This week was a devastating one for millions of people up and down the east coast, especially in New York City and New Jersey. It’s been painful to watch all the destruction, to see my former home left a shell of its former self. To think that my old apartment in SoHo was just feet from the waters of the Hudson at the height of the floods is baffling to me. My neighborhood is still in the dark tonight. The desperation in peoples’ faces and voices is truly heartbreaking.
In addition to the pain I feel watching all these images on TV, is the odd feeling I have been getting because I am not helping to put those images on TV. I have been watching my friends and former colleagues from WNBC-TV do amazing work – Emmy-worthy work, in my opinion — and I am a little sad not to be a part of it. I have been watching their live coverage online (I am still a news junky at heart) and I am in awe of the public service they are providing. Not only are they informing residents of New York, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, but they are welcoming them to their trucks if they need to charge their phones.
My friend Pei-Sze rocking it
The adrenalin rush of breaking news, the indescribable feeling you get bearing witness to history and the warm fuzzy feeling from doing a service to your community; these are just some of the emotions I felt being a journalist.
I admit, I now look back on my old career through rose-colored glasses. There were crappy shifts and the loss of nights, weekends and holidays with my family and friends. I walked out of the world of news with my eyes open. I knew that whatever came next would not be the same, not be as exciting, but I was trading all that excitement for a more normal life. I was trading night shifts for a 9-5 (mostly) job and the ability to carve out a semblance of a work-life balance for myself; something I found impossible in news. Now, when a natural disaster threatens my city I get to curl up on the couch instead of racing to work without knowing when I would be able to go home.
New York will come back, better than ever. I have seen it before, 11 years ago. We have heard this a great deal in the last week, but it is true, there is a unique resilience that only New Yorkers possess. I was lucky to call myself one for seven years. I was equally lucky to call myself a journalist. And now I’m just me. And that’s no bad either.
Residents of the affected area need a lot of help. The President has encouraged Americans to donate to the Red Cross. Mayor Bloomberg has encouraged New Yorkers to donate blood. I will be doing both.
I mention my family from time to time on this blog. Whether it’s learning about my forbears while trying out life as a genealogist, or tagging along as my mother tends to wounded birds, you have gotten a taste of my family. Now you will get a slightly more literal “taste” of them. We’ll start at the beginning:
In 1939, my great-uncle Tom Kinnealey had just moved home to Boston after graduating from Notre Dame. At that time his brother, my grandfather Arthur, had a produce business in a stall at the Faneuil Hall Market Place. Arthur brokered an introduction for Tom with one of the nearby butchers. Tom apprenticed with this butcher, but soon realized he could do things better. With an investment from Arthur ($500, quite a sum in those days), Tom started T.F. Kinnealey Company. In the years to come, his brothers Joe, Frank and Bill joined him. The company grew from that small operation in Faneuil Hall, to supplying the Army with corned beef during World War II, and eventually providing the best quality meat to restaurants and hotels across New England. The company outgrew Faneuil Hall, and then a series of other locations around Boston.
My great-uncles Tom and Joe ran the business throughout my childhood, and they have been succeeded by their sons. Tom and Joe were two of my favorites: Tom hosted and played in our annual Thanksgiving football game well into his 80’s, usually without gloves, despite freezing temperatures. I can remember him darting inside between plays to run his hands under hot water, before dashing back out as to not miss more than a few plays. After my own grandparents passed away Joe and his wife Harriet were like surrogate grandparents to me. To this day my holidays and family birthday dinners are spent with their children and grandchildren. I am a very lucky girl.
Today, located in Brockton, MA, T.F.Kinnealey’s serves some of the finest restaurants from Northern Connecticut to Maine and out to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Some of my very favorites spots in my South End neighborhood are Kinnealey customers. Cousins now run and work at the company (even more during vacations and breaks from college). I am not one of them, so when my cousin Joe suggested I “get bloody” for this blog, I jumped at the chance to get a first-hand look at what generations of my family have done. Besides, I suspected that I would look ravishing in a hairnet!
I arrived early one morning, although not as early as Joe who is up and at work well before the sun comes up. I had not been to the Brockton plant before, which they moved into in 2008 (although I remember my uncle Joe letting me play in the meat lockers on visits to the old plant on Mass Ave.), so cousin Joe gave me a tour and briefed me on the safety and health procedures before I got started. While keeping my coat on (it was chilly in there), I was outfitted in a white jacket, apron, gloves, plastic sleeves, and yes…that hair net I so badly wanted.
