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...have done their best to smudge Stanley Ann Dunham and Anna 0bama and turn them into one person. I know some places that have done that but since I read, I’m not a researcher, I can’t tell you where.

It starts in 'Dreams'

“Your father was a terrible driver,” my mother explains to me. “He’d end up on the left-hand side, the way the British drive, and if you said something he’d just huff about silly American rules-” “Well, this particular time they arrived in one piece, and they got out and stood at the railing to admire the view. And Barack, he was puffing away on this pipe that I’d given him for his birthday, pointing out all the sights with the stem, like a sea captain-” “Your father was really proud of this pipe,” my mother interrupts again. “He’d smoke it all night while he studied, and sometimes-”

“Look, Ann, do you want to tell the story or are you going to let me finish?” “Sorry, Dad. Go ahead.” “Anyway, this poor fella-he was another African student, wasn’t he? Fresh off the boat. This poor kid must’ve been impressed with the way Barack was holding forth with this pipe, ’cause he asked if he could give it a try. Your dad thought about it for a minute, and finally agreed, and as soon as the fella took his first puff, he started coughing up a fit. Coughed so hard that the pipe slipped out of his hand and dropped over the railing, a hundred feet down the face of the cliff.”

Gramps stops to take another nip from his flask before continuing. “Well, now, your dad was gracious enough to wait until his friend stopped coughing before he told him to climb over the railing and bring the pipe back. The man took one peek down this ninety-degree incline and told Barack that he’d buy him a replacement-” “Quite sensibly,” Toot says from the kitchen. (We call my grandmother Tutu, Toot for short; it means “grandparent” in Hawaiian, for she decided on the day I was born that she was still too young to be called Granny.) Gramps scowls but decides to ignore her. “-but Barack was adamant about getting his pipe back, because it was a gift and couldn’t be replaced. So the fella took another look, and shook his head again, and that’s when your dad picked him clear off the ground and started dangling him over the railing!”

Gramps lets out a hoot and gives his knee a jovial slap. As he laughs, I imagine myself looking up at my father, dark against the brilliant sun, the transgressor’s arms flailing about as he’s held aloft. A fearsome vision of justice. “He wasn’t really holding him over the railing, Dad,” my mother says, looking to me with concern, but Gramps takes another sip of whiskey and plows forward. “At this point, other people were starting to stare, and your mother was begging Barack to stop. I guess Barack’s friend was just holding his breath and saying his prayers. Anyway, after a couple of minutes, your dad set the man back down on his feet, patted him on the back, and suggested, calm as you please, that they all go find themselves a beer. And don’t you know, that’s how your dad acted for the rest of the tour-like nothing happened. Of course, your mother was still pretty upset when they got home. In fact, she was barely talking to your dad. Barack wasn’t helping matters any, either, ’cause when your mother tried to tell us what had happened he just shook his head and started to laugh. ‘Relax, Anna,’ he said to her-your dad had this deep baritone, see, and this British accent.” My grandfather tucks his chin into his neck at this point, to capture the full effect. “ ‘Relax, Anna,’ he said. ‘I only wanted to teach the chap a lesson about the proper care of other people’s property!’ ”

Gramps would start to laugh again until he started to cough, and Toot would mutter under her breath that she supposed it was a good thing that my father had realized that dropping the pipe had just been an accident because who knows what might have happened otherwise, and my mother would roll her eyes at me and say they were exaggerating. “Your father can be a bit domineering,” my mother would admit with a hint of a smile. “But it’s just that he is basically a very honest person. That makes him uncompromising sometimes.”

Does anyone really believe that story was worth telling, or is it a contrivance to hang the names ANN and ANNA on Stanley Ann Dunham, and TOOT on Madelyn Dunham?

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Might it have something to do with this comment from a relative of the Kenya family?

"...According to the family, Obama's father travelled to America to study at the University of Hawaii in 1959. While there, he worked for an oil company and married his second wife, a white woman, named Anna Toot, and their union produced Barack Obama Jr.

Obama's book says Obama Snr left his family in Hawaii after winning a scholarship to study in Harvard when his son was two years old.

The marriage later broke up after Anna's father opposed it, according to Mama Sarah.

"Anna's father was furious about the marriage and threatened to have Obama Snr expelled from the university. Our son sent us letters, pleading that we intervene to save the marriage," remembers Sarah.

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Remove the 1959 and Hawaii, and there you have it. He left for Harvard when the child he had with ANNA was two years old, and Stanley Ann Dunham and zero never came into the story. Who was the father who threatened to have him expelled? THE FATHER OF ANNA.