The Great Mozingo

This is our African friend Mozingo. Actually, Mo is from North Carolina. If you looked really, really closely at Mo, you might...nah, you wouldn't. As he admits, he is so pale, and his bride-to-be Monica is also so pale, that they'll probably produce invisible children.

But that name...it sounds African, doesn't it? So Monica decided to do some research on the Mozingo family name, and guess what she discovered: all the Mozingos of North Carolina are descended from one ex-African slave who managed to free himself many, many generations ago, married a local woman and began the American Mozingos.

Last night at Ti-couz, over Breton crepes and beer, Mo told Plot and Duck what happened when he called his family in North Carolina to give them the news of their African genesis. Or, rather, Monica told the story, because Ti-couz has to be the noisiest restaurant in Saint Plotniko and it isn't really possible to hear someone speaking from all the way across the table.

"Hi, Mom, hi, Dad, hi brothers, say, guess what?" said Mo. When he gave them the news, they all said, in unison: "(insert silence here)."

The Great Plotnik doesn't think anybody should be surprised to hear they have previously-unknown origins. In the first place, if you're American your forebears are from somewhere else. The Duck's Kentucky family has quite a few Cherokee sprinkled in there. Why? Well, why do you think? The rumor about all the blue-eyed Plotniks has always been that the local ruler back in Poland, Count Puniatoski, tended to dabble in the family gene pool in exchange for certain favors, like food. Hey, it happens.

Many African-American families have Anglo forebears, and vice-versa, and we should not forget that for many generations black families were the only ones with enough heart to raise children of white-black relationships in America. You didn't see a white family raising a black child, but you did see a black family raising a white child. Status, you see.



So The Great Plotnik raises his Guinness to The Great Mozingo and to his bride Monica. Why Morris Mozingo is marring Monica Morgan in Decatur, Georgia, instead of the logical local choice, MoMo's, is a true mystery.