The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin
of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted
by a Georgia slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung.
Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-
winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment
is a window on all time.

—Thomas Wolfe
________________

I suppose every family has them. Well, as tiny as the modern family is these days, maybe not so much. But still, they have to be sprinkled in there, somewhere. The tales handed down and told and retold, tales that grow more fantastic with each telling. And then, of course, there are the legends, the things that happened generations ago. The difference between a tale and a legend? A tale will shift and grow and change, almost at the whim of the teller. The details of a legend remain pretty much set in stone. The basic story is carefully guarded and passed along from one generation to the next.

And the one legend in my family that stood out above all the rest, well, that was a pride thing, one of those legends that got told to us from the time we were old enough to understand the basic concepts of what we were hearing. It was as natural as the passing of the seasons, the telling of the story. We heard the voices speaking, and we listened with innocent ears and wondering hearts. And to me, it was the same as gospel truth, the story, because it was so real, and so unquestioned. We Waglers are different, at least the ones in my immediate family are. We’re different, because we got special blood flowing through our veins. It’s Indian blood. American warrior blood. Sure, we come from the Amish. But we got us some native connections, too. Connections to this land, before it ever was the country it is today.

I can’t tell you how casually and how solemnly that story was passed down. I remember it from my earliest years. Not really as a special thing. I mean, any family story you hear as a child, you just absorb it. You accept it as the truth. And you don’t really consider it as anything other than what was. And what is. Later, as you grow the legend in your mind, that’s when you get a little proud of the blood in you. At least, that’s how it all came down for me.

The details of the legend were all a bit vague, but always told the same. Never much variation at all, in the telling. Way back whenever, a young unmarried woman boarded a ship from Germany with maybe her father and a sibling or two. I forget who else exactly came along from her immediate family. Anyway, this young woman had a young daughter. She was unmarried, the young woman. Maybe widowed. We don’t know. Those details never made it. And supposedly, the young woman hooked up with an Indian on the ship on the way over. It was whispered that she may have been of somewhat dubious moral fiber. I mean, how slatternly was that, hooking up with some dark stranger on a ship? Especially in those days. Anyway, some months after they landed, another little baby girl was born to Veronica Stuckey. Yep. That was her name. Veronica Stuckey. Such a surname has long disappeared from the rolls of any current Amish group anywhere.

The young daughter that was born here in this country was supposedly my maternal great-great-great grandmother, or some such thing. It goes way back. And she was dark-skinned, being half Indian. And that’s where we come from, my brand of Waglers. That was the legend. And it wasn’t just a loose story. Oh, no. It was always pointed out, in the telling. Look at us. Look at our high-boned faces. That’s Indian. American Indian. We got the blood flowing in us, through us.

And details like that made it all fit, when you look at my immediate family. You look at our faces. Mostly high-boned cheeks. Coal black hair, pretty much across the board. And we have dark complexions. That’s who my family is. I can sit in the sun for ten minutes a day, and have a deep and healthy tan in less than a week. And when I work in the sun, well, I get real dark. Back in the days of my youth when I worked construction, lean and shirtless under the summer skies, I very much resembled an Indian. Except for one thing. My curly hair. But that was from all the non-Indian blood in me, is what I always figured. Except for that unruly hair, I could have passed as a native son of this land, from way back.

A little aside here, about my curly hair. I hated those curls, as a child. Despised them with all the intensity any child is capable of. And I remember when I got particularly irritated, I remember going and dunking my head under the water tap in the sink. Get those curls wet. Plaster them back. Now, I got nice flat hair, just like everyone else. Of course, mere minutes later, after my hair had dried, the curls went completely haywire. There was no way to win, seemed like, looking back.

