Your Life is Your Story Go To Your Life is Your Story Home Page

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

September 2014

current blog entries
blog archive index





Baseball Season and Jeter Era End

September 28, 2014

An illustrious twenty year baseball career came to an end today, the last day of the long 162 game Major League baseball season. Derek Jeter, playing in his final game against his team's arch-rival, hit a single to drive in a run and then came out of the game to a large ovation from the fans. In many ways it is ironic that Derek Jeter, number 2, of the New York Yankees, finished his career with a game in Boston. There are few sports rivalries more intense than the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Over the years they've always provided high drama. And Derek Jeter has a highlight reel full of dramatic moments against the Red Sox. His body of work is, of course, more impressive as you take in his great career.
Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees
Derek Jeter is a rare breed in baseball these days. Not only did he play his entire career with one team, the storied New York Yankees, he also played with incredible passion and integrity. He tops many Yankee all time records and is 6th on the all time hits list for baseball (a total of 3,465). He also has more hits than any shortstop in history. Just as impressive is his legendary character. He's managed to guard his private life, no easy feat in the glare of the New York media spotlight. Additionally, he's never been involved in a scandal. Heck, he wasn't even ever ejected by an umpire from a game. Usually if he disagreed with a called strike he would keep his head bowed down and ask his question about location politely. Supposedly he kept his head down so as not to embarass the umpire.

Derek Jeter is a sure bet for the Hall of Fame. He won lots of championships, played the game with excellence and his last home game at Yankee Stadium this past Thursday couldn't have been scripted better when he hit the game winning single in a walk-off fashion (meaning the game ended with the winning run in the bottom of the inninng). Derek Jeter, a class act through and through.

Now my all time favorite team is the Boston Red Sox. What a difference a year makes! Last year Boston won it all and yet this season the defending World Champions suffered through a losing season and finished last in their division. That's baseball, and that's life, lots of ups and downs.

The regular season ended today and the post-season is about to start and there are great stories for the teams that will continue in the playoffs. For one, the Kansas City Royals have made the playoffs for the first time in 29 years. The last time they played October baseball, in 1985, they went all the way and won the World Series. They join some other teams with great stories and if you are a baseball fan like me you know this is a fun time of year. There are even some interesting regional possibilities for the World Series. The Washington Nationals could end up playing the Baltimore Orioles. Or perhaps we could see the Los Angeles Dodger and Angels in the Falll Classic. Both the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's are wild card teams in their respective leagues; maybe there will be a Bay area Series. Lots of possibilities and lots of stories yet to unfold.

I love baseball and how in many ways it parallels life. Today was a fun day - the end of the baseball season and a fitting send off for Derek Jeter, one of the all time greats.


Personal Historian Libby Atwater Has Helped Others, Now Finally Tells Her Own Story

September 23, 2014

Yes, of course, people should tell their stories! This is the rallying cry from just about all personal historians. We encourage, motivate and inspire others to tell their life stories. We work hard to gather material, interview, organize and help put the finished product together for those willing to hire us. And yet, many of us fail to do the same thing for ourselves. Hmmm, practice what you preach, anyone?

Nice to see that Libby Atwater (www.chooseyourwords.net), a Personal Historian and longtime member of the Association of Personal Historians, has finally finished and published her memoir, What Lies Within. And it turns out that after ten years getting it done she realized there is more to tell and she is hard at work on a sequel. She was recently interviewed on the Bill Frank radio show and you can listen to her fascinating tale of her memoir journey, along with some good tidbits about personal history work. She discovered the importance of perseverance in finally writing and publishing her story. Maybe it will help you get started or continue on your own story.

Incidentally, if you think working as a personal historian is something you want to do I encourage you to explore it. It is a passion for peoples' stories that drives me, along with desire to write and share values, stories and history with other people. I have found it to be rewarding and influential in my own development. The APH is currently conducting a membership drive and I highly recommend it as an organization to join if you are doing this kind of work. If you do join, please mention my name. I would love to make contact with you and share some of the wisdom that has been so generously been passed on to me.


The Life Story Library Foundation Memoir Writing Seminar

September 17, 2014

There are some pretty neat things happening in Utah involving personal history work. There are several active members of the Association of Personal Historians and the creation of the Life Story Library Foundation (led by founder and president Paulette Stevens) is resulting in some good work. 

I met Paulette and some other Utah PH'ers (Personal Historians) a couple of years ago when I attended a regional conference in Salt Lake City. Stevens is vivacious and passionate about preserving life stories. I consider her a kindred spirit. One of the upcoming events you might want to take part in is a Memoir Writing Seminar, October 10-12. The featured presenter is Nan Phifer. She is a noted workshop leader on memoir writing and wrote an excellent memoir guide that I've been reading, Memoirs of the Soul.

The three day workshop is titled "Writing Meaningful Memoirs" and Phifer agreed to lead it because of her interest in spreading the message of the importance of memoir writing. Early registration discount apply before September 22. You can get more information from this article featured on the Park Record and also at the Life Story Library Foundation site.


