Sarah Ann Hatcher

As I said in a previous post, I've been doing some more family research lately. One of my ancestors that's been difficult to find information about is my 2nd Great Grandmother, Sarah Ann Hatcher. She was married to Andrew Jackson Hatcher, who is my 2nd Great Grandfather and is who my son Jackson is named after. Even today, nobody is completely sure what Sarah Ann's maiden name was. It could be Bircheat, Birgett, or maybe even Hyde.

The online resources I had found had Sarah Ann as being buried in "B'ville Cemetery in Birmingham." I wanted to find this cemetery so I could visit it on my next trip down to Birmingham, so I started trying to find it online. After a week of complete frustration, I finally contacted the Genealogy department at the Birmingham Public Library and within a few minutes they were able to confirm that it was actually "Bucksville Cemetery" which is in Tuscaloosa County. It's adjacent to the Tannehill Golf Course and is right off I20/59.

I had made some postings online before I figured it out, and this week someone who lives close by the cemetery was actually kind enough to take some pictures of Sarah Ann's tombstone. I still want to check it out myself, but it's great to finally know where she's buried. No one knows so far where Andrew Jackson Hatcher is buried, but he could be in an unmarked grave next to hers. He died in 1893, just 4 years after she did. She was also his second wife, so it's possible he's buried next to his first wife, but I don't know where she's buried yet. The search continues.

The Tired Ole Hatch

Well, with the big 3-9 birthday coming up fast, and a blood pressure spike the week before last which was too high to mention on a family blog, the time finally came for me to give up the delusion of the low calorie diet and just plain old get my fat ass into gear and lose some weight. So last Wednesday I polished up the old pedometer told myself I'd do at least 7k steps a day for the next 7 days. I also got back on the low carb diet after reading the Atkins book for the first time in a while to get myself back in practice.

So here's my chart of steps walked for the last 7 days including today:

2/28/2007	10320
3/1/2007	7350
3/2/2007	7373
3/3/2007	8954
3/4/2007	10091
3/5/2007	11165
3/6/2007	12215

This is probably the best overall week I've had since I first got the pedometer. I kept my pledge to do at least 7k steps a day, and for the week I averaged 9,638 steps a day and walked a total of almost 31 miles. Not too shabby for a fat hairy white boy.

I've also been getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night, but that's mostly because I'm just plain tired. This morning I weighed in at 280.9, so I've lost almost 12 pounds since the new year. I went to the gym twice this past week as well, but that was mostly to use the treadmill when it was freezing outside. I did a little bit of weights, but just with the arms. My next cave trip is March 14, so I should be in pretty good shape by then at this rate.

Oh Lawd!

Apparently Heff has finally gotten tired of having no outlet to abuse me on the Internet, since I've been heavily censoring his comments here for the last year or so. It appears that his blog has returned. Before you rush over there, be warned that Heff is one of the most disgusting and despicable bloggers that you'll ever meet, but he's also my best friend and my Fourth Cousin, Once Removed. His blog is NC-17 on it's best day, while I strive to maintain at PG-13 rating.

Don't click on the link Nana!

Hatcher Implants

Jack has had 5 ear infections in the last three months, so when we visited the ear, nose, and throat specialist on Tuesday he said we should definitely get tubes inserted as soon as possible. Both ears were full of fluid and it's probably been affecting his hearing for the last few months.

So we woke up this morning at 6am and got to Summit Hospital at 6:45 to check into the Same Day Surgery area. It was pretty nerve wracking, since they had to put him under for a few minutes to do the surgery. Everything went fine though, and he's already feeling a lot better this afternoon. The doctor said both ears were full of fluid and pus, and he's been on a strong antibiotic for a week now.

Jack now has something implanted within him just like his Daddy. Fortunately, his will be gone naturally in about a year, while I still feel like I'm part Borg. Actually, I don't really notice my pacemaker much now after having it for three years as of yesterday.

102nd Anniversary

Yesterday was the 102 year anniversary of the Virginia Mines Explosion that killed my great-uncle Bruce Hopkins father, Irvin Hopkins. Bruce was the half brother of my grandfather Luther Vernon Hatcher.