Katie Kinnealey, my mentor for the day
I joined my cousin Katie on the floor and was immediately grateful that I would be learning from someone I knew — and someone who couldn’t get that mad at me if I was really bad at this. Katie and I were working on vacuum packing meat that was headed out the door and would likely be on someone’s dinner plate that night or the next. This took some serious attention to detail in terms of setting all the meat in the machine correctly, and I also had to arrange that meat quickly as to not back up all the orders that were in line. Plus, while the machine was doing it’s thing (sealing) I was packing up more orders. Katie was so patient with me. And I must admit, I felt a little bit like I got stuck in that chocolate factory episode of “I Love Lucy.” Please note, I did not eat any raw meat, nor did I stuff it down my shirt like Lucy did.
I also spent some time loading pieces of meat into a tenderizer, which uses tons of needles to tenderize meat all at once. After several minutes of layering the meat on a belt that took it into the machine, a kind cohort came gave me a very important tip: I didn’t have to be so careful. These truly are words (for me) to live by. I guess I had been taking a lot of time situating the meat on the belt just so to allow for equal surface area per piece. Who me? Imagine that. After receiving that sage advice, I picked-up the pace and put the meat on the belt in a slightly less precious way.
Katie packing before we vacuum pack
Halfway though my day I realized that I was in the middle of my first day of real physical work. Ever. There was that one summer at The Top of the Hill Farmers Market, but carrying watermelons (and making a lot of “Dirty Dancing” jokes) does not a hard day of work make. All my jobs have been pretty cerebral, demanding mental push-ups, not physical ones. This was an interesting perspective to gain at this (relatively late) point in my life. It seems that a “hard day’s work” is often judged differently depending on where you’re coming from. My day working at Kinnealey’s was one of the most exhausting days I have ever had; demanding not only physical stamina, but also mental. The proof was in the pudding: the next day I was sore all over especially my back and arms.
Joe had wanted me to try all the aspects of the process, but I stayed with Katie the entire day because a piece of equipment was not working well, so I was actually useful. This made me feel amazing. Instead of being the weak link (well, let’s be honest, under any circumstances I was bound to be the weak link), I was a help. I was also working with a certain zeal because I was genuinely happy and excited to be there. Towards the end of the day, Wayne, the production manager, said he liked my work ethic. I took this as an extreme compliment seeing that I was doing something I had never done before and was taking a great deal of pride in it. He then asked me if I would be with them all week. I said that, sadly, I had to go back to my normal job the next day, but I told him I would come back. And I will, Theo still has to teach me how to cut!
After being elbow-deep in meat all day you would think I would want anything but steak for dinner, but as I drove back to Boston, that was exactly what I was craving. I stopped at the East Milton Market and picked up the makings for a perfect dinner: a Kinnealey steak.
Many thanks to my cousins Joe and John Kinnealey for letting me “get bloody,” with all the wonderful people at Kinnealey’s. Thanks also go out to Katie Kinnealey who showed me the ropes during my day in the meat locker. It’s likely that many of your favorite Boston-area restaurants serve Kinnealey Meats, but you can also visit their retail locations and cook up your own feast at home. I was not compensated in any way for this post.
Today I ran the Amica Half Marathon in Newport, Rhode Island with three very dear friends. I don’t consider this one of my adventures, and had not planned to write about it. I have run this exact race before as well as many other half marathons, and I have even run the whole kit and caboodle of 26.2 miles once before. No, this was not a stretch for me, but there were several aspects of how I prepared for, and ran this race that may be proof of me mellowing from my former Type A self…or maybe I am just getting old. You be the judge:
I have always been a pretty competitive person. I’m not so much trying to keep up with the Joneses, as I am keeping up with Emily. I set very lofty goals for myself, work hard to reach them, and am painfully disappointed if I do not. I have a very high-tech running watch that allows me to track my pace, distance, heart rate…it could probably tell me my horoscope, but I don’t know what all the buttons do. But I didn’t wear it for this race. I told myself that I was running for the fun of it, and it seems that I just about convinced myself that it was true.
Secondly, I have a lucky race headband. Here it is:
I bought it the day before I ran the Philadelphia Marathon in 2008, and I have had it with me for every race since. It is supposed to be a joke. But it’s also a little serious…at least to me. I have never, nor will I ever, win a race or even win my age group. I know this. But I want to run fast and improve upon my personal best in every race.
