Holly Cusumano

Each one of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. For every generation you go back, the number of people who procreated, to eventually make you, doubles. When I first started out on my genealogy journey, these numbers astounded me, and still do. I love to think about my DNA stew. It feeds my soul. Playing with numbers Let’s assume each generation makes a baby at age thirty. Perhaps the age should be 16, 18, 20, or 25, but whatever, I picked 30 for this exercise. After all, in the past, people started having children earlier than today, but they also bore many more children and did so over a period of 10, or even 20, years. Stick with me for this simplified and fictional example: For a child born in 1960, there were two parents who were born about 1930. The baby’s four grandparents were born about 1900. The baby’s eight great-grandparents were born in 1870. (You see, I'm doubling the number of grandparents and going back 30 years at the same time....

Recently while helping my sister, Kit, move to a new house, we found an inte res ting old bible belonging to “V. H. Reinhart” in the bottom of a moldy old box. I’d never seen a bible like it. The left-hand column is written in German and the right, in English. Victor H. Reinhart, born in 1885, was the father of my step father, Wilbur Reinhart, and I knew from oral family history that he was a Mennonite minister. Inside the bible we found a single, brittle, pale green leaf and immediately recognized it. I said, “Holy cow, it’s costmary!” (Tanacetum balsamita also Chrysanthemum balsamita)  Because I’m passionate about both genealogy and herb gardening, this discovery was a bit like taking a beautiful old painting to the Antiques Roadshow and finding a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence behind it. Costmary’s (now obsolete) common name is “bible leaf,” having been used as an aromatic bookmark since the time when a bible was likely the only book in the house. The volat...

So far I don’t like retirement. I keep thinking of a well-known Hemingway short story called Hills like White Elephants . In it the main characters listlessly tour Spain .  She points out to He, “That’s all we do, isn't it -- look at things and try new drinks?”  For me, like for the woman in the story, “everything tastes of licorice.” What I mean is that everything is nice, but there is a sameness to it. I feel like an uninte res ted tourist, passively observing my own life. It’s only been a few months, but most days I’m watching the clock by 9 a.m . The wash is done, the spices are alphabetized, and the house plants watered and pinched to perfection.  I hate this. So around  noon  I start thinking, I could make a nice lasagna for our son, for one of our nieces, for an elderly neighbor … a nice lasagna for somebody. Maybe I could make a nice lasagna and simply freeze it?  It's pathetic. It turns out that work is my dream retirement...