Not all Revolutionary War ancestors were good guys

 Experts will warn you that when you look at up your family tree or take a DNA test to expect the unexpected.

Some things can get weird, muddled or just plain ugly. Not all of us come from a pristine line of saintly ancestors with noble careers and glorious military service. Some of us – many of us – have some kind of unsavory characters, out of wedlock births, questionable parentage, adoption, rape, or other factors that have roots in our family trees.

I started learning some of those while stuck at home during the COVID pandemic in 2020. I’ve been wanting to know about my family history for years and that break from work gave me ample opportunity to investigate my family line. So far, I’ve found at least four patriot ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War or aided the colonials in some way.

Using my fifth-great-grandfather, William Hopkins, I was able to gain membership into the Sons of the American Revolution. In doing that research I discovered that one of his sons, Henry Harrison Hopkins, lived in the Republic of Texas, which qualified me for the Sons of the Republic of Texas, but I digress.

I have tried hard to find documentation about William Hopkins, but it has been difficult to come by. I know that he was born in Rhode Island in 1748 and he died in Kentucky in 1832. He was a private in a New York regiment under Goose Van Schaick during the Revolutionary War. I can’t find any information about his service, if he saw any military action, how long he served – any pertinent information like that. What I can find, however, is plenty of information about his father, Francis Whaley Hopkins, who turns out to be one of those weird, unexpected and unsavory characters in American history.

Francis Hopkins was also known as The Tory Bandit. He was a notorious horse thief, a convicted counterfeiter, and a radical counter-revolutionary organizer. A staunch loyalist to King George III, he held views that were apparently very different from his children. Not only did William serve in the Continental Army, his sister Hannah was married to Thomas Charles Lewis of the 8th Infantry Brigade under George Washington.

Discovering that my sixth-great-grandfather was such a scoundrel was akin to discovering an Old West outlaw in my family tree. I should be ashamed of him, but at the same time I’m fascinated and ought to write a book.

Francis Hopkins was born in 1720 in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Records show that he left Rhode Island in 1758 and moved his family to New York and later to land that was in Connecticut at the time but is now part of Pennsylvania. From there he moved to Washington County, Virginia.

On May 19, 1778, a grand jury found him guilty of counterfeiting treasury bills, passing two bad $10 bills and buying bad money at an underrate. In August he was fined 50 pounds sterling and was sentenced to six months in jail. It was reported that several of his friends, including his son William, helped him break out of jail.

Francis Hopkins led a gang that terrorized supporters of the rebellion. They stole horses and left placards and notices about depredations that would occur to those who opposed the crown.

Sometime in the fall of 1778 or spring of 1779, Hopkins left a message threatening the life of Col. William Campbell, whose wife was the sister of Patrick Henry. On April 22, 1779, Hopkins was identified to Campbell, who gave chase on his horse. They raced for a mile or so before crashing down the embankment of the Holston River. The two men struggled in the river and Hopkins was about to drown Campbell when help arrived and Hopkins was subdued.

A consultation was held and Hopkins was hung from the branch of a sycamore tree that reached out over the river. It has been reported that his son, William, my patriot ancestor, was also captured but escaped and fled to Kentucky. I have not been able to find any documentation about it, but it seems probable.

Given the dearth of information about William Hopkins and his military service, I’m now inclined to document my lineage to other patriots and see what rascals I can wring out of those branches of the family tree.

Father's Day a reminder of the importance of dads

 

“We are calling on men, all men — the successful and the unsuccessful, the affluent and the poor, the married and the unmarried — to come and claim their children. You can run the biggest drug cartel in America or win the Super Bowl, but if you haven’t claimed your children, you are not a man. No matter how useless or hopeless a father may think he is, his role is simply to be there. If he makes that commitment, he is a much better man than he thought he was.” – Bill Cosby (before he was disgraced)

 

Father’s Day is of my favorite holidays. I like it not because I’m a father and it makes me feel good about being a dad. I don’t need a holiday for that. I like it because it puts fatherhood in a positive light.

