Sentimental Sunday: The Marking of 25 Years

January marked 25 years since I first started “doing” genealogy. I was thinking about this the other day and went looking for the notes to the first speech I gave about the subject back in 1997. I was asked to speak to a group of retirees when I lived down in Florida and a member of the local genealogy society there. I could not find it the other day and gave up. I thought it would be neat to look over again because my speech gives a more precise history of my motivation to do genealogy, the how and why I started this hobby and has my thoughts on the subject down on paper already. I went looking for it among my journal notebooks but it was never there. I found it yesterday while looking to chronicle all the published articles and speaking engagements I have done over the years. Good place for it, I just had not remembered where.

I thought my original speech would be good for posterity to publish here on my blog. It’s been nearly eighteen years since then. The infant I talked of then who was 20 months old is now eighteen and the four-year-old will turn 21 soon. She brought home a book of poetry once from school which I read through. One struck me in particular and I made a copy and framed it. The author (whom I believe was Shel Silverstein) also did drawings to accompany the poems and this one in particular has the drawing of a rocking chair and a cradle. I thought the poem was an appropriate sentiment to my life. It is entitled “First” and goes like this:


An old rocking chair originally from my grandfather C.B.Watts' home
First things first
Last things last
Hours
            pass
                     slowly
Years pass fast.







I will post my old speech tomorrow, stay tuned!    
Location: Sinking Fork, Kentucky, USA

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