DO AS I SAY. NOT AS I DO!

When you have a “good idea,” write it down immediately!  Don’t wait!  If you wait, the magic will disappear.

  I believe I recently told you this.  Unfortunately, I ignored my own advice.  I had two great ideas to share with you, but by the time I got around to finding a pencil and paper, they had disintegrated.  Where did they go?  I remembered the idea, but the right words would not come.  What I had initially thought was interesting, timely, and thought-provoking had withered and faded.  If it ever reappears in all its glory, I’ll share it with you.

  In the meantime, may I ask, do you keep a diary or journal? Do you know your hometown and family adventures and scandals? Those human-interest tales that should be recorded for future generations.  Like the time great-grandmother Thompson was being driven to the train station by a relative when she realized she had not put on her skirt.  Rather than miss the train, she continued on.  I understand her petticoat was black taffeta. 

Then there were the first-cousins who married one another.  That was quite a family scandal.

My great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier.  While fighting in Tennessee, he was shot in the leg.  The story goes that the doctor wanted to amputate the leg, but my great-grandfather wouldn’t let him.  As a result, great-grandfather was discharged from the army and had to make his way home to Florida on his own.  And, no, he did not own a plantation or slaves.  He recovered and a few years later became a Florida State Senator.

I’m sure your family has some interesting stories too.  Be sure to ask your older relatives before there is no one left to ask.  In the meantime, be sure to keep that journal.  What seems ordinary to you will be unique and fascinating to future generations.  

As a bit of trivia, I recently discovered that a distant cousin of mine married into a family in Morris County Texas in the late 1800’s.  In the 1940’s, my future father-in-law bought the W. G. Farrier Plant Farm in Omaha, Texas, from them.  Small world.

Until we meet again.

Mary Nolan Brown