March 17, 2026- Today being St. Patrick’s Day, my thoughts go to the Irish heritage on both my mother’s and father’s sides. The Kusches, who hailed from Szcezcin, Poland, back when it was Stettin, Pomerania, ended up in St; Louis and Chicago, by the mid-19th Century. Papa Kusch journeyed east, as a young man, and became a shoemaker in Boston, and a small farmer in Saugus. Before they were Kusches, though, they were Cooks-in the area around Wexford, Ireland. Poverty, and the Hanseatic League’s allure, brought them to the Baltic shores. The family was proud of having been prosperous in Germany, and in the Midwest, and I heard little about our Irish roots, but I always felt a draw to the Emerald Isle. Mom had me pledge to look into her side of the family, when we talked of the genealogy that my Dad’s older brother had compiled. I thought that meant going to Pomerania, but last summer’s visit to Wexford, and nearby Rosslare, brief as it was, introduced me to a few people who looked strikingly like my mother and aunts. I later learned their family name was Cook. Part of me wants to go back and spend more time there, but that will need to wait.

My granddaughter will have far taller order, should she ever want to check out her roots. Half of her bloodline is Korean, and there are probably some Chinese ancestors. going way back. The other half is Heinz 57: German, English, Irish, French, Penobscot, Jewish, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Scottish. Her present and near term well-being, though, has me refocusing my energies. The journeys I undertake in the foreseeable future are all along the paths of introducing a little soul to the wider world.

That brings me to a separate point. There was once, at a Baha’i-sponsored conference in Florida, a zone set aside for protesters. Neo-Nazis and Black Separatists found themselves next to one another, in that small zone. There are, on both the Far Right and Far Left, those who today preach the credo of division. The truth about human relations is “whatever we say it is”, and any who call for reconciliation between ethnic groups or “racial” entities are accused of clinging to outmoded, discarded concepts. I beg to differ: It is the very divisions to which they cling that are outmoded, counterproductive and dangerous. Clothing them in academic jargon, or using tones of ridicule, do nothing to bring a longed-for peace. I have to wonder if peace is even what they want- or is conflict more alluring?

Regardless, as Hana and others of her generation show, bloodlines are no respecters of truly outmoded ideologies.