June 29 2001

Well, once again the garage is empty. I don't think the birds had 100% success, but they didn't do too badly either in the context of the big picture. There is a new generation of at least three new blackbirds and at least two new robins and they now constitute the sharp end of their particular family lines. If the parents were to die without producing offsprings then that is the end of a family line or a branch of a family line. It is interesting to ponder, How many reproductions have taken place in your family line in order to ensure your delivery at this point in time. The question put another way is, How many generations have preceeded you. If you take a generation to be 25 years for the sake of arguement, then 80 generations will bring you back only as far as the time of Christ. So your 80th forefather was alive at that time. I wonder where. If you are of Norman extraction then he certainly wasn't in Ireland because another 40 generations would come and go before they got here. He might have been somewhere in Europe trying to keep himself as far away from the Romans as he possibly could. Unless, that is, he was a Roman himself. Many of those 80 will have had to suffer war, famine and pestilance of all sorts in order to survive long enough to produce their next generation. I wonder what did they have to do to survive. And so on down to you and me. I wonder what the goal is....or is there one....