Hanging Out the Laundry

When I first lay on my death bed I thought what the hell. It's the way of all flesh. I just hope it'll be painless. On the other hand, even if it's a rough go, it'll be the last struggle, the last suffering, and besides, maybe I'll numb. With nothing better to think about than death, since my life hadn't been worth a lot up to then anyway, I wondered about my ancestors.

Hey, old guys, I'm a-come'n! Make room for another Hampton 'cause I've got one foot in the grave already!

I've been finding as the insomnia of age keeps me awake that there're a lot of hours in the continuum of eternity. This twenty-four hour day stuff is bull because when a day doesn't end and it never begins, it's just one long, endless haul. And I couldn't think about the Hamptonsallthat time. I also found that thinking about something isn't good enough. While I entertained my imagination when young, once flat on my back I realized that was all dribble. The only thing that counts is what is. So my mind switched from what if to what is -- or was. With that, I bribed a friend to give me computer access to the Mormon Genealogy files, which means that I laid a super-guilt trip on poor, unsuspecting Brother John by saying that if I die before I baptize my ancestors it's going to be on his head.

In this case, because of my condition, computer access meant wheeling my bed into the church library with all the Mormon ancestral files. Neat

thing, a little bribery, eh?

So I started searching. You know, between gasps and spasms and pain and disorientation. Anyway, you won't believe what I found. Oh, the usual, of course. This great-grandfather married that one and that great-great-grandfather married this one. But then I noticed a recurring theme: Several Hamptons married close relatives. In fact, more than one did a little hanky panky with more than brother or sister, some parents begot brethren from their offspring, and one even with a grandparent! If I had them in front of me I'd bribed them good!

I lost track how many criminals there were hanging from the family tree. Take Jesse Hampton from way back. He was shipped off to Australia to enjoy the sun in a penal colony down under. He escaped, did some mischief aboard ship, was sent to the gallows, which consisted of an English-strong, oak yardarm. Mast booms were convenient maritime gallows, and before long ole Jesse was feeding the sharks with his own toes.

After my medication wore off, I followed a lead that took me circuitously to a Henry Hampton, married no fewer than thirteen times, had a child with each spouse and all in the same town. Promiscuity was tolerated in Hank's day, but not when it was documented on paper. It seems to have been a toss-up what to do with the ole goat. If they incarcerated him he couldn't provide for his brood. If they let him go, everyone knew he'd keep philandering. So they castrated him on the spot. I felt sorry for the ole bugger, but later the record showed that in one way the punishment was a blessing and a curse on the very officials who did the snipping. Because after that ole Henry played hanky panky with MANY of the wives of the officials, not fearing being caught by offspring, see. The elders learned the hard way that time.

Once, after I'd coughed up half a cup of blood, I pursued a distant cousin that sent shivers up and down this branch of the family tree. It turns out that he trained dogs, many vicious, and his habit was to accidentally leave his gate open at night so the beasts terrorized the town. He'd trained the canines so well they thrived to the point that everyone willingly paid him protection money if he'd keep them locked up. This cousin lived for a couple of decades without doing a tap of work except feed and train his charges and collect money, until one day he made the mistake of entering the cages with their blood-dripping meat and they tore him apart. But before he met his tragic end he and his dogs had ruled the town by fear yielding desperate consequences on all moms who let their kids play in the streets at dusk or after sundown.

When they finally stuck the IV in my hand I found it a bit awkward to poke the computer keys and change CD's , but the morphine kept the pain down so I could continue searching. And the more I climbed the Hampton family tree the more I found our ancestral closet full of tell-tale skeletons. Take Barnaby. He seems to have run a brothel in Salem, Mass., when labeling someone you wanted to get rid of a witch or full of black-blood heresy was popular. Naturally, the church officials wanted to dispose of him yesterday, but it turned out that ole Barnaby had the goods on many of them for their evenings of ill-conceived self indulgence at his establishment. Seems that bribery was big in the Hamptons even then.

The record wouldn't be complete without mentioning Alistaire, a great-great-however-so-many-great-grand uncles ago. The old bird was the town treasurer. And he, like his distant cousin, made it his business to know each and every tax cheater in his fair berg. In good Hampton arm-bending, ole Alistaire lived high on the hog of many well-respected gentlemen who didn't want their cheating known. Unfortunately, Master

Hampton met an untimely death when he found that his own brother was among the culprits, and sibling rivalry never being low among that branch of the family, he tried to bribe him. Lionel made short business of brother Alistaire by hanging him upside down from the Beech tree in the old town square with a sign that yelled boldly, "Now we're all free!"

This last week I had a lot of trouble with phlegm so couldn't spend much time on the search without messing up the keyboard and monitor, so I lost some good hours searching my old kin. Now I find I'm a lot weaker so I can barely change discs. Also, my eyesight is going fast so I'm afraid that researching about Mildred, Maude, and Matilda will be my last. But it's such a whopping good bit of laundry I can't help hanging it on the line. Of course if any Hampton is willing to bury me in a mausoleum all my own, I'd be happy to keep the ole gals in the closet. Since there're no takers, here's the story.

It turns out that Mildred, Maude, and Matilda Hampton were lesbian triplets in a time when that word was never mentioned and seldom even known. In those days there were spinster sisters who never married and lived together and God-only-knew how they spent their time, but everyone knew that homosexuals didn't exist in THAT town. Well, there were in the Hampton clan, and three of them to boot, each looking exactly like the other. Psychologists who studied the truly bizarre had a field day with all the narcissistic nuances of the girls' intimate attention to those that looked exactly like. Anyway, the story became known when the bed the three shared crashed through the floor and skewed their bodies on the sword collection their father kept in his study. Freudian, eh? And now don't you wish you'd taken me up on the mausoleum?

When I started going into a coma I knew my days searching the family records had come to an end. Too bad, too, because I'd just gotten a line on

some hot-blooded Hamptons who bribed immigrants whose descendants became prominent in society, making them do all sorts of nasty things if they wanted to stay in the U.S. But when you lose control, plus consciousness, there's not much you can do.

You might think you came from normal ancestors. But I'm convinced there isn't a soul who doesn't have at least one relative who didsomething shady. I think if I had my life to live over I'd spend my youth literally digging up family skeletons. Then, with a little arm-twisting bribery, I'dneverhave to work. I guess I'm a Hampton through and through.