Things have been pretty quiet at Living Springs Publishers since releasing “Stories Through The Ages – Baby Boomers 2017”. We have been busy creating a legacy book of our fathers World War II experience. We recently discovered he was in the 99th Infantry – the Checkerboarders – and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Battle for Remagan and liberation of concentration camps in bringing the horror of Nazi Germany to an end. He earned a Distinguished Service Medal and three bronze stars, among others.
The information we found was on the verge of being lost to our family forever. All of the people who knew about his service are dead. We happened across a small box containing things he brought back from the war. It has taken a couple years and a lot of researching to piece together his service. Most of his records were lost in a fire at the National Archives.
We cannot stress enough how important it is to get your family history down while you can. Share your life in a story, label your pictures, interview an elderly relative. Do something so the next generations will know their roots.
What we are working on: • We are accepting submissions for Stories Through the Ages – College Edition 2018. • We are accepting submissions for Stories Through the Ages – Baby Boomers 2018. • We would love to go forward with Stories Through the Ages – Generations XYZ – contact us if you are interested. • We are still working out details for our legacy book offerings – please let us know what services you would like to have us provide.
Meeting at the generational crossroads by Henry Peavler
One of the joys of life is to listen to young people and, because pretty much everyone is younger than me now, I don’t have any trouble finding someone to talk to. In case you aren’t aware of it, people of variant ages think differently about things. Take for example running. Five and six year old people run all the time, everywhere, but I don’t run at all anymore. I think about it sometimes. Running off into the wind would be fun, sprinting up a tropical beach, idyllic, and there are 70 year old people who still run, but I can’t.
We see for ourselves the difference between the age of information and the age of technology. People raised with a phone, computer, iPad or tablet in hand tend to experience the world with their heads down and any glimpse of a tree or brook or mountain is accidental. Life viewed through a device is different than the actual firsthand experience of a thing.
Let’s pretend that you find yourself in Cawker City, Kansas, you might say to your grandchild, “Look, there, Milo, that’s the world’s largest ball of twine–right there before our very eyes–ain’t that a sight to see?” and Milo will answer, without even looking up to see the real, actual ball of twine itself, “Yeah, Gramps, their website says that it weighs 20,000 pounds and they add twine to it each year. Can we get McDonalds?”
Or what if you find yourself in San Antonio, Texas in front of Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum and you say, “Sarah Jean, we may never come this way again. I don’t know how many more years I’ve got and I don’t want to miss this.” Well, you know that Sarah Jean has already pulled up the website and seen enough of Harry’s art work that she’s satisfied that nothing can be gained by seeing it in person and she says, “Grandpa, it’s just a bunch of toilet seats that he painted. How boring is that? Let’s go to McDonalds.”
And don’t get me started on concerts. I took my granddaughter and some of her friends to a concert in downtown Austin and they went in by themselves to see a person who had never made a record or album or recording of any kind. He became famous through videos of himself that he put on YouTube. He had gone viral. I was mighty fearful that the girls would catch it if I left them there alone but I did it because those were my instructions from their parents who ‘monitored’ them through an App on their own device from the safety of their home.
I want to make a lot of money so I need to figure out how to go viral. I asked my granddaughter how to do it. She laughed at me because I don’t even have YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and several other things that are necessary to going viral. She said I should stick with visiting places like Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum or the world’s largest ball of twine. I asked her if she wanted to go with me to see the Harry Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri and as a special added attraction we could stop by Leila’s Hair Museum which isn’t far away. Two top-notch attractions for the price of one. She answered that she could tell from the website they were boring.
I guess I’ll go by myself. Maybe I’ll have time to catch the Salt and Pepper Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on the way back.