We are Jamie Adel and Lisa Saunders and we write a lot about our family -- a lot of it is real with the proper nouns and dates changed -- a lot of the rest is fiction inspired by our family. We've been asked to leave a place -- or was it five, we can't keep track --. We think it's five now, because some people don't like what we write about or don't like the way we say it is real. Too bad, we don't force anyone to read it. We write about the people we care about.
We'll post a list father down for those we haven't bored to tears yet. Mostly our stuff is about the 26 people in our cohort (12 male and 14 female born between 1947 and '55 or so), the 15 in our parent's generation (8 male and 7 female born between 1920 and '31) and 12 people in our grandparent's generation (5 male and 7 female born between 1890 and 1910)
Biologists say everyone on earth is related to everyone else -- not always a pleasnt thought -- it's just a matter of degree. Some of our ancestors -- the Caseys and Reileys -- were from Ireland. Ireland is a relatively small island and was relatively poor when the big migration to the US occurred. A study showed that most Irish emigres to the US were no greater than 5th cousins.
con·san·guin·e
/ˌkänsaNGˈɡwinē/
adjective
relating to or denoting people descended from the same ancestor.
"consanguineous marriages"
The folks we write about are more closely related than that. We are a polyamorous family of seven.
pol·y·am·o·ry
/ˌpälēˈamərē/
noun
the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.
By closest relation, there are some double-cousins, we are full siblings (2/21), first-cousins (10/21), second-cousins (6/21), and third cousins (3/21). We have been exclusive for 49 years as of last March.
con·san·guin·am·o·ry
/ˌkänsaNGˈɡwinēˈamərē/
noun
romantic love of family members; consensual adult incest.
"Our" tag is "loving sibling incest" (Apparently to most people first-cousins are an "incestuous" coupling too. Although if we are using the legal definition, half of the US states, Canada, and nearly all of Latin America allow first-cousins to marry.)
in·cest
/ˈinˌsest/
noun
sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other.
What we do and write about isn't illegal where we live -- the fictional nation of "San Mateo" in the Caribbean --. All of the proper nouns here that can identify us are pseudonyms. San Mateo is a very real place but that's just not its real name. We are US citizens. We moved here so we wouldn't have to retire. For some reason, it's become a crime in the US to be old, or perversely to be young. What we do wasn't illegal where we lived in the US either.
1940-
Lisa's father, Gabriel Saunders, was in high school when the Germans started bombing London. His older sister Judith, whom eleven years later would give birth to Paul, her third son -- and the future father of Lisa's two sons -- met a young Army Air Corps pilot, David O'Connor, who was attending college with her in San Antonio, Texas.
Back then Air Corps pilots had a quaint custom -- a sort of "really whole-life insurance coverage," they promised to ALWAYS care for the mate of a fallen comrade --. Flying was a dangerous profession in the 1920s and 30s and since they had pledged to share bad times, they shared the good ones too. This meant sharing their mates sexually with one another.
Judith was invited to one of their swingers' parties on Lackland Field. She was hesitant. David knew Gabe -- I think they are third cousins through the Caseys -- and said that he should come along so that Judith would "feel safe." The three of them joined and were part of a playgroup that varied in size as pilots came in and were transferred out. Then Judith was exclusive with David for a time after he got orders for England, leaving in February 1941.
Gabe got drafted and received orders for Massachusetts, having to report literally within a week of graduating from high school. Judith and Gabe spent three weeks together before he left as lovers. Then Gabe went to amphibious training where they practiced by invading Martha's Vineyard. He spent the next four years on a walking tour across two continents and six countries.
He guarded enemy PWs in North Africa, landed on the second wave in Sicily, and in Italy. They captured towns, mountains, and monasteries were sealifted to support the Anzio beachhead and entered Rome on D-day. They made an amphibious assault in Southern France, fighting with a Japanese-American Regimental Combat Team under French command, trapping a German Army there.
They marched across France, crossed the Rhine, entered Germany and liberated the satellite industrial slave-labor camps of Dachau, before finally accepting the surrender of another German army in Austria and getting Rest and Recuperation leave in Paris. Gabe bought "naughty" English language paperbacks in the Pigalle, and sailed back to America just before Christmas of 1945.
David slept in a tent next to his grass airfield in England before and after each bombing mission. He spent the daylight hours in the cold zigging and zagging at high altitude while being shot at by the big FlAK guns. Wondering if the Luftwaffe fighter command had guessed correctly. If he was lucky they hadn't and the bombers were so high up in the thin air the overloaded fighters were so heavy that they couldn't catch them.
Of their San Antonio playgroup, David had left first and so he returned before the others. He and Judith got married and settled down near the Saunders family farm in Bellina, Texas -- ironically named for a German Dutchess a hundred years earlier --. Judith had run the farm after both of her brothers were drafted. Michael Saunders was sent to the Pacific Theater.
David helped run the farm and tried to start an airline that morphed into an airport fixed base operation. Gabe came back to Texas and married the 18-year-old sister of one of their "playgroup," Lisa and George's mom Katherine. The playgroup in San Antonio had all been young pilots except for high-school-student Gabe -- who got drafted into the infantry before he ever had the chance to go to flight school --.
Before the war there were a few more guys than gals in the playgroup -- but several of those young men never made it back to Texas. Families were bigger back then, especially in the country. People were busy, especially farming families. Transportation was more difficult than it is today. It was easy to have relatives you didn't know well or at all.
When they were small Lisa and George were often babysat by their Aunt Anne or Aunt Carol. Half of the time it was one of those two watching her, George, Paul, and their combined three siblings at Paul's house while all of the parents were at her house. The other half of the time the children were all at Lisa's house and all the parents were at Paul's house.
When Lisa was fifteen, and dating a seventeen-year-old Paul, Judith took her aside and told her the story we just related here. Adding that Anne and Carol were not actually Lisa's aunts -- which we already knew --. But we didn't know the whole story. That Aunt Anne and Aunt Carol were Aunt Judy's lovers. They were Gabe's, Katharine's, and Steve's lovers in the present day as well since before the war in San Antonio.
Anne and Carol were originally brought into the Lackland Field San Antonio playgroup by two fine young men who never got a chance to grow old. Two Eighth USAAF pilots who died flying the B-17 Flying Fortresses over Germany.
We, Lisa and Jamie -- Jamie had moved in with Lisa when they were both thirteen, Paul and George are two years older -- already knew that Katherine and Gabe were great parents, they were suddenly very, very cool parents as well.