What a difference a day makes

 MY ADOPTED GRANDSON

I got an e-mail today from my adopted grandson.  His name is Jason.  I 'met' him a long time ago on myspace.  I entered my maiden name Maggard into the search engine and lots of pages came back with my last name on them, but I didn't know nor was I related to any of them (but one...my cousin's son living in New York.) Two of the pages though I could not find my name on.  I read them from top to bottom and could not figure out why they were returned by the search engine since Maggard was not anywhere to be found.  I sent back a message to both of them asking why.  The first one, an oddly named one...Keokee, I got an answer back that said simply "This page came back because all of the page administrators on this myspace have the same last name.  In fact, about 90% of the people who live in Keokee are Maggards.

The second answer came back a long time later.  It was Jason.  He told me that his last name and my maiden name are one and the same.  He didn't know for sure whether he and I are related because he told me that he has very little knowledge of his heritage.  His father gave him that name, a father who left him and his brother and his mother when he was very young.  His mother since remarried and he had a father who had a different last name than him, but a father nevertheless.  Jason joined the army as soon as he was old enough.  He was writing to me from Iraq where he was serving an extended tour of duty and was waiting anxiously to go back home to Utah and join his wife.  He and I wrote back and forth regularly after that because he told me that duty in Iraq and his job as a helicopter mechanic were things that he could handle just fine but that he appreciated reading what I wrote because it took his mind away from his reality.  Me, chatterbox that I am was glad to tell him what is going on in my life.  Jason told me that he has a grandmother, the mother of his father, but she and he have no relationship at all.  I said that I would be his grandma if he wanted one and he immediately adopted me and the two of us have stayed in touch ever since.

As the months passed, Jason came home to his wife and they moved to Kansas where he was stationed for a number of months.  And then he went back to Iraq for another tour.  In the letter I got from him today Jason has started a countdown and has only fifteen days left before he returns stateside.  Good news!  I hope the last two weeks flies by for him!

JURY DUTY

Today the phone rang and it was Judge Shirron of the circuit court in Malvern telling me to be at the courthouse for jury duty at nine o'clock Thursday morning.  I went to Malvern the last week in December because I got a summons to appear for jury duty.  That trip was an orientation to the way jury duty works in Arkansas.  I am in a jury 'pool' and will remain in the pool for three months.  When I go on Thursday I will first need to answer the questions in the 'voir dire' to be sure I am qualified to serve and to see if the lawyers for the two sides will accept me.  The judge told me that most cases are settled immediately before they actually go to court, and he gave me a phone number to call on Wednesday night to be sure that the court session will actually occur on Thursday.  My son told me that when I go through the voir dire I should say "It isn't actually fair that I serve on a jury because I can read people's minds and know what they are thinking"
I think I will just do my civic duty...

MY GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY

Today, the day after Valentine's Day is the day my granddaughter had her baby...three years ago.  That means that today is my great granddaughter's third birthday.  Happy Birthday Zoey!