The gossip stops here

This is the south, and we're proud of our crazy people. We don't hide them up in the attic. We bring 'em right down to the living room and show 'em off.  ...   Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women.

The north is a little different.  We tend to sanitize,  glorify,  or even mythologize our family members, crazy or not.

My maternal great great grandma was an Indian "princess."  Great great grandpa was not a rambler and a rover.  He was a pirate whose fame made him wanted on all seven seas! So he sailed to America, changed his name, and married that Indian princess.

My paternal great grandpa grew up making antiques in a flat right over where Jack the Ripper killed his last victim.  (His job was to put the worm holes in the tables.)

Aunt Mathilda, who had a tendency to run up bills no one could pay, was born so small they put her in a cigar box and kept her in the cookstove till she was big enough to survive.

There is also a fair amount of envy behind the talk of rich old Uncle Bosworth whose girth exceeded that of four other people and whose smell preceded him by three counties.

These are the funny stories, the cute ones, the ones that we can all smile about because they are so far (in the past.) There is a lot more despair and fear, sarcasm and embarrassment when we talk about those family members still alive, and well, and dragging the family on a long rope behind them as they stagger in and out of the doors of the funny farm, jail, and poor house.

If I remember that the success of the rest does not diminish me, nor does their failure make me any better, life is no fun at all.