Today was rather uneventful, just basically going over the history of my grandfather’s family and his 16 siblings. Did you know he had 16 siblings? Well, you do now!

Apparently, the ship his parents (my great-grandparents) came to the United States on from Czechoslovakia is one for which they have no records—they refer to it as a “ghost ship” that came over sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s. I found that interesting.

Then we read the “memoirs” of their 17 children, my grandpa included, and I realized that the whole family was a bunch of liars. It’s hilarious. Apparently, they all typed these letters back in the 1930s, none of them could speak English very well (seeing as how they went to Bohemia school in St. Louis and a “normal” education was hard to get for 17 children), and they all have these slightly differing perspectives on these really horrible yet hilarious things.

Like my uncle Art, who describes this whole scenario in which he shoots a German Shepherd (it broke into their food storage and ate all their preserves) and then denied ever seeing the dog when the owners came around asking about it.

Then there was Jerry, who was ogling the butt of a girl while driving and ran into a telephone pole.
And my grandpa, who, though he denies it, burnt down the garage

Then we’re looking through all these old pictures. They look like a bunch of refugees, all of them. Except in this one picture, where they’re dressed in bathing suits and the caption reads, “Parade of Water Nymphs.”

It was fun. I love my grandpa’s side.