I don’t often have to get out a world map to write one of my blogs.  Kentucky, even though it has 120 counties, is a very familiar place to me – Ritchey and I have roamed through all of them!  But today we will take a world-wide tour for this particular blog.  Google maps was my friend today!

How many of our likes and dislikes are passed down through the genes from our great-greats?  According to the National Library of Medicine, DRD2 and DRD4 gene variants are linked to a desire to seek out novel experiences.  This may sound like a funny example, but Ritchey always said that if his dad, Rex, saw water, they got in!  Rex loved swimming and passed that on to his children.  It didn’t matter how cold the water was – they swam in glacial fed waters in Lake Interlaken, Switzerland.  They swam in rivers in Africa that probably had crocodiles a bit further up – the Zambezi River near Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side.  Once when Rex and older son Rod were in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Luanda, Angola, they had a hard time getting back to shore.  The beach is not flat, and it created riptides that made getting in difficult – and the waves were very high according to Ritchey who was watching from shore.  They swam across lakes, in rivers and streams all across Europe – France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland.

You may think this an unusual way to start a blog, but I have a newspaper article to share with you about  Ritchey’s grandfather and his adventures with water.  James Edwin Jolly was born May 28, 1893, the same year as my maternal grandmother.  His family lived at Grand Rivers in Livingston County, in western Kentucky.  His parents were George William Jolly and Serena Annora Jones. 

Grand Rivers, now, is where the Cumberland River, Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake come together, with the river being the connector between the two lakes.  Due to much flooding from the Cumberland River and the Tennessee River, both in the same area, both flowing to the Ohio River – the Tennessee at Paducah and the Cumberland just above the city, something had to be done for flood control.

In 1944 a dam was built on the Cumberland River forming Lake Barkley.  Another dam was built on the Tennessee River forming Kentucky Lake, which, in addition to flood control, produced cheap hydroelectric power.  The land area formed in the middle is now called Land Between the Lakes and is a recreation and nature area.  But at the time James Jolly swam in these rivers and had his escapades, the land was very different.  In addition, as mentioned above, there were no lakes, just the three rivers, Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio (first map from 1930).

As any river rat, and that is said affectionately – as Ritchey’s sister and her family live on the Green River in Kentucky – the river and water is a big part of life.  You dive in from the dock, ride up the river on boats or jet skis, fish, etc.  James Jolly, living close to so much water, had the opportunity to be in or on the water quite often.

A newspaper article from The Paducah Evening Sun, dated Sunday, May 10, 1912, tells the story of James (Jim) Jolly and his friend Lawrence Jones who canoed across the Ohio River to the Illinois shore.  Coming back the current was especially strong and capsized the boat, leaving James and Lawrence clinging to their canoe, only their heads above the surface of the water.  Their cries of help finally caught the attention of Captain E. Awalt three-fourths across the river from the boys.  The boys were tired and rescued just in time.  The clincher is the statement made about Ritchey’s grandfather, ‘It was the fourth similar experience for Jolly, who thought it his last.” 

Rex (Jolly) Brown never knew his parents.  His mother, Esther Myra Hertz, died of tuberculosis at the age of 22, when Rex was twenty months.  Rex was adopted by Edwin and Ora Brown of Triplett, Missouri. 

Even though some do not know their parents in normal childhood surroundings, it doesn’t mean those genes aren’t still there, leaving little pieces of each parent – traces and remnants of past lives – and of the grandparents that came before them.  I think it amazing that James and Rex both loved water so very much, to the extent that it could be called dangerous (from someone who is not a strong swimmer).  I can’t imagine Vivian, Ritchey’s mother, sitting on shore, sometimes with three little ones – Kathy, Ritchey, Rickey – as in Africa, wondering what she would do if husband and son didn’t make it back to her!  But they always did!!  What corresponding traits do you have from your parents/grandparents – or see in your children?