Well, maybe there was one small victory. I’ve always remembered this little incident, because it was just such an aberration. It was a summer evening, when I was probably four years old. I was playing out in the yard north of the house, beside the road, with my siblings. A car pulled up on the gravel road, and stopped by the mailbox. Stephen and Titus and my sister Rachel, I think, walked up to see what was going on. There were two couples in that car, out on a date. Young kids, teenagers. Maybe the boys were twenty. And they wanted to know how to get to somewhere. My siblings just stood around and they were all chatting amiably with each other. About that time I pushed myself through the crowd, up beside the car. A little curly-haired four-year-old Amish boy with large brown eyes. Galluses holding up my denim pants. Barefooted and dirt-stained. And dark as any Indian.

I remember the two beautiful English girls in the car, and how they suddenly squealed in unison. “Oh! Isn’t he cute? Oh, couldn’t you just hold and hug him?” And they kept gushing. “Oh, isn’t he cute?” I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. And then I realized it was me they were fussing about. The two girls kept pestering their boyfriends. “Isn’t he cute?” And the boyfriends mumbled half-heartedly. “Yeah, yeah. He’s cute.” They probably wanted to throttle me. But I was blissfully unaware of any of that. We stepped back, then, from the road, my siblings and me. And the car crunched off to the east on the gravel.

And that was just a bunny trail about my curly hair. Despite those curls, though, I never, never doubted the original story. We have Indian blood in us, we Waglers of the David and Ida Mae lineage. We’re pretty unique. The ancient warrior strain, that stirs in us. And yes. We are proud.

And I always made sure to slide it in there, in a lot of conversations with people along the way over the years, although in later years not so much. A casual observation that just kind of came out on its own. I have Indian blood in me. I’m one/thirty-second Indian. That’s how closely they had calculated it all out, those ahead of me. And I told people wherever I went. I wouldn’t remember this specifically, but my sister-in-law, Wilma, Steve’s wife, told me recently. “That first summer, when a load of you came to Bloomfield to build your barn, I remember the first time you walked into our house. There was a picture on the wall, of an Indian on a horse. You pointed up to that picture and said, ‘There goes one of my relatives. I’m part Indian.’”

I have no memory at all, of that particular instance. But I’m sure it happened. Because I remember how proudly I carried it on me as a badge of honor back in those years, and beyond, my Indian blood. Like I said, not so much in later years, and never, since I started writing. But I still believed it. And I’m sure I bored many people to tears with it all, way too often, back then. To all such people, I apologize. I believed what I was telling you, and somehow, I just thought you’d be interested in hearing it. I wouldn’t be that presumptuous again.

And so it was all firmly settled in our minds for all these years, for me and my siblings. We have Indian blood in us. That makes us different. Special, somehow. Well, I think my brother Steve was the only one who didn’t really embrace the legend. “Nah,” he’d proclaim. “I don’t think we have any Indian blood at all.” But he dutifully passed the story on to his children. We all dutifully passed it on down to the next generation. Those who had children, to their children. Those who didn’t have children, like me and Nathan, well, we spoke it to our nieces and nephews. As dramatically as we could intone it, we spoke it. Walk tall. Walk proud. You have a very rich, mixed heritage. You have warrior blood.

And it probably would have receded into the mists of time as the truth we all believed, our Indian heritage. It would have happened. Except for two little factors that somehow just came rumbling right down the pike when no one like me was looking for them.

The first factor is that the younger generation tends to be a little skeptical about some things. Even family legends. My nieces and nephews somehow didn’t just buy into the Indian blood legend. Well, I’m sure they all believed the story when it was told to them as children. I’m sure they listened, all wide-eyed, and drank it all in. But somehow, they became skeptics, some few of them, later, as adults.

And the second factor is because they, those in the younger generation, they have a tool in hand that we never had. The internet. And if you know your way around, even just a little, in that world, you can research a lot of stuff, very thoroughly. And it all started out innocently enough last fall. My niece Dorothy (Abby’s Mom) decided she was going to check out Ancestry.com. A grief diversion for her, I think. Dorothy told us all about it on the family Facebook page. She was fixing to do a little family research, to see if she could find that young single lady who came over on that ship. And we all blessed her and cheered her on.

