Yesterday Amy and I had our annual Thanksgiving feast with Rat Ryan and his girlfriend and 5 monkeys, which was very good as usual. We invited a guy I work with and had our fill of stimulating conversation and wine until the evening just faded into a healthy satisfaction with life. We try to include someone new each year, generally someone we just met or has no family in the area, and integrate them into the family holiday experience.

I called my older brother, who I just located again last week, in the morning, to let him know how excited I was to realize that he lived less than 2 hours away. Soon we will be meeting for the first time!

I think I may have mentioned my search before, but here's the essense. My father loved women. Basically Paul was a dog, big time. He knocked up his girlfiend and they got married and moved to L.A. Ely was his firstborn and my older brother. Married life didn't appeal to Paul, so he left his wife but continued to live in L.A. I'm not sure if my mother came into the picture before or after he left the wife, but Mom was enthralled with him, and in his old letters, I read his declarations of love for her. Reading the letters now, they seem rather unsophisticated, like high school students might write. (meaning with about the same amount of sincerity! He was still in his twenties and mom barely out of her teens) Paul decided to go to Salt Lake City to find new work and probably escape paying his child support and mom followed. She got pregnant, and faced with his inability and lack of desire to get married, she went back home to Washington and then traveled to San Francisco to live with her sister, where I was born.

Paul went back to Iowa to his family. One of his friends introduced Paul to his sister. Shortly thereafter she got pregnant, and Paul, his divorce final, married her. My brother Ron was born, then in another year myother brother Rich came along. Once again tired of married life Paul fled to San Francisco where he tried to take back up with my mother. Failing that, He went back to L.A., possibly hooked up with a hispanic woman and had 2 girls.

That is unknown at this point, but it's my next challenge to solve.

Not long thereafter, Paul was killed in a motorcycle accident. The whole grim saga took place between 1948, his first marriage, and 1956, his death.

I only knew about Ely. In 1974 I flew to L.A. on a whim to see about trying to find my real Dad, Paul. I started calling all the Hxxxx's in the Phone book. On the second call, actually the first to answer, I spoke to a woman who after hearing my story said, " This is not your father's number, but my husband might be your brother!" Ely called me back, on a conference call with his mother, and that was indeed my brother. He told me about my father having died in 1956.

I couldn't go see him that day, but I left L.A. with the intent of meeting him soon. Time passed and things changed on both ends, divorces, repeated moving, and contact was lost.

In 1999 I found out I had 2 more half brothers and met them. Ron, my next brother was very interested in finding Paul also. In 2000, after years of searching I found his phone number with one of those online detective services. I called him up and we made tentitive plans to meet, but he moved and lost my number, and I moved and lost the email that I had stored his number in, neither of which was valid anyway as we both had moved to Arizona.

So it was another great day of thanks yesterday!

I also rode the motorcycle and found that it wasn't bothering my ankle. Almost 3 months to the day, I'm riding my motorcycle, walking without canes crutches or the "boot", and even venturing up and 2 flights of stairs a few times a day! I think it was 6 months after the knee surgery, and pretty close to that, after the stroke, before I rode my motorcycle again. (Even I agreed that riding a motorcycle at high speed when you are liable to lose all body motor function at any given time, was not a good idea!)

Curiouoso* wishing you and yours a happy, healthy holiday season.