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Show Common Ground ... Am BrumieyReally inposodfff.-Ue Think lie's Putting Us On m m mm 0 c c mnral in Hpment and Home &c. n t rti.cpress t'.'Yi Just who is Thomas Brumley? Let me help you: Transport yourself, if you will, to the Imperial Imper-ial Court of 18th Century France, (Feel free to use whatever method of transport best suits you) for it is here, amidst lace and velvet, brazed venison and fine li-queurs, li-queurs, brave chevaliers and elegant women that my early seed was sown. My most prominent for-bearer for-bearer on my mother's side was the best friend of the Count of Monte Cristo, and but for a minor disagreement over fencing tactics be- ' tween himself and Dar-tagran, Dar-tagran, might well have been the fourth Musketeer. Muske-teer. There was, however, how-ever, a certain rivalry between Jacques and the elegant Count, a falling out, as so often happened happen-ed in those days among friends, over a woman. She was not the Countess of Bordeaux, as is often, but erroneously recorded. record-ed. (Swenson, in his Doctoral Doc-toral thesis at Princeton, Prince-ton, in 1931, is, I believe, the primary source of this error, but this might in fact have originated origi-nated with Thompson, during a series of lectures lec-tures presented at The Sorbonne in 1923) This dispute between fine and fast friends occured over a plain and lowly chambermaid. cham-bermaid. It must be said in her favor however, that the young lady in question was in charge of four other chambermaids chamber-maids at the time, and was in fact solely responsible re-sponsible for the entire third floor and mezzanine mezza-nine of The Versaille Palace. Not a mean responsibility, re-sponsibility, and perhaps it was these qualities of responsibility, andofor-ganization andofor-ganization and leadership, leader-ship, that led both The Counte, and Jacques, my mother's ancestor, to fall in love with her. Who knows? History does not say, and Academics rarely record such things. (Aldrich and Go-ering, Go-ering, in their fine, if not definitive encyclope-ida encyclope-ida of this most interesting inter-esting woman, spend no less than three chapters on janitorial equipment and supplies pertinent to the 18th century, but devote de-vote only one paragraph to the qualities of mind that might have made such a lady appealing to no less than two crucial figures in Freeh history. Aldrich, who wrote the account describes Bridgette Bridg-ette as a sparkling young woman who commanded the respect of the entire janitorial staff of the Palace, and says no more. This is, perhaps, some vague reference to the origins of Gallic Women's Wo-men's Liberation, but I am not certain.) Suffice to say, after a long and arduous struggle for the hand of his beloved Brid-gette, Brid-gette, Jacques reined triumphant, but was forced for-ced to leave France and settle in America with his new bride. (But Justice Jus-tice was served. After thirty years ofignominy, the Evil Count was imprisoned, im-prisoned, but as so often happens, history, fickle mistress that she is, has turned the Count into a hero, while the innocent and Brave Jacques and Bridgette are less than footnotes.) Once in America, Bridgette and Jacques settled down to a quiet life near . what is 4)ow Newark, New Jersey. Jacques wanted most of all to open the first department de-partment store in The New World, but Bridgette would not hear of it. She accused Jacques of thinking too big, of a grandiosity beyond his station, but in fact, Jacques Jac-ques was ahead of his time. Five years later, Jedidiah Macy did in fact open such an establishment, estab-lishment, at his friend Jacques' urging, and in gratitude, allowed Jacques Jac-ques and Bridgette to stage the Thanksgiving Day parade until they were too old to do so. But I jump ahead of myself. my-self. Not recognized as a man ahead of his time by even his own wife, let alone the banks or the credit unions, Jacques Jac-ques agreed instead to a Tastee Freeze Franchise, Fran-chise, and for the first two years things went well. The Indians liked Tastee Freeze, and most of the early settlers had a sweet tooth. Their children would drop by after School, mingle with the Mohawks and the Passaics, trade trinkets for real estate, and learn a little about one another's anoth-er's way of life. This is where the trouble began. be-gan. Some little settler kid, probably a Dutchman, Dutch-man, tried to get away with highway robbery. He offered the son of a Seneca Chief six hotfuge sundaes and a pound of peanut M & M's forCon-necticutt. forCon-necticutt. One thing led to another, the parents became involved, and right there, at the sight of the first Tastee Freeze Franchise in The New World, there began the French and Indian wars. Over nothing, really. rea-lly. But this is how things happen historically, and it is not my purpose here lu paoo iiiwi j-o on history. Bridgette and Jacques were forced forc-ed to leave Newark, and after several years of profitless wandering, fell in with Jedediah, for whom they worked until they both retired, gracefully, grace-fully, at eighty one. (Communication being what it was in those days just before cables and wires, poor Jacques never ne-ver learned of the imprisonment im-prisonment of his former form-er friend,' the Count, nor of his own vindication in France. It is doubtful whether he and Bridgette might have returned to their homeland should they have found out, but this is simply speculation specula-tion on my part.) Jacques and Bridgette had fourteen children. The third daughter from the youngest was born at Cape May, New Jersey, during a fishing trip, and when she was 16, she ran away with a sailor whose father was in the tea trade with China, a man who owned his own Clipper. GiGi and Morton married and lived aboard Captain