Chapter Prescription For Joy

Everyday remained the same in life, mundane with small tasks procrastinated. Adventures are few and far between in adulthood with little to no money. Wake up, work, eat, sleep, and dream. Twenty-five dollars left in savings every week. So lost in that monotony I began to search through paperwork as usual. Tax time arrived and it was always a miracle it would make it in by April 15. I opened the door to the closet with a sigh and after lifting several boxes out of the way I found the plastic legal file box, and sighed again as I sat down to look. Another sigh quickly took its place. It was not the right box and feeling too tired inside to move and go through more boxes in the closet I decided to pick up the yellow folders in the box and peer within. Some were letters from relatives I never knew I had. His name was Charlie and he had moved far away to Washington, D.C. He wrote a song for his niece, who loved to sit and listen as he played guitar. It was a catchy tune I heard within my mind as I followed the notes on the music paper in front of me. Very cute indeed. Another was a patent for barbed wire, and a deed for a family cemetery plot remarked upon in a newspaper, which I looked at incredulously. I realized I was looking through my grandmothers treasures, and it had been so long since she had passed away that I had forgotten I had them. My grandmother was a strong woman. She married my grandfather after a long and drawn out courtship with many ups and downs, terrible fights, and beautiful connection. They married after 10 years of dating. It was the 1930s and the Great Depression raged on all around them. With not much money they worked at a local bourbon distillery. Growing up in a world born nearly a decade after the Kentucky Black Patch Tobacco Wars from 1900-1910. They worked at a famous brand of bourbon in a time where work accidents were common. Deaths took place from fallen elevators into dismal darkness. Workers must continue to work after such events. The war was a fight for power over brands, a monopoly of tobacco and liquor, and woe-betide the neighbor who did not buy their brand from the baron. Several small towns in Kentucky were completely overtaken by what amounted to masked riders on horseback at nightfall shattering glass windows in every shop and house after three long, piercing whistles. A nightmare parade, that once beat at the sound of invisible chains, and beat an old woman to death by “magic”. The mafia was riding through. The beginnings of the moonshine still industry, tobacco, and prostitution that became prevalent, even necessary to enact a quid pro quo. Neighbors would be taken care of, witches and strange people put to death, unknowns with no local family driven off. All my grandparents were born after these events. My great-grandfather was married to a Tsalagi CWY woman. In other words, a Cherokee woman. Full-blooded and strong in shoulders and looks that my mother and aunt inherited. She was a handsome woman but not beautiful. Their beauty was inherited from the combination of races. A beautiful white woman with her very handsome half Native American CWY son. We were bi-racial and catholic on top of that. That’s hard to survive with the KKK nearby. He lost his memory of his mother when he was 12. She died from typhoid and he had a fever so bad he lost all this hair. Most of the family died. Typhoid is caused from bad water from the wells. Let’s say a dead animal flew in or was dropped in because neighbors were still at war with one another for property or because they ran off strange outlanders, reminiscent of the highland clans. Another biological match to my genetics, as was 1% Jewish the Lord speaks is Levite of the Caucuses. The water became poisoned, and used in every way for sustenance and health, it slowly drained the life away of the poor undeserving family. A prominent family, family friends from their original county nearby, offered to take in the children until the widower could establish new stability. My great grandfather, grandpa’s father, could play the fiddle. Long and true my mother said. All the boys could, musicians all. Only boys were left you see, after the tragedy. His picture was in the largest newspaper in the region, as having won a great fiddlers contest in Louisville, Ky. My great-grandfather was a famous musician and died with that accomplishment in peace, at home with his son and daughter-in-law years later. Finding this history caused me to delve deeply into the roots of my genealogy. The time period was before the great marijuana cornbread mafia, or was it? Kentucky had always seemed so boring before I found those papers. A passion bloomed to discover more and instantly my energies were placed into discoverIng more. There were veterinarians, doctors, midwives, a soldier who fought in every war and were pows. There was also a decease doctor-turned soldier who died in WWII, after leaving my sweet grandmother his picture for his babe that he left behind in what amounted as a love child. I found my smile, and my genetic hearing loss, for the first time on someone else in the family, besides my father, in that picture. His biological father in that paperwork I accidentally picked up in that closet. Life started again. Spinning me out of the mundane and into a life or death struggle for my passing creativity. I read a story my grandmother wrote and realized she was a journalist and author like myself. She wrote of her singing LuLu. A chicken that sang as she was ordered to kill it for dinner, so she begged for its life, and contrived a way to save it by showing her family they had a chicken that could be famous. As unlikely as that seems for any chickens life expectancy in a very Kentucky Fried state. Long story short, I am blossoming into an adult who understands the roots of herself. Called Mac by some, called Smiley by others, but my favorite nickname was Cindy, short for my desire to sing while cleaning my brother called me. I evolved into a strong, resilient woman myself after learning my families history. Good, bad, or completely fascinating. I hope you’ve enjoyed my true story my reader. It is part of a larger novel, the story of my life in poetic fashion, I’ve written as I’ve grown in mentality every five years or so, like you do, as a human. God bless!