When I was growing up, I didn't know my father very well at all, nor do I to this day. He was an Airborne Ranger doing special ops in Vietnam and was shot many times, including right in the face. He told me quite a few times that that particular bullet passed through the stock (wooden end that you brace against your shoulder) of one of his fellow soldiers guns before burying itself in his jaw. He told me that if it wouldn't have randomly been slowed down by that wood, it would have decapitated him, and I would never have been born. He received two purple hearts for his many injuries over two tours, as well as a bunch of other medals. Since then, and to this day, he is a truck driver. When I was young, I would see my dad roughly once or twice a year, when he rolled into town in his big rig. A few times, he did this right as summer vacation started, and he would kidnap me for the entire summer. My father and I, coast to coast, probably at least twenty times over the course of a summer. And...I hated it. And him...at the time, at least. There were times when he would disappear for days on end, leaving me alone and penniless in a truckstop in some random state. For fucking DAYS on end. His truck, however, would be parked in the same spot, so just where he would go remains a mystery to this day that he insists never happened.
But....I digress. One of the lengthly hauls that the old man and I were on he divulged our family history as it was related down to him from his father, and so forth. We "Ludwicks" were actually descended from the old King of Bavaria, Ludwig II. As my dad related the tale to me, he informed me that we were actually descended from his sister, because Ludwig II, also known as the "Mad Baron" and "Fairly Tale Prince," was also what my dad referred to as "fey," with a limp-wristed hand wave.
Now might be a good time to point out that besides being twice my size and tougher than a coffin nail, my father looks exactly like me. So do his brothers, his father, etc. We Ludwick males carry strong genes for a big nose, imposing eyebrows and small chins. It appears that it has perhaps always been this way, as the picture above is Ludwig II pasted over the most famous castle he ever commissioned (and inspiration for Walt Disney's Cinderella's Castle) called "Neuschwanstein Castle." You may or may not agree that the picture resembles me, but if you ever saw a pic of my father as a young man (something I cannot provide or I would), you would be taken aback, surely.
Anyway, there is a lot of stigma surrounding this man; to this day there are plays about him in Germany and around Europe he is subject of many legends. My father told me: Ludwig II was terrified that his sister's sons were after his throne, being that he had no heir, and had attempted to kill them. They both fled to America where one son changed his name to Ludwick, donning the "CK" at the end instead of "G," which was a pretty common name. Ludwick, however, is an extremely rare name that won't appear in any of those "coat of arms" books, or whatever that have EVERY freakin' name and where it derives from. Ludwick is curiously missing from any such documentation. In fact, my father told me(and this could DEFINITELY be bullshit) , that there is only ONE strain of the name, and it comes directly from the nephew of Ludwig II who changed it.
Again, this is a story related to me by my father who is, among other things (including John Ludwick II), something of a fucking liar.
