What an amazing upbringing, John! Whether you knew it or not at the time, you can look back now and see how those experiences made you the man you became. I think it will make us all reflect on our past experiences and appreciate them as you do. Thank you for sharing!

i loved every single minute of that!! i remembered so much!! although it sured did bring back some i didn't want!! LOL **grin** Like, when i was little, my grandpa chopped of the chickens heads, and i asked why he did that?? he said because they didn't listen to him, LOL i believed him. so from then on boy you better believe i was really good ** smile** LOL
and man, all those spiders in the outhouse, YUCKY!! but i loved going to the creek!! that was major fun!! when i was 7 and my brother was 4 we'd go to the creek, that was fun, ya know, nowadays, i'd never even think of letting my kids go anywhere by themselves at that age. is it just me or has times changed that much?? ohhh and chasing the pigs, that was fun!! did you ever go walking in the pig mud just to keep your feet nice and cool?? and let it squish between your toes?? my mom always thought i was nuts!! but i LOVED the feeling!! i think i still would to this day! if i can get away with it, i'd go barefooted all the time. :') ~Medo

Here is a link that might be useful: Barehanded Totally Nutso Gardener!! **Big Grinn**

Thanks all, I will have to make some additions to it, my children are asking for more but the grandchildren are too interested in chasing girls/boys or playing with there Xbox and my great grandchild is not born yet. Here is to them, sipping on a BM.,

Pappy John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

NEVER skimp, John. Write it down even if they don't know they need it yet. We never asked enough questions about WW II of our grandparents and now we can't. My grandmother thought enough to write some of it down, only two to three pages, detailing her experiences. We needed so, so much more. It is only through her memories that we can prove our family has lived. Write it down, John. All of it. No matter how disjointed or scattered it sounds right now. Write it down.

John,

I do genealogy research (for the last 24 years) and there are times I find wonderful records that families kept for decades. One woman wrote about growing up as the oldest in her family and how she had to do all the work because Mama was pregnant so often, you would think she would not have wanted a large family but she married and had 8 children.

I wish I had asked my dad more questions about his experiences in WWII; he never talked about it much. Now my 36 year old son has many questions but my father died when he was 12.

Keep recording it, there may be a budding genealogist in the family that has not surfaced yet.

Peggy

Peggy, I researched my family for more than twenty years and have an 8' shelf filled with binders, as well as a several big boxes and two filing cabinets of records! I'm in the process of reducing some of that by keeping only computer records of all but the direct line, and hope to get the genealogy clutter down to just the shelf full! Unfortunately, none of my children want all of what I worked for.

I finally burned out on the research, and have turned to collecting family stories and personal histories to go along with the facts I have collected.

My dad was a WWII "hero", and I have a 10-year-old grandson who is fascinated with that history.

One of my g-g-grandfathers was married 6 times and had 22 children. His first five wives died young during childbirth, so he just kept marrying...probably to have someone to care for all the children.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

What would it be worth to you if your parents, grandparents and great grandparents kept journals? I did some extensive genealogy work on my family and was able to trace many of then back to the early 1700s in this country. Along the way, I found tidbits of information about there daily lives. That was fantastic and got me to thinking what a shame that none of my ancestors kept a journal. It got me off my butt and I started mine. It is not that difficult to start one and there is a lot of help on Wordpress. If you have been posting on this forum, then you can handle a journal easy. Any post in a journal can be made public or kept private if that is a concern. Start one today, your descendants will love you for it.

John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

Granny, I did not burnout but I would catch myself daydreaming as what there lives must have been like. Fortunately, my daughter is interested in genealogy and I turned everything over to her. It reminds me of the person that paid a genealogist $500 to research his background then had to pay him $5000 to keep it a secret. :o)

John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

John, my main problem with the research was that I shared my information with others, and they took advantage of it. I even had one man publish my entire history on line, right down to the note about my aunt Bessie and her drinking problem, and then copyright it as his own! I had to threaten to sue and he removed it. So it wasn't so much burnout on the research as it was burnout on corresponding and sharing with others.

And I ran out of shelf space ;-)

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

My great-great-great-great-grandfather wrote quite a bit. He wrote a short auto-biography which I have a copy of. He also wrote a fair amount of local area history. He was very well known locally, and started a business (I think) in 1841 that existed until my great grandfather retired in the 1960's. I was sidetracked for a couple hours this afternoon reading part of what he wrote. He talks about events we learned in school, but with much more personal detail, especially the St Albans Raid during the Civil War. You have reminded me, I need to go through the box of things my dad sent me, and re-read some of it.

My father had some research done when I was young. My sister has taken over the geneology research (which is good, I don't keep track of everyone that well)

Here is a link that might be useful: History of St Albans (VT)