Fatherhood has taken a beating in the culture wars in the past 30-40 years. It’s a shame, because we need fathers more than ever. I don’t mean men who get women pregnant, but men who step up and are actively involved in raising their children. We need men who love their wives, care for their children and rise up to protect their family.

Being a father is one of the absolute joys of my life. What matters most in life to me is this: My faith in God, being a husband to Sandy, and being a father to Heather, Wesley, Luke, and Colton. I hope someday to add grandchildren to that list.

I remember well the feelings of excitement, joy, and pride while watching the birth of three of my children (Wesley was 4 years old when I married his mother). I was equally excited when I adopted Wesley as my own son.

There is nothing like the feeling of snuggling with your newborn baby. Those feelings are only magnified the first time he or she says, “I love you, Daddy!” I remember the feelings of peace when one of my children fell asleep in my arms or next to me on the couch. I love story time, gathering for family prayers, playing games, going camping, celebrating birthdays and other holidays, and just doing life together.

Being a father isn’t always easy. At times it can be very difficult and sometimes painful. It’s no fun when you have to enforce discipline, deal with injuries, break up fights, or cope with being lied to by your precious little ones. I think the things that hurt the most are not the times when your children fail, but when you fail as a parent. We all make mistakes, but life goes on.

Some of life’s greatest moments come when your children succeed at something. From winning scores, getting A’s on tests, learning new skills, and graduating from school, there are endless moments big and small that a father treasures forever.

Inevitably, there comes that time when your children grow up and leave home. It’s a bittersweet moment when you know it’s their time to fly but they won’t be there every day to kiss goodnight or hug first thing in the morning. Even when your children leave home, your job as a father never ends, it just transitions.

Wesley is married and lives in Florida. Heather is an avowed bachelorette living in Colorado. Colton, our youngest, left the nest a year ago and is working for Arms of Hope in Medina. Luke, our middle son, lives in San Marcos and on July 7 will marry Samantha “Sammy” Owen.

I’m thrilled to be adding in-law children to the family, but I’d be even more excited to welcome grandchildren (hint, hint!).

As I reflect on the joys of fatherhood, I have to wonder why so many men shun the responsibility. Our jails are populated with people whose fathers were absent, alcoholic, or abusive. Imagine the difference it would make if more men stepped up to embrace fatherhood. Think of the generational cycles of poverty and crime that would end with each father who manned up and cared for their children.

I’d like to see a world where men, and fathers in particular, are given their due respect and likewise earn it. Being a father is an incredible joy and an awesome responsibility. I’ll conclude with one of my favorite quotes: Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.

Happy Father’s Day, y’all!

Football needs to take a hike on holidays

 

Dear NFL and UFL,

I respectfully request that you leave our holidays alone. From his past UFL season to the announcement of the upcoming NFL season, you have unfairly targeted all of our major holidays with games. I want to watch many of those games but more importantly, I want to spend the holidays with my family and friends, not glued to the TV watching sporting events.

This domination of the holidays is incredibly damaging to family time and separates us from our cultural and religious celebrations. This is harmful on many levels. Before I get into that, allow me to set the stage.

The Houston Gamblers of the UFL played 10 regular season games, five at home. Their first home game was on Easter, April 5. Their second home game was on a Thursday night, April 16. Although not a holiday it was a very inconvenient time. They played at home on Sunday, April 26, at 11 a.m., which cuts into church time for many people. The next home game was Sunday, May 10, which was Mother’s Day. The final home game came on Sunday, May 24, the day before Memorial Day. It’s no wonder the Gamblers had the worst attendance in the UFL.

When the NFL made its schedule announcement, it highlighted all of its holiday games like they had won the lottery. A Monday night game will be played on Oct. 12, which is Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day. That one is not such a big deal.

New this year is the Thanksgiving Eve game on Wednesday, Nov. 25. That is followed by the traditional Thanksgiving Day games, offering no break for a Thanksgiving meal. Then the NFL had the audacity to schedule a Christmas Eve game on Thursday, Dec. 24, and three games on Christmas Day! That is followed by a New Year’s Eve game on Thursday, Dec. 31. There will be a playoff game on Monday, Jan. 18, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The coup de grace, however, is the scheduling of the Super Bowl on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.

