Memories

Recently my dad came over with several boxes of "stuff" that he shipped back from Illinois after my grandma passed away last year. I've had it sitting on the table this last week since I was sick and didn't have much energy to open them up to see what was inside.

Tonight, I finally felt like starting to dig through the things and found all kinds of memories and treasures. There are tons of old photographs of my dad, grandparents, great grandparents, and even great great grandparents. Also, we found several years of farming journals from the 1940s that account for all of the activities, costs, income, etc. from their farming business. My grandma kept a yearly diary, so we have several years of those from the 40s on as well. Her contributions were famous in the family - she was meticulous about tracking the weather, her daily goings-on, what was going on with everyone in the family, details of phone calls, etc. It's pretty fascinating to look back through those and see what her days were filled with. I found a journal from my great grandmother that details her life story, and a journal she kept with all of her income and expenses.

One of the boxes is filled with slides and when you hold them to the light you can still make out what the pictures are. It appears that some are from Japan, so I'm thinking that they're from when my dad was based in Japan during the Vietnam war, though they look more like something you'd order from a place like National Geographic than personal pictures. So, I'll have to figure out the story on those.

It's interesting to look through these boxes and get reacquainted with family members who have gone long before. In a time where nearly everything I do has a digital edge, it's nice to open these journals with real handwriting and the smell of decades of storage, and to look at photos that were so formal and must have cost a small fortune to take in those years. So different from now when we can immediately look at a screen to figure out whether we like the photo and delete it if we want to try again.

Well, we're all going to die in 2012, right?

...you know, if that whole Mayan calendar thing turns out to be true. So, I guess let the republicans have the house. Now when it comes to the next election and things aren't done, people can swing back to the democrats. I really can't understand swing voters at all, and this tea bagger obsession is ridiculous. What a bunch of idiots.

Oh well. Like I said earlier today, if you're a woman and you voted, thank progressives for fighting for that right for you.