LIfe Changes

I used to wonder, when my parents were in their eighties, why they wanted to stay at home, not having the urge to shop, wander through the park, or walk the streets of our subdivision. Dad would sit in his favorite chair and watch sports on television for hours on end, sometimes falling asleep during the third quarter of a game.

Mother, who no longer could remember how to get from one room to another without getting lost, didn't watch television, but would nap all day long. Whenever I suggested to her to watch a favorite show, she'd reply, "I'm into interested in that anymore." Or she'd suggest "go riding." She didn't have to think or listen to anyone but me when I took her for a ride through the countryside. She'd ride to the ends of the earth without complaining, as long as she was moving without trying.

I was only 20 years younger than my parents, but still I couldn't understand their desire to do nothing.

Today I do. However, what is nothing to you is something to me.

I am now 20 years older, the same age as my mother. Luckily, I have a few sit-down hobbies I enjoy. But I don't look at television. Why? Because the speakers on the programs are talking too fast. Is this typical of us Southerners, that at an older age when we are so immersed with the slow language of the South,can't understand anyone from any other part of the country because they speak too fast for us to register the words?

I've become more fond of the bed for afternoon naps than any other time of my life. A short time in exercise, followed by running errands makes me tired. I flop down on the bed and have the best sleep of any withing 24 hours. Despite chasing ancestors,viewing a good movie on my Kindle, or reading the latest crime novel, I can be engaged all afternoon, but at 5 p.m. I notice I've missed my nap and fall into a stupor of two hours.

If it is true about napping extending one's life, I should hang around doing the same thing past my 100th. I've always said I hope to live to 140 because there are so many areas I want to cover. At the rate I'm going now with these naps, I can certainly count on additional years being added to my present age.

What Aging Has Taught Me

The photo album slipped out of my hand, and onto the floor went pages and photos into a mix-up pile. I wasn't ready to sit down and gather them up at the time, but the mess was in the middle of a walking area. So I drew up a chair and leaned down to collect the memories of a lifetime. The album was started injunior high school. Each year as I received a photo or snapped one of my friends, I put a copy in this album. In the 1950's before college I didn't own a camera. They weren't items most average families owned. I must have used the old Kodak box camera that somehow my parents had owned since my birth.

I searched for and found my scrapbook. In it were all the articles of weddings and features of my friends. I gathered together the articles and paired them with the photos.

Picking up each photo became a journey. I laughed at the memory as I recalled the incident, my brain whirling through tons of mass to take me back to that time and place. I  wondered Where are they? What are they doing today? I  set aside a small stack of follow-ups. I wasn't sure of my next move.

A few days later I used Google to find the names of these friends. No hits. I checked FaceBook and found one. Tried the White Pages and found three. The latter had remained in Mississippi. Then I turned to http://.ancestry.com, where I'm researching four families. I entered the names to find death certificates. Bingo. Two. I was disappointed to find my junior high school friend Nancy had died  five years ago. A boy I had dated in the tenth grade died on his birthday two years ago. No one was supposed to die, this early, I told myself.

How to contact three guys who probably don't remember me? Be armed with reminiscences. First, I called South Carolina to GB. He vaguely remembered me (naturally, who would after 60 years?). I told him our connection--Civil Air Patrol in Mississippi, attended CAP camp in Montgomery, AL for  two weeks. . .he remembered slightly. Then I told him I'd email  him all photos. A subsequent call opened up good conversation. I was talking to an adult my age whom I'd know as a kid. Wonderful to know who he'd become, the career he'd chosen.  I promised to visit when I went through his hometown.

Next, I called Gulfport, MS. Talked to DK. I"d met through someone else. I had kept a newspaper article about his finishing army training, and I had a photo of him outside his tent during his Korean service.  He told me he'd suffered loss of all memorabilia during Katrina; he'd like to have the photo and article. We chatted and during that time he didn't remember me from King Tut. That was OK. I remembered him. Sent him the material hoping he would enjoy a walk down memory lane.

 The third guy, JS, I'd known in junior college. Why I had so many articles on his basketball career, I don't know. Perhaps at HJC he was the star player. I discovered he had married the sister of a high school boyfriend. While helping an AR genealogist with this family, I'd run into this star's name and it tweaked my brain. Until I found the photos and articles did I make the connection. Calling him gave me the chance to check up on the family he'd married into.

  BIG SURPRISE

One more contact left. A young woman who had shared CAP and  cadet life with me. I located her graduation invitation and name card accompanying. I had her full name. A search through White Pages brought  me no satisfaction. She was probably married and I wasn't sure of that new name.  FaceBook came to my rescue. Although she didn't use the page much, she had registered in the name I recognized. That connected us. Thank you FB.

Now GG and I are corresponding. No, she didn't remember me at all until I sent her the photos (We were 16 years old). We had separated when I went to boarding school in the eleventh grade and she had moved to Florida. She doesn't live nearby, so through emails we can keep  abreast of each other. Neither of us looks familiar, but the thin thread of cadet life keeps us together. We discovered how much we both had enjoyed the CAP encampment and the cadet program, sponsored by the Air Force. I don't recall us missing a single meeting held at Hawkins Field in Jackson. (Incidentally, the cadet program is still operational, at the same site.)

High school reunions are important. However, these friends were acquired from areas  unrelated to a specific school. Thanks to the Internet I can make connections. These people had appeared in my youth and contributed to who I am today. 

HERE I AM IN MY UNIFORM

AND HERE IS THE PATCH I PROUDLY WORE

Where Is My Pipe and Holmes Hat?

I am a dedicated detective. Even without the paraphenalia Sherlock wears. I own a copy of Idiot's Guide to Private Investigation. But I don't use my "skills" to find people alive. They've usually been in the ground or a small box, or in the wind, sea, or mountains. I'm a genealogist.

I use the same skills I used to obtain information for news articles when I was a budding journalist. I scare people with what I want to know. And they shut up tighter than the proverbial "Dick's hatband." So few folks today understand the importance of preserving family history. Sometimes I fall flat on my face with reasons why I want the information. Who has time, they say, to dredge up birth and death dates as well as family members of my grandparents? That happened too long ago! And I leave them searching for another member of the family from whom to draw the info. These are the ones who have never been asked family questions.

Keeping all information of your immediate family in one place, even a bank box, you will have ready for your family genealogist when she/he calls. his includes certificates of all types (birth, death, divorce,baptism,awards) letters, diaries,photographs, medals, and the like. Sounds like you need a special box to put them in? Indeed! Handwritten letters and notes are so special and fade with age that you need to make copies only a few times if any at all. Put them in UV ray-free enclosures you can purchase in a photography store. This careful attention as you age will be appreciated and easier to find at your passing.

A glance at www.ancestry.com (now advertised online and tv) to find a public search of your family is the beginning of a great treasure hunt. Only recently did I connect the Newkirks to families in New York, who had lived less than 100 miles from where we stay summers! How exciting now be able to plan a trip to visit cemeteries and place names where these elders once lived.

WARNING: This family checking can be habit-forming. When you find a long-lost great uncle or note which ship your great great grandfather sailed to the new world, you will have a whole new world of information to digest.