Gypsy Juice

Granddad called the random treasures of a child gypsy juice. Then, my arrowhead, hawk feather, and red rocks were my gypsy juice and kept in a cigar box. Now, memories are a treasure, my gypsy juice. I keep this gypsy juice in my head and heart and, from time to time, bring it out. The book Gypsy Juice is a memoir of the everyday because there are wonderful stories in how life is lived in the course of just living. Family memories, stories, legends, and history preserved can humanize and honor the people of our ancestral past. Recorded family history perpetuates a memory, a time, and a person. It is a glimpse of how lives were lived. A record of a family's past can carry a message to a present generation of good or wonderful or trying days. How those people lived daily, rejoiced, or wept, and persevered. How our lives, at the human level, are no different. Our pleasures are not greater, nor are our problems worse. Compare the joy of a child born then and now, love or grief then and now, the stress of wars, or financial problems, the satisfaction of a job well done then and now. Someday our stories will be family history. Perhaps someone will preserve a memory or two. Time ripples memories as a breeze ripples the surface of a pond. The pond, slightly different from the moment before, is there. The memory, slightly different from the moment before, is there. This is my time rippled version of family memories. This is my gypsy juice. My primary objective in Gypsy Juice is the preservation of family history, stories, and legends. The secondary objective is to stimulate others to write a personalized story, a history of their family. The time covered is from the Civil War through the Great Depression and World War II to the present day. The writing includes autobiographical notes from my father and two of his brothers and a shared moment of Civil War history written by a family friend. I have written of growing up in rural South Georgia, the people and family there, and of the military aviation career that followed. This book is a gift to my children and grandchildren. The focus is on my extended family. Perhaps cousins or close friends of the family will find this book to be worth their time. There are stories that may appeal to general interest in the appendix. There is always a story and I think readers can find one here.