I put my lucky headband on early this morning. I heard the wind howling outside, so I thought the headband would not only help me run like the wind, but would also keep my ears warm. But when I walked out of the door and realized that the wind betrayed a rather mild morning, I left it at my friend’s house without a second thought. This was supposed to be fun after all.
I never run with anyone. Running has always been my time to get lost in my thoughts, toss around ideas and get fresh perspective. Amazingly enough, during what I consider the important parts of this race — the start and the finish — I ran with my friend Libby. Not only was it great to have someone to chitchat with, but when Libby and I re-connected around mile 12, I needed her! I had been keeping what I thought (remember, no fancy smancy watch) was a good pace most of the race, but at mile 12 I really started to slow down, I could feel it. When Libby appeared beside me with a big smile and wave, I thought THANK GOODNESS!
I picked up my pace to match hers and we crossed the finish line strong…and side-by-side. Imagine that!
Me and my friends, Dana, Libby and Laura after the race
I know what you’re thinking…I did all this maturing and mellowing…going out there not to win, but to have a good run…but how was my time? If this was a movie I would have not only beat my personal best, but maybe Libby and I would have beat the Kenyans to boot. But this isn’t a movie, and I don’t actually know how long it took me to run 13.1 miles. See, the official times have not yet been posted on the race’s website. If this was any other race, I may have already placed a call complaining about the delay and demanding my time. But instead, I am emailing with my friends about how we should do it all again next year. This display of patience is quite unlike me…or maybe it is. Maybe this is the new, ever-evolving me.
After saying all that, please indulge me: Come one Amica! Where are those results? Tick, tock…
As you all know I was in NYC this past weekend to attend a fashion show (more on that in the coming days), and it turned into a very auspicious weekend trip! As regular readers of this blog know, sometimes my adventures take me on the road (New York, Minnesota, and Chicago, that post coming soon, to name a few). Being a self-financed blogger, I’m always looking for ways to cut travel costs.
This past weekend while in New York, a producer for NBC Nightly News asked me to offer my observations on trying to find deals on hotels. Of course, I was happy to oblige! Click here or on the image below to watch the resulting story.
Having spent a large part of my career in TV, the interview felt like going home. Much like New York itself, the news industry is a wonderful place to visit, but I am really enjoying this new life adventure of mine. Thanks to all of you for coming along with me, and enjoy the show!
I am taking a brief break from my escapades to remember a legend who we lost two weeks ago. In her obituary in the New York Times, Judith Crist was described as one of “America’s most widely read film critics for more than three decades.” She tormented film makers (one of whom famously referred to her as “Judas Crist”) and broke barriers for female journalists, but she was also a passionate and hard-driving teacher of generations of journalists. Generations with an “s,” I am not sure if anyone else can claim that title.
Photo by Thomas Victor
Crist graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 1945 and went on to write movie reviews for the New York Herald Tribune, New York Magazine, Gourmet, Ladies’ Home Journal and was the “Today” show’s first regular movie critic. In addition to her own writing, she returned to the J School to teach young journalists to write clearly and with purpose and conviction.
When I arrived at Columbia, I had worked exclusively in TV and Radio. I was not a print writer, or at least I didn’t think I was. Second semester we could choose from a host of electives, including a criticism class taught by Crist. Students had to submit a writing sample in order to gain entry into the class. Crist reviewed all the pieces and hand-pick her class from them. This is classic Judith Crist; just like her reviews of the classic movies of the last century, she didn’t have much patience for those who she deemed were wasting her time.
I submitted a story that I wrote about the rise of Muslim converts in New York City post 9/11 (I cannot explain how, but that piece found its way to this Muslim message board). I had gone “undercover” for this story, attending conversion classes at a local mosque with a pastel pashmina covering my head. I was very proud of this story, but I thought it wouldn’t compare to the work of those students who were focused on a career in print (as opposed to broadcast). I doubted Crist would even get through the first paragraph of my submission. I was quite literally amazed, when I was informed that I had made it. Judith Crist wanted me to be in her class.
