History of One's Life

Below is a picture of part of my family taken during our family reunion in October 2008. From left to right (top) you have my sister in law - Leah, brother in law - Kevin, father in law - Larry, Me, My Hubby, (bottom) cousin in law - Matthew, Grandfather in law - Pop, and niece - Grace. That's part of the McGoo bunch right there. This post will refer to the man in the center there - Pop.

At 94 years of age, Pop has definitely experienced some of the world changes that have been seen over the last 100 years. With every new decade he has seen the world interact in different levels from WW1 to WW2 to the Industrial Revolution to the Cold War era to 9/11 to an African American man standing as the President of the United States. Talk about some dramatic changes!

I've been asked by Pop to help pull together much of the items he has kept over the years to document his life. In essence I am attempting to condense all the items into a history of Pop's life for him and his family to enjoy. I am honored to have this task at hand.

If you can't already tell, I enjoy writing. This blog has been an excellent medium for me to utilize my writing skills or interests or whatever you want to call them. I'm pretty sure my writing style is somewhat linked to my heredity. My daddy is an awesome writer. From emails, to letters, to anything you can think of that puts pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard, my dad does well with the written words, and I think I get any amount of writing skill or interest from him. Needless to say, with this thought in mind, writing up a history of Pop's life seemed exciting, interesting, and something right up my ally.

As I've spent a couple hours so far pouring over the pictures, stories, times lines, family trees, and information Pop has provided for me, I'm quickly humbled by this man's life and all that he has seen. In the same way, I am also quickly reminded about my youth... how do I, a young 26 year old, pull together a history such as this? Pop have lived through things that I only have read in history books. Already it has been more than interesting to look over the way of life during Pop's youth, and I look forward to learning more about my Grandfather in law.

Let the project continue.