Fortunately, there are no football games scheduled for the Fourth of July or Labor Day, but don’t worry, Major League Baseball has those covered. They’ve also got Flag Day and Father’s Day.

So, what’s the big deal about scheduling games on holidays? Let’s begin with the reason we have holidays in the first place. It’s not to give us random days off throughout the year. Holidays exist to give us time to pause, reflect, and respect certain events or people. When we have games on those days, they remove or deflect the focus of the day. That’s not to mention the tens of thousands of people who have to work those games, either directly or indirectly.

With our holidays saturated with football games – especially Thanksgiving and Christmas – we lose not only focus on the meaning of those days, but also very valuable family time. Families sacrifice so much throughout the year that taking away even more time is harmful to our most essential relationships. Football widows and orphans are a real thing and taking over holidays exacerbates the problem.

I understand that watching a favorite football team can also be a bonding time for some people, but there are plenty of other non-holiday weekends for that. Let’s restore the sanctity of our holidays and respect our culture and families and back off on the scheduling.

Of course, the reason the NFL and UFL are scheduling holiday games is pure greed. The more nationally televised games they can have, the more money they make. That’s why the NFL has taken over Monday and Thursday nights and pushes into Saturdays when the college football season ends. That’s why the football season has gone from September to January now from August to February.

Speaking of football greed, the NFL has priced out the average fan from attending games in person. Only the wealthy pack NFL stadiums anymore. It used to be that the games were free on broadcast television stations. Now you have to subscribe to numerous streaming services to get the games you want. They are taking our time and our money and not giving us anything substantial in return.

Maybe I’ve become a grouchy old man and this rant is for nothing. But I believe if the football leagues are left unchecked, they will consume more of our time, our money, and ultimately damage our families and culture. So please, NFL and UFL, give us a break.

Coffee is the elixir of life

 I once had a life before coffee, but now I have no life before coffee.

Like many people, I drink a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Then I have another. And another. I usually have three or more cups under my belt before I go to work. That’s where the serious drinking begins.

Yes, I am totally addicted to coffee. Don’t judge me. I really don’t care how good or bad it is for me. I know I like it and I can’t do without it. I like my coffee hot and black. No cream or sugar, just plain bean juice. And for Heaven’s sake, don’t try to pass off any of those fru-fru drinks with funny names by me.

I come from a family that measures coffee consumption, not by the cup, but by the pot. When I was a kid I hated coffee. It smelled bad and was very bitter. Being around it so much, I decided to try it when I was in my teens. I wanted to know what my parents were so enamored with.

I started out by loading my java with lots of cream and sugar. Prepared that way it wasn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. I found myself being sucked in by the magic bean. I didn’t want to become a slave to it like my parents, so I decided I would wean off the bean by doing away with the cream and sugar. Certainly the bitter taste would turn me off, right? Ha! By then it was too late.

For most of my life Folgers coffee was my regular poison but Maxwell House was my favorite. During the summer months while I was in college, I worked at a Boy Scout camp that served Chock Full o’ Nuts brand. I still have cravings for it and drink it when I can.

I usually got my first few cups at breakfast in the camp dining hall. My morning routine from there was to go to the site where I taught wilderness survival, start a fire, and set a pot of coffee on it to percolate while I taught my first class. By then I could serve coffee by the slice and friends would come by to have a bite.

The camp had old Army surplus mugs that they let us have and I kept mine with me wherever I went. After all, you never know when a coffee emergency will arise. I don’t know what kind of material the cup is made out of, but I once dropped it off the side of mountain by accident. I found it later, unscathed. I still have it and use it on occasion.

Coffee and I have come to an understanding over the years. As long as it keeps me awake, I’ll keep drinking it. A day without coffee is like … who am I kidding? I don’t know what a day without coffee is like. I imagine it involves a lot fewer trips to the restroom.

