dual personalities

Somewhere in the Shiloh National Military Park…

My children give me a lot of way too much grief about the vacations we took when they were youngsters. Excuse me, every trip did not involve a Civil War battlefield. (A lot did but what of it?) Just because they did not spend spring breaks in Destin or Orlando does not make them deprived children. Educational trips are the best, right?

Anyway, daughter #2 is coming home today for a few days and we are taking a little “educational” side trip to Denver, Colorado to do some family research at the Stephen H. Hart Library and Research Center at the brand new History Colorado Center.

I have been curious to see what is included in the archive pertaining to my ancestors John Simpson Hough and John Wesley Prowers, about whom I have written on this blog. John Hough’s son Frank Baron Hough died suddenly while dancing the Charleston in the 1920s (I kid you not) and his widow left all the family letters, documents, manuscripts, photographs, etc. to the state of Colorado. I have been meaning to make this trip for years, but something always prevented me–lack of time, lack of funds, no one to go with me. In the meantime, the old museum was torn down and this new shining edifice was constructed. Determined not to put it off another year, I am going at long last!

While we are out there we are also planning to drive up to Wyoming for a few days to visit an old friend–something else I have been meaning to do for years.

Wish us luck!

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

― Henry David Thoreau

*Jack Black