Surreal

Every once and a while I’ll google my own name to find out who has been impersonating me. I’ll even, on occasion, look at the photos of these other quacks to see whom I’m up against. Today I ran across this. I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word “surreal”–I definitely don’t use it often–but if ever a situation were, this would have to be. Wow! I wonder who this guy was, where he came from, how he ended up in New York. What are the chances that we share the same name and don’t trace our history back to the same plantation? On which side of the color line did he reside? What was it like living with that name and his background at the turn of the 20th century. He didn’t even make it to 40. Why?

My grandfather who shared my same name and lived at that time (he was a little younger from what we can surmise) died at the ripe old age of 80- or 90-something. Folks responsible for record keeping didn’t keep good records on black folks back then. I’ll have to ask my dad, but I think the birth date set for his eulogy was 1909. However, that was the same year Walter Reed Hospital opened, and according to my dad, my grandfather had stories of helping to build Walter Reed. So he was likely born closer to 1900, maybe a little before.

Anyhow, I wonder…