Found something in a box

[chefsdreams]

And the box followed you on, at least, 2 moves, GWR?

I have reason to reflect back on life. Of course, we are all perpetually on the verge of new pages in our lives. When we imagine that things are static is the times when we become rigid, brittle. We look up, or down, and see that there is just a number on this page and we may well be at the end - not just of the print but the chapter.

I was just reading an article from the Smithsonian magazine. Yesterday, there was some other news on the reconstruction of a skull long known to be from a "modern" human, but over 9,000 years old. This morning there is a new look at foot and hand prints in a hot spring in Tibet.

They are from a time past 7,400 years. What makes them especially significant is that they were found at 14,000 feet and so remote from lower elevations that those people who left them almost certainly didn't just happen to walk by. No, they must have lived somewhere nearby ...

My guess is that you didn't walk to Iowa and back .

Careful about wearing those light jackets after today! Temperatures may have just missed rising above freezing yesterday but by tomorrow, we will likely be back to single ..

. digitS'

i think i watched the same show. that is i just saw a show on the hand prints in tibet.
very cool. . . bu then i'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

 

[chefsdreams]

such a lovely story. you remind me of a time when our son was quite young and had some friends over. they were upstairs sneaking around, as young kids are wont to do and they came across a box. and all of a sudden they got real quiet. y'know that sound? my darling wife and i were sitting reading the paper and we both looked up at the same time.
and, of course, she smiled at me.
there was some squealing and then the sound of many feet as each tried to be the first to the top of the stairs.
"hey, dad, what's this?" from our son.
the kids came down the stairs and walked solemly across the room with an object in their outstreched hands.
it was our wedding invitation mounted in a simple silver frame.
my wife put down the paper and held out her hand and the kids passed it to her.
she sat there and caressed the frame and passed her fingers across the glass and a little tear swelled in the corner of her eye.
"read it" says i. and she did.

i began, " there is a funny story behind that invitation. for one thing, it's wrong. that's not where we got married."
with that, the kids promptly plopped down on the floor to hear some secret from the lives of the adults.
"mike! you're not going to tell that story again, are you?"
"yes!" i insisted. "they only stay alive by the retelling."

..." and, you, my children. i will tell you all this story some day..."

 

[lcertuche]

Memories are so valuable, my children love to hear stories about us too. They ask for the same stories over and over.

 

[Nyboy]

I really wish I listened to more of my grandfathers stories. I really reget the times I left the room when he started on his childhood.

 

[lcertuche]

GrandDad had the best stories and I still tell them to my children.

 

[chefsdreams]

"river teeth" - old growth trees that collapse and fall into streams. over time, they rot and break down until all that's left are these gnarled, knotted burls with points jutting up... the teeth of the river. granddads' stories are like those teeth. they need to be retold before they get washed away.

 

[digitS']

I watched a TV show about Loretta Lynn the other day.

She said that as a child, she would sit with her Cherokee grandfather and talk to him. She complained to her mother that all he would do was mutter something. Her mother said, "Don't let that bother you Honey. He thinks he's talking to you."

I didn't know one grandfather, the Canadian. The Indian grandfather patiently taught me to play dominoes and never became irritated when I woke him with noisy play when he had dosed off for a nap. He did say some things to others that have come down through the family. After he retired from farming in New Mexico, he continued on West but stopped for a few years in Nevada, where he worked at a casino. He was in his 70's before arriving in California, to live with one of his sons. I'd guess he was only a few years younger than that when he was in Nevada.

Anyway, Dad told me that he said that it doesn't matter how much you win in a casino. If you stay there long enough, the house will take it all back. I wonder if they play dominoes in any casinos ...?

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

My grandpa died when I was in HS and I was too self absorbed then to think about hearing his stories. I'm sure they would have had to be coaxed out of him because he wasn't much of a talker. He was born in 1894, which I find astounding whenever I think of it, and he fought in WW1.

I do have a handwritten two sided piece of notepaper that he jotted down his childhood story on for another family member who was compiling information for a family history. (I have never seen the results of that.)

My other grandpa I never knew. He left his family when my mom, the oldest of 4 kids was in 2nd or 3rd grade.

I wish the desire to know more about my relatives had hit me sooner. I can think of volumes of questions I would ask if they were still here.

 

[digitS']

@thistlebloom , I have a child nearing 30 and a son, 46. I know that they are both busy.

That grandfather had a white great grandfather who was a Tennessee shopkeeper. I found something I thought was interesting online, just the other day. It was a letter from 1817 addressed to a government official. It requested information on a meeting. The meeting was set up by order of "Ginnell Jackson" and was to involve a number of people. (It didn't sound like the future president would be in attendance .)

Neither "child" so much as commented on it. Neither asked where I had found it online.

Neither have asked me to tell them anything about the grandparents I did met and the one I lived with. They have never showed an interest in seeing old pictures, although they spent time at grandma's house when they were young and that is mostly the source of my old photographs. Maybe Mom showed them some. Neither kid has an interest in my Mormon cousins, the source of more photos and genealogical info.

The grandmother I lived with died over 60 years ago. All of her 9 children are gone. Her oldest grandchild was born in 1928. How long will GenX and the Millennials wait?

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I joined Ancestry.com last year. I have been going through old pictures and found papers written to my mother with some information about her mother. My kids NEVER ask about ANYTHING lol. I did. I know a lot of stories. My dad was born in 1910. His dad was born in 1878! My dad's mother told a story of her mother taking her to see her grandfather and when she got there he ripped off her new blue dress and yelled at her mother to NEVER dress anybody in the family in BLUE again, so you know what side of the war they were on. I found out my dad's dad, all the way male side goes to King James, Robert the Bruce, same as the mother of Queen Elizabeth. I have found old graves, tombstones and at least have some information for my FUTURE grandkids. My 2 kids are not married yet, but DD getting married in June.