Neanderpundit

Archery season opens tomorrow. I have just enough chops that I consider it moment of deer- though I’m hitting the foam daily. Hope to get afield next weekend. The Marlin should be blued and reliable just as firearms season hits. Hope it doesn’t hit too hard.

Kim is talking about places lost in the mists of time– once favorite haunts, now become parking lots and starbucks.

We live in a world that changes so fast you just about have to have wings to stay on top of it- but we need to remember not to lose those memories.

Kim is working on a project he calls “My Biographer”, and while he hasn’t mentioned it, I hope it’s working well for him. As soon as I can get someone to massage the code for me I’ll be putting an ad on my site for him.

And it brings to mind a problem I have.

I have been trying to find as much out as I can about my family- I have an unusual enough name that most people who share it are blood relatives. I regret that not enough attention has been paid to the generation which has just been- more or less- lost. And Kim, starting the ‘My Biographer” project, has made me think: If I don’t do something about it, THIS generations meories, stories, etc. will be lost- and in a generation, that loss will be irretrievable.

So I’m trying to write that history, of my family. If I had the money, I’d have Kim do the whole family- but at the very least, I’m trying to gather what information I can.

And it;’s not just about people. It’s about the family farm- a square mile of Illinois bottomland that fed and raised nine strapping kids, a brick house with a copper roof, a pair of clydesdales named Nell and Bell. Eating strawberries on Calvin’s farm. Picking same for cash, which got spent on ice cream. Homemade slingshots and family reunions with watermelons the size of children.

THe stories, the moments frozen in your memory- who will keep them? who will record them so that your great grandchildren will know who you were?

You will. You must. We cannot lose the memories- the people and places. The personalities. The family is almost lost, and this is the kind of thing that can stop that decline. Let Kim do it for you, if you can afford it, but if not, write down what you can. You’re too important- and your memories are- to be lost forever.

Huh?

I was in Cicero this morning. Down cicero avenue, in fact, and at the intersection of cicero and 19th, there’s an Autozone. As I arrive, a man comes running out of AZone with two batteries- and two Azone associates trailing not far behind.

Apparently the would-be thief miscalculated his attainable speed whilst carrying a pair of batteries, and the Azone associates overtook him quickly. THey proceeded to regain their batteries and lay a beatdown on the would-be thief.

What a great way to start the day.