And within days, she was posting some pretty astounding stuff. At some point, there, my nephew Reuben Wagler joined her. Reuben actually subscribed to the service, and the two of them were off and running. And it didn’t take them long to dig up all kinds of fascinating facts and figures. They even posted a picture of young Veronica Stuckey. A rather buxom woman, with high cheek bones. Not looking any too happy, either, in my opinion. Or maybe that’s just how people posed for photographs back then. And she didn’t look Amish at all. I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t. Anyway, Dorothy and Reuben dug and dug around to find the father or fathers of Veronica’s children, her two little daughters. And they dredged and dredged and sifted some more. They could find nothing. No mention at all, of any man anywhere in her life.

Well, what do you expect, at least when it comes to the second child? We older ones asked, all confident and smug. It was that Indian on that ship, of course. And I think that would have settled the matter in everyone’s minds. Except the younger generation is very restless. And except the people at Ancestry.com offer more than just research services. For a fee, they will take your DNA test, and match it with everything in their vast data bank. And they’ll tell you where you come from. And they’ll tell you if you got any Indian blood in you or not.

And now, enter another nephew. Ira Lee Wagler. My namesake, Steve’s son. Married, with a little son named Desmond Ira. (Lancaster County now has three Ira Waglers, which is probably about as many as any county, anywhere, could be expected to put up with.) A month or so ago, this man, this nephew, my namesake, suddenly got a very bright idea. He’d get that DNA test done. So he sent off his hundred bucks for the kit. And duly spit into the little tube and sent in his sample of saliva. All this he did, without telling any of his aunts and uncles. And maybe no one else, for that matter. Whoever he told, it wasn’t many people. He kept it pretty quiet.

And one day, a few weeks later, which was just a few weeks back, the results were emailed to him. He read the stats eagerly. And a few evenings after that, we were all at Steve’s house for supper. And as we visited after the meal, Ira Lee brought it up. He told me what he’d done. The results were in. And a big old family legend was just about to be put to rest, once and for all. And boom, just like that it was flung at me, right out of the blue. I recoiled.

Oh my, I said, dismayed. Why in the world would you do such a thing as to take that DNA test? Is there no respect in you, for family legends? Especially for such a foundational legend as that. I mean, it’s part of the essence of who we are, as Waglers. We have Indian blood. That’s just how it’s always been told. Do you realize what you’re doing, when you set out to disprove something so entrenched as that? How could you? I really, really wish you wouldn’t have.

But he had. And we sat there, and he told me the results. Native Americans (Indians) have a very unique strand of DNA. And the test had shown not a shred of that specific, unique type. It’s impossible, that we have Indian blood in us. Boom. Again. We are mostly Caucasian, from France and Switzerland. But there is a thirteen percent slice of Greek/Italian. So that’s maybe where the dark features come from. The facial features, too, some.

There was nothing I could do but absorb what he was telling me. But I grumbled pretty savagely at my nephew. You’re just gonna believe what they tell you? I mean, I think that DNA test is just wrong. If it’s not, then maybe that was an Italian on the ship, and people just mistook him for an Indian. I’m trying to protect the legend, here. Ira Lee seemed a little apologetic, but still, not repentant. He was gonna do what he was gonna do. And he had done what he had done. He has since actually produced a very flashy little video, recording every step of his heretical journey.

But I’ve thought about it all a good bit, since then. I can’t be too mad at Ira Lee. If it wouldn’t have been him, it would have been someone else in the family lineage. It’s impossible, that the legend wouldn’t have been shattered as the myth it was, at some point. It would have happened, sometime, somewhere. It was all just a matter of time. And who can control the timing of such a thing?

Still, it would have been OK if the legend-busting bloodhounds had held off for a while. Like, maybe, another generation or so. Because it knocks you around a bit, when something you have firmly known all your life just gets yanked out from under you like that. It’s disconcerting. What else out there isn’t true, that we’ve always been told?

