Throwing people out a window? We invented that.

If only there was a word for it...

Roman Catholic Imperial officials claimed that they survived due to the mercy of benevolent angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause. Protestant pamphleteers asserted that their survival had more to do with the horse manure in which they landed.

Thus proving divine intervention to be a pile of horse poop.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then History happened.

Found on the web a family tree which happens to include my mother.

She had always said that her side of the family was Austrian; our entire town was populated by people whose ancestors emigrated from Austria, she had said.

Turns out this is only partially correct.

When I traced back to see from whence my ancestors emigrated, I found that all the first-generation immigrants were listed as having been born in Bohemia.

By the time they were born, the Kingdom of Bohemia had been under the control of the Empire of Austria for generations upon generations of Hapsburgs.*

Skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead; WWI & WWII, yadda yadda yadda... And the bottom line is: if you were to stand today in the villages where my ancestors were born, you would be standing in the Czech Republic.

So are we Czech? or Austrian? ... or can I say, we're Bohemian, with a straight face?

Now I'll have to go visit. I hear their Ossuary is quite nice.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* And when we say upon, we really do mean upon.

Posted by edgar at July 20, 2005 10:27 AM