Mirror, mirror

I looked in my bathroom mirror this morning and saw my great great grandmother looking back at me. I never thought I looked anything like her, if anything I look more like my mom, but the face shape is there, even if the other features are not. It started me thinking about my family, which started me thinking about how tough many of their lives were.

My grandfather and many of my uncles worked in the pit mines of Derbyshire.

My grandfather started out very young as a pony handler

He use to say some of the best brains in the country worked in the pit because there was no choice in those days.

Rick's Uncle many generations back in Germany was killed because he poached a rabbit, it was the reason for his brother's immigration to this country before the Revolutionary War and the reason he aided the American troops that crossed his lands during the war.

My uncle Len was arrested for picking flowers along the train tracks in England ( I think they thought he was picking up slag from the tracks which was illegal)  I have often thought he probably was but the couldn't prove it, since everything in the area was covered in coal dust he could have laid the slag down and picked the flowers when he knew he was caught. I don't think he realized flower picking on railroad property was also illegal.