For many many years – ever since I can recall, even – I’ve been a monkeyfan. Witness the existence of this site. 🙂

This is largely, in part, due to the TV shows I watched as a child. And there are storybooks like Curious George, of course.

Lancelot Link was probably the main reason for my love of monkeys. Those talking chimps were hilarious.

There are monkeys, and then there are Monkees.

…and with Monkees we have the lead man, Davy Jones. Passed away today, age 66, in Florida, USA. Born in Manchester, England.

I remember choosing my friends in grade school because they reminded me of the Monkees’ cast. Also this show fed my type of humour and eventually led me to my other major favs, Monty Python and Douglas Adams.

So this show and the cast members have had a lasting impact on my childhood – and eventually teen years and adulthood.

This one’s for you, Mr Jones.

In my genealogy research i see a lot of examples where all i see are names and a set of sparse dates next to them – birth, maybe death, and some scattered census recordings. That’s it. And a spouse’s name maybe, equally bare.

That’s it, for what represents maybe 40, 50 or in some cases 70 years’ worth of the daily grind you and i face.

Haha ok, maybe no facebook or telecommuting (or tele-anything for that matter) but they had their equivalent for sure.

Point is, we’ve a new world to conquer every morning and rejoice in every evening – and in the end may have no way of showing what it was we actually did for that day.

This doesn’t mean what we do doesn’t matter.  Truth is, it’s actually the exact opposite.  Unseen forces that we can’t see or don’t think about much do impact our lives daily.

Think about things like gravity, time, and  – if one is spiritual in nature – all those mystical energies wafting about.  Without these, our world would be unrecognisable by us.  Our daily – and i dare say, minute-by-minute – existence is as much a part of the “external world” as are  items like these.

What we present to our family and friends exerts an energy and force that affects them, just as morning sunlight on a  summer sidewalk warms it, or rain on a slippery slope creates powerful mudslides.

A hundred years may pass.

No one may recall or have recorded our daily activities.

But they existed nonetheless, and moved others to act or think in ways they may not have done otherwise.