Going the Distance

September 16, 2014

Going  the distance, be that a long distance run or accomplishing any goal in life, is important to me. I know from my own experience that the times I've wanted to quit or give up, yet persevered, have been some of the best learning situations.

Sunday I ran another half marathon. That's 13.1 miles. This is a race I've done twice before, the New Mexico Chips & Salsa Half Marathon. It's a scenic and flat course that winds through the North Valley of Albuquerque. My time was not my best, or worst, clocking in at 2 hours 19 minutes. But that's about right for how I run. I am now 58 years old and 10 to 10:30 minute miles is just about right. This year in training I tweeked a back leg muscle on a 12 mile run in early August, and then I had a cold all last week, so my usual training miles were cut back some. Frankly, I was a bit surprised how good I felt through the race. Sure, I was tired and worn out at the end, but it was such a beautiful morning and I had mentally prepared myself well the night before and early that morning. So the run was a good experience.

Running and going the distance is part of a theme for a memoir I am working on. I am focusing on the ten year period of 2003 to 2013. During this decade there were several significant life experiences. I started my long distance running in 2006 at the age of 50. My kids grew into adults during this ten year span. Both my parents passed away. Two grandchildren have been born.

My career went through changes, including finally abandoning radio broadcasting for a new career in teaching. My faith has deepened. My writing has matured.

The themes that will run (yes, run) through this memoir are baseball (Boston Red Sox), family, work, faith, music and running.  Somehow each of these areas are touchstones for a significant ten year stretch of my life.

The tough challenge for my memoir goal is to get it written, edited, revised and published. I will find a service to print and bind it and my intention is to share the book with others, perhaps even selling a few copies. But the real goal is to finally have a finished memoir that reflects on a period in my life. It starts by doing a bit of writing nearly every day. It ends by crossing the finish line of a completed narrative and thumbing through pages that I will help me better understand those ten important years of my life.


Dog Days of 9/11

September 11, 2014

Every year on the anniversary of 9/11 I am in a reflective mood. Of course, I am not alone, as all of us who remember the horror of that day of terrorist attacks can't help but recall where we were when we saw or heard the events that unfolded on that morning. The hijacked airliners that were flown int the World Trade Center Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C and Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania will forever be etched into the history of the United States.

What always moves me each anniversary is learning more of the heroic tales of those who helped amid the tragedy. Today on the Today Show (NBC) I learned about a service dog that is believed to be the last surviving search dog who worked at Ground Zero in New York City after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bretagne (pronounced "Brittany") is now a 15-year-old golden retriever. She and her handler, Denise Corliss have a fascinating and heartfelt story of their work both at the site of the attacks and at other disasters. And they are still helping today by visiting schools and encouraging elementary kids who struggle with reading. Clearly, they both have huge hearts.

The compassion of Bretagne is amazing. During those "dog days" of 12 hour shifts digging through the rubble she not only worked hard, she comforted many of the other workers who'd grown numb from the grisly labor. She sensed when someone needed some comforting. See the story of this heroic dog here.


Laughing Matters

September 9, 2014

After recently writing about how humor helps I have continued to think about how important having a sense of humor can be, both in life and in our life stories. The recent death of yet another celebrity, Joan Rivers, certainly keeps this top of mind. Joan was fearless when it came to comedy; no subject was off limits. Her brash approach could offend, but she also found truth in the "brass tacks".

A post on the blog of the Association of Personal Historians speaks of the importance of humor in personal histories. In What's So Funny Ruby Peru expresses her views of how humor is important in our stories, but warns against approaching it as "the funny parts". Rather, she encourages storytellers to recognize the part humor plays in our lives. She will expand on this topic at the upcoming APH Conference (Believe It...Achieve It! in St. Louis).
Her workshop "Laugh and the World Laughs With You: Humor in Personal Histories", is to be presented October 23.

In her blog post she links to an interesting article by Joan Bauer from The Alan Review. Humor, Seriously quotes writer William Zinsser - "What I want to do is make people laugh, so they'll see things clearly." That was clearly accomplished by both Joan Rivers and Robin Williams, two comedy legends who've recently passed away.


Humor Helps

September 3, 2014

Here's an excerpt from the new YLYS Newsletter that was sent out a couple of days ago.

When writing about your life, or that of another, it is important to get to the heart of the story. There are many important things we want to include, especially messages for our loved ones, passing on our values, and making a statement about what’s been important to us.

That being said, some of this life story stuff can get heavy. Many of the inquiries I receive from people wanting help preserving their personal history include mention of painful experiences. Perhaps it is abuse of some kind, or they’ve had great loss. Suffering is part of our human experience. I’ve found that it can lead to lots of growth.

At the same time, we need to be able to laugh, smile, chuckle, guffaw and lighten up. Humor in a story can help in a number of ways. For one thing, it can create common ground. We’ve all had suffering. But don't we all enjoy a good joke or a funny antidote?

| continue reading |

Everybody has a story to tell!
Your-Life-Your-Story.com
Copyright © 2003 - 2014 All rights reserved
Email Tom Gilbert