The Carpenter Saga

THE CARPENTER SAGA

BUTCH'S GREAT ADVENTURE

PROLOGUE:

To peer back over my almost six decades, to let the memories flow, to separate fact from fiction, heresay from reality...has been one of the greatest pleasures possible. It all started with Jean, and this website. [1millionstories.com]

It seemed to gravitate toward, and be built up from the very foundation of the family, the patriarch, my grandfather, Earl Melbourne "Sky" Carpenter. It spread like a warm rabid rash, as geneology is prone to do, to include my great grandmother Emma RosettaCarpenter, and then it began to branch out to other grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and wives, and cousins. And that's just the Carpenters. And so on, and so on, ad infinitum.

In each of our pasts there is the tremendous stuff of drama, comedy...even legend. Everyone has several"stories" to tell. To reach back, to remember, is always part therapy, part catharsis, part joy, and always emotional. Recalling the deaths in a family, the births, the successes and tragedies. What a wonderful way to pay tribute to our ancestors, and most of all, to our selves.

We, for the moment, are still here, and through the artificiality of this cyber-reality, we are reaching out to each other, and to any reader in the world who chooses to read, or participate, and we are promulgating a huge group hug.

As the Beatles lyrics go:
In the end,
the amount of love
you take,
is equal to
the love you make.

God knows there is a great conflict in the world today. Islam is squaring off against the Infidels. Jahid...holy war; Allah vs. Christ, with Buddha, Ramtha, Seth, and Kryon watching on the sidelines, from the other side of the stratosphere. Gas is soon to be three bucks a gallon. A presidential election is in the wings. And in the midst of the maelstrom of our everyday lives, we are given an opportunity to sit quietly, sipping green tea, and reach back to the sweet sadness of our yesterdays.

Glenn Buttkus 2004