On the road…again!
                                          Afghanistan to Zambia
                                   Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
                                             By Dick Pellek

Can We Remember?  Do We Remember?  Should We Remember?

People who think often about the past engage in subconscious peeking into their personal histories.  They see flashes of happy times, stressful times, sad times, times of fear, and times of apprehension that just never get erased from their innermost thoughts. That petty indictment includes me, so the charge is about all of us. We are who we were.

photo taken circa 1944

It is all there—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But the world does not need to know everything, thanks to the principles of forgiveness and redemption. Today we are who we chose to be, strive to be, and hope to be.  Let others judge what they see.  As is often suggested, it is more important to consider where we are going than to dwell on where we have been.  We may choose to tell all, or we may choose to share only the positive things.  The choice is ours alone and the act of sharing can be selective.

In the most innocent approach to valuing memories, one avenue to appreciating the past is to produce a listing of judgment-free but lasting memories, starting from as early in life as we can recall. Do you recall anything from your own infancy?  Can you recall anything from grammar school?  How about a brief memory of each succeeding year of grammar school? And high school? College? Your first job? Your first flirtation?   The possibilities are endless, but it will require some daydreaming. If you do remember something, you can remember enough to share it in your legacy stories.  Legacy stories are for others, and you are the best narrator for the job just because you were there as a witness.  

This short chronicle will surely be expanded because the internal editor used by LegacyStories.org allows for expansion, clarification, and corrections. Story development is not only possible, it should be one rule used by serious storytellers who care about the content of their offerings.  But reviewing a lifetime of memories is a daunting task and ommissions are inevitable, thus this chronicle entry will be more like a project.  A hint, however:  Memories of a toddler; pre-school years; grammar school; high school highlights (by year); college; working years; military service; etc. need not be chronological.  Start with the ones that give you the confidence to continue.

Time now to get started.