Recording your Family's History

Here is a really great set of questions to ask your parents and grandparents. The information will be invaluable to you once they are gone. As Maya Angelou reminded, "We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom." I plan on sending this off to my parents and all of my grandparents. I encourage you all to do the same.

CHAPTER 1: In the Beginning
1. What were your parents and grandparents full names, dates of birth, places of birth.
2. What were the occupations of your parents?
3. How many children were in your family? Where were you in the lineup?
4. Generally speaking, what was your childhood like?
5. What one or two stories do you remember most clearly about your childhood?
6. Are there any particularly happy, funny, sad or instructive lessons you learned while growing up?

CHAPTER 2: In Your Neighborhood
1. What was it like where you grew up?
2. Describe your most important friendships
3. Where and how did "news of your neighborhood" usually flow?

CHAPTER 3 School Days
1. Be sure to capture names and dates attended of grammar, high, colleges, trade or technical schools
2. What are your earliest school day memories?
3. Are there any teachers or subjects you particularly liked or disliked?
4. What did you learn in those first years of school that you would like to pass along to the next generation?
5. Were you involved in sports, music, drama, or other extra-curricular activities?

CHAPTER 4: Off to Work
1. What did you want to be when you grew up?
2. What was your first job, and how did you get it?
3. What was your first boss like? What did you learn from him or her?
4. Did you leave? Quit? Get promoted? Get fired?
5. Were you ever out of work for a long time? If so, how did you handle it?

CHAPTER 5 Romance & Marriage
1. What do you recall about your first date?
2. How did you know you were really in love?
3. Tell me how you "popped the question," or how it was popped to you.
4. Tell me about your wedding ceremony. What year? Where? How many attended? Honeymoon?
5. Tell me about starting your family.
6. Were you married more than once? How often?

CHAPTER 6: Leisure and Travel
1. What were the most memorable family vacations or trips you can recall?
2. What leisure time activities are you involved with?
3. What are your greatest accomplishments in this field?

CHAPTER 7: Places of Worship
1. Do you follow any religious tradition?
2. If so which one, and what is it like?
3. Have you ever changed faiths?
4. What role do your beliefs play in your life today?
5. What would you tell your children about your faith?

CHAPTER 8 War & Peace
1. Were you a volunteer, drafted or a conscientious objector?
2. If you didn't serve, what do you recall about being on the home front during the war?
3. What key moments do you recall about your service?
4. What would you tell today's young soldiers, sailors and fliers?

CHAPTER 9 Triumph and Tragedy
1. What were the most joyous, fulfilling times of your life?
2. Any sad, tragic or difficult times you'd care to share such as losing a loved one, a job, or something you cared about?
3. What lifelong lessons did you learn from these tough times? Joyous times?
4. Were there any moments you recall as true breakthroughs in any area of your life?
5. If you could do one thing differently in your life, what would that be?

CHAPTER 10 Words of Wisdom
1. What have you learned over your lifetime that you'd like to share with the younger generation?
2. People will sometimes repeat aphorisms such as "honesty is the best policy." If they do, be sure to ask how they learned that life lesson.

CHAPTER 11: Funnybones
1. What were your family's favorite jokes or pranks?
2. Who is, or was, the family comedian? "Straight" man?
3. What's the funniest family story you remember?

CHAPTER 12 Thank You
1. What are you most grateful for you your life?
2. How have you taught your children to be grateful?
3. Are there items or places that mark special gratitude for the ones you love? What are they? What are their stories?

Final thought:

"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.And their eyes were my eyes. Richard Llewellyn

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families

I have slacked off A LOT in the last few months. I have not been regularly writing on my blog. I have not written any book reviews. I wish I had the time to write about all the beautiful books I have read, but alas, I work full time and my laptop is finicky at best. But I just had to tell share a few of my thoughts of the book I am reading now.

We wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We will be Killed With Our Families By Philip Gourevitch is the story of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. As the title suggests, this book is NOT light reading. Readers know this from the very direct preface:I have read other books on Rwanda. Call me morbid for dwelling on humanity at its lowest, but I think there is a lot to be said about studying this subject. Pick your topic: greed, power, corruption, betrayal, ignorance-- its all there. What fascinates and horrifies me the most, though, is the the truly terrifying extent of human disinterestedness and apathy for their fellow kind. What makes people accustomed to murder? Where's the sympathy? Where is the call to action? I've thought a lot about what makes people care but not care enough. Most, I think (I hope), care when bad things happen to people, even if those people are strangers. But most people don't care enough. And how can you? How can we all make room in our busy lives, full of our own personal troubles and headaches, for another's pain? If one were to feel that much for so many, would they really be able to focus on anything else BUT the pains of the world?


Another lesson I have gleaned from my studies. A person is real in a way that people (plural) are not. Its easy for me to feel for that homeless child they did a news special on. She is real to me. I can imagine what it must be like for her. It is much harder for me to feel for a multitude of people; groups lose their individuality, their distinctness, their tangible humanity. Can I feel what it must have been like for the Rwandan dead? For those 800,000 or more who were tortured and killed? Can I understand the magnitude? I admit that on a purely surface level, 800,000 seems like a lot of people. But what does that number mean? When I look at 800,000, can I see 800,000 bodies, or do I just see the number, and nothing more? I believe that once I tragedy becomes quantifiable, it loses something important. It loses its ability to be relatable because it becomes something we see with our heads instead of our hearts/souls. When we begin to study things out with our heads, our compassion is replaced with apathy, and emotionality with rationality.

Yes. Rationally it doesn't make sense that 800,000 people died in 100 days. But it does rationally make sense that not much was done to stop it. Why would you or I or the United States meddle is something in which there is only potential loss. Loss of money, resources, time, lives, etc. In other words, why would anyone go into something with no promise of gain? Here are some noteworthy equations:

added power + added resources = action
no power + less resources = inaction.

It's really that simple.

Back to the book. Is it a little disorganized? Yes. The book goes from the personal account of a Tutsi survivor, to historical background relating to the French monarchy, to UNIMIR and its role in Rwanda. There is not a lot of guidance moving readers from topic to topic. The book is good about blending accounts. You can tell Gourevitch is a journalist. He gets down and dirty with all parties involved. He asks the tough questions. This book, like no other I have read on Rwanda's genocide, gives the story of the genocidaries, the Hutu killer, the UN secretary- general, UNAMIR, the French and Belgian governments, the RPF general Paul Kagame (interviewed before he become Rwanda's president), and even the now famous Paul Rusesabagina, owner of the Hotel Mille-Collins (Hotel Rwanda). It's all there.

I would recommend this book to almost anyone. So if you're looking for a book to read, and are not prone to depressive moods and suicidal tenancies when you watch the news, please go to the library and check it out. That's all.

The Soda Conundrum

You know soda is unhealthy when you sit next to an open, almost full can of Pepsi and hear the contents sizzle and spit up who knows what acidic, chemical milieu of nastiness for three hours (I opened it at 12:30 and it is now 3:23!!!). I really need to lay off this dietary supplement. Especially since my "real" age is apparently 25. WTF? P.S. Does anyone actually know what phosphoric acid and citric acid is? Why am I drinking something with acid in it? Better yet, why am I drinking acids I know nothing about?