I’d love to visit Girona in Catalunya, my family’s origin, but I worry about going there. My Great-Grandfather was a sailor, and, on his last voyage, he decided he would not be returning. Why?
I know the Carreras reputation. After all, I fiddled around in more than my fair share of localities ” in the day.” More than a few bars, clubs, and such may still have stained posters in back rooms declaring that Lou Carreras or Wes Carson are banned for life.
Then, let’s not talk about my father’s “interesting” days in the Merchant Marine. My father and my uncle only talked about those days in very low, quiet voices, out of range of my mother’s sharp hearing.
If that was not enough, there are the tales of why my grandfather was exiled to the New York office of the family grain shipping company. From what I heard, riding the horse up the stairs and into the hotel barroom was not the worst of it.
Nope, I am afraid that I go someone will say – “Josip Carreras’ kin? Get the Guardia Civil! Arrest that ne’er do well!”
I mean, does the apple ever fall too far from the tree?
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I have a feeling you did roll away from that tree since you’ve become older and wiser. 🙂
and hard earned wisdom it was, too!
Ha ha ha, Lou. My father was also merchant marines and he has a few tales too. We were able to visit his haunts when we travelled to Cuba – where he got in a bar brawl and the prison he spent the night in before shipping out.
enough said…what happens in a foreign port stays in a forgeign port!
In 1994 I went back to my ancestral homeland without knowing it was my ancestral homeland. I’ve made a couple of trips back KNOWING it was my ancestral homeland. Canton Zürich, Switzerland.I have not — however — gone to Ireland. That’s on Bono who gave a dumbass speech about Americans calling themselves Irish. You know, if they could’ve stayed they probably would have. ☘️
Ahh the untold storeis why they left. Lots of males left without their families. Based on similar occurances in the 1880′, as males moved west I wonder how many ever reunited? I was able to doument one family where I worked when I was able to match the living grandchild ( an informant of mine) with the census records from the 1880’s. He never sent for his family.
Wow. My Swiss ancestors left because of long-term religious persecution against Mennonites by the Swiss Reformed Church — some really ugly stuff including taking the children away from Mennonite parents, the usual public executions, etc. Some were “housed” in a former nunnery on a floor where the ceiling was so low they could not stand up. There’s more. The Irish? Nothing new about the starving — but my great-grandfather worked on ships in the great lakes. 🙂
Interesting!