Her goal was to turn us into critics and columnists who make strong, intelligent arguments free of stylistic and grammatical errors. Just like her reviews, her comments on our work could be scathing and acerbic (an adjective that appeared in every obit I read on her). Our pieces were usually covered in her elegant script – in bright red ink. Typos, vague phrasing, weak arguments and simple stupidity were not accepted in her class – which actually took place in her living room on the Upper West Side (she was not as ambulatory as she once was). She pulled no punches in her criticism, which sometimes led to tears, battles over her lack of cultural sensitivity or understanding of modern (circa 2005) trends. As hard as she could be, if you made an intelligent argument about your literary choices or offered a valid explanation for taking a certain approach she was the first person to acknowledge that she may have been wrong.
Photo by Gabe Palacio/ImageDirect
You wanted to please Judith Crist. I worked harder, edited more and spend more time on my assignments for her class than any other class during J School. Once, and it only happened once, I had a completely error free piece. She waved the black and white pages in the air; it seemed she thought it was as big a deal as I did…or at least that’s what I want to believe.
Judith Crist helped me find my literary voice. That voice, and my confidence in it, was one of the reasons I was able to take the leap to start this blog. I have to thank her — not only for breaking the gender barriers that allowed me to be the female journalist I was — but also for her tough love as a teacher, that enables me to be the writer I am today.
I apologize for last week’s absence, but I was on vacation. I decided I was not going to push myself into squeezing an adventure into my R&R time. But as this past week proves, I am more open to serendipitous “adventures” since launching this blog. This fact has to be the single biggest and most unexpected benefit of this endeavour.
One of the motives to start this blog was that it would force me (through self-imposed weekly deadlines) to try new things, to live in the moment and find activities that I am passionate about. On a weekly basis this takes a lot of time, work and planning. And so I decide to take a week off from everything – work, the internet (harder than I thought it would be), and this blog.
The first half of my 10 days away were spent in what I know consider one of the most tranquil, lovely spots I have had the pleasure of visiting: Lake Vermillion. Located approximately 225 miles north of Minneapolis, it is known as “the lake of the red sunset,” which really is the perfect way to describe the lake which stretches 40 miles across Cook, Minnesota.
A beautiful sunset over Lake Vermillion
Not surprisingly, fishing is a popular activity there, and the gentlemen in our party had gone out early one morning before breakfast and caught dinner while the ladies slept. Very civilized. While gobbling up their catch we discussed fishing again, potentially after dinner. Objectively speaking, if someone asked me to choose between sipping wine on a dock with good friends and watching the sun set, or going out on a boat and maybe – or maybe not – catching some fish, I would guess that I would choose the former. But that night I chose to fish!
Full disclosure: I have fished before, but not seriously, and not for a very long time. I have a vague memory of reeling in a few very tiny fish from a local stream as a child. There was also my one and only outing with the Colby Fly Fishing Club freshman year when I nearly “caught” one of my fishing companions. But for all practical purposes I am not a fisherperson.
Additional disclosure: I had a lot of support on this fishing trip. Our wonderful guide John knew all the best spots on the lake, had high-tech equipment to spot fish under the water and even baited the line for me, so this was more like Fishing for Dummies, than Deadliest Catch…but it was fishing nonetheless.
We set out after dinner, with a rod and roadie in hand, and we waited…and waited…and waited. We did not get as much as a nibble. We did, however, get a front-row seat to an amazing sunset. Undeterred, we agreed to get up at 6:30 the next morning to try again (and by “agreed” I mean we looked at each other, shrugged, and mumbled “why not”).
That next morning it struck me that you have to really like your fishing partners. When you are up way too early, and the coffee (or diet coke in my case) has not kicked in yet, you have to be comfortable with the silence of the lake, and the people around you. Again, we waited…and waited. We did get some nibbles; the walleye (the indigenous fish) seemed to like the worms and leaches we used. Suddenly, John yelled that he had something, and too quickly for me to even think about protesting, he urged me to come over and reel in whatever was on the end of his line. As soon as I had his rod in my hand I knew whatever was on the other end of it was big. John had to instruct me on how to reel in a fish this large, and it happened so fast that I don’t quite remember how I did it. Little by little I pulled the fish closer and closer to us and to the surface of the water. He (or she) appeared as a shadow initially, and then we could see his shape, size and scales, and John caught him in a net.
It was a big Walleye! John measured and he was more than 26 inches long. John held him with one finger in his gills and invited me to grab him. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to stick a finger inside a fish so I took him from John with both my hands wrapped around his belly. After we took a picture, John took my fish, bent over the side of the boat, held him right under the surface of the water to revive him. Once the walleye was moving John released him and he disappeared into the water.
