Wednesday, January 17, 2001

By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

In order to find out what makes us tick, it is often necessary to look into our ancestry (looking in our medicine cabinets or under our beds would also help).

When we examine our roots and the branches of our family tree, we can see what influence our relatives have had on our lives. Much like the summer when my father found our crabapple tree riddled with Dutch elm disease, infested with beetles and dying.

It is easy to see the impact our close relatives have had on our behavior simply by looking at the phone bill and how infrequently we call them, but how did our ancestors in other centuries behave and what, if any, impact does it have on us today?

For instance, I may have received some of my bizarre sense of humor from my great, great great grandfather, Alyosius Hezekiah Boylan. Old Al was one of the nation's first comic strip creators. Unfortunately, he could not draw so he would write out descriptions of what each panel would look like. His strip, "Dadburned Children," ran for several years in the Nantucket News Journal. Our family has kept several of them. Here's an example.

In the first panel, Father puts his son, Robert, over his knee for talking during supper. In the second panel, Father paddles Robert. In the third panel, Robert apologizes and Father says, "I thought I told you not to speak during dinner. Run outside and get me a new switch."

Al's brother, Franklin Boylan, looked a little bit like me. In our family journal, he is described as having a zest for life and a rampant sense of adventure and curiosity. That could describe me on most days, though I am certain that I will meet a much different end than Franklin. He died trying to propel himself to the moon, using a combination of Epsom salt and buckshot.

I didn't get all of my attributes from my father's side, though. My great, great aunt on my mother's side, Charlotte Grozny, was a singer during the Roaring Twenties. Her favorite way to spend the weekend was to sing dirty limericks in her husband's petting zoo with a megaphone. This obviously connects with me, as I appreciate a good limerick and am fond of eating the pellets found at petting zoos.

There are many relatives that I have never met, due to me not being born yet and them dying a long time ago. My Great Uncle Petey was a pirate. Well, as much of a pirate as you could be in Nebraska. He would walk with a pronounced limp, growl at his neighbors, drink a lot of rum and wear a canary on his shoulder (parrots were hard to come by).

My great, great, great, great, grandmother's sister, Ruby, invented a game called Mud Swishing, in which one would place objects in mud and then mud in one's mouth. The object of the game was obviously to find the object before swallowing too much mud or said object.

It is even said that my family has royalty in its blood. We are allegedly descendants of The Royal Count Duke Earl King of Hattebury. The count was rumored to have been a swashbuckling hero who fought in several clashes with the French in the 15th century. It is said in the book, "European Aristocrats In The Time Of Plague," that the king frequently wore a mask and would distract warring soldiers by streaking naked across the battlefield.

This leads to an interesting family fact. Every generation of our family has had one member streak across a field of battle. In fact, during the Battle of Antietam, Daniel Huckaby Boylan, a cousin, was photographed by Matthew Brady in a photo titled "Naked Bravery." It was part of the Smithsonian collection until it mysteriously disappeared during the Nixon Administration.

Examine your family tree and I am sure you will be amazed at what you find.

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