Sometimes Life is like Watermelon Pickles by Thomas Ross Holme            Well folks, I suppose the first thing I should tell you is that I learn by making mistakes. Like take the batch of watermelon pickles I made today for instance. I didn't peel the thin green rind off. Didn't know I was supposed to. The recipe didn't say to. Next time I will. I made the pickles because I got to thinking about the watermelon pickles my grandma Mabel used to make. Grandma is long gone and Mom lives a thousand miles away and my wife has never made watermelon pickles and isn't too interested in the project. So I made them myself. The first batch, with the rind, isn't great. Plus I used powederd clove instead of whole clove. Now I remember those little cloves floating in my grandma's pickle jar. Next time the pickles will be done right. Or the time after that. Eventually anyway. Lots or things in my life are like that. Genealogy for instance. It's something I really wanted to do. I didn't start off knowing everything. I had to learn as I went along. I made a lot of mistakes and corrected them when I found them -- but eventually I got good at it and was able to take my Holme line, which no one knew anything about, all the way back to the sixteenth century, and my McNaughton line back a thousand years. Computers are another thing like those watermelon pickles. I had something on my mind. I wanted to write a book -- a legible book. So I bought a small inexpensive laptop computer -- and I taught myself how to use it. I started out writing my book without even knowing how to save a file so I could bring it up later. All I could do was turn it on and off and I couldn't even do that right in the beginning. That was back in 1990, twelve years ago. I have learned a lot about computers in the past twelve years. I type pretty fast now, about 55 wpm, fairly accurately. I design my own webpages, like this one. Genealogy is a pretty intense hobby for me. This week alone I have spent over a hundred hours working on it.

        Over the years I have occasionally put some inaccurate data in my database. I often discover it myself. Other times someone else points it out in a friendly way. Fellow genealogists are usually kind about such things. Not always though. If you take a good close look at my genealogy you will probably find it is pretty accurate all in all.

        On my mother's father's side of the family I am able to trace my lineage back to William Preston who sailed on the ship "America" in 1683 to William Penn's new Quaker Colony of Philadelphia. ( http://www.gencircles.com/users/thomasholme/1/data/2818 ) This Preston family eventually spread across America and gave its name to many small towns. In the same decade other direct ancestors of mine also crossed the ocean with their families and settled in the Quaker colonies of Pennsylvania: the Buckmans, the Becks, the Rowlands and others, all "grandparents" of mine. They were so persecuted for their beliefs that the infamous Cotton Mather of the Puritan settlement in Salem issued orders that if any of their ships could be apprehended the Quaker colonists aboard were to be put in chains and be severely punished and sold as slaves. William Penn's followers braved much for their peaceful beliefs. Incidently, William Penn's Surveyor General was named Thomas Holme. The very first maps of Philadelphia are now called "Holme maps". His name is on each one. Perhaps the beliefs of my Quaker ancestors resurfaced in my own life, for I joined with them in the nineteen-sixties in opposition to the war in Viet Nam.

        During my genealogy research over the telephone I recently met a relative who basically did not care for the work I have done on the family genealogy because he held animosity against me for the stand I took for non-violence during the Viet Nam war, for which I spent a year and a half in prison, most of it in solitary confinement, because the guards did not want me speaking out about my "criminal" religious beliefs to the other prisoners. Alone in my cell for long days and weeks and months I came to doubt my purpose. I even had relatives who did not believe in my purpose.  ...There were over two hundred of us in prison. A Quaker minister came by to visit with us once a week. I remember how the guards would ask him if he felt safe enough to go inside my solitary cell with me, as if I were some rabid dog, or would he rather speak with me through the narrow window of my cell door? Then the Quaker would humbly smile and meet my eyes with a twinkle that communicated to me that he was aware how the remark hurt me and how sorry he was, and then he would instruct the guard to open the door and let him in. He visited us one at a time and was a great solace. The glares, the angry words of guards, full of malice, were designed to make me know I had committed a "crime" and would forever be a felon. As the months dragged on I became very depressed. Then one day near Christmas a guard unlocked my door and handed me a large cardboard box. I sat on my bed and opened it. The box was crammed full of Christmas cards from families all over the United States and Canada. Letter after letter thanking me for taking my stand and going to prison for it. So many letters. Even the prison guards seemed in awe of it. They treated me with less contempt from then on. In fact with some measure of respect. I will never forget that box of Christmas cards.

        Yes, I will sometimes meet cousins who will hold things against me from long ago. One cousin remembers arguments I had with him forty years ago as if it they happened yesterday! I was but a child then, sixteen years old. Now I am 55. That is a long lasting animosity...

I wish we could stop for a moment and remember: We are all relatives. There is a sacredness in our lives. We all make mistakes. We do not all believe the same. The Spirit that bonds us is invisible unless we seek it. Its nature is a great Blessing in our lives. Mita Ke Yasin.          Uncle John would understand... Thomas Ross Holme

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." 

John F. Kennedy