September 11th, 2001

This is an email from my penpal in Peru the week of the attacks. Her name is Rosa and we are still on contact. Her twitter handle is @Rositavill.

Newspaper clippings of the newspaper on September 11, 2001.

More clippings and a ribbon that the marching band wore to the football game that Friday.

This event changed the world. It turned my life upside down. I was almost 18 years old, in my senior year of high school, and the way I function and live life is different now because of this day.

 

The newspaper clippings and things that I saved were included in my senior project that my AP English teacher assigned. I think I cried the rest of this year. Things came to an end. Friendships were placed on hold. The world cried with our nation. Everything about the future was uncertain.

 

I was supposed to come to school early this day to finish up an art project. My art teacher never showed up, though. I was headed to the band hall to put away my instrument when she finally came and unlocked her door. "I couldn't leave home because I had to watch what was going on." I was clueless about what she was talking about. It wasn't until I arrived in the band hall that several people were gathered around the televisions. I watched the second airplane hit.

 

As I made my way to Spanish, which I had first hour, a sense of dread began to seep in. I had written a paper about the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, so Osama bin Laden immediately came to mind as the person behind this. It wasn't until the towers collapsed, a plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, and another plane crashed into the Pentagon, that the news media began to suspect a terrorist attack.

 

That evening we had a scheduled marching band rehearsal. We did not cancel that rehearsal because we did not want to give the world the idea that we could be stopped. The aggression and anger over this event caused us to speculate about invading the Middle East, even on the day the attacks occured. We stopped rehearsal early to watch the president's address to the nation. The whole day felt like I was watching a movie.

 

The corruption, the endless fighting in Afganistan, and the invasion of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, all began to overshadow how truly horrific this day was. It is important to me that we are giving the proper information about what happened to future generations so that it never happens again.

School Years

Second/Third Grade

4th Grade. I wore glasses at this point and was teased, so I took them off for this photo.

10th Grade

Senior Year as Drum Major, Fall 2001

June 2002, in my flip flops because they were against the dress code

I think my school experience was...interesting. Especially now that I live further north and I see how my experiences were quite different. I grew up in a small town where everybody knew everybody and your business. The air smelled like mesquite and cement, the sun burned through your skin nine months out of the year, and people spoke in such a slow, thick accent that molasses is the only way to describe it. My wardrobe is a point of contention between my husband and I because in my mind summer starts in March. I will wear flip flops with a coat.

Elementary school was fun and I liked most of my teachers, but now that I look at how that school culture was, I am not surprised that we had several suicides in high school.  The whole school--hell, the whole town was a clique, and you had to fit a mold. Being from Missouri, my parents tried their best to help me see through their bullshit. In the end I was fine, but I wasn't fine for a lot of years.

I felt that middle school was like swimming through cake batter. On the surface it looked sweet, but really it was fraught with exhaustion, anxiety, and struggle. My best friend through it all was Ashley. She and I were the cookies that didn't fit the mold. We don't speak much anymore, though. Our lives took different paths, and in most ways she is still doing her own thing. I found the mold that fit.

Finally, we were in high school. It really was a lot of fun. I had a core group of really smart, good people to spend time with and we were all in the same creative classes together. Because I fit the female stereotype of being horrible at math, I opted to take the literature, language, and music classes. They were my sunshine through the clouds.

After a few successful years in music, I began taking auditions. Before I knew it, I had been accepted into college on a full ride scholarship. I remember the day I got the big package and the award letter. I smiled for days. High school was intense and went by like a westbound train; loud, dirty, and fast.

How I Got My Name



I wrote this paper in the 7th grade. 

As the paper states, my name is chosen from my great-grandmothers on my father's side. My mom goes by her middle name, and so do two of her siblings, so she did not see anything wrong with calling me by my middle name, too.

 

I was born Anna Rose Bukaty on February 14th, 1984 in Lancaster, California. My father was working for LTV, a defense corporation that was bought out by Lockheed Martin, where he still works. He was moved to Edwards Airforce Base to work with the space program. They have home pictures of the space shuttles landing at the air force base and tell stories of the sonic booms that happen when the shuttles re-enter the atmosphere. My brother, Matthew John Bukaty, was born in 1987.

