Yes, John Mooy, I, too, wonder if I have double digits in readership. However, I am glad to report that I do have a following in George Adams who keeps me on my toes.
My brother, John, usually keeps me honest by sending me corrections every now and then before it reaches you readers, but George caught something that slipped us both. In the February 10th edition, my Trivia Quiz gave George an opportunity to check me out with his National Geographic globe to locate the exact point of 0º latitude and 0º longitude.
The point is not on continental Africa, as my answer said, but is slightly off the African coast of Ghana and Gabon in the Gulf of Guinea, part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Thank you, George. Please keep up the reading.
John Mooy’s column also gave me more to think about. I agree about not dwelling on the past and staying current. It keeps us young in heart and mind and pointed in a good direction. However, as John points out that “to look back from time to time and share stories” is a special connection.
As a gift to each of my six nieces and nephews may years ago, I created a three-ring binder of the narratives of Grandpa John telling of his parent’s emigration, meeting and early life in the USA. I included family pictures and stories.
Over the years since then, if I give them something (furniture, artifact, jewelry, etc.) from our ancestors, I include pages of genealogy and provenance for the item. I placed each of these pages in a clear sleeve to keep in the binder.
I have heard it said that remembering members of our past helps keep them alive – not in body, of course, but in spirit, and in heart. These people still have messages for us.
As a student of history, I believe that if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. That is much like our parents telling us not to touch the hot stove top or learning lessons of civility to be a humane part of society.
Every time I go upstairs in our house, I meet many of those in my life who taught me lessons (either, intentionally or unintentionally) I need not forget.
The family wall begins at the far end with a collage of toddler photos of me that my mother had done. It reminds me of the innocence of youth and my future.
It proceeds with three pictures of the family taken at the ascending points of its growth.
Then the upper group is my father’s family and various stages of their growth ending with the large portrait of my great grandfather, Gerhardt, who came to America to start it.
The lower group is my mother’s family, and the group picture is the last picture of my maternal grandfather’s family before his mother died while my grandfather was still a young boy. This is the best photo I have of those great grandparents.
I know/knew most of these people, but the stories of those I never met, but told to me, are still a part of me. We should never stop telling the stories of our ancestors.
That is the best reason I can see to have a Marcellus Historical Museum. We will not be around to tell these stories forever. Someday, such as today, I wish I could ask questions of many of those on my wall. Unfortunately, I didn’t even have the knowledge of what to ask until it was too late.
Look forward with a hand behind you for those who came before you to give you a “hand up” in the right direction.
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