I was the kind of person who could drink a cup of coffee before going to bed and zonk right out for the night. That’s changed in the last few years. Now I need to stop my caffein intake around dinner time. That was a hard lesson to learn, but it wasn’t the most painful lesson coffee has taught me.

That lesson came at the end of my first semester in college. I was planning on pulling an all-nighter to cram for three finals I had on the next day. I drank a pot of coffee, had a couple Jolt Colas, and popped some NoDoze. I was wired all night long and through breakfast. When I got to my first final at 8 a.m., the caffein wore off and I crashed – hard!

Since then I’ve had a great level of respect for the mystical powers of the almighty cup o’ Joe. Like I said, we understand each other. I’ve also come to understand that not all coffees are equal. As America’s obsession with coffee has grown in the last 30 or so years, different varieties and qualities have emerged.

You really can’t talk about coffee without mentioning Starbucks. The company made the coffee shop industry what it is today. I’m not a big fan, but I won’t turn down a steaming mug.

When it comes to the black elixir of life, the most exotic kind that I’ve had is Kopi Luwak. The wild palm civets of Indonesia eat ripe coffee cherries and the beans are collected from their droppings, cleaned, and roasted. My father-in-law was gifted some while on a mission trip, and we enjoyed a couple of cups after he returned.

More recently, my wife discovered that most of the world’s supply of coffee comes from plantations where they are covered in pesticides that make it into the final product. She has recently started buying me organic coffee from Ethiopia. Not only is it much healthier, the aroma is enticing and the taste is great.

Each morning now I eagerly awake to a fresh pot of organic Ethiopian coffee and the gift of life for another day.

Are rabbits pets or meat?

 Pets or meat? When it comes to raising rabbits, it could be either or both.

Occasionally throughout my 26-year marriage to Sandy we debated whether rabbits were for meat or pets. Both of us had rabbits as kids. Sandy and her sister had pet rabbits. My family raised them for meat and to show in 4-H. I ate an awful lot of rabbit meat growing up in Colorado. At one point we had more than 200 in our rabbitry.

Feeding, breeding, and butchering bunnies was just a way of life for me. Twice a day my brothers and I went out and made sure they had food and water and every weekend we used shovels to clean out the rabbitry and fertilize the garden. As needed, usually a couple times a month, we would reduce the population and fill the freezer.

Believe me, it’s a lot easier to increase the population than to depopulate it because rabbits breed, well … like rabbits. Most does (females) can breed immediately after giving birth. With a 30-day gestation period, they can have up to 11-12 litters a year with each litter ranging in size from 1-12 kits (babies). That pace is rough on the doe and isn’t healthy for her.

My preference is to wait until she weans her kits and they’re moved out before breeding her again. That takes two months or more. I usually get 4-5 litters a year out of each doe, and they average eight to 10 kits a litter. When you have about 30 does, that makes for a lot of little ones. It also makes for some very happy bucks (males), but that’s another story for another day.

Whenever the topic of raising rabbits came up, I would accuse Sandy of suffering from Thumper Syndrome. Thumper, the cute character from “Bambi,” made rabbits seem too adorable to eat. Bugs Bunny didn’t help either – that wascawwy wabbit!

I still remember when we got our first rabbits. We got a pair of New Zealand whites that I named Old Dan and Little Ann after the dogs in “Where the Red Fern Grows.” My fifth grade teacher was reading the book to us at the time. Eventually we added Californians, Dutch, satins and other breeds.

When I entered Boy Scouts, rabbit raising was the first merit badge that I earned. I also showed red satins as my 4-H project at the Boulder County Fair. For what it was worth, I sure racked up plenty of participation ribbons over the years.

We got rid of all of our farm animals while I was in high school. It took 42 years and a move to rural Brazos County to get back into farming on a small scale. We started with chickens and added ducks and geese. Last fall we were given three sibling New Zealand white rabbits to start our rabbitry. There were two bucks and a doe.

