COULD THIS BE ME

For those of you who have not started (or almost finished) a personal record of your life, could I suggest you do it NOW! Perhaps you feel your life story would be inconsequential, or has been boring, or will be boring. However let me assure you, no matter what stage of life you are in, there is or will be a time when some friend or a family member, or perhaps even a complete stranger will thank you if you if write a history of yourself.

So what is the difference between  a journal a family history, a personal history, or an album of photographs? 

A lot of times a Mom starts one for each child---as a baby book. And then that poses the question- who finishes it?

I would suggest that you have a plan. If it is not a written one, you should at least have a plan in your head. And what events should you write about? The answer to that was always easy for me. My answer is ANYTHING YOU WANT TO! And when should you start writing--- NOW!

So what if two siblings from the same family, who write in a journal about the same thing might end up like this?--When Jim fell of his horse into a mud hole, Mom & Dad started yelling and running toward them to make sure they were O.K.--however little Bob and Alice their younger siblings were laughing and holding their stomachs to keep from falling over. So--one incident---two different complete reactions if they all wrote in their journals? Was one right and one wrong?

You might ask "how do you keep track of all the information?" The best advice I can give you is that if you start saving STUFF you will always find a place to put it! Maybe one file for a family or loose leaf style for photos, and even one for unlabeled pictures and files--AND EVEN THE DREADED UNLABELED -NO NAME - COMPUTER files.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out a plain old cardboard box that had been sitting in my office (through several houses.) Toward the bottom of the box I found an old envelope. In it were two old yellow sheets of paper. One was a very official certification from the BSA made out to my Dad, indicating he had been made an official Assistant Scout Master on 25 Nov 1927. A second one was a Certificate indicating Willie Baldwin had not missed a day of school in the Beaver School District that year, and was dated 17 March 1918.  

I am 87 years old and still trying to keep up on my life story, and keep all of my treasures filed and sorted away in some fashion.

So the Million Dollar Question is :What do you write about?

And the Ten Dollar answer is: Any :thing You want too 

W.R Baldwin

14 July 2019