Have y'all read Heart of a Wife: Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman ?

It was quite interesting. First part of the 20th century in Georgia.

Have y'all read Heart of a Wife: Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman ?

No, but I'll add it to my list!

Have y'all read Heart of a Wife: Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman ?

Ditto. For me, that was always one of the most endearing things about Driving Miss Daisy-- that relationship between the poor, black chauffeur and the wealthy, old Atlanta Jewish lady-- polar opposites, but both outcasts in the south of that era.

Eep. This is a little stronger language than you usually see out of the National Weather Service:

-- People sheltering at ground level at Galveston Bay when Hurricane Ike hits face "certain death," the weather service warns.

But I have a cut on my lip that is still swollen and I'd like to think it's going to go away soon.

My unstitched but deepish cuts stayed swollen a couple weeks. Looks like this one which went right through the lip might be at least symmetrical in 10 days, if still big. It's so hard to say. I'm in that phase where I really hate TV injury makeup and injuries in narrative because they're so damned trivial and never swell.

Unfair.

I don't think I ever want to see the National Weather Service say "certain death." Even if they're not lying.

I'm still having the world's worst headache, in case you're keeping track. But it's only been since morning, so no ER for me.

Well, that isn't mincing...

Insiders who are also by some way outsiders have always fascinated me, probably because it is a feeling I'm familiar with. Whether by birth or psychological quirk (both,) I've felt it keenly. I was not part of the dominant culture I grew up in, but that culture was one that helped define me, even as I am not it. And I was a nerd in an even smaller circle that wasn't defined by that culture (well, not totally.) Yet another set of circles. And now? Well, the workplace finds me with similar weirdos as I sink into yet another living culture where I'm not like and never will be, but welcome me still. I'm their weirdo, I guess. I don't know that I'll ever be common in wherever I call home, for one reason or the other. Yet, on the surface, I'm ridiculously common. I've just never felt so. But you know what? It doesn't matter. I like 'em all, and I'm glad to be where I am. Everywhere. It's still a curiosity.

There was an interesting program around 1910 to try to move Jews out of the east coast cities. Some of it was incentives for Jews to move from the east coast to small towns in the midwest. Another big part of it was incentives for ship companies to change their routes so that they'd be bringing Eastern European (mostly Jewish) immigrants to Galveston rather than Ellis Island. [link] My great-grandfather was on one of those ships, and after landing in Galveston, he stayed there just long enough to earn enough money to get on a train to New York.

(There seems to be a history of "we don't like the Jews over here -- let's put them over there!" programs. One of my grandfather's cousin's was trying to get to the US from Vienna during WWII, and he stopped in England for a time, and was then classified as an "enemy" and deported to Australia. [link]

Wow, Hil -- I'd heard of that story, but didn't know you had a connection to it. Did he stay in Oz after they finally got residency?

I *hate* tv injuries. They are just vaguely sexy usually and in no way gory, swollen, oozing or ... real. This is not how my body deals with injury. I want tv injuries if I have to have ouchies.

My unstitched but deepish cuts stayed swollen a couple weeks.

Yeah, I am just over two now. It's got some more time before it's done with swelling. I will deal if it ::crosses fingers:: means less scarring. I mean, I will deal with it either way, since I have no choice. But I hope for minimal scarring.

the weather service warns.

No vagueness in that disclaimer.

Wow, Hil -- I'd heard of that story, but didn't know you had a connection to it. Did he stay in Oz after they finally got residency?

Nope. He served in the Australian army during the war, but then came to the US after the war was over, since his parents and little sister were here.

I'm not actually entirely sure how he's related. I think that his mother and my grandfather's mother were first cousins, but I'm not sure of that -- I can't find records that say for sure, and no one I've asked can remember anything beyond that he and my grandfather were cousins. He and my grandfather were about the same age and both grew up in Vienna, and they wrote a lot of letters and sent photos and stuff to each other when he was in Australia and my grandfather was in NYC, but then they seem to have lost touch after they were both living in the same city again.