“You know, you ought to start writing stuff like that down,” he said. He reminded me of a book he had put together a number of years ago, in which he recorded the sorts of family stories that tend to come up whenever family get together, and challenged me to do something similar.
My favorite fountain pen having a lie down on a bed of my everyday handwriting.
So I got to thinking about the smallish stack of blank books I've purchased over the years (but never used) and how I've been looking for excuses to practice my handwriting and exercise my fountain pens. I set one of the journals and a pen next to my chair in the living room, and when I happen to think of something that happened to me over the years, I jot it down in the journal. A description of the first house I remember, and the neighbors who lived near it. My first bicycles. The neighbor kids. My first job out of college. Life in a small town in Kentucky.
It's not always pretty,
7 comments:
I'm going to do that now. You've inspired me. Our family has many of those, enough for each of us to have our own full book.
That was no Kristy, that was me, Doozie.
Well, at least that solves the mystery of how someone now managed to find my poor, neglected blog.
You and Young Sir still ought to give it a try. I bet your journals would be priceless, complete with clippings, bits of string, etc.
WV: "kingsopa". Seriously?
Good for you! I am the family bone collector, and I have discovered the real family jewels are journals, such as yours. When I find a jpg of a handwritten letter (a recent find was online, the letter written in the 1880's), it gives me a better sense of connection to the distant family progenator - as opposed to dry census facts.
Seems kinda of silly to be writing it now, present tense, but future genealogists will blow kisses to you ...wherever you may be ;-)
Old letters have been a priceless jewel in our family also...my uncle recently committed all the old letters to digital form so he could sort and collate to his heart's content...old romances are relived, geneaology is much more interesting, but the old handwriting is also beautiful. We need more of this!
Since I don't (and won't) have any children or grandchildren to whom I can pass this kind of thing down to, I don't have any illusions about anyone being much interested in this or my personal journal. But maybe they'll lie around long enough to develop that quaint aged look that's prized by the sort of person who likes to cut up such things for use in scrapbooking.
For me, it's mostly an excuse to keep my pens and my cursive from getting too rusty.
"to whom I can pass this kind of thing down to"? No wonder no one will ever read this stuff...
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