At the suggestion of my daughter, Heather, we named them Harry, Ron, and Hermione after the characters in the Harry Potter books. We then purchased two TAMUK rabbits. The breed was specially produced at Texas A&M University-Kingsville to be meat producers and to be able to withstand the hot Texas summers.

We named the doe Mousey because she looked like a large, gray mouse. The buck, who is mostly white with very large, dark ears, dark feet, and a line on his nose that looks like a mustache, has two names. Sandy calls him Mr. Belvedere. I call him Mr. Velvet Ears.

Not long ago we purchased two Californian does. Going with the Californian theme, I named one Cali. Keeping with the Harry Potter theme, Sandy named the other Luna.

Since we had too many bucks, one of the New Zealands had to go. I butchered one but couldn’t tell you which one. We decided that since Ron marries Hermione at the end of the Harry Potter series that we would keep that name. Poor Harry wound up in the frying pan – Sandy’s first time to cook and eat rabbit.

A couple weeks ago Hermione gave birth to six kits. Mr. Velvet Ears is the proud pappa of four black and two gray kits. On Tuesday night he became a father again as Mousey gave birth. As of this writing I have not had a good enough look to see how many.

What this means is we are now in the rabbit meat production business (and maybe pelts, too). So what changed Sandy’s mind? She saw how much rabbit meat was selling for at the Brazos County Farmers Market. She now gets the benefit of helping raise cute little bunnies and I get the job of converting them into meat. It looks like we both won our argument.

The force of Star Wars changed my life

 

There comes a moment in everyone’s life when something happens that causes a paradigm shift, forever altering your worldview.

That happened for me in the early summer of 1977. I was just shy of my 12th birthday and a die-hard “Star Trek” fan when my family went to see this new science fiction movie everyone was talking about. For me, science fiction began and ended with “Star Trek.” The trailer for this new movie looked stupid, but people lined up for blocks to see it.

When we left the theater after watching “Star Wars,” I knew that I had just witnessed one of the most profound things in my life. I couldn’t stop thinking and talking about it. I was obsessed. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. Every stick I found became a lightsaber. Every gun-shaped object was Han Solo’s blaster. I still liked “Star Trek,” but “Star Wars” ruled my universe.

I spent a lot of time last week reliving those days in my mind in anticipation of seeing “The Mandalorian and Grogu” at the theater. Sandy and I went Thursday night and we were not disappointed. It was loaded with action and humor. We had a fun time picking out the Star Wars easter eggs, finding references to movies and TV shows.

It has been our tradition to see the very first showing of new Star Wars films. That meant going to midnight showings when each of the prequel trilogy movies came out. We quit doing midnight showings when the sequel trilogy and standalone films hit the theaters, but we always went on opening day. When “Rogue One” came out, I won tickets for my family to see an advance screening in IMAX 3-D a week before it was released.

On Thursday we arrived late and missed the first few minutes of “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” I guess that’s an excuse to go back and see it again!

My life with Sandy has its roots in Star Wars. We were living in the Denver area when the first Star Wars Celebration was held there in 1999 in preparation for “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.” We got three-day passes and it was while we were standing in line to see one of the actors that I proposed to Sandy. The Force was with me that day and we’ve been happily married ever since.

When “The Phantom Menace” opened in theaters, we went to the midnight premier and then I took the next day off from work and saw back-to-back-to-back showings. We went to Toys-R-Us and bought the full line of action figures “for the kids.” I still have them.

For the record, I’m one of the few who actually like the Jar Jar Binks character. I even have a Facebook page called Bring Back Jar Jar Binks. Don’t judge me!

There once was a time when I believed I was the world’s greatest Star Wars fan. Over the years, I’ve learned the painful truth that I am not the world’s greatest Star Wars fan. As I’ve attended comic cons over the decades, I’ve seen people whose Star Wars fandom makes my interest seem more diminutive than a mouse droid. Still, it remains a big part of my life.

In 2019 I did a phone interview with Anthony Daniels, the actor who plays C-3PO. During our conversation he said, “please tell me you didn’t name any of your children Luke.” Umm. I tried explaining to him that he was named for biblical reasons, not Star Wars. I don’t think he believed me.

