I just got off the telephone with my mother . . .

(I could start a really high percentage of my posts that way, by the way)

and learned something interesting. First, she asked if I had been keeping up with the Sheehan/Dubyah situation. I said that I had a little bit of a notion of what was going on. She asked if I had heard about the fellow who fired his shotgun (?) into the air so as to signal that he was displeased by Sheehan. I said that I had heard something about that. She asked if I had heard about the other fellow who gave the Sheehanians the right to camp on his land. I said that I had heard something about that, too.

She asked if I realized that both gentlemen were kin of me.

I said that I had not realized that.

Here's what I did know: My father's first cousin Don lives near Waco and has land. Dubyah lives near Waco.

Turns out that cousin Don is married to a woman named Shirley (I knew that). Turns out that Don and Shirley live rather near Dubyah (I did not know that, although I visited them 18 years ago).

Turns out that both the gun fellow and the land fellow are Shirley's first (or second, or something) cousins. I did not know that.

So there you go.