Me and my Walleye
Before I began this blog, I may very well have sat on that dock, or slept in. And on another day I may well have decided to go with the fishing alternative. But on these two days, while on vacation, I said yes. That is what I do now, for things in my life big and small…I say yes. That is what this blog inspires, and pushes me to do every week and now, it seems, every day.
I was recently home in Philadelphia for a long weekend filled with family, friends, birds and an impromptu 10-mile road race. On Friday night, the main event: my high school reunion. I am too vain to say which one, but it will become obvious as you read on. I attended an all-girls school that gradually morphed into a coed curriculum by the end of high school. I feel incredibly lucky that some of the girls I graduated with, and have known since we were 12 (some of them had gone to school together since kindergarten!), are still among my closest friends.
Leading up to my reunion I stumbled upon a tattered envelope containing a questionnaire that I filled out just before graduation. My mother says she remembers me filling it out, but I have absolutely no recollection. It was given to us at our last reunion five years ago and I must have tucked it away some place very safe because it survived the move from SoHo to the South End. In this questionnaire my classmates and I were asked some of our fondest memories of Springside, our favorite teachers, who our friends were at the time (my list still stands up). The final question was the doozy: THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU ANSWER. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE DOING OR WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR LIFE TO BE LIKE IN 10 YEARS?
Come on! Why did the teachers think this was a good idea? Did they want to drive us to the bar at our ten-year reunion?
I read my answer, which I will not repeat verbatim, because if you haven’t already assumed, the 18-year-old version of me got very specific about her future. My answer included living in Philadelphia (Chestnut Hill to be exact), my level of education (graduate degree), job (working in government or as a professor), I would be close with my parents (Awwww, I was such a sweet kid) and it detailed my anticipated marital and parental status (I thought I would have both a husband and a child by that point). I can understand how 18-year-old Emily would think 30 was a long way off. It was, I packed a lot of amazing and exhilarating experiences into my 20s, but did I really have to write “If I’m not married by 30???” Please note, I used not one, but three, question marks as if the world would end if I blew out 30 birthday candles without a ring on my finger. Again, I forgive my younger self for not being able to anticipate the whirlwind of a life she would have over seven glorious years in New York, or all she would accomplish.
Having said that, I had to wonder if I could somehow tell 18-year-old Emily that instead of all these things on her life list she would move to New York City hoping to become the next Katie Couric, but find her true passion behind the camera as a writer and producer, associate produce an Emmy-nominated documentary on U.S. Marines in Iraq, write for the longest-running (not to mention most loved) anchor team in the city, make amazing new friends, and keep the valuable old ones (old as in known them longer, we all still look pretty darn young if I do say so myself, see below), then leave it all by picking up and changing cities and careers – what would young Emily say? Would she be amazed or disappointed with the trajectory of her life? I can barely recognize myself in the girl who filled out that questionnaire years ago, so I may have to accept that she would not recognize herself in the woman I am today.
Me and some of my to-this-day besties circa 1991…
…and many years later, enjoying cocktails, something we never did in high school…of course
So I wasn’t married at 30, and I am still not married at 33. I may get married at 35, or heck, I could meet Mr. Right tomorrow and run off to Vegas before anyone even reads this post. I have had the most amazing journey thus far, filled with amazing friends, relationships that have taught me a great deal, an ever-supportive family, and accomplishments — large and small — that I am infinitely proud of. Most importantly, and in part through this blog, that journey gets more and more interesting every day.
With Mother’s Day just a few days away, I decided to celebrate by trying out my own mother’s passion and see if that old adage of the apple never falling too far from the tree is true. In fact, it is clear that my apple fell a substantial distance from my mother’s tree, so I knew this adventure was bound to be a very interesting experiment.
In the past I have described my mother as quirky on the pages of this blog, but I am not sure if that adequately describes my loving mother. She is a newly retired professor and occupational therapist, who dedicated a great deal of her life to helping individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. She is also an animal lover, who raised my brother and me not to be squeamish – and in fact, to love – all animals, including slimy ones such as insects, lizards, snakes and other creatures that typically make people squeal, or jump on top of chairs. The fact that we pick bugs up and release them instead of squashing them is a point of pride for her. Having said that, just this past weekend she observed, “Emily, we are very different people.” And she is correct.
Since retiring, my mom has stepped-up her volunteering at the Schuylkill Center’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic and she loves it. I will never forget how giddy she was when she got vaccinated for rabies. She was not giddy from relief after being bitten by an aggressive, rabid animal, but giddy out of excitement, because now she could work with raccoons at the rehab center. As she animatedly told me over the phone, “many wonderful animals are susceptible rabies!”
