Making Contacts: Glenn "Bud" Carlson Family

After waiting a few weeks for my mother to get some time to call some relatives, I finally took the lead and tracked down my cousin Joyce. Joyce was understandably reluctant to talk to me until I recounted to her exactly who I was, and why I wanted to sell her on this pyramid sche....er, family tree site.

Once we started talking, she recognized me as that odd kid that used to hang out at family reunions in the early 80s wearing what passed for possibly the worst fashion statements known to man. I was a true connoisseur of the "muscle shirt".

Joyce gave me some contact information for her sisters Lisa and Andrea, letting me know that once I've finished scanning in the imagery from my grandfather's old collection, I should start in on her father's collection, which is sitting in Andrea's garage in Portland.

After getting hold of Andrea, I confirmed that she's indeed sitting on a pile of old film (well, not literally. She has a life) that has been following her from house to house for many years know. She also wanted me to try and digitally clean up some images from her wedding, so it looks like I'll be doing this for a while. I don't mind it...it kind of makes me feel like one of those CSI guys. I just have to figure out how to lift incriminating DNA off of some of these older prints.

I didn't manage to get Lisa on the phone, but I did talk with her husband Richard and then, later on that evening, got an email from her daughter Mel. Mel asked on of those "good questions" you wish your own children would ask: "How come there are no pictures of me?"

Well, Mel, it's because you weren't born between the years of 1938 to 1958, were one of my grandfather's brothers, never went on a Gunflint trip, or bothered to marry him. Had you been one of these, you'd inevitably find yourself in one of the following pictures:

1. Being held as a baby by my grandmother.
2. Drinking beer without a shirt someplace on a lake in Canada.
3. Pointing at something, for some unfathomable reason.
4. Surrounded by an incomprehensible amount of Norwegians someplace near Duluth or Superior.