The Survey Says….

April 2010

          Our page counter is up past 900 now, so your visits to our page are being noted.  Thank you to all those readers who took a few moments last month to give us input on the survey for ideas.  We got some good answers and you can look forward to some interesting articles from your ideas beginning next month. 

I thought you might like to see the tabulations on some survey answers:

        And now for those 46% of you…here is a quick Mystery Uncovered………

I recently heard the song “I’m My Own Grandpa” and got quite a laugh out of it, especially noting some of the “strange but true” information we find at The Fort.  My curiosity got the better of me, so I looked up the history of the song.   Just click on the first link to play the song in case you haven’t heard it.                            

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxey8uQtsMI

More About "I'm My Own Grandpa"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"I'm My Own Grandpa" (sometimes rendered as "I'm My Own Grandpaw") is a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947, about a man who, through an unlikely (but legal) combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother — that is, tacitly dropping the "step-" modifiers, he becomes his own grandfather.

In the song, the narrator marries a widow with an adult daughter. Subsequently, his father marries the widow's daughter. This creates a comic tangle of relationships by a mixture of blood and marriage; for example, the narrator's father is now also his stepson-in-law. The situation is complicated further when both couples have children.

In the '30s, Latham had a group, the Jesters, on network radio; their specialties were bits of spoken humor and novelty songs. While reading a book of Mark Twain anecdotes, he once found a paragraph in which Twain proved it would be possible for a man to become his own grandfather. In 1947, Latham and Jaffe expanded the idea into a song, which became a hit for Lonzo and Oscar.

A version by Guy Lombardo and The Guy Lombardo Trio became a hit in 1948. The song was also recorded by Phil Harris (as "He's His Own Grandpa"), Jo Stafford (as "I'm My Own Grandmaw"), and Homer and Jethro.

A 1976 episode of The Muppet Show includes a skit in which the song is performed by the all-Muppet Gogolala Jubilee Jugband. In the movie The Stupids, Stanley Stupid, portrayed by Tom Arnold, sings "I'm My Own Grandpa" while on a talk show about strange families. The song was performed by American country music singer Ray Stevens, and can be heard on his 1987 album Crackin' Up. Willie Nelson performed the song on his 2001 album The Rainbow Connection. This song was also performed by Grandpa Jones, who sang it both at the Grand Ole Opry and on the TV show Hee Haw. It was also later recorded on the album Home is Where the Heart Is by David Grisman and on Michael Cooney's album of songs for children. Folk singer Steve Goodman included it in his live shows, but did not release an official recording of the song. This song has also been recorded by an Australian Comedy Country Artist Chad Morgan and appears on an album "Sheilas, Drongos, Dills and Other Geezers" and also Australian Country Artist, Melinda Schneider with the Schneider Sisters.

For more information check out this site:  http://www.genealogymagazine.com/grandpa.html

Hope you got a hearty genealogical laugh from this old song and enjoyed the new information you may have learned about it.

Just consider this a small mystery uncovered by your friends at The Fort!  

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