The tale of the man who fathered a child at age 78 brought to
mind something I saw on television in the early 1950s.
There was an afternoon program
called "I've Got a Secret". Guests would appear and whisper their
"Secret"
to the host, which he of course already knew, and a panel of four or five
celebrities, not "in" on the "Secret", had to ferret out the
"Secret" using
only 20 questions or so.
The guests this one afternoon were two elderly sisters,
from Memphis, Tennessee, as I recall. The panel having used up their
allotment of questions only learned was that the womens' "Secret"
involved an ancestor.
When the host revealed the ladies secret, the panel was
dumbfounded and couldn't believe what the host said.
The two ladies FATHER had been in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(1775-1783) which ended over 170 years before.
The panel insisted that the ladies must mean
that their father was in the American Civil War (1861-1865) which ended
some 88 years before. But the host said he knew the panel wouldn't believe it
possible so he produced a chart as proof that the ladies meant exactly what they
said.
Their father had indeed been in the Revolutionary War as
a DRUMMER BOY and had fathered these two women very, very late
in life with a much, much younger wife.
There they were, on television, two elderly daughters of a man
who had served, albeit as a drummer boy, under George
Washington.
As for one who doesn't bother to remember what was on TV
yesterday, I've always considered this incident
remarkable. Jos.
Gregory
The Gregorys
Pen y Mynydd
Coed gyda Penn
(Mt. Top, Pa.)