Here's a nice collection of articles from back then about the disaster that I just happened to come across last night while I was doing some research on my family tree after talking on the phone to my uncle Eugene for several hours.

I've started doing some more genealogy research, which I haven't really done since about 1986. I've already added several more generations of Hatchers, which was a complete dead end for us when we were researching before the Internet came along. It turns out there's now a very large online Hatcher research site, and they're even doing some genetic testing to help fill in some of the missing generations.

Limrock Pictures

Here's a couple of pictures that Joey sent me from our trip to Limrock Blowing Cave last weekend. In the first one, taken at the entrance, I'm showing everyone that I need to buy a larger caving shirt, while Joey appears to be scratching his butt on an icicle.

The second picture is the first waterfall in the cave, about 150 feet or so inside. The water is coming out of a V shaped hole, and just above my head was a large gathering of cave crickets. The water flows around the large rock I'm leaning on and goes out through a small hole in the cave wall to my right.

Weekend Caving

This past weekend I finally got motivated again and decided to go caving, which is the first time I've been since the trip to Big Bone Cave back in December, which I guess I still haven't talked about on the blog. I'll have to try to sneak in a Big Bone trip report while Heff is distracted. I can only imagine the heinousness of the comments he would come up with for it.

Joey was camping near Scottsboro with an old friend of his, another friend of that friend, and their wives. They wanted to go caving, and Joey wanted to go somewhere new, so he decided on Limrock Blowing Cave and then a trip up to Stephens Gap to rappel the big pit there. I had been to both caves, so I told him I'd come along and act as guide for Limrock.

This was my second trip to Limrock, and it was a bit different this time. I went during SERA last year, and the cave was warmer and drier. The cave wasn't blowing air on Saturday, it was sucking air in. Cold air. It was right at freezing outside I think. There was also a lot more water in the cave. I was dressed in my standard caving outfit, which is cargo shorts and a synthetic t-shirt, along with Smart Wool socks. As long as my feet stay warm I can take pretty low temperatures.

As we got deeper in the cave, it warmed up significantly. We reached one point in a 50 foot dome with a waterfall where we guessed it may have been as warm as 60 degrees, which felt like a sauna compared to the cave entrance. We spent about 2.5 hours in the cave, and we made really good time. We pushed down the main bore hole passage until we hit the large pile of breakdown and turned around. We skipped the loop on the way out where we'd have to swim for a bit, and managed to find a crawl that skipped another medium sized pile of breakdown that we had climbed over on the way in.

After a sandwich break in the parking lot, we drove over to the parking area for Stephens Gap. This was my third trip here, and I was dreading the one mile hike since my legs were already tired. I almost backed out, but decided to go ahead and hike up. I warned the rest of the group that I would be slow making it all the way up, so just go on ahead. They needed to rig the pit anyway.

I was really huffing and puffing by the time I made it up to the entrance, but the trip up there is always worth the hike. Stephens Gap truly is one of the natural wonders of Alabama. On Saturday there was a lot more water going into the pit than the last two times I was there. I sat and watched them rig the rope through the keyhole for a bit, then went down into the cave through the horizontal entrance, which was trickier this time due to the ice coating the breakdown. At least I didn't have to worry about copperheads this time of year.

From below the big pit was very interesting. There were actually two waterfalls in the pit, the big one at the top and another one that entered from a crack about 50 feet down and across from the other one. The water from both merge about 50 feet below that, but it's a strange effect since the water from the big waterfall is moving a lot faster at the point where they merge. It's hard to describe, but it's cool to watch.

I sat on a ledge and watched Joey rappel the pit, then I decided I'd had enough for the day. I wanted to get home in time to put Jack to bed. Joey asked me to make sure his truck was OK since he couldn't lock the back of it and he was worried someone would break into it. I trudged down the valley, having to will my legs to take one more step. They were pretty much shot by that point. When I got back to the vehicles, I immediately broke into Joey's truck and stole a sandwich and a beer. I made good time back to Nashville, and was there to give the boy a bath and put him to bed. I took an Aleve, fell asleep on the couch, and didn't move for about 14 hours. My quadriceps were complaining the rest of the weekend, but they were fine by Monday.