I'm not going to be ashamed of his fake eye. He's family. My peeps. This great-great man before you is my actual Great-Great Grandfather, born 1832. I've never been too sure if I should call him Great-Great Granddad or Great-Great Grandpops or what, so I'm going stick with Great-Great Grandfather. He looks all stately and dignified. Granted, he's not too attractive -- I'll give you that -- and that beard of his is on the scraggly side as far as beards go -- but he's one tough motherfucker. He's from my mom's side -- a Smith -- so I now have insight into where I got my awesome good looks: definitely from my dad's side.
For the record (in case you're a genealogist or a Mormon), my Great-Great Grandfather's name is George. Yep. George Rogers Smith. Pretty cool, huh? In fact, I'm pretty sure the 1980 Heisman Trophy winner was actually named after my Great-Great Grandfather. Who wouldn't want to name their son after a less-than-moderately good looking fighting man who heeded the call of Honest Abe?
My Great-Great Grandfather made sacrifices as a forage master for the 77th New York Infantry. Yes, he was a brave man. Just look at that face. That's a courageously brave man's face if you ever saw one. It's obvious. He took a musket ball in the right eye. How much braver do you need?
Nothing in the family archives mentions his eye injury, but I imagine his vision was forever changed after charging up a hill or pushing onward through a thicket to free some slaves and putting a world of hurt on some secessionist bastards.
My people's records say he was only 5'7" and owned a jewelry business. He must've liked the bling. I guess my people were more proud of his jewelry-business accomplishments than explaining his disfigured eye. That sounds like us. We're a humble bunch.
My Great-Great Grandfather died the day after Christmas, 1897. Word is that the ol' cusser crushed a finger in a corncob cutter, which got infected, festered, and gave him tetanus. The official cause of death: lockjaw. You'd think I was making this up, but I'm not. What's a guy with a jewelry business doing with a bad corncob cutter, anyway? I've never even seen a corncob cutter before now. After seeing one, I would've said he died from a high-power diamond cutter.
And now he's on the Internet with his fake eye, looking all brave and shit. I kind of hope he's surfing the Worldwide Web from heaven right now, appreciating the tribute being made by his amazing and brilliant Great-Great Grandson (me).
"That's my Great-Great Grandson doing all this blobbing?" he might be saying, feeling his glass eye. "Wow. He's awesome. He sure knows how to use all this newfangled technology. And I can sure tell he's handsome." I might be exaggerating. He could just as well be pissed off: "Good God, Great-Great Grandson. That's the best likeness you could find?"
