family secrets.

...none that I'd care to mention after that revelation... geez... no chance of anyone else stealing your thunder Achebe.

Hope you feel better soon, though Achebe.

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Lacking inspiration at the moment...

 

Jesus.


Uhhhmmmm....I guess there won't be anymore wisecracks about your verbal hostilities.


at least not from me.

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stop posting my damn signature

 

I didn't find out until I was abour 15 or 16 that my Dad was adopted. Turns out he was adopted by his maternal grandparents.

His birth parents stayed married and had three more children. They kept those three, though, and raised them themselves. How I found out about them was that one of those kids called and introduced herself as my Aunt Whatever-Her-Name-Is (seems like it's Elaine, but I don't know that for sure). I told her that I didn't have an Aunt Whatever and hung up. When I told my Dad about the call, he told me the story.

I later got more information from my grandmother (the lady who had adopted my father), including the information that my Dad's birth father was related to Dashiell Hammett in some way that I don't remember now.

I've still never met any of the missing part of the family. My Dad's birth father was still alive last I heard and living in California. Dad's birth mother died in the early '70s. We used to get sad-sack letters from the Aunt who called asking for money, but I haven't heard from her since I left home twelve years ago. I've seen a picture of one of the other two. His name is Clay Hammett, and last I heard, he was a pharmacist in Southern California. He called a few times asking for money, too.

We've never heard from the other brother. I've heard he lives in the mountains somewhere. I guess he's never needed money because, as far as I know, he's never called any of us.

In a kind of a coincidence, my mother was also raised by family members other than her parents. She and her brother and sister were raised by a couple of aunts and an uncle who all lived together and never married. The two aunts are still around up in Newport, Arkansas. But the Uncle died almost ten years ago. I never met my Mother's birth parents, either. As far as I know, both of them are long dead (and my mother's sister and brother are both dead, too. I met the sister, but I never met the brother, though I remember that my Great Aunt Fairra took the time to call me and tell me that he had died).

And I've got a cousin that works at the New York Times. Being a pretty conservative family, we don't like to tell people that we've got a relative working at that liberal rag.

Oh, I interviewed my grandmother (the lady who raised my Dad) for a history class one time, and I come to find out that during WWII, she worked at Seagoville (during the War, Seagoville housed a Justice Department Camp, which was essentially an Internment Camp). I found that to be fairly interesting (though not really a family secret).

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[This message has been edited by mrpaige (edited June 13, 2001).]

 

Damn heby, that's just.....

damn!

I won't even try to come close, but I do have a great, great uncle that helped try and over throw the Mexican government before the war between Texas and Mexico (ended up hanged in a Mexican prison).

There is a pretty famous actress that is my mom's second cousin, but my mom doesn't talk about her that much.

Let's just say my mother's maiden name is Dunaway...


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Everything you do, effects everything that is.

 

that's pretty messed up HEB.

I don't really have any BIG family secrets, other than the fact that most of them are 2 faced assholes.

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'´:;:::::::::;:-·^*'´.....................`'*^·:;-.....:;·'
....`·;:·'´........................................'`^·:;·´

 

Since other people have posted things of lesser scope than Achebe's saga, I think I can as well .

My family is predominanly extremely liberal (except for 2 cousins and an uncle). My mom's first cousin, however, is an archconservative redneck who *sigh* supported the Republic of Texas movement and throws parties everytime there's an execution. He owns a fried fish restraunt, and gives free cat fish and beer to anyone who wants to go party with him. The same guy also still enjoys rapping houses (especially the Baptist minister's). He's like 55.

This same cousin's daughter recently ran away with a cult leader. She has a young baby, and is the only person in our family in a long time to get pregnant before marriage. It's really sad, nobody even talks of her and her parents and grandparents won't acknowledge that she exists.

I miss her... she's only my 3rd cousin, but we used to play a lot when we were little. In general I like my family, but I think they're all being hypocrites on this one.

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Lacking inspiration at the moment...

[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 13, 2001).]

 

Damn. Err... forget those statements I said about you not being funny... you're hilarious. I love your jokes; especially the ones with gratuitous sexual inuendo in them. Keep 'em coming.

I also won't mention the fact that I was pissed when I found out my company's biggest client is the grocery store H.E.B. No, I won't mention that... not at all.

Tell grandma I said, uh, "hi".



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"Now it is more clear that it doesn't make sense." -- HeyPeeism at its convoluted best.

 

Nice Job Heb

Didn't think you could beat your bed secrets you released a while back but your second release is clear improvement on the first, should go platinum for sure and maybe rocket to #1.

If my family had some secrets, there is no point revealing them, as they would just appear lame compared to your cracker of a story.

Smeg

PS Settlement day is today, should get the keys at lunch time and start moving in tomorrow.... WOOOO HOOOOO

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"The things I enjoy most, I suck at:
1) Sex: everything's fine until she makes noises." - Achebe

Smegs Mock Draft

 

I didn't know until I was 23 that...

On second thought, I don't think my parents would like me posting that stuff.
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Things do not change; we change. - Henry David Thoreau

[This message has been edited by Jeff (edited June 13, 2001).]

 

oh ...... my.....


ohhhh...... myyyy.....



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I don't have any one particularly strange or outstanding secret, but my family as a whole is absofreakinglutely off the wall.

