Hey, hey you're a monkey! Apparently a participant at my last Family History lecture walked away believing that was my message. I was so stunned when I heard through informal feedback that I had offended some one's religious beliefs that my first reaction was to blurt out, "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!"
Joe and Fannie Goblinger
(my great-grandparents) and children
St. Louis, Missouri 1903
After all, this is my motivational presentation---the one where I spend nearly an hour unabashedly and exuberantly extolling the virtues of finding and preserving one's family story. As for locating ancestors, I always point my students in the direction of an LDS Family History Center, not National Geographic! So I scratched my head and went back over my slides to try and figure out where things had gone bananas.
Then I found the culprit: this drawing of Rodney Micklethwaite's pedigree chart. I show this at the beginning of the presentation when I pose the question, "Why all the fuss about genealogy?" I think that evening I made a comment to the effect that some may say, why bother tracing your roots; everyone knows we are descended from apes! I guess I have to face the reality that not all my students find me as funny as a barrel of monkeys.
Humor is reason gone mad---Groucho Marx
So now I'm asking your advice, Gentle Reader. Should I keep the monkey business out of the genealogy business?
5 comments:
Hmm.. I like the monkeys!
No, just don't do the presentation for stupid people.
Well, Anne Osborn Poelman, M.D., had the impression after her first Temple Square tour that Mormons worshipped seagulls. [She wasn't an M.D. at the time.] So I guess you can't help how your presentation "evolves" in people's minds. I don't think you should narrow the Scope(s) of your presentation.
I AM SO HAPPY THAT YOU STARTED A BLOG...
Beverly, feel free to write comments anytime. I love your PUNmanship!
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