I'm not Irish and since Ive left Massachusetts I no longer have to be Irish one day a year because the law in that Irish state (once an English colony and state) is that everybody is Irish on St Patrick's Day.
I'm damn proud of being English all down the line on one side. God Save The Queen! Rule Britannia!
The Puerto Rican crew working on Grampy's (Roger Lewis) strawberries and general crops farm in Andover, Massachusetts, in the 1950s is the reason why I'm not a Yankee despite my Yankee pedigree going back to only a few decades after the Mayflower (and possibly being a very distant relative of George Bush - don't worry, I'm not claiming him, fuck no!).
If Roger's son Russell (dad) had not taken a special liking to the Puerto Ricans and gone to Puerto Rico I would have been a Yankee like him and Roger and Roger's mom (Great-Grammy Lewis, Alice Johnson Lewis) and Helen's parents (Grammy, Helen Newton Lewis; Great-Grampy and Grammy Newton) and the rest of my paternal ancestors.
Great-Grampy Lewis (Herbert Lewis) was English. He left Liverpool, Merseyside in 1889 and settled somewhere in Essex County, Massachusetts. Grampy was born in Old Salem, aka Danvers, in 1906.
I think that Grampy felt compelled to explain to his fellow Yankees and other white folks in Andover and environs how I, being and looking Puerto Rican (something other than typical Massachusetts), was his grandson. He would tell them how his son settled in Puerto Rico and married a Puerto Rican woman.
In Gettysburg the Civil War park guide felt compelled to mention the black regiment of Massachusetts when I mentioned that I have family ties with Massachusetts. I didn't bother to explain that my Massachusetts family ties are 100% English and Yankee, that I have nothing to do with Massachusetts blacks. Then again, he may have mentioned that just because and not because of anything he perceived and/or assumed about me.
I'M ENGLISH, NOT IRISH. Well, the Irish are Celtic and I have Celtic ancestry, either English or Welsh. mainly English really.
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THE 13TH EARL OF BENLU IS A LONGHAIR.
It's All About Me
- THE 13TH EARL OF BENLU
- City of People, State of Mind, United States
- I'm a Puerto Rican Yankee and a Yankee Puerto Rican, white and mixed. I'm a scholar of race and ethnicity and Hispanic history. I'm a library technician and an English major college. I'm a mid 60s big beat rock fan and a longhair and a non-druggie hippie. I'm an Anti-Christian and a caveman. I'm a nudist, sex maniac and a "friend with benefits" to dark ladies. I've got chips on my shoulders and a heart full of love and hate. To tell the truth, I'm a liar.
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