It all is what it is, I guess. But still, it makes me wonder, a little bit. Where does a formerly proud man of “warrior blood” go to turn in those false credentials he has claimed all his life?

**************************
And this past week, another milestone quietly came and went. February 3rd. Which would have been my parent’s seventy-third wedding anniversary. And I thought about it, on that day. Thought about that long, hard journey they traveled together through all those years of life.

In 1942, my parents got married in a simple Amish wedding ceremony in Daviess County, Indiana. Through all that came at them, for better or for worse, they held that marriage together for seventy-two years. Mom left us last April. Except for a few years early on when Dad was serving in a WWII work camp, this was the first time since their wedding day that they had been separated on February 3rd.

Still, I thought it. Happy Anniversary, Dad. I know you miss her. She never will come back to you here, but one day you will go to where she is. And then the two of you can celebrate this date together again.

Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring

—Johnny Cash, lyrics
_________________

I’ve been in a pretty brooding mood, all this year. Well, which is pretty much the last two weeks or so. Not that unusual a state of mind for me. And I thought I had something outlined, reflecting that, something that would come. But still. As the third Friday approached since my last blog post, there wasn’t a whole lot of inspiration going on inside me. Maybe I’ll just skip again, I thought, as the week arrived and passed right along.

But then I thought. Well, write a few words. You’ve always claimed to write from where you are. So write, from where you are. And here a is a compact version of what I figured to say about what all was going on inside and around me at that point along the road.

******************************************************
As short as the New Year has been, a few things have become very clear to me. I’m not quite sure how to approach all of it. And I’m not quite sure how to write it. So I guess I won’t, not until it all comes down around me.

This is a different year, from any other. And I’m not even exactly sure what that means. It’s just something I can feel inside me, deep down. There will be some major changes in my life. And no, I’m can’t tell you what those changes all will be, because I don’t know, myself. It’s all on the table, as far as I’m concerned, in my head. All I am or have. Yeah, I need to face and deal with some personal demons, some habits and addictions. That’s a given. But I’m talking about more than just that.

I’m talking about my life as I’ve known it, including where I live and what I do. My home. My job. There’s nothing that’s not on the line, when it comes to what changes the year may bring. Nothing. I’m not saying those changes will happen. I’m saying I’m totally open to whatever happens.

There are some hard doors ahead, to walk through. I sense that. I know it. I’ve already walked through one I never planned to see, and another hard door looms. Strangely, I’m kind of excited and eager about it all, even though I can feel the fear stirring deep inside. You don’t really plan for things like this. You just walk into them, when they come at you.

And there are relationships, too, out there, that need mending. I’m not even sure where to go with all that, what it looks like, to mend such a thing, especially where memories of deep and slicing pain remain so fresh. I mean, how do you ever talk to such a person again? It’s possible, I guess. Even probable, if you’re willing to face what was. Whatever. I figure those doors will open, too, when they’re supposed to. If they’re ever supposed to, that is. Maybe that one fearful door will be just like the ones I’m walking through right now that I never planned to walk through. You never can tell. So you just keep walking.

I guess what I’m leading up to is this. I’m not sure what things will look like, in the months ahead. And right now, I just don’t feel like writing what I think they will look like. I have no idea. You always keep walking, in life. But sometimes, you don’t just keep writing. Sometimes, you pull back, when the voice to speak is silent.

Maybe this will be the most productive year you’ll ever see, on my blog, and elsewhere. And maybe it won’t. I just don’t know, right now. Like I said, right this moment, I don’t feel like writing at all. I’m thinking some spigots are gonna open, just a little bit down the road. I don’t know that. This is a different year, when everything I am or have is on the table, to be changed or not. Everything. Maybe the changes will have to happen first, before the writing comes. I just don’t know.

I got no plans as to when I’ll post again. It might be in two weeks, or it might be in two months. I won’t force it. You can’t force real writing. I’ll speak it when it speaks itself. I can promise this, though. Sooner or later, in its own time, all of the journey will be told right here. All of it, including the moment I’m in right now. And that’s about the only promise I can make, when it comes to my writing.

