FINDING YOUR ROOTS is one of my favorite TV shows. I love to watch people discover ancestors they didn't know they had which changes their perspective on who they themselves are. The other night watching the host, Henry Louis Gates, reveal the past to guests Sammy Hagar (fascinating revelations) and Ed O'Neil (more subtly fascinating reveals), one of the latter's not that distant ancestor's maiden name turned out to be Lally. She came from a different part of Ireland than my grandfather Lally, but no doubt this makes me and O'Neil some kind of distant cousins. Why am I not surprised?
[The photo is me and O'Neil on a set for the short-lived TV series THE BIG APPLE, where I played a priest and O'Neil a detective. I had had dinner with him once, so we knew each other a little.]