May 11, 2007
This site was created late Sunday night May 6, 2007 . I was in Asheville with Margaret, Matthew, and Grace. We had spent some time having a few drinks and discussing family history when the idea of this blog site was born. The concept is to create a space where I can share some of my own personal history as well as family history, and family members and friends of the family can respond. For over 23 years I have kept a journal. My intent is to combine some of that content along with current thought and events. As I get comfortable with this process I will expand it to include photographs. This blog was made by Margaret that night and it will be my responsibility to make it work.
To begin this process I will turn to a journal entry that was made in 1996:
September 7, 1996
This time 11 years ago I started a journal. I began it following Helen and I getting married. Certainly an eventful moment in my life. I kept that journal for 10 years. It has been a good friend during rough, and also good times. It was something to turn to in the middle of the night when I needed help to sort things out, to gain perspective, to settle obsessive thoughts. It was something to turn to record milestone events, or sudden insights that I did not want to lose.
In the last few years, however, entries became fewer and fewer. At Christmas I switched over to a computer journal. After 2 months I lost everything I had put on the computer when my hard drive crashed. The computer is now fixed, and I am ready to return to my journal.
It seems appropriate to start at almost my anniversary date (for wedding and journal). Today is also my father’s birthday. He would be 96! And the last significant event for the launching of my journal is Matthew’s leaving home for Millsaps College . He is the last child out of the nest, and life seems to be begging a new beginning.
As a way of starting I would like to capture where everyone is. Matthew (18) is rooming with Micah Davis, an old, old friend. He sounds like he is enjoying college, after one week. He is working in the library, going through rush, and hopefully focusing on school work.
Lillian (20) is at the University of Georgia in Athens . She is in her junior year and trying to figure out a major. Her grades are good (B average), and she enjoys a full social life which includes Kappa Kappa Gamma, and making her debute this year.
John Shelton (23) is going to school part time at Delgado College , working part time, and playing in a band. He has been living on his own in New Orleans for almost 2 years. Life is leveling out for him.
Jonathan Miller (26) is living in New Orleans on Pitt St . He is working as an environmental geologist for ERM. He just finished his masters degree at the University of Arkansas . Jonathan seems to be catching his breath and moving into his profession.
Margaret (30) is living with her mother in Oxford , Pennsylvania. Her life revolves around a baby daughter, Grace, who will be 1 in seven days. She is also working with her mother in the jewelry business, and trying to resolve a marriage with Paul Williams that is struggling.
Gregory (33) continues to work with car stereo systems and is living in Nevada . He has a new girlfriend that I know very little about. Greg is unsettled and volatile. I never really know what he will do next, but his potential is great- for moving in either a positive or negative direction.
Helen is working part time with family court doing divorce mediation, and part time in private practice. Her life is full and rich. In addition to work there are the dogs, Possum, Dixie , Boomer, and Captain. Time is also taken up with church, St Timothy's, with Beaushac, the house on the Little Tchefuncte River, with Franco’s gym working out, with her parents, John and Meezie Sims, who have moved to Covington (Christwood), and of course with me.
I am working with child protection in Covington , and life is taken up with much of the same things that involves Helen. I could add Headstart to the list, fishing with work friends, backpacking with Helen, and lately we both have been spending a lot of time with the computer.
In fact my allocated time with the computer is up.
That concludes that entry and now to see if this reaches the internet and my blog site.
