J Osako 14 November 1999
Last revised 16 February 2001
Daria is owned by MTV Networks. Used without permission. Daria created by Glenn Eicher.

Prelude
"Some day, I'll just have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Next time, I speak up in class, hit me. Hard."

"Why bother? If this 'family tree' assignment doesn't give you enough negative reinforcement, nothing will."

"The worst part is, Mom's gonna take every possible advantage of this. She was absolutely nuts about this geneology stuff a few years ago. She even got me and Quinn to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, but I got even for that one."

"That 'Colonel Morgendorffer' stuff you told me about? Wanna use that again?"

"No. I'd just get in trouble. I'll stick to the truth this time, it's strange enough as it is."

"Fine by me. I've got it easy. A cousin of mine did a geneology of everyone in our family for fifteen generations. I can just copy hers. Did I ever mention that Richard Nixon was my grandfather's third cousin?"

"Oh, spare me."

"...and this brings us to Ms. Morgendoffler. Daria, are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." She hauls a series a 11"x17" posterboard pictures up to the front, setting the first - a conventional geneological tree - on the blackboard eraser shelf. "This is the Morgendorffer family tree, covering the four generations of direct decendants of Josiah Morgendorffer, the first member of my father's family in the U.S."

"But Daria," Mr. O'Neill interjects, "didn't you say your family went back to the early colonial period in Virginia?"

"That's on my mother's side. I'll get to that in a little while." To the side of the geneology, she places a photograph of a slight, dark dressed man wearing a bowler, standing against a midwestern sky; next to him is a young woman in stereotypical Native American dress. "This is my great-great-grandfather, Josiah Morgendorffer. He moved from Bavaria in 1886 to escape persecution, and after a few years in New York, moved west, where he became the quartermaster and accountant for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. His wife, Sarah, is said to have been the granddaughter of Sitting Bull, who was travelling with the show at the time. After several years of touring they settled down to run a cattle ranch in Nebraska, which is still owned by one of the various members of the family who are fighting over it in court to this day."

"The second of their three sons, Isaac, became a pilot in the early years of this century, using the family money to build his airplanes." She now puts up a rather dramatic picture of a dashing man in a military uniform. "During World War I, he served in the same squadron as Eddie Rickenbacher, but was injured in a dogfight after flying only three missions. After the war, he travelled as a barnstormer, with Abraham, his son by the first of his many wives."

"When he was 16, Abe, better known as 'Mad Dog Morgendorffer'," at the sound of this, O'Neill lets out a pathetic whimper, "joined the US Marine Corps, ending his hitch just days before Pearl Harbor. When he went to reenlist, however, he was offered a position with the OSS instead. He proceeded to spend the war deep under cover, working to help the French Resistance."

Daria, with a smirk plastered on her face, then moves up the next picture - a reproduction of a Wanted poster, with wording in both German and French. "Here we have the only surviving photograph of 'Mad Dog' with his first wife, Giselle, and their son, Jean-Marc. Shortly after this was taken, Giselle was captured and tortured to death by the Gestapo. Leaving Jean-Marc with Giselle's family, 'Mad Dog' carried on the war alone, planning and executing a series of asassinations that decimated the Wehrmacht command in the area of Bordeaux." Her smirk becomes even more pronounced as Mr. O'Neill blanches and begins to visibly shake.

"Jean-Marc, my uncle, moved with his cousins to Paris after the war. Here we have a photograph of him from 1968, taken during the University riots. He was later a member of a terrorist cell, and is now in serving a life sentence for his role a several anti-government bombings."

"This brings us to the present, and my own father, Jacob Morgendorffer. After returning to the US, 'Mad Dog' became a drill instructor for the US Army Special Forces. He remarried in the 1949, and my father was born four years later, after my aunts, Rebecca and Elise."

"This of course brings us to the present day. My father married my mother, Helen Barksdale, in 1975 in a lovely ceremony held on a beach in Santa Cruz, California in which marijuana was used for incense. I was, of course, born in 198-," now speaking with greater emphasis, "and my sister Quinn was born two years later. This is as far as the family tree goes, though you may want to confirm this fact with Quinn from time to time."

"On my mother's side of the family..."

Suddenly, Mr. O'Neill interrupts. "Actually, Daria, I think that that will be enough, thank you. Uh, we'll talk about you're grade after class..."

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