BLESSED

There comes a time when a father realizes blessings all around him. At age 63, my three oldest girls are grown and making their own lives very happily. My oldest daughter, Leslie, just 24, recently gave birth to my first grandchild, a lovely tall girl already with red hair and impish grin, wonderful ranging eyes, natural curiosity, lovely laugh, and a scream sometimes that knocks you out of your seat. Hey, I want something, she says. And the scream does it. Guess who’s going to be the boss later on? My youngest daughter, Elizabeth, is at college, on the horse-riding team at Hollins University near Roanoke, Virginia, a wonderful rider, and having a great time as a college girl should. All my close friends are family people – fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, all brought up children who thankfully turned out to be true blessings. Leslie, born in April 1982, two weeks before The Washington Times daily newspaper published its first issue -- her father being the newspaper’s first reporter hired -- married Noah last year and recently birthed Carmen Thomas Ree. Leslie and Noah didn’t waste any time. Carmen may not be The Washington Times’ first grandbaby, but she’s a redhead with lovely penetrating eyes and laugh. The scream she occasionally belts out would cut down a wall, knocks your socks off. Chip off the old block on my side of the family, I admit. The Archibalds, descended from medieval Scottish warriors, have always been persevering and make their views and wants and battles and loves very well known. Just an infant, Carmen already doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She’s a boss to be sure. Carmen is going to be like all the Archibasld girls – and Smithson girls – her grandmother’s family: Great personalities, gorgeous,  intelligent, steadfast, loyal, grateful, hard-working, modest, radiant, quiet yet loud when necessary, ready to make a mark on anyone around – and Southern charm from every pore. I’m like any other parent who loves his children. Leslie is a slow-burner, but like her mother very keyed to old-fashioned Dixie virtues of honesty and love, a Gone With the Wind type.. And when I saw Carmen Thomas Ree for the first time in  Leslie’s arms, everything came full circle: My little girl holding her baby, my first granddaughter, and the love, pride, hope in her eyes as she handed Carmen to me to hold her for the first time. It’s a proud and loving moment I shall never forget. And Carmen Thomas will grow up on my watch, and will love the world we live in, emphasize as her parents and grandparents do the positives, confront and hopefully toss the negatives, appreciaste people’s strengths, figure ways to overcome weaknesses, exalt the idea that our world and universe were gifts to us from a higher power we call God, and looking always for ways to help people in difficulty while fending off those who would take advantage of people wrongly. I asked Leslie: Why is Carmen’s middle name Thomas? The answer made me cry. Her great-grandfather, Thomas Mayo, father of her mother’s mother, was a tall, strong, yet modest policeman in Norfolk, Virginia, who patrolled the streets of the Navy bars on a bicycle, and was the nicest, kindest man one could ever know. Tommy and Mildred Mayo lived in a modest home with his wife Mildred in a community on the Elizabeth River in northeast Norfolk, and had crab-pots that I went with him to empty and rebait on many a weekend. Tommy Mayo was among the nicest, kindest, most exemplary people I have ever known. And for my granddaughter to be named after him brings tears to my eyes because it is a perfect cycle-of-life continuation of family tradition and values we hold dear – passing on from generation to generation. Watch that space: Carmen Thomas will bring down the best, and like my daughters, will be exemplary. She’s got the family heritage and backing. My second daughter, Alexandra Eileen – named after my godmother whose daughter married into the English royal family – is not only a gorgeous model-type girl but also has a strong mind and personality, a definite mind of her own. She dropped out of college after several years of junior college and a couple years to her junior year in an undergraduate college because she tired of liberal-left professors and curriculum that denigrated America and our country’s Judaic-Christian tradition. Ali instead put herself through Graham-Webb beauty school and now cuts hair in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia,, beautifies ladies, makes a great income, and is happy as a clam. Plus she recently reached out to me when dad had some difficult medical issues, and Ali took charge to get things worked out. I could not be more grateful to a loving daughter for helping me in a time of need. Ali reached out to me when she knew I had medical issues that needed fixing – and she persevered and got a remedy going for me, dear girl. Third daughter, Leigh Anne, is totally hospitality-oriented. In her teens and as an early twenty-year-old, she worked in high-quality restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area as a waitress, hostess, and all of a sudden applied to United Airlines to be a flight attendant and was immediately accepted. Leigh Anne is a willowy, beautiful lanky blonde with a radiant smile, lovely eyes, a laugh that warms you, a total people person, and has a heart of gold like all her sisters. Wouldn’t you know: After training and traveling around the world , Leigh Anne quickly met another United Airlines flight attendant, a nice young man, Saul, and they’ve fallen madly in love. The romance is afire to be sure. Elizabeth – Lizza -- my youngest, a freshman at Hollins University near Roanoke, Virginia, is the only horsey one of my daughters – carrying on the tradition of her great-grandfather who rode the winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1911, and her paternal grandfather, who rode over jumps and in the English Grand National seven times, coming third on Miss Dorothy Paget’s Kilstar in 1937 Lizaa’s maternal great-grandfather, Henri Jelliss, son of Belgium’s champion jockey Charles Jelliss 14 years in a row, rode winner of the English Triple Crown and rode as lead jockey in England for Lord Astor. Her paternal grandfather, George Archibald, was champion National Hunt jockey in England, rode for King George VI as his father also rode for King George V, and was assistant thoroughbred horse-trainer for Queen Elizabeth II when he emigrated in 1955 to Middleburg, Virginia,  USA’s most pristine thoroughbread horse farm country, in 1955. Blessed is our family, with hardworking forebears who made a mark in every generation. The power of such heritage is hard to uphold, but the genes travel from generation to generation. We are blessed indeed, grateful, and the Archibald family will carry on for generations ahead.