**********************************************************
And that right there was me, pretty much all brooding. Saying what was in me to say, this week. A short blog, signing off until I felt like writing again. And when you’re in a self-focused brooding state of mind like that, right about then is when something real will come and smack you up ‘side the head. And that something slipped up on me yesterday afternoon.

It was close to closing time, around four or so. An Amish contractor walked in. He had a sample piece of special order trim he wanted made. Let’s take it out to Eli, and see what he says, I told the guy. I think he can make that profile. It looks a little tight right here, but I think he can make it. We walked out. Eli greeted us. I showed him the sample of trim. Can you make this? “Yeah,” he said. “I can make that.”

We stood around and just talked for a few minutes. Eli asked the man. “Do you want to pick the trim up tomorrow, I guess?” A simple question. Normally that would of course have been the case. But not this time. The Amish contractor shook his head.

“No, not tomorrow. Monday morning,” he said. “I have a funeral tomorrow.” And he went right on and told us a little bit about it.

“It’s a young bride who just got married in November,” he said. “Last August, she came down with a real bad type of cancer. She went backward pretty fast, and she was barely strong enough to go through with the wedding. But they both wanted to do it, so they went ahead and got married anyway.”

And I could only shake my head in amazement. Wow, I said. That’s pretty brutal. There sure was nothing wrong with what they did, though, getting married when there was so little time. He looked at me and nodded. “No,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with that.”

And I couldn’t shake it, after the Amish contractor had left. Here I was, all focused on how tough life was for me right now. Focused on my own demons. Focused on my own problems. Alcohol, and how hard it is to cut back. How I’m dreading it, to quit drinking, even for a month. How wimpy is that? And I choose to get all brooding still, to invite the darkness in, off and on, about a pretend relationship that blew up in my face last year. And there are stressors in my life right now, about my job. Boo, hoo, on all of it. Cry me a river. Look, how tortured it is, my “writer’s soul.” Look, how I’m struggling along so bravely under such a heavy load.

Meanwhile, just a few miles away, across the county, there’s a young Amish husband who chose to marry his wife, even when they both knew she had only weeks of life to live. That’s brutal stuff. And it’s powerfully, powerfully beautiful, that any kind of love on this earth could be as strong as that.

And I think about it, their wedding day, back in November. Probably two months ago, or less. How her family and her community closed in around her. How they worked hard, to give her that special day she always dreamed of. And how, above all, there stood a man by her side, a man who loved her unconditionally, even as the cancer devoured all she ever was as a healthy, glowing woman. It was day of real joy, their wedding day, I think. A day of real celebration. A day of gratitude for the moment.

And I feel a little ashamed, looking at that scenario, and what could have been mine, way back in my Amish world. I couldn’t stay for a beautiful girl who actually loved me, a healthy girl, with no looming threat of death. Nah. I was too focused on what I wanted. Didn’t matter, the people I hurt, breaking away. I just wanted out. And from where I am right now, I would do it all over again, the getting out. But I sure would do some things a whole lot differently, when it comes to breaking away.

Back to today, the very day this blog was posted. A young Amish husband just buried his wife, the woman he married when he knew this day was coming, and was real close. There’s something so strong about their story, that couple. Something haunting, something real. They lived their lives for each other. And the foundation of all they were? That was a simple little thing called love.

There is no comparison between all that crap I was fretting about, and what really matters in life. Love. Just plain old simple love. Love of God. Love for all I meet, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what they did. Love is what matters, in the end.

So, yeah, I’m still thinking this will be a year of pretty substantial changes. Yeah, I can still feel it, deep down. But I’m not all tore up, like I was back there, about how tortuous it all is, about not knowing when the writing of it will come. I still don’t know. But I’m a little more relaxed about it all.

Because I reckon all those doors will open when they open. And I reckon I’ll just write it when the writing gets here.