 

One month old, 1984

One year old, 1985

 

"Dinney Lan!"

Disney Land, 1986

 

 

 

 

Flood Family Story

Charles Flood

Shirley (Middleton) Flood

 

These two people are my mom's parents. I never met my grandfather. He died in 1975 when my mom was still in high school. My grandmother passed away just last summer. I miss her. She was funny and mean and always said what she was thinking. They had four children. The oldest, Eugene, lives across the street from me. My aunt Dianne lives on Noland Road in Raytown. My mom lives in Texas, and Johnny, the youngest, lives in Lee's Summit.

 

This side of the family is traced back to Arkansas and the American South. As far back as we can trace, we are in America. Some times go back to before the Revolutionary War!

 

Flood is an Anglicanized spelling of Flud. The spelling was changed just three generations ago when German Gay Flood joined the army. Flud was German's mother's maiden name, but his father was Hugh Brown. Hugh was rumored to have been a Native American.

 

Because of this, my mother registered us with the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri. I am 1/16th Western Cherokee.

In the family history is a name Fender. This line has been traced to the creator of the Fender guitar, Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender. The family has always been musical. Even though my parents do not sing or play instruments, all of my cousins on this side of the family play some sort of instrument. At my grandmother's (Shirley) funeral, my cousins and I played arrangements of hymns together. Between the six of us we had guitar, trumpet, two trombones, French horn, and flute. That was the hardest gig I ever had.

 

 

Bukaty Coat of Arms

The origin of this coat-of-arms can be traced back to 1279, when the cattleman Hebda, brother of Jaranda, performed public deeds of merit to atone for the sins of his murdered brother. One of his brave acts was the killing of a mad ox that had been plaguing the village of Lubania. During the reign of Walter II, King of Poland, the ox head was placed on the shield and the arm with a sword was placed above the crown and was named Pomian. This is a communal coat-of-arms and is shared by other Great Polish Families. (Source, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomian_coat_of_arms)

 

The Bukaty family has used the bull  head with a sword through it for as long as I can remember. Sometimes the bull has a ring in its nose.

 

 

 

The family name "Bukaty" comes from a root, "buk", which is the Polish name for a beech tree. (Source, http://en.bab.la/dictionary/polish-english/buk)

My Polish Heritage

The Catholic school, built in 1927, the same year as my grandfather Stanley Bukaty.

This post will introduce some of my family history on my father's side, the Bukaty. They were immigrants from Grymajlov, Poland (now Hrymailiv, Ukraine). Just last week I took my grandfather, who was born in 1927, back to his old Catholic school and church in Kansas City, Kansas near Strawberry Hill. While there we asked the Father to get inside the church so I could take some pictures. We discovered a large stained glass window and a dedication plaque with my family name on them.

This is the old Catholic school that my grandfather Bukaty attended as a child. The plaque above the door says School of Saint Joseph, 1927, in Polish.

Steps of Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Kansas City, Kansas

I would love for someone to translate this for me.

Marble Alter

Dedication window from my great-great-great grandfather

Dedication window from the family of Wittek. Rose Wittek is my grandfather's grandmother.

This icon is fascinating to me because 1. This is a Catholic church, not an Orthodox church and, 2. The skin colors are dark like a Coptic icon.

Bell towers of Saint Joseph Church

This shotgun style home at 207 S. 8th Street, Kansas City, Kansas, was where my grandfather lived with his family until they moved to Sugar Creek, Missouri in 1939.

Welcome to my Digital Autobiography

This site is a snapshot of my life in this moment. It is a collection of memories. It is a gathering of ideas. It is, in a sense, me. While the sum of the parts does not equal the whole, I hope to express some of who I am so that I may find common ground with others.

My focus for this project was to collect images, documents, and ideas that make up my past, present and future. My past consists of immigration, name changes, and movement across land and time. My present is overflowing with family, friends, successes, failures, and challenges. My future...well, full of possibilities.

Each entry will consist of a different aspect of who I am and what I stand for. Let them speak about me to shed light, not to limit me.