Lore<>

Three potential stories of family lore come to mind. None of them I'm very familiar with.

i. The first concerns my maternal grandfather and his brother. My grandpa hates looking at photographs and most other forms nostalgizing, so even if I wanted to more about this I probably won't ever get the opportunity  For instance, when I flew out from Seattle to visit him and my grandmother, as she was passing away, I remember my cousins and I sprawled out on the living room floor looking over shoeboxes and leather albums of photographs, while my grandparents looked on from their respective recliner chairs. We thought it would be nice to retrospect, and it was funny for us seeing versions of our parents in the eyes of small, curly-haired children; but my grandparents didn't find it funny—they thought it was demeaning, to laugh at old photographs, and made us put it all away.

Anyway, my grandpa is an undertaker; so was his father, so are his first two sons, and so are his oldest two grandsons. He remembers his first exposure to the business being when he and his brother—whose name I don't even remember—sneaking downstairs to the embalming room, peering through the keyhole to look at his dad and associates working on a cadaver. My grandpa eventually took over the business that was through the keyhole, and he and my great uncle worked together for some years before my grandpa's brother's heart gave out around middle age. I don't really know how he died beyond that he resigned to death, allegedly, because apparently his kids "used to beat him" and he tried not to tell anyone, because it was so shameful. My grandpa carries on the silence of this matter, as he never really even mentions his deceased brother, best friend, and old partner. I think this piece of family history might be better left buried, as well.

ii The other bit of potential novel-worthy lore I can I think--especially when reading 'Lawless'— would be of my grandmother's dad, who was estranged from my grandmother apparently and was a mean old guy and a bootlegger who escaped from a jail in a Vermont bordertown by brandishing a weapon. I'm not sure whether he got off any shots. Might be interesting to find that one out.

iii. The other piece of lore that could be interesting to write about actually wouldn't involve trafficking in any familial misery. My dad was kind of a lousy student at Philips Exeter in the 70s, and I found out this tale from one of his former classmates, whom my dad tried to steer me clear of when we were at his 25th or 30th reunion. Apparently, my dad and his friends didn't think too highly of the Model UN conference that Exeter hosted and which was presided over by the school's headmaster. So in the middle of one of the sessions, my dad and his friends apparently busted in with ski masks and water guns (remember that this time was during the height of cold war fear) and tossed a net over the headmaster, and took him as a hostage and made off to one of the schools underground tunnels, which apparently themselves are a part of Exeter folklore (http://www.exeter.edu/exeter_bulletin/12984_13038.aspx); in the tunnels they got on the school radio with the headmaster wrapped up in the net and made ridiculous hostage demands to the school, such as taking the letter 'E' out of the alphabet. 

I'd like to know how the hell they got out of that jam, and how my dad and his friends managed to not get kicked out. Maybe I'm old enough now and have proved myself prudent enough not to pull this kind of stunt such that my dad would actually tell me all about this incident.