Well, I did it again! Had another birthday. We went out to my daughter and her husband's place in the country. We had gobs of cake and ice cream with all the trimmings - and family. I enjoyed all three of them. And I got an unusual present, first time in 84 years. My daughter and her husband had made me a web site: VicMathias.com. I found out stuff about myself that I had forgotten a long time ago.
Which got me to thinking about all the friends that I have, and the interesting lives that they have lived, and are still living. That includes you. You're probably way ahead of me on this, but how many of the experiences of your life are recorded anywhere for your children and grandchildren? Not just a resume, but the way you grew up, went to school, and entered your career are probably not known by your children - and the rest of posterity. Think of the many interesting incidents and happenings that you have experienced that would be of great interest to them now, and twenty, forty and sixty years from now.
And (for once in my life), I know what I'm talking about . I have done it! And I feel that my kids and grandkids know where I'm coming from, and why I react to things the way that I do. Now I haven't tried to write an autobiography. I do it in one page spurts. And I cover my backside just in case my memory about dates and details is not all that good. I title these things, "THE WAY I REMEMBER IT".
To make it easy, I write about things as they occur to me, not in chronological order at all. That way I can write about the day I volunteered for the army in WWII, the day I started school, the day I went to the cotton gin with my grandfather, the day I got married. I have done more than a hundred of these at the rate of about twenty-five a year. Really not a great effort, since that's only about two a month. I give each year's batch to my kids on Father's Day.
My career has led me to meet many interesting people, and their stories need to be told. For each of you who see this, I know only about short intervals of your lives. There is so much there, and you need to write it down. You can do a page in fifteen or thirty minutes. You have stories to tell.
Get started now - before another one of those birthdays roll around.