Morton's Clipper Clip-per for sixteen years. (This was the custom of the day. Melville mentions men-tions it in Moby Dick, on page 196, para. 4 of the 1914 edition. Ishmael says, 'Cap'n Ahab left his wife and kids at home.) The adventures of GiGi Gi-Gi and Morton would themselves provide sufficient suf-ficient material for a generation of Doctoral Scholars, (It was Morton who first thought of painting an American boat white, prior to which time they were all blue) but space being what it is, I must tell you that it was the tourth ot tneir six sons (Very few Clipper Clip-per captains had daughters. daugh-ters. This is itself the subject of intense medical medi-cal research in Luxembourg Luxem-bourg at present) who married my great grandmother in Tahiti. What a woman she must have been in her day. A supple island beauty, captivated by the charm of the young clipper sailor sai-lor ashore on leave. Her father, an important island is-land Chieftan, offered Ned a coconut plantation as dowry for his daughter, daugh-ter, and for the first twenty three years of their marriage, Ned and Nya the Nusilent lived in tropical bliss. But alas and alack at the age of fifty four, Ned came to miss snow desperately, desperate-ly, and not being able to ' convince Nya of the worthiness wor-thiness of the experience, experi-ence, left by himself for his ancestral home, Newark, Ne-wark, New Jersey, sailing sail-ing there on an English mailship. After living alone and working for five years in the Post Office (his family, the Morton's, had long since disowned him for his vagaries) va-garies) Ned adopted the infant son of penniless Canadian immigrants. He was very lonely, and very kind. These Canadians Cana-dians had more children than they could feed, and one day when they came to the Post Office for the mail, Ned offered to adopt the newest addition" addi-tion" and raise him as his own. It was agreed. When the boy was twenty, Ned died, and the boy, Thomas, my Grandfather, Grandfath-er, returned to Canada to look for his real parents, par-ents, who had left America Am-erica when conditons improved im-proved in Canada. His search took him to Moose Jaw, in Saskatchewan, where he found work as a carpenter, located a sister who cooked in the hotel, and was there introduced in-troduced to the woman who was to become my Grandmother, an American Amer-ican Anthropologist who was studying the quaint customs of the Western Canadians. Unsuccessful Unsuccess-ful in his search for his I parents, his sister herself her-self had been given away ', to a family of Ukranians, and disliking the Moose ' Jaw winters, Grandfath- er Thomas (he called ' himself Morton, not ever 1 knowing his real name) n and Grandmother Martha moved back to Boston, where Grandma taught Freshman Anthropology and Home Ec. It was in Boston that my mother was born and there, as a girl, that she met my father, Jack Brumley, who was at the time, a famous Depression Era FBI agent. It was love at first sight, and full circle as well, for I need not tell you they met and feu in love at the Tastee Freeze on Commonwealth Common-wealth Avenue. I would tell you the history of my father's side of the family, but itisnotnear-ly itisnotnear-ly as exciting, nor has it been as well documented document-ed in the literature. As for myself, I decided de-cided that I wanted to become a writer when I was three years old, but my father, stern moralist moral-ist that he is, decided that I should first finish my studies, perhaps gain a graduate degree so as to continue the Academic tradition begun by Grandmother, whom he respected, but whom he was forced to follow for thirteen years, believing her a part of the International Inter-national Communist Con spiracy, egghead that she was. He was only following follow-ing orders, and my mother mo-ther never complained, although it must be noted that my grandmother eluded him on many occasions, oc-casions, almost leading to his dismissal in 1940. This put my Grandmother Grandmo-ther in quite a moral bind. She was not a Communist, Com-munist, she did not wish to be followed, but if she kept eluding my Father, he might lose his job, thereby impoverishing her daughter. Finally, she compromised. She only eluded him on weekends, week-ends, when by tacit agreement, he would stay home with my mother But I disgress. I agr V5' to follow my father'saj p& vice, stay in school' W ish Kindergarten, Wori :! tb my' way through, an; j0 finding the whole thin, V1 not a little bit of fun g0j ( carried away and re! - toil mained for not one but was several graduate de. : V grees, none of which have helped me to earn a liV- ner ing in the least. At a ;JIal fairly young age, I Was faced with a dilemna ol ''i(in enormous proportions, l Lo found myself unable to earn a living, despite my w training. My bibliogra'. 'rii phy did me no good. The m university was unable to hi find a place for a mar, with my obscure talents, "rf (an unusual set of cir- cumstances) and the FBI would not hire the son ol "'r an agent in the field. Government work was JrJi out. I returned to my 1 !' original goal, writing. -, But it is very difficult 'Sj to earn a living as j writer. To support my. ?" self, I returned to our !., family tradition of jani-torial jani-torial work, begun and ended oh so long ago, ' in France. I was working at the Hilton in Denver . when I met a very kind customer who said he owned a newspaper in the :P midst of a fine desert, and that if I wished to & continue my line of work, I could do so in a place 231 named Moab, Utah. I though he meant writing, but of course he did not, Now, in exchange for cut- ;1 ting the firewood, sweep- s!i ing the chimneys, mend-ing mend-ing the carpets, andpo- " lishing the Chandeliers at the palatial Taylor Es- -1 tate, I am given room and board, and a byline m if there's time. , |