Families: Where We Each Begin - Softcover

Teague, Randal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1532055544 ISBN 13: 9781532055546

Publisher: iUniverse, 2019

Synopsis

This is a 307 page book available in hardcover and softback, as well as on Kindle. Two years in its research and writing and another in editing, it is now available to the reader in unit and bulk. It follows on two collaborations in which the author was a team leader and project director, respectively, but not either's sole author. The book here is the author's first in that respect, but it will not be his last, for he is now researching and writing a major work on his decades of experiences in respect to and in the Soviet Union and now Russia, for which the working title is Dancing with the Bear; another on unresolved racial stresses within the South, for which the working title is Shadows at the Back Door; and a compendium of his lifetime writings on critical ideas, public figures known to him personally, organizations to accomplish public policy objectives and favored places, the working title for which is Encounters of the Right Kind.

About this title

About the Author

Randal Teague was raised near Duke University and UNC and graduated from American and George Washington Universities in the nation's capital. He abandoned aspirations in marine biology to become an attorney and a giver of time, talent and treasure through commitments to nonprofit organizations. He is an avid fisherman and a lover of plump oysters and fine scotches, and he is known as Papa Randy to his grandchildren. An inquisitive traveler to more than 280 national park sites, he calls Alexandria, Virginia his home.

From the Back Cover

While you might think you know almost everything about your family, you do not. You know little about the years before you appeared on the scene. You know little about what went on when you were early to bed and late to rise or were at school or play. Pluralize your family into families, which reaches back to at least your grandparents, and you know ever less about them and the contexts that surrounded them. Ancestry searches give you vital statistics but not their contexts.

An obvious but seldom pondered reality is that life is an assemblage of every moment that shaped it. While those moments occurred in sequence, they are not remembered in sequence. Some we recall accurately, and others we do not, often simply because we never knew all that was occurring. This is analogous to the conflicting accounts of a traffic accident, isn't it? Inasmuch as the brain is a computer, it can bring back long-forgotten memories if we think hard enough around them. The interplay between the conscious and the subconscious beings memories up from their depths, enabling us to shape or reshape the present. Recalling long-forgotten memories takes time. It's like digging through layers, each memory recalled serving as a gateway to additional recalls. This book sets forth successes in doing that.

From the Inside Flap

In Families: Where We Each Begin, Randal Teague chronicles his journey from relativity humble beginnings to his launch pad for a career in law, higher education, and politics. By subjecting his family lore and legend to the harsh scrutiny of research, he discovers a somewhat different self through facts and circumstances shared with him by his extended family and friends. This memoir provides more than just information. It describes in a convincing way how to pass knowledge of what came before us to those whom we know and those whom we will never know.

With this collaborative approach, Teague expanded his knowledge of himself. Some family lore was true, but some was not. Lost facts were recovered. Memories grew in number and depth and lit the corners of his mind. Loved ones long passed returned to his daily thoughts and evening dreams. And he came to understand, as a famous author once observed, that you can love completely without complete understanding.

Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1532055544
• ISBN 13: 9781532055546
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324