Enoch McDonald Strother

I was trying to find something earlier tonight and I stumbled across a metal box I got out of my grandparents house about 10 years ago. I'd never really looked through it, since it was mostly full of paperwork, which my grandparents tended to hang onto like grim death.

Once I started looking through it though, I realized it belonged to my great-uncle George W. Strother, who died back in 1974. I spent an hour looking through all of the papers, most of which were really old life insurance policies from the 1950's, along with bills for what were apparently sawmill parts.

Down near the bottom I found this picture, which is my great-grandfather Enoch McDonald Strother, who was born in 1866 and died in 1919. There aren't a lot of pictures of him that I've seen before, and I'm not sure if I've seen this one. The picture was really small, measuring about 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches. I scanned it at really high resolution and I think it came out pretty well. You can click on the image to get a larger version than this.

This picture proves once again that I didn't inherit any of the Strother genes that I really would have wanted to. His mustache puts Tom Selleck's to shame, but when I tried to grow one years ago it just looked sad and pathetic.

Reading Lists

I've updated my reading list for 2007 and started the new list for 2008, which you can find over on the right side of the blog. I didn't read as many books in 2007 as I wanted to, but I think I still read a few more than I did in 2006. My father-in-law gave me several caving books for Christmas, and I finished the first one last night. I still have a pile of about six books that I'm in various phases of reading. I read a whole book sitting in the book store waiting on Victoria over the course of about a month, 50 pages at a sitting.

Our Little Book Worm

So almost every night, I give Jack his bath, get him dried off, and then into his pajamas. Then I read 2 or 3 books with him in my lap and tag up with Mommy who reads him another book or two and rocks him for a bit before she puts him in his crib with some soft music playing and his blanket, duck, and whatever else happens to be in there, usually including a book or two.

Last night we went through this whole process and then headed back downstairs as usual. I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop and Marissa is watching TV in the next room, with the baby monitor next to her. After about half an hour she says "Go upstairs and check on Jackson, I swear I can hear pages turning."

I'm dubious about this, but I go up the stairs, open the door, and duck inside. There's almost no light in the room, just a little from a small night light and maybe a little from outside through the blinds. I go up to the crib and there's Jack, leaning against the back of the crib with a book in his lap and his pacifier in his mouth, turning the pages. He gives me a look that basically said "What?"

His eyes are drooping and you can tell he's just about asleep, but he's still sitting there trying to read. Marissa came up to take a look as well, and read him one more book and rocked him again before he finally went to sleep for the night.

He's just been obsessed with them lately and he probably has about 200 books already in his collection. I'm so proud of him. He's a book nut just like his Daddy and Nana.