this picture when I was reading about Tombstone, Arizona. Tombstone is famous for the Gunfight at the OK corral, but it was really a lawless silver mining camp, until the silver played out in the 1890's. In 1891 the population of Tombstone was 15,000, larger than that of San Francisco. Tombstone bills itself as the Town Too Tough to Die, one of those catchy phrases that really is meaningless.

Southeastern Arizona is loaded with historical sites of the real old west, if you take the time to find them. Most require a little reading beforehand, so that their significance can be understood. Regretfully, little Tombstone is content cater to tourists, who pile from their cars and demand to be entertained. They look around. buy a tacky trinket or two and then move on to the next place.

In other news, I had one of those days when lots of things went wrong. I may have to reconsider this manifesting your destiny business. Perhaps if I took up believing voodoo new-age crap, my lot would improve. Ya think?

It was one of those days when I was blasted with calls from people who were pissed off to some degree or another about something. Since Tedious Systems has stripped me of any and all power concerning my job, I could only lend a sympathetic ear and agree to "make some calls". Tedious Systems has thrown off the shackles of "participatory management" and has reverted to the "my way or the highway" theory of things.

I also had a curious family-related experience today.

My mom had nine siblings, all dead now, and I am sure that I have a ton of cousins out there somewhere. I think I can say factually that I have never seen most of them and never seen any of them twice. They are total strangers. Family dysfunction spans the generations.

Anyway, my dad got a Christmas card in the mail that had been forwarded to my house after he died. It was from a cousin of mine that Dad apparently kept in touch with. The card was from my mom's sister's kid, who is about 70 years-old now, so not technically a kid. Anyway, I put my screwball brother, the genealogy expert, on the job of letting the cousin know that my dad had died.

My brother talked to the cousin and among other things found out that she is in the "show business" in a manner of speaking and has a website. When I checked out the website, I was surprised to see how much like my mother she looks. My mom died rather suddenly about 19 years ago, so seeing this woman who bears her likeness so closely, was unnerving and yet kind of neat.

I sent her an email telling her how much she looks like my mom. She replied that she always thought my mom was pretty, so looking like her was a good thing. She invited me to stay in touch, which I am unlikely to do, knowing me.

Merle