My Dad's sister is a hypochondriac on the worst scale. She carries so much medicine around in her purse, she should get a license and become a mobile pharmacy. The reason I say she is the worst is because she does not just fear for her own health, but she looks for illnesses in others as well. One time, during a Christmas celebration, she decided to give my dad some pills to take to make him feel better. There was nothing wrong with my dad. She just looked at him and decided that he needed some medicine for whatever f*cked up illness she was imagining (hysterical pregnancy I can only assume).

My mom's sister is also a head case. She has been in and out of mental institutions for about 5-10 years now, mostly for cutting herself and taking lots of pills for some reason or another. She smokes constantly and can't keep up a normal conversation with anyone.

My dad's brother was married for about 10-15 years. He had two children who, despite being annoying and in no small way spoiled, were pretty well adjusted and certainly not crazy. Turns out that my Uncle had married a lesbian, who promptly divorced him and brain-washed his kids into thinking that they hated him. They even trumped up some charge that he had injured my cousin's arm at some point, and my uncle got taken to the cleaners in the divorce. He is currently on anti-depresants. My uncle was one of the kindest, gentlest people in the world. If you knew my uncle, then you would know that there is almost nothing in the world that could have made him unhappy to the point of taking anti-depressants. His lesbian wife found it, and I hope she burns in hell.

My mother's brother commited suicide when I was about 8 years old. He had been on medication for some condition, and he had been OD'ing on whatever he was taking. The night before, my brothers and I were wrestling and playing with him. He allowed us to mark all over his face with Magic markers (I remember I used purple, and gave him big eyebrows). That night, he took too much of his medicine, and he went out into the field behind my house and fired a gun into his mouth. I saw him slumped up against the fence the next morning before my mom could shoo me away.

My mom is a recently recovered alcoholic, and my dad had some kind of chemical imbalance in his head which made him extremely moody about things. The slightest thing (liked burning biscuits he was cooking for breakfast), would set him off and he would start cursing, and occasionally breaking things (nothing major, but little things here and there).

My little brother, who had an (what an awful word for this) unsucessful suicide attempt about a little less than a year ago, recently barely got off charges that he had been dealing drugs. He claims he wasn't. My brother is one of the best liars I have ever met, so I still don't know if he was telling the truth. His suicide attempt, the reasons for which he still hasn't told us, was such a close call that I still think it a miracle that he survived. He took a full bottle of aspirin...then when he didn't feel like it was having any effect, he drove to Gerland's and bought another bottle. At Gerland's, the cashier asked him if he would like to donate any money to the heart disease foundation. My little brother donated $4, all the money he had in his wallet. I still cry thinking about that.

My brother was trying to die, and this was no fake suicide "cry for help." He went home, took the rest of the aspirin, and laid down in his bed. My mom found him later on, and rushed him to the hospital, wear they were able to pump his stomach in time... thank god. He is doing much better now, and seems to be past whatever drove him to such lengths.

I realize that most of these stories are not necessarily "secrets", but I just wanted to show messed up my family is...
Sometimes I wonder how I came out of all of this unscathed... and the answer is, I probably didn't. But I think that every family is messed up like this, in its own way.

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Feeling claustrophobic, like the walls are closing in.
Blood stains on my hands, and I don't know where I've been.
I'm in trouble for the things I haven't got to yet.
I'm chomping at the bit, and my palms are getting wet.
Sweating Bullets

Runnin', Ravin', Endin', Out.

 

When my maternal grandmother died when I was 8-9, my grandfather (major philanderer) approached my mother about "taking over" the wifely duties, if you know what I mean.

I never saw the man again until I was 22 and stopped in by myself to see him on a car trip that I was on. After hello, the first words out of his mouth were a defense of the accusation she had made. I just cut him off and changed the subject.

I absolutely believe my mother because at about that time, she started drinking TOO HEAVILY for the next 15 years or so.

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Time is a great teacher-- only problem is it kills all its pupils.

 

What's so strange about it is you found this out while innocently doing your school homework?

Are you going to take your great uncle to Show n Tell, now.

 

Wow...just wow. I thought my family was messed up. Now they're like the Brady Bunch.

I hear that my grandfather was the senator or held some high government position of China. He was in office when China was in its movements against Communism. Of course, he was on the Nationalists'(not communist) side. I hear that while he was helping citizens escape the mainland from Communism, he was captured by the Communists. We still don't exactly know for sure what happened to him, but we're pretty sure he got executed. We don't know if his body is rotting away somewhere or maybe he's still living. My grandma and her kids escaped without him because he had to stay behind to do his job, so that's why nobody knows.

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[This message has been edited by RocketKid (edited June 16, 2001).]

 

Not really big, but I just found out a year ago that I had a half-sister.

The story goes like, I was ruffling through some video-camera tapes, when I came up to one that had no labels or writing on it, and being the inquisitive little geezer that I am, I decided to watch it. I saw my Dad getting romantic with this woman I've never seen before. The tape was dated before I was born, so I didn't explode at that there moment, but I had to go question him.

Turns out she died of a kidney ailment 4 years before I was born, so I have a half-sister on what I call mutual terms. Thank God there wasn't any... uh... cheating going on.

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hey Achebe: I live in the southeast US-- not too far from Greenville actually. Does that make us brothers of some sort?!

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Time is a great teacher-- only problem is it kills all its pupils.

[This message has been edited by RichRocket (edited June 14, 2001).]