The modern American family is a genetic and historical amalgam from throughout the world. The typical family history contains fading memories of immigration, wars, social interactions and friendships. These memories are fading all the faster because of a culture that worships youth and the grandiloquence of "experts" to the extent of ignoring the wisdoms and insights gathers through decade upon decade of experience by ordinary people. We now live in a society that places the beliefs and stories of a relatively small group of "academics" above family wisdom. Somehow we have come to believe that the knowledge peddled by men and women who have spent the bulk of their lives from the age of five in the isolated and confined world of the classroom learning more and more about less and less is somehow superior to the knowledge offered people who have been exploring and surviving the broader world. This book is dedicated to the idea that any culture or society is doomed when any given over to any small group, whether that small group be military, political or even academic. This book is further dedicated to the idea that through diversity of thought comes strength. For thousands of years the true nature of diversity has been preserved and strengthened by the family and the oral history of each family. This book is a challenge to each reader to record and preserve the stories and the history that brings power to the family and to society as a whole.