Fankie the goat and the center’s roosters
The Schuylkill Center accepts all sorts of sick, injured or orphaned animals in need including birds, possums, bunnies, squirrels, ducklings, goslings, raccoons, hawks, turtles and recently a celebrated bald eagle. A baby chihuahua with cleft palate, and an abandoned goat have recently ended up there as well. Frankie, the goat, now serves as unofficial mascot for the center. He hangs out outside with the chickens and roosters and occasionally head-butts visitors (or maybe just me).
Early one morning this past weekend when I was home in Philadelphia for a visit, she took me with her to feed injured and abandoned birds. The bird room is small, with many of the newborn birds in an incubator. Older birds who are self-feeding are in mesh, cloth cages, so after changing their cages and getting them fresh food they were good to go. But the newly hatched birds have to be hand-fed and their nests cleaned, once an hour. This is even more attention than a newborn human requires! This task sounded daunting when we arrive bright and early at 8:00 a.m. and the fact that our shift didn’t end until noon, made me thing that maybe I had made a mistake, and would have preferred to spend my morning in bed.
As we got started, my mom demonstrated and talked me through how to feed the birds (she has been trained to handle most of the animals at the center). She mixed up some green goop the color of guacamole and the consistency of french salad dressing that she said is the perfect diet for songbirds. She loaded it into a syringe-like vessel and demonstrated how to stick it down the birds’ throats when they are gaping and squeeze the songbird food in.
My mom feeding a little finch
Birds instinctively gape, and in the wild that is when their mothers feed them from their own mouths. You have to place the syringe far down their throats and bypass their air hole. This all sounded way too complicated, and rather scary. I was very worried that I would choke my new feathered friends so at first I just watched and practiced making clean nests for them out of toilet paper–part of the cleaning process. My mom fed finches, wrens, starlings and a just-hatched robin that resembled an alien or a mystery creature from a horror movie.
My mother also cut meal worms in half and fed them to the wrens using forceps. She apologized to me before she cut the worms, because she had always been very vigilant that we don’t kill living creatures, but in this case it was to feed another living creature so I guess these were special circumstances.
After the first hour of feeding it was time for me to participate. I started with the finches and was hesitant at first – concerned that I would hurt them. But just as my mom assured me, they knew what to do. The birds gaped just as they do with their mothers, and I moved the syringe very close to their mouths. Before I knew it, my little finch gobbled up the syringe and all I had to do was push the plunger – just a little at a time. Voila! I had fed my first bird!
Me feeding my new feathered friend
These rounds of feeding continued for hours, but by the time I started feeding the birds myself the time was flying by. The activity is the definition of “therapeutic,” therapeutic for the birds (obviously) but also for the humans. You can’t really stress about work, or your ever-expanding to-do list if you are concentrating so completely on placing tiny mutilated (for a good cause) meal worms in to the mouths of baby birds at various levels of development and dependency.
I have frequently laughed about my mother’s devotion to these animals, but after spending time with them (the birds and my mom) I can see why she loves them so much. As I have gotten older there have been a plethora of moments, too many to count really, when I have realized that my mother is usually right. I shouldn’t have been so skeptical about animal rehab. Maybe the apple didn’t fall that far from the tree after all…
My mom also races Dragon Boats, maybe I’ll try that next!
Many thanks to Rick Schubert, Wild Life Rehabilitator, Director of Schuylkill Center’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic and the staff and volunteers of the Schuylkill Center for letting me spend a day observing and participating in all the amazing work they do. Additional thanks to my amazing mom. She asked me not to use her name, she is not too sure about this world wide web, but she is a pretty special lady! I was not compensated in any way for this blog post.
I am going to admit one of my guilty TV pleasure. No, it’s not a cheesy tween show on the CW, although I have a few of those. I love “Who Do You Think You Are?” It’s the find-your-roots NBC series that heavily promotes its sponsor, Ancestry.com. Each week a new celebrity traces his or her roots, which usually leads them across the world to an ancient cemetery where they stand and say they feel proud of whom they are now, not so alone. It’s a little cheesy, a little predictable, always riveting.
