The Crucible

Whelp, I still haven't "cured" my book/reading dry-spell. But, it's Halloween, and I just watch Payton (and Garrett's) final Halloween true-crime podcast (podcast: Murder With My Husband--today's theme/story: the Salem Witch Trials), and I'm feeling book/reading inspired.

I haven't read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" since probably high school when I read it the first time. I loved it then and loved it now. I've always been fascinated by witches and the witch trials and Salem and the sociology of the criminology of it all. It has nothing to do with Abigail Miller and I sharing the same first name (or the eerie reasons that brought Abigail to Salem in the first place). ;)

In the past few years, I've been researching more and more about my ancestry (slowly and bit by bit). My father's family (and therefore mine) have descended from the people who came over on the Mayflower and "founded" Plymouth Rock. There were 102 passengers (and 30 crew) that traveled over in 1620; between all of their children and grandchildren and (great-times-a-bunch)grandchildren, there is an estimated of 35 million Mayflower descendants (about 10 million in the US). So like, a brag on my part, but not a big one (also, small pox blankets and the super-fun/not-at-all-remembered first "Thanksgiving"). 

HOWEVER, the number of Mayflower descendants who also have ties to the Salem Witch Trails is much smaller. About...one. John Alden Jr. (the direct descendant to John Alden, the ship's cooper) was accused on witchcraft in 1692. My great-times-about-eight-or-nine-uncle. He was jailed and then subsequently escaped his imprisonment (and got away with it, because he was white and a dude and not-poor). This was a few days before Giles Corey was crushed to death, so like, great timing John. Some sources say that John Alden Jr. went to New York whereas others say he went back to Duxbury were many other Alden descendants lived/thrived (included my great-times-about-eight-or-nine-grandfather, Joseph Alden). He was proclaimed "innocent" about a year later--much, much sooner than anyone else (by over a decade--and that was just "reversed excommunications" and "nullified trial judgments;" no one was actually declared innocent until 1957, and the last convicted-but-not-executed victim wasn't exonerated until 2022).

Fun times. Anyway, I mostly read this book to write this post to distract myself from actually reading. Fun. Times.

Also, I've been listening to a lot of classical music lately while reading (when I'm reading), and Halidon Music on YouTube is amazing. Their playlists are fabulous, and there are A LOT of them, matching moods and themes and seasons/holidays. Check them out, too (because if you still haven't checked out Murder With My Husband, you need to).

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