Over the years I’ve gotten to meet many Star Wars and Star Trek actors at comic cons. The one I got to know best was Peter Mayhew, the gentle giant who played Chewbacca. At one point he even used one of my pictures of him as his Facebook profile picture. I was incredibly honored!

Another Star Wars honor I received came in 2011. I went to Houston’s Comicpalooza dressed in my Lone Ranger costume and Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bullock stopped me and asked to have his picture taken with me. Apparently, he was a big Lone Ranger fan.

This weekend is Comicpalooza but I’m not going. They quit bringing in A-list celebrities a few years back and it has hardly been worth the time and expense to go. Instead, I’m hoping to return to SpaceCon in San Antonio on June 12-14. It’s loaded with an embarrassment of riches in A-list celebrities, including Tom Hiddleston, Ian McDiarmid, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Smits, Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto, William Shatner, and far too many more to name here.

Of all the celebrities I’ve encountered over the years, the holy trinity of Star Wars has eluded me. We’ve lost Carrie Fisher, but Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford remain on the top of my Star Wars bucket list. Seeing them would make my circle to 1977 complete. This is the way!

Advice for graduates

 

There is one nugget of advice that I still remember from my college graduation nearly 40 years ago.

I don’t remember the speaker’s name or most of what he said. I do remember him concluding with the advice that when someone asks you where you went to college to proudly proclaim Adams State College like it was the biggest, most prestigious college in the nation.

When people invariably ask where that is, respond with bold confidence and an air of surprise like they should know that.

For the record, Adams State is located in Alamosa, Colorado, high in the San Luis Valley in the south-central part of the state. And it is no longer Adams State College. In 2012 it became Adams State University. And the mascot is no longer the Indians. We are the Grizzlies. The student newspaper where I learned print journalism was The South Coloradan. Now it’s the Paw Print.

When I graduated, Adams State had an enrolment of about 2,000 students. There were about 200 in my graduating class. Today the enrollment is over 3,000.

Adams State is about the size of a large high school in Texas. The entire student body and most of their guests still wouldn’t fill Texas A&M’s Reed Arena, which is packed out numerous times each spring for graduation.

Between all the high school and college graduations taking place, there will be a lot of advice given to those moving on to their next stage of life. I think I’ve heard just about all of it in the many ceremonies I’ve attended. Between graduations of family members to the numerous ones I’ve covered as a reporter, I’ve sat through the droning of countless speeches.

Although the names and faces of the speakers have faded from my memory, some of the advice has stuck. That’s probably because the best advice has been given many times in many ways. What follows, in a nutshell, is the best of that advice.

First, you are in charge now. Mommy and daddy are no longer calling the shots (at least they shouldn’t be). No one is going to tell you what to do with your life. Where you go and what you do is up to you now. It’s time to pull up your big boy pants and enter the real world.

Second, make the most of what you have. Your formal education and life experiences have brought you this far and made you the person you are. It’s time to up your game. The more you give, the more you get. As the saying goes, there are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. Which one will you be?

Third, always be grateful. You didn’t get where you are by yourself and you won’t get to where you’re going alone. There are people who have helped you along the way and people you don’t know yet who will come alongside you when you need them most. Always express gratitude and never look down on anyone.

Fourth, don’t quit! There will be times when you don’t feel you can go on and that your dream is unachievable. There will be naysayers who will tell you it can’t be done and they will dog you each step of the way. Don’t quit! Keep focused on your dream, your goal, and when things get hard or the path is blocked, knuckle down and find another way. There is no direct path to success. Be persistent and always moving forward.

Fifth, learn from your mistakes. All of us have failures. As the late Zig Ziglar used to say, “Failure is an event, not a person.” We grow and learn from our failures and mistakes. I like the saying, “Success is built one failure at a time.”

To the graduates I would say, “You got this!” This is your time and the world is your stage. Step out, be bold, forge your path forward but never forget where you come from. Sorry Aggies, but I’m from Adams State and proud of it!