Genealogy, Sports, Food, and Such

 Howdy all!  The Old Man here.  In a previous blog, I briefly went over Ma's family line, the Howes and Kundes. This time around I'm going to touch on Pop's family, the Vaskies and Sieferts.  In my younger days, these two lines are who I was closest to, and I guess it holds true today. I love Ma's family dearly, but I just never felt close to them. Part of this was because they lived about an hour away from us, while Pa's family lived a few miles away and we were always doing stuff with them. Grandpa V always took me hunting and fishing and I stayed at their house quite a bit. They lived at a private resort called Fish n Fun in rural McNabb, IL, and it was a great place to be a kid. A lake for fishing, three swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, and all of Grandma and Grandpa's awesomely hilarious friends. I don't remember ever knowing any of Grandma and Grandpa K's friends, as they just seemed to keep to themselves. They had a little Winnebago m...

 Howdy! The Old Man here. Growing up I was very fortunate to be around some gals who were some of the best cooks ever. Like an idiot, I never paid any attention to how they went about making their awesome dishes, I just ate them. When I became an adult, I wanted to learn how to cook these delicacies, but by this time these wonderful ladies were either dead or not cooking any more.  It came down to Ma teaching me what she knew, and me teaching myself or learning from friends.  When I was a kid, my great grandma, Rosie, was in her 70s and 80s but was still able to churn out crazy good Hungarian fare. My favorite of hers was chicken noodle soup, or Hungarian penicillin as I like to call it.  She had an old kerosene range that she cooked everything on, even though Uncle Albert had bought her a very nice electric range in the late 1960s. Assorted chicken pieces, onion, carrots, celery, salt and pepper would be constantly stewing in a big stock pot to be sure us kids never...

Howdy.  The Old Man here. Today has been a rough day. It sucked, as a matter of fact. We went to the funeral of an old, dear friend of mine who I first met in the 1990s. His name is Richard Stephens, or Rich as we all called him. A great man was laid to rest today, and way before his time. I felt I needed to set down a few words about my friend Rich.  In 1990, the fire department sent me through EMT-Basic school. My high school scholastic career was very middle of the road, mostly because high school was sports, girls, and parties to me, so it was a huge step for me to take this class.  Failure meant two things 1. The life sciences weren't for me. and 2. I would have to reimburse the money for books and tuition to the city. Number one had me pretty nervous, but the second one scared me way worse because that was money I didn't have at the time. It turns out that life sciences were pretty easy to me, even though I hated science all through school. I worked my ass off and p...

 Hey! The Old Man here. Like most kids of my generation, sports played a huge part in my life, and in my adult life as well. While growing up in Putnam County, the smallest county in the state, outdoor activities was all of the entertainment any of us had. Our schools had no football or wrestling, so baseball and basketball were in the forefront. Basketball started in 5th grade and while I liked playing, it just wasn't my favorite activity.  I don't know if it was because it started a few years after I started baseball, or because at the time I just wasn't very good.  I started playing baseball when I was 4 years old, turning 5 during the season. I don't remember much about my first year, except one game when we were playing a team from Cedar Point. I went to bat against a pitcher who looked like he was at least 20, but I sent his first offer right back at him. He caught it, as I'm sure my 4 year old self didn't have any power yet, but I remember being so excite...

 Howdy! The Old Man here. Since the name of my blog starts with the word "genealogy" and the fact that today would have been my Grandpa V's 105th birthday, I figured I would talk about how I got started with genealogy and some brief family history/stories.   Like most people, I never cared much about family history, nor did I ever ask my elders anything as far as who was from where, etc..  In my younger days I was more worried about my next baseball game, fishing, riding my bike, and hanging out with my pals.  It was much later in life that I realized the error of my ways.  Eldest Daughter gave Baberino and I 23 & Me DNA kits as Christmas gifts in 2020. My results weren't much of a surprise: mostly German, Hungarian, and English.  There were a few surprises in that I had small amounts of Jewish, Native American, and Italian, but nothing earth shattering.  23 & Me has a feature where it shows you relatives who have also had their DNA tested...