Do You Record Your Thoughts?

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This month I am writing to you from near Weatherford Texas.  Man and I worked hard for 3 days packing up and made our escape from SE Michigan and ran south as fast as we could get here.  Sadly, we did not out run the polar vortex.  It is cold here too. And, it just might snow here in the next 24 hours.  As long a we don’t run out of propane we can stay comfortable in our beloved Tana.

As Man and I run hard from the current polar vortex affecting just about all of the USA, I wonder, do you ever record where you were, what you were doing, how you felt etc., during these historic events?  

For example:  Where were you when the twin towers came down?  Where were you when J.F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas Texas?  How did you feel when a female was voted into political office, or the first female became a Supreme Court Judge.

Here is what I recorded in my data base about the resignation of President Nixon, you may note, snicker,  we were camping at the time.

"Resignation of President Nixon, August 9, 1974: We were camping in Harrison, Michigan in a Michigan State Park, tent camping.  We met some people in the campground that were "locals", and when we heard the reports that Nixon would be resigning, they went home and brought back a small black and white television.  In 1974, tent camping, we took only necessities, and televisions were not considered a necessity.  We plugged the television in with a few extension cords and sat in our lawn chairs and watched him make his resignation speech and walk to the helicopter, turn and wave good bye."

Have you recorded where you were and how you felt about events that were not necessarily historical in quite the same way?  For example, what was your first cell phone like, when did you get it, and what did you pay for it?  How about your first black and white television, your first color television, your first computer?  How about simply recording what you paid for your current techy toys, your tablet, your cell phone, your computer, you current flat screen television.

Record your social media posts?  There’s an app for that.  SocialSafe, now digi.me,  allows you to down load many of your posts and threads from Facebook and other social media to your hard drive.  Even photos you may have posted will be saved with your threads.  I have not done so, but you can create PDF’s with their software, that means printable.  (As a side note, I personally had some issues with the software, and I have to say, the staff at SS, now, digi.me, were delightful to work with.  Some of what they asked me to do to help them gave me fits, but, they stuck with me and worked me to the solution.  Also note, that at this time we were dealing with the death of a family member, so, let’s be honest, I was not fully functional, eh?)

Keep a journal?  Maybe you are not into social media.  Do you keep a journal, or do you record such feelings and reactions and visions on your family data base? My favorite go to place, is my data base, of course.  I keep photos there, documents there, and memories there.  Not just stories of my ancestors, but, stories like where was I during the Nixon resignation, or poems someone wrote, or special birthday/anniversary cards.  I view it this way, if I would be interested in what my ancestor did or had or said or thought, then, I hope, that maybe, my descendants will be interested in what I did, or thought.  So, I record it.

Do you Blog?  Yes, a Blog can be a wonderful place to record your reactions to events, and you may be doing so without even realizing it.  Review your posts, if there are some that are special, consider saving them as PDF files, or word processing files, and attaching them to your data base.

Did you know you can print a book from your Blog?  There are several online companies that can accomplish a printed version of whatever blog posts you want to include in a hard copy.  



There are many methods of saving your thoughts on history and events. But, first you must write them down, somehow, somewhere - - Are you??





* I am in no way affiliated with SocialSafe, aka digi.me.  They have not asked me to review their services, have not offered me any special services or deals if I do so.  I use the product and have been happy with them.  This should not be considered an endorsement, just a suggested site for you to investigate.  For further disclaimers, please visit Reflection's page, Disclaim THAT! Beholden to - -, for further info on this.

** Graphics courtesy of Dan's Clipart Library and Free Clip Art Now, clker.com and other online web sites.

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