[Granville-Hough] 1 Jan 2010 - Reflections

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

My father's new year's resolution for 2009 was to send a story each day,
which he did, and which I have resent in 2017.    
For 2018 I will finish up with his last
stories of 2010, which will end in February.

I just checked 2008, and there were no daily stories sent then.
I will check earlier years, and if I find one with daily stories,
I will send them in 2018.


Date: Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:12:10 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Reflections - 1 Jan 2010

    I completed the stories for 2009 in August, when my doctor explained 
my future life would be a balancing act, with procrit for anemia, 
neupogen for white blood count, Vidaza for emergencies, and blood 
transfusions as a final resort for platelets and other indications.  If 
I did not make it to the last day of the year, I asked  my son David or 
daughter Bonny to send out the remaining stories.  As I look back over 
the stories, including those which were composed years ago, some are 
quite interesting, others are dull indeed, some are more fiction 
(hearsay) than fact, but some are hard truths from a land of people with 
diminishing hope. For many, all they had left was faith. 
    I came out of that environment, but the environment did not come out 
of me.  I speak with an unmistakable Southern country (hillbilly) accent 
because that is what I learned in my mother's womb.  I was born knowing 
the ebb and flow of that language.  As I grew up, I learned the meaning 
of words, good and bad; and my older brothers said I talked all the 
time, using whatever new words I heard during the day, particularly the 
bad ones.  I did not have much contact with children my own age, so that 
when I started to school I was the shyest student in class. We had a 
notebook with the multiplication  tables on the back, so I learned them 
all through the twelves.  I was scheduled to re-do kindergarten, but I 
had lost some of my shyness over the summer and had learned to read the 
daily newspaper.  In the first week the teacher learned I could read and 
write and do arithmetic, so she, or somebody, graduated me to 1st 
grade.  There I joined my classmates with whom I stayed through the 
eighth grade.  So far as I can remember, I never competed with anybody 
for grades, but I have been told by former classmates that they competed 
with me.
    I have told the story of how Aunt Nannie (Keyes) Kennedy got me 
interested in genealogy when I was about 9 or 10 years old.  I have held 
that interest my entire life.  It might be called an addiction.  I 
learned as I went along, and invented my own ways to solve historical 
problems.  They worked to my satisfaction, so that I have never bothered 
to learn or use anybody's fancy computer programs.  In the 1970 decade, 
I knew some of the young people who were developing those programs for 
the LDS, and I gave them suggestions on what they should include and 
document.
    So I shall begin another year, hoping not to duplicate what I have 
already done.  The whole idea was to let my children know that I was 
alive, whether well or not.  Others has asked to be included.  So let me 
again wish all my friends and relatives a productive and happy 2110.  
Granville.