Walking Through Memory Lane

Now that I have more shelves, cupboards, and filing cabinets, the boxes in the back of closets and stacked in the bedrooms can now be unloaded and put away.

Not as easy as it sounds, I find.

A lot of family history in photo albums and scrapbooks are in those boxes. Of course, I knew that. What I did not know, what mom never told me about, were the pieces of US history, also stashed away – in the form of newspapers and magazines. For decades this history followed us through three big moves, in storage twice, and finally rests in my possession. To pass on to my granddaughters, and their children, so they can actually read and view the history they will learn about in school.

I realize that these treasures will not mean so much to them, now.  Some of this happened more than two generations ago, long before they were born. They are smart and healthy and into the things that little girls are into. History will be way up there, along with Social Studies (or whatever they call it now), on their ‘boringest* stuff ‘ list.

Then they will be grown, old enough to appreciate keepsakes from the past. What I save now will be relics, I suppose. They already look like relics – wrinkled and yellowed. Like those of us who were alive when it happened…

There were headlines in huge type “EARTHQUAKE!” for both of the devastating quakes in 1979 and 1989 – in the San Francisco Bay Area. Photos of the Cyprus section of I-880 collapsed and destroyed.

I found a plastic bag of newspapers, with front-page headlines reading “JFK ASSASSINATED!”, and other headlines just as shocking, reporting that horrible week in Dallas.

I saved the week of the September 11th, 2001 newspapers. [For non-US readers: When Al Qaeda’s suicide pilots destroyed the World Trade Center Towers and defiled the Pentagon]

As important as world History is, I feel that it’s just as important to learn about your family history. Hopefully through letters, diaries, stories told, scrapbooks and photo albums and not from newspaper headlines!

Aren’t we, as parents and grandparents, obligated to pass down the family ‘stories’? If not us, then who? Future generations depend on us saving newspapers and family significant things.

Save articles & momentous items in a desk drawer, paper bag, or hat box. When the mood strikes you, they will be ready to slap into a photo album or scrapbook.  😉
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* boringest: adverb. Term used for describing extremely boring activities or events.  Taken from: The Dictionary of Words That Should Be