Crunchy Thoughts

Last night the three of us were sitting at the dinner table together. This is actually a rare event since Lydia insists on eating right when we walk in the door after work and school, but this time she was content to sit with Steven and me while we ate our food.

Lydia amused herself by swirling around a water droplet on the table with the spout of her sippy cup while Steven and I talked about the day.

“Lydia’s the oldest one in her room now,” I told Steven, “They tell me that she is running the class and is telling all the other kids what to do.” He laughed.

I looked over at Lydia. “Lydia, are you the boss in your class?”

She didn’t look up from her water droplet, but replied, “Uh huh.”

“Are you going to be the boss of Samuel when he gets here?”

“Uh huh,” she said, still smearing the water.

“Are you the boss of Mommy and Daddy?”

“Uh huh,” she chirped, still messing with her water.

“Do we let you do too much?”

She finally looked up for a moment and replied, “Nnnnnooooooooooo.”

Later she ate a bunch of steamed broccoli without any seasoning whatsoever on it. This one never ceases to amaze.

I started thinking about it last year.

As the calendar rolled around to 2010, I started anticipating it.

As news stories started popping up, trying to make something political of it, I started getting excited. It was almost time.

And last week, it finally came . . . my very own questionnaire for the 2010 Census. Yessssssss. After ten long years of waiting.

“You’re the only person I know who can get so excited over a census,” Steven said as I danced around with my envelope.

Why so excited over a mandatory count? I really couldn’t care too much about how many representatives we get in Congress (Alabama’s hasn’t changed in years anyway) or how many funds get allocated to Chelsea. For me, it’s all about the genealogy.

Thanks to the power of the intertubes, I’ve been able to see a lot of the census records of my ancestors, and it has been fascinating — not only for the information on the records themselves, but seeing the awesome proof that they truly walked the earth, farming and preaching and raising families.

The earliest census record I have is that of Edward and Elsey Snellgrove, my sixth-great grandparents. They show up on the 1800 Census. Edward died two years later. Coincidentally, they are also Bill Clinton’s fifth-great grandparents.

The latest census records to be released are from the year 1930. I have the copies showing all four of my grandparents. My mother’s father was 14; two years later the tornado was to come through Columbiana and take his house with it (today’s the anniversary of that, by the bye). My mother’s mother was 9 and in Calera. My dad’s father was 9; he would turn 10 a few months later. My dad’s mom is 10; maybe a year or two after this picture was taken:

Census records aren’t released until 72 years after the year of he census, so the first census I will show up in, 1990, won’t be forthcoming until 2072 — I’ll be 92 if I’m still around. I missed the 1980 census by 32 days.

In part I find my own fulfillment of the census information so interesting because I hope my own grandkids and great-grandkids, perhaps even sixth-great grandkids, will one day pull up the information and think, “Wow, Granny Carrie was only 29 and Grandpa Sam wasn’t even born yet! She had to have known he was coming, though.”

Ohh yeah, I know he’s coming. He likes to kick and remind me about every five seconds or so.