Make Your Comments - I'm Ready For Anything

I may have made a big mistake in activating the comment box, but I did it anyway. First, though, I must again plead guilty to the charge of Blog Neglect. Why? Because I just had a book published and that takes an amazing amount of time spent doing things you'd rather not be doing. Then there was a short story to finish up and submit to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. As if all that were not enough, there was another story to wrap up and submit to Amazon Shorts and two websites that need daily attention. That's why I get up at 5 a.m. and why I should be found not guilty due to extenuating circumstances.
Now back to that comment box. It can be found at the bottom of this and all future blogs. It means anyone in the world can post every nasty thing that comes to mind about me, this blog, my ancestry and so on. In self defense I'll say right now, "The same to you, fella!"
This feature is the result of a phone call from John Stodghill. Yes, for the first time in my life I talked to a Stodghill other than the few members of my father's family I have known. This came about because of an earlier blog about finding a lot of other Stodghills when I checked the name on Google. Turns out that many of them are related to John and all have made great successes of their lives.
While I wrote about there being an excess of Stodghills, none of whom I had ever met or even talked to on the phone, John says it isn't so. From his boyhood days he has checked up on people bearing our name and informed me that there are only 200 families of Stodghills in the entire country. There are those out there who might say 200 is enough, of course.
So John thought I should have a comment box and said I could do it if I really tried even though I admitted to being a computer klutz. So I tried and he was right, I did it. So comment away.
John lives in North Carolina but is a native of Indiana, having grown up in the Vincennes and Bicknell area. Just in case you're not a Hoosier the latter name is pronouced Bick-NELL. We Hoosiers do things like that with the names of our towns. Brazil is BRAY-zil. Peru is PEE-rue. You may not be ready for this, but Chili is CHI (as in child)-lie as in what some of us do now and then. CHI-LIE, got that? Paoli, that's Payola as in what people get for doing things they shouldn't do and Galveston is Gal-VEST-on. Then there's Loogootee. Now why would anyone name a town something like that? As best as can be put on paper, it's pronounced Luh-go-tee. You have to say it fast before your tongue gets in a knot.
Now back to the Stodghills. John said they originally came over from Sweden and are of Viking stock. That means I'm half Irish, one-quarter German and one-quarter Swede. If that isn't an excuse for odd behavior I don't know what would be.
They settled around the Ohio River, which is where my grandfather's family lived. I think a lot of them migrated down the Ohio and then up the Wabash. That would explain why Stodghills can be found in and around Vincennes. John took a little of Indiana with him when he left for North Carolina and now his home is surrounded by trees and cornfields. I'll bet he gets a little misty-eyed when he hears "Back Home Again In Indiana." I'll admit it, I do.
Back when I was writing a daily column for one of the newspapers in Muncie there was a fellow who got sick and tired of it when I wrote about certain things over and over again. He never hesitated to let me know how he felt. If he should stumble upon this blog I can just hear him: "Enough already about the Stodghills."
Oh no, now there's a comment box for people like that!


visit my websites:
www.dickstodghill.com
www.infantrycombat-normandy.com