ANCIENT ROOTS

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My Italian side

For my birthday, TLW (The Little Woman) sent away for an ancestry.com kit to determine if I came from some tribe in ancient Germany or maybe landed here from Mars, which she has been suspecting all along.

You take this tube they supply you and spit into it up to a line, (be very close when you do) then you mix a chemical into the saliva and seal the tube, put it in a plastic envelope and mail it away. In a few weeks, they get in touch with you and let you know.

Mom used to say she thought there might be some Greek in our Italian blood because her name was Olympia. Why I don't know, I'm sure her mother never gave it a thought. So, into the mail goes the box with my saliva to be analyzed and within a short time, I get an email telling me I am 74% Southern Italian… and Greek!

My Greek side

I was hoping for Swedish or Norwegian, that would make me taller, but no such luck. I would even like Finnish because I like the cold, but no, Southern Italian and Greek! This means, of course, two of the greatest civilizations in the world stream through my DNA, I am quite a find! There is Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great, not to mention Zorba the Greek!

Then there is Garibaldi, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Galileo, Caruso, Benny the Buffer and Al Capone to mention a few.

So, what will I do with this new-found knowledge? Why look up all the possible matches that are out there that may be related to me. My fervent hope is that one or two have restaurants where I can get a discount meal, either Greek or Italian. But what about the other 26%? Well I know 1% is Jewish from the Eastern Eurasian area the 1% of this and that scattered throughout Eastern Europe.

It all comes down to the fact that I am a mutt.