My writing is mostly historical and biblical, not typically personal, but today I included this personal anecdote in a chapter I was working on.
When I married John,
the game of Dutch bingo came with him. He plays well, though surely not with
me. The game pops up everywhere, most recently when we were purchasing new
kayaks. The store manager overheard the name Worst. He moved closer: Any
relation to . . . . And so it went. I examined the cigarette lighters on the
counter while they named an assortment of Worsts going back through the
generations. . . . Harold Worst, his second
cousin once removed, was the 1965 world champion 3-cushion billiard player—beat
the pants off Boston Shorty (demonstrated by a video easily accessible online).
Harold John Worst died in 1967 at age 37. Husband John would like me to say that he remembers him fondly, though I might add, very dimly. Truth be told, John's very religious Christian Reformed side of the family regarded pool a 4-letter word, and billiards is essentially the same as pool. John, by the way is playing pool by himself as I write.
Harold looks like a cool guy in this picture, just wish he had a cool "Boston Shorty" nickname!
