h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

oh, thanks for the and the acceptance. Are there any initiation rites?

hm, never thought about that

oh well, never you mind. if i wrote them here they would prolly be moderated anyway

teenagers, eh? i used to have three. it was ever so nice to see the youngest turn 20

nah, i'm just kidding. they have always been very well behaved. never boring, but i can't complain, really

well, you can still complain. mine are relatively well behaved, except for pirate girl who gets things pierced now and then. She's running out of room on her ears, and just recently branched out to the nose.

reminds me of a trip to germany with friends. we saw a piercing shop and i said "i should buy a piercing for my daughter, she really wants one"

whereupon one of the friends replied "you should ask them to wrap it so it looks like a bicycle"

yes, i admit it, we are a pretty group

i just visited your space and saw you are a canadian. so was my fathers brother, wife and son. toronto. i also have an uncle in texas and cousins (his sons) in michigan and pennsylvania. and an aunt an cousin in england. plus relatives... no, this is boring you, so i'll just stop here

psychiatric hospital, eh? you prolly deserve a medal. even here that kind of w*rk is not appreciated as much as it ought to be

you are not boring me at all. How is it that your father's brother was canadian, but not your father?

psychiatry is fun. Practically every day, i see hilarious things, tho i can't share them with anyone else. It helps me appreciate the ridiculous, and manage the mundane.

my fathers brother migrated to canada.

another brother migrated to the uk.

a sister migrated to the us.

my father migrated to germany. mind you, he volunteered to be a librarian in the danish minority in northern germany (they have both danish schools, churches, libraries and such there)

i visited a relative in a psychiatric ward a few times. it wasn't as bad as i had expected. but not a walk in the park either

well, actually, we did go for a walk in the park...

but still

It can be difficult, seeing a relative in that sort of place. I try to be positive about it, because it can make you crazy, if you take the emotions and sorrows home with you. I've found that the people i've worked with are more honest, more down to earth, and appreciate the small things more than most. (for the most part, there are a*holes every where you go)

You've got a widespread family. No wonder you're a pirate.

sometimes a walk in the park is no walk in the park. Unless its wrapped as a bicycle.

exactly

yeah, the family is pretty widespread. i also have german family and german ex-in-laws.

this means of course i had family members fighting on both sides of the front in the world wars.

both my "english" uncle and my german father-in-law fought at Anzio, Italy, in WWII. They could have short each other!

i also had german family on both sides of the iron curtain

my parents emigrated here from Holland in the early 50's. My dad was in a german concentration camp during WW2, and felt that he just couldnt be there anymore.
I'm kind of glad he did, otherwise i might not have been able to speak english, and wouldnt have found hootoo. Strange how things work out.

luckily i can truthfully say that none of my family members were members of the nazi party.

in fact i can proudly add that my german grandfather and his older brother were socialists and thus antifascists.

one of my danish uncles fought in the resistance, the other volunteered to join the british forces and foght all the way from anzio, italy, to berlin. my american uncle (the only one still alive, aged 86) was in the us navy and dropped depth bombs on german submarines in the atalantic.

my grandfather spent some time in prison camp in england where they quickly realized what a great guy he was so he was elected spokesman for the prisoners and earned his wardens respect.

my ex-father-in-law lost half a leg in WWII when he stepped on a landmine (one of many he had placed himself...) and my great-uncle also suffered some kind of leg injury (in WWI) but it wasn't all that bad since it made him unable to fight in WWII

i can understand why your father would feel so strongly about not staying in europe. an old colleague of mine (very old, if he is even still alive he must be close to 100) is jewish and fled to sweden in a rowing boat with his pregnant wife. when we were invited to visit munich he flatly refused. said he would never ever put his feet on german soil.

end of lesson

Well, thank you for the history lesson, Kind Pirate (if such a thing exists, at all) At first i thought you said that your uncle replaced his leg himself, which would be quite a feat, indeed. (or feet. or foot) Perhaps he should have made a map of said land mines. Perhaps he'll note that for next time.

Thinking about the lives my parents led makes mine seem a little boring, tho peaceful. I should thank my mother for that.

have you got many members of your fan club?

i must say i am rather proud of my fanclub, seeing as most of my fans are female

as for my ex-father-in-laws leg, well, what happened was that he and the other pioneers in his regiment placed landmines, mapped them and reported back to the war ministry in berlin.

after a while berlin wrote back saying they had mapped more mines than they had been given (or maybe less can't remember)

anyway, they had to go out in the fields and map all the mines over again.

one morning my x-f-i-l's comrade was feeling a bit under the weather so my xfil volunteered to do his w*rk for him, went out into the field and stepped on a mine...

he claims he has never volunteered to help anyone after that incident

but actually he did. he was a kind man. very funny too. we miss him dearly

Happy birthday to my favourite

and for the late response. Only just saw this now

No need to apologise, dear