New England Genealogy Society
I thought it would be fun to see if there are any compelling stories hidden in my family tree. Being of Irish decent with roots in Boston, I was half hoping to uncover a bootlegger or something equally retro-chic. Most important, being a genealogist seems like a pretty cool job: part research, part detective, surprises at every turn. To test this theory I headed to the New England Genealogical Society on Newbury Street to see what I could dig up.
My mother was born in Milton, Massachusetts, and her family, the Kinnealeys, have lived in the Boston area for several generations (I assumed, like most Irish, my forbearers immigrated to America around the time of the Potato Famine), but other than my great-grandparents, I don’t know much about their journey.
Marie Daily, one of the society’s researchers, helped me get started by searching for records of my great-grandparents in the census from the late 19th century. This process is a lot less exciting than the TV show would lead you to believe. For every family find, there were several searches that turned up a Kinnealey spelled a different way, or located in another part of the country or world, or a plain old dead-end. But when I did find something, it felt as if I had won the lottery.
City of Boston marriage record for Bridget and William Kinnealey
With Marie’s patient assistance, I found my great-grandparents and the names of their respective parents, including my great-great grandparents, Bridget and William Kinnealey. I found their marriage record (right), hand written in beautiful script. I have to admit, just like those celebrities on “Who Do You Think You Are?” I got goose bumps as I uncovered little nuggets of information about my relatives. I learned that when Bridget and William emigrated from Ireland (separately, around 1865), neither could read nor write. This was not uncommon at that time, but to see that fact written out on old documents was eerie. I started thinking about how hard it must have been to navigate the world without those basic skills. I also thought how lucky I am that I grew up in the circumstances that I did.
I found another document that listed my great-grandfather William’s place of work as the Boston Custom House, which is right next to my office. When we have a fire drill at work, we line up on the steps of the Custom House.
My great-grandparents,William and Alice, with three of their six children, from left to right, Joe, Tom and Arthur, my grandfather*
After several more hours of playing detective, I walked out of the Genealogical Society and took a stroll over to the Custom House, then over to Quincy Market, where my grandfather and my great uncles, respectively, started their businesses over 70 years ago. Incrementally, generation after generation my family has marched up the economic scale, with a constant emphasis on the family.
For us, the family is not just a mother, father, sisters and brothers, but rather a large network of cousins, nieces, nephews and aunts and uncles who are like second sets of parents. We all gathered together this past weekend for Easter, which coupled with our annual family football game on Thanksgiving Day are traditions that go back decades (over 70 years for the football game by my aunt’s count).
While I am relatively new to Boston in many ways, I’m now able to see the history, my history, surrounding me on nearly every street I walk down, and every building I pass. I know I am not unique in this regard, but sometimes we need a reminder to put it all in perspective: our singular experience in the grand scheme of our history. My day as a genealogist certainly gave me this perspective. We are all an amalgamation of those who came before us. Now, much like those silly celebrities I made fun of, my heart is full, I feel tremendously blessed and I don’t feel so alone.
My grandparents on the Cape, circa 1938
My grandfather holding my mother and aunt
* Correction: in an earlier version of this post I stated that Alice and William Kinnealey had five children, in fact they had six. Thanks Mom, my diligent copy editor.
I found a host of wonderful and heartbreaking tidbits about my family, far too many to include here. Anyone can use the resources at The New England Genealogical Society for $15. If you like doing research and have roots in New England I highly recommend you consider a visit. I was not compensated in any way for this post.
The purpose of this blog has evolved over the last year. When I started, it was really just for me; a catalyst to try new things and an excuse to continue writing. I never thought a large number of people would read it, hence I chose a very obscure url. If I am being completely honest, and why lie on one’s own blog which is a prime location for self-indulgent introspection, I never thought my readership would exceed two…my mom and dad. But now they both text so they have another avenue to keep tabs on me.
For the most part I do still chronicle my adventures for myself. This journey teaches me more about my personality, my composure, my capacity and my limits each week. But the most pleasant surprise of this past year has been the reactions and responses of my readers. I believe I know most of you personally, but many I don’t, which is amazing. The encouragement I have received has been astounding and it is my greatest pleasure that this blog affords me the opportunity to make so many of you laugh. It is for this reason that I picked this new home for my blog. Hopefully this will allow more of you to find me more easily.
Although my web address has changed, the spirit of the blog has not. I will continue to try new things, put myself in varying — and sometimes precarious — situations to test myself in an effort to figure out what I love in life. I hope you will follow me to my new home, and continue to follow my journey as I search for my next passion.
The Great Wide Open 