genealogy | Metamorphosism

Norþfukr Family Tree

So my wife Alpha recently published a 240 page book on her father’s side of the family she had been working on for 9 years. It was warmly received by relatives, and now she has embarked on research into her mother’s side of the family, as well as my father’s family.
She was telling us about what she had already learned about my ancestors, the O’Livings.
“They were actually Vikings,” she said.
“Oh!” we said.
“That explains the urge to sack and slaughter priests,” I said, remembering the time a local priest made me carry sausages into the church in my pyjamas.
How the church had gotten into my pyjamas I’ll never know.
Alpha explained ancient versions of our name, and all the alternate spellings.
“The original name was Northfucker or something like that,” my wife said.
“I vote we change our name back to that,” I said. “We could spell it Norþfukr.”
Our daughters Beta and Gamma seconded the motion.
“Even better than changing it to Novak,” I ascertained. We recently decided life would be easier if we changed our name to Novak because that’s what most restaurants understood when we made reservations by telephone, to the point where we sometimes just capitulated and reserved tables under the name Novak, which has the big advantage that it contains no illegal characters (not everyone in Austria knows what an apostrophe is) and is immediately recognizeable. I had planned to adopt a friend named Novak as my brother. He brews beer at home, and often trades me some for bread I bake. Anyway, we decided Norþfukr was even better.
Although it would not actually solve the problem at all.
“A table for two for Norþfukr, please.”
“N- what?”
“Norþfukr. En-oh-arr-thorn-eff-yu-kay-arr.”
“Enoh-arr-uh…?”
“Thorn.”
“Thorn?”
“You know, looks like a sunset, turned on its side? Or a bald man sticking his head through a hole in a fence? Or… You know what, put it under Novak.”
“Yes, sir!”

Genealogy and ballistics

My wife has developed a keen interest in family history. She has been telling me things about my family, parts of which she has so far traced back to the early 17th century, that I had not known previously.
For example, the reason that I am here today is not because my ancestors were big heroes during the Revolutionary War, but because they were good at running away.
There was a father and two sons. The father was arrested by British military, escaped and built a new house somewhere else because after he ran away they burned down his old house.
The older of the two sons, he was in his twenties, also ran away when he and his 17 year old brother were arrested. He later built a house on the site of the one that had been burned down.
His younger brother does not seem to have escaped, and his branch of the family tree appears to end there.
So basically, I am here because of running.
My uncle, a direct descendant of those guys, was athletic all his life. When we played softball in the field between our houses, he was pretty good. As was his sister. My sister too.
My uncle had a good throwing arm.
For example: Once he was up on a ladder picking pears in the field, and I was down on the ground pestering him. I was a little kid. I don’t remember what I was doing, probably throwing pears up at him, because when he got tired of it he gave me a head start and I dashed across the field to my house.
It was about ten miles, IIRC. Incredibly far, at any rate, for a little kid. Maybe fifty meters. Maybe less. I ran and ran and ran. I started to laugh when I reached the edge of the field, figuring I was safe so far from my uncle up on his ladder.
But in the instant before I ducked under the electric fence to run through the trees into my house, a big rotten pear hit me in the small of the back. It was a perfect shot. It got me right where my pants met my t-shirt. The pear had the right consistency – rotten yet firm enough to survive such a long throw at a velocity so great that half went down my buttcrack, and the other half went up my back all the way to my shoulder blades.
I ran crying to my mother, out of shock more than pain.
My uncle showed up seconds later, explaining and laughing at the same time.
My mother laughed too.
Everybody laughed but me.

Metamorphosism

Tag Archives: genealogy

Norþfukr Family Tree

Genealogy and ballistics