So I didn't get a shirt

So I went to a show earlier at the House of Blues – All Time Low, We The Kings, Hey Monday, and Friday Night Boys – and I didn’t buy a shirt. I fully intended to buy a shirt, I really did. But ultimately, I didn’t. I took the Daughter and her friend. I bought the Daughter three shirts – All Time Low, We The Kings, and Hey Monday. The Daughter’s Friend got two. Each band had their own merch table, so I shepherded them from line to line, making sure they got shirts. Then I carried them for the duration of the show.

There may be some questions about why I was at the show at all, since I’m a little older than the target audience for these bands. Probably, most of the kids there thought I was chaperoning. That wasn’t how it went down, though - my buddy Toph found We The Kings and put me on to them early, then I asked for the CD and received it for Father’s Day. The Daughter immediately put it on her ipod and played it 3 times a day, adopting them – whether or not I introduced the band into the house, they became hers. I guess music kind of works like dogs or cats in that way.

So yeah, I guess ultimately I was more there for her than for me, and getting a shirt for her just pushed the thoughts of my getting one out of the way. It still doesn’t mean I was chaperoning.

So it seems I'm German - what do I do now?

I’ve always had an affinity for things Scottish. Bagpipes? Check. Whiskey? Check. Haggis? Well, maybe not so much. This works out well – I am Clan Comyn, MacNiven sept. I am related to the clan chief, fist-pump at the sight of a lion rampant with a dagger in his paw proper, and am entitled to wear the strap and buckle. I even have red hair. Yeah!!!

Except it turns out I’m German. Crap.

How did this happen? Well, my mother was Googling my recently deceased uncle’s name, and it came up. As did my father’s name, and my name, on somebody’s genealogy site. Whoa. So my mother emails the guy and he kindly sends several hundred pages of a Family Tree Maker export. After reading this, I can trace my lineage through my father, and his father, back nine generations to Johann Abt Walrath, who emigrated to New York from Germany in the late 17^th century. Hmmm…

So what happened? Well, my father’s father’s lineage had always been described as English. This description had come courtesy of my father’s mother, who apparently decided that English was better than German, and, since she was generally not to be contradicted – Presto! English. Seems that the Germans were out of fashion from about 1939-1945. Go figure.

So, no problem, right? After all, you get your heritage from a number of ancestors. Except that I look like my father. A lot. And, if you look at the photo of his father from the early part of the 20^th century, it turns out we both look a lot like him. Which means we’re German.

So far, this has only evidenced itself in a love of beer and an occasional affinity for BMW’s. In fact, I have several Jewish friends. I have no idea how this is going to play out…