A to Z Theme 2016

For my 2016 A to Z theme I used a meme that I ran across on the blog of Bridget Straub who first saw it on the blog of Paula Acton. This meme is a natural for me to use on my memoir blog. It's an A to Z concept and it's about me. No research and nothing complicated. I'm given twenty six questions or topics to discuss that are about me.

In April I kept my posts short and uncomplicated. In the midst of it all you might learn a few things about me that you didn't previously know.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Messages from the Past



       Recently a fellow who was my best friend back in junior high school sent me a newspaper clipping of a story about my family that  I had sent him when I was in high school.  He had lived in Indiana at the time and I had moved to East Tennessee.   We kept in touch for a few years corresponding on into our college years.  Then after a while we lost touch.

        I'd been aware that he had moved to Arkansas and had gotten married, but I knew little else about what he was doing until we reconnected about ten years ago.  After that point of reconnection we once again began calling and emailing each other.

         He told me that he was looking through some of his old scrapbooks and photo albums and happened upon the newspaper clipping.    Since that story appeared in the paper nearly 50 years ago he thought that I might not have a copy.   He made a copy for himself and then sent me the original.  Actually I still do have an original copy in my own scrapbook, but it was interesting to receive the copy I had sent to him.   The copy he sent contained messages from the past.

        When I say "messages from the past" I don't mean the story itself, but the things I had written on the back of the article.  Besides humorous comments, on the back of the article I wrote commentaries about the photo, my current interests, and questions about what he was doing.   It was almost as though I had written a short letter on the back of the article.  I now don't recall having done that, but it was common for me to do such things back then.

         Having that annotated copy of the article has provided me insight of what I thought and felt at the time.   I've found other similarly marked items such as school papers, notebook entries, cards, and so on that were almost like messages to my present self from my past self.   It's interesting to come across items like these especially since I never kept anything like a diary.  In my mother's keepsakes I found other items that were from me to her and now they were back in my hands.   It was a blessing that she had kept these items over the years.
  

My copy of the article with picture

         Have you received anything back from somebody to whom you had originally given it?   Do you have a tendency to write off the wall messages in odd places?   Where have you found a message from the past that you had written?


9 comments:

  1. That's pretty cool! Every now and then an old pic of me will turn up on Facebook, unearthed by a high school friend. Overall though no one's ever given me anything from my past that I gave it to. I did return some pics of my college roommate to her that she gave me our freshman year, of her & her sisters when they were kids. She forgot all about them and was delighted to get them back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd love to have someone give me some old pictures with me in them. I've seen people put up old photos on Facebook, but none with me in them.

      Lee

      Delete
  2. What a blast from the past. I have come across items that brought memories I had long forgotten. It is usually a good thing, lol.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ann, I can imagine some things that might be kind of bad, but mostly they'd be "historic".

      Lee


      Delete
  3. The past popping up in the present is happening to me as well! Mom died in 2011, and I am now starting to look at those boxes. Very interesting to see where we were then and are now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susan, that's what my siblings and I encountered after my mom died. When I visit soon maybe we'll discover some more history.

      Lee

      Delete
  4. My mother kept all the letters I had sent her from church summer camps and from college. And I had kept many of the ones she sent to me. Found them a few years back and felt like I'd fallen into a time machine. Now I'm wondering where they have gotten to since then.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have a lot of my grandma's photo albums and love all the hilarious descriptions she wrote on the backs of many of the old black and white pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have a ziploc bag with all the letters and notes people wrote to me in high school. A few of them are back and forths between me and them. I've got yearbooks I wrote all in with my friends, but I really regret the mess I made with them. I had a bunch of diaries from my childhood, but tossed them a few years ago because... they're embarrassing haha I'll likely regret chunking them when I'm older though.

    ReplyDelete

Tell your story. Express your thoughts. We want to hear from you. This blog no longer accepts comments from "Anonymous"--That guy is really starting to bug this blog. If you want to leave me a comment then please register if you aren't already--it's easy to do and I really want to hear from you.

Arlee Bird