I had lunch with my cousin Cheryl today

\”Cousin\” is probably a bit of a stretch. Three brothers, Michael, Matthew, and Edward, emigrated from England to Connecticut in 1630 – ten years after the Pilgrims managed to find shore near Plymouth Massachusetts when they realized they were out of beer and need to find a packie.

I forget which way it goes exactly, but I think Matthew was the progenitor of my family\’s branch, and Edward was the progenitor of Cheryl\’s branch. It really only matters to the geneologists of the group – I\’m not one of them, but Cheryl is, so she\’ll probably correct me – ever so politely, because that\’s her nature – if I am wrong.

Cheryl and I used to work at the same company a number of years ago, which is how we knew one another to begin with. While researching her family tree, Cheryl ran across my family name, and asked if perhaps, in my distant heritage, there might have been three brothers, Michael, Matthew, and Edward, who migrated from England about 1630 – ten years after the Pilgrims managed to find shore near Plymouth Massachusetts when they realized they were out of beer and need to find a packie.

\”Why, yes!\” I exclaimed (well, not really exclaimed, but I\’m trying to pump up my writing), and borrowed what few geneological references I knew about from my elder brother, and loaned them to Cheryl. We did have a connection going way, way, back (yes, when three brothers, blah, blah, blah). Now we refer to one another as \”Cousin\”.

This might seem rather a non-sequitur, but have you tried Linked-In? It\’s a marvelous web site, designed to let folks network to friends, family, co-workers, and that ilk. It can come in handy to have \”networked\” if you find yourself in need of a job. Anyway, I\’m a member, Cheryl\’s a member, and that\’s how we found one another again. Certainly the email addresses of our former defunct employer aren\’t worth a hill of beans for connecting.

It turns out that we now work about 15 minutes from one another. And that\’s on foot! So I walked over today and we chatted in the cafeteria for an hour and caught up a bit. I even got to see another former co-worker, and there are others who work there as well. It was like old home week.

So that was fun way to end the week!