Home
What
Story and Why
How to
Tell
Blog
Research
is Fun
Get
Started
Highlight
Site
Sample
Writing
Free
Newsletter
Articles
About
Contact Us
Privacy
Terms

Visit our Blog for news - views -
and opinions.
|
|
The
"Your Life is Your Story" Blog Archives
Read about
quality family history and life story news, views, methods, products,
links, services
...and whatever else catches our fancy
October,
2007
current
blog entries
blog archive index
October
29, 2007
The Red Sox Nation (and I consider myself a card-carrying member) is
rejoicing over the Major League Baseball Championship captured by the Boston Red Sox.
Last night the Sox completed a four game sweep of the Colorado Rockies.
This is the second championship in four seasons for the
Bosox. In 2004 the four game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals
gave them their first World Series title in 86 years. That
was very sweet for long-suffering fans. But this championship feels
great, too!
Congratulations to the Colorado Rockies organization and their fans.
They had a great season, winning 21 of their last 22 games to
get to the World Series. While their ball club doesn't have the
notoriety of some other franchises they showed they are a talented
group and a very good team.
They should continue to be successful.
In less historic news, the latest issue of the Your Life is Your Story
e-zine is out. This free monthly newsletter is available to
anyone - sign up here.
Or you can read the new issue online here.
October
26, 2007
Here in New Mexico we've had warmer than normal temperatures for this
time of year, a trend that has also taken place across much of the
country, including back east. But the cooler nights have
settled in recently and as a result the Autumn colors are peaking.
Golden aspens are quite the sight!
Memorable sights are embedded in our brains. Video can be a
tremendous trigger of memories. It can also be a great way to
preserve special moments and family stories. There are a
number of life story video professionals to choose from. I've
recommended a few, including Stellar Media.
The team of Eric and Marian Larson (and their dedicated
staff) have created a number of high quality video projects for their
satisfied customers. They have also recently updated and
revised their website. Go
here and check out samples of their work from their home page.
October
24, 2007
This year marks forty years of my life spent faithfully following and
rooting for the Boston Red Sox. It all started for me in
1967. That was the year the great Carl Yastrzemski won the
Triple Crown (leader in batting average, hits and runs batted in).
That's a very rare accomplishment in baseball. In
fact, nobody has done it since.
Boston also won the American League pennant that season, but went on to
lose the World Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Oddly enough, we lived near Little Rock, Arkansas at the
time. My dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed at
Little Rock Air Force Base. Little Rock had a AA minor league
team, the Arkansas Travelers. Their parent club? The St.
Lousi Cardinals. So, I was the only 5th grader at my school
rooting for the Red Sox.
I'm not exactly sure how I became a Red Sox fan. My mom was
born and raised in Boston. That probably had something to do
with it, although I never lived there. Dad was born in New
York City. I suppose I could as easily have become a Yankee fan.
What a strange twist there!
I was an avid baseball fan as a kid (still am!) and I played ball from
age 9 to 18. I'm a lefty and I use to emulate Yastrzemski's
stance. He would hold his bat up high above his head, the
left arm and elbow elevated as he menancingly stared down the pitcher.
And like Yaz, I played the outfield. I
loved many of
the other players on the team, too. I would pore over the box
scores in the newspaper each day. In addition to Yaz, there
was Tony Conigliaro, Rico Petrocelli, George Scott, Ken "The Hawk"
Harrelson, Reggie Smith and others. The pitching staff was led by Jim
Longborg who won 22 games that season.
Over the years I went through the ups and downs of being a Bosox fan.
So many
close calls. Some great and thrilling World Series. The heartbreak. And
finally
the overwhelming joy of an impossible comback against the Yankees and
on to a sweep over the Cardinals in the 2004 Series.
Tonight this year's World Series gets underway. Boston
against Colorado. Some are calling the Rockies "Destiny's
Darlings". They finished the season with an amazing run to win the
National League Wild Card and haven't looked back, sweeping their
opponents and winning 21 out of their last 22 games. I tried
like crazy the past two days to buy tickets for a game in Denver. It
would have been a fantastic road trip for my son (Eric, 13) and I.
All the tickets were sold online and I spent hours trying,
but it was not to be.
Just the same, we will watch the series on TV and root for Beckett,
Papi, Papelbon, Manny, Youkilis, Captain V-tek and the rest!
I love being part of the Red Sox nation. Baseball
is truly for me "America's Pasttime".
October
20, 2007
Angela Zusman
has been working for severla months on a project
involving the Oakland Asian Cultural Center to manage
their oral history project of Oakland Chinatown. It is the
first intergenerational oral history project of Chinatown, an ambitious
effort that has recently received press coverage from the Oakland Tribune (story here).
Here's another fine example of the importance of preserving elders'
stories before they are forever lost. It has special
significance for the ethnic history of Bay Area Asian immigrants and
their families. Some of the stories from the various interviews tell of
the history of Oakland Chinatown, the Asian immigration experience,
family, roots and heritage. As twenty-one year old Sandy Liao
discovered, the stories are inspirational and help connect the dots of
history.
By the way, October is known as Family History Month
for many genealogists (more
here).
October
14, 2007
As you go through the stuff you own and discover items you no longer
want, what do you do? Throw them away or hold a garage sale?
Perhaps. But there is another way to recycle those
things. Head over to www.freecycle.org and discover The Freecycle Network™
is made up of 4,142 groups with 3,957,000 members across the globe.
It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are
giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all
about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group
is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is
free.
October
8, 2007
According to fellow APH (Association
of Personal Historians) member Jim Taulman (Familystories-4-U
in Franklin, Tennessee), the StoryCorps' Mobile booth
tour is heading to Nashville. It will be located
in the
Nashville Public Library (615 Church Street in downtown Nashville)
making it accessible to nearly everyone. This will be great timing for
all the APH members who plan to be in Nashville for this year's annual conference.
I've written about StoryCorps
before. It is evident they are
growing and doing a fine job of recording the life stories of everyday
people. More here at www.storycorps.net.
In related Tennessee news, Jane Baxter, this year's conference program
chair for the APH conference, got some media coverage about her Roots
& Branches Productions company in the Tennessean and you
can read it online here.
October
3, 2007
Rare indeed are those magical moments when rock n' roll performed on
stage becomes a transcendental moment. Such was the case
years ago in Oklahoma City. I was still in college and
accompanied by a group of college buddies we headed to the Civic Arena
to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
It was 1975 and The Boss had just appeared on the covers of both Newsweek
and Time
magazines. Bruce and his amazing band of rockin' musicians,
many who'd been teenage friends in Jersey, were bringing both passion
and fun back to rock. Born
to Run came out and the sound of those songs on the radio
gave voice to our gypsy rebel hearts.
That show in Oklahoma City has remained a top three favorite all my
life, and that's after many, many concerts. I've followed
Springsteen through his career, from band efforts to solo efforts, and
even had the rare privilege of meeting him after a Detroit solo
performance. Now Bruce and the E. Street Band are back with a
new release, "Magic", and a tour. Last night's performance in
Hartford must have been another one of those magical nights, judging by
the reviews (here's one and another).
Music has the power to tap into something in our souls that makes us
feel more alive and to strive for something better. Not
always, but sometimes. It's good to have the Boss and his
group doing it again.
|