That somewhere in England, now just a crabbed line in some cracked vellum muster roll written over 600 years ago, lived a man with my name and, perhaps, a bit of my face.
Yep, "John Lawes" is my right name. And his. Our birthdays some 540 years apart. Was this a great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfather? I'd sure like to think so.
And I note smugly, as an old soldier who knows that there are old soldiers and bold soldiers but few old, bold soldiers, that the crafty old bastard knew better than to enjoy an all-expense paid trip to France in 1399 to enjoy the 14th Century cooties, trench foot, bad food and irascible natives. I'll bet the shrewd old sod knew exactly where he wanted to be on Crispin Crispian's Day and that wasn't goddam rainy marching on some painful field with a happy fucking few.
Sod that for a game of soldiers.
Fascinating. (h/t to Robert Farley over at LG&M)
