Time To Come Alive

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive." Howard Washington Thurman

What makes you come alive? What makes your soul sing at just the thought? Find time to do it. Your heart and soul will thank you in ways you can’t imagine. This could be a small thing, one thing or many things. Whatever it is, perhaps knowing this is a signal that you need to consider a change in your life direction, or that you should seriously contemplate the idea of a career change.

If you don’t know what brings you joy, it may be because you haven’t met yourself. If you don’t know who you are, who you really are, how will you every find your joy? How will you know your joy if it walked up and knocked on your life’s door?

One way to do this is to acquire a journal. It could anything from a simple spiral-bound tablet to a fancy leather bound plank book. Need ideas to get started? Describe your perfect day from the moment you wake up until you lay your head down at night. Be as detailed as possible and include colors, smells, sounds, and all the sensory impressions you can think of. Take as many pages as you need to finish this task

Here are ten questions to salt the mine and help get you started. For each question, write out why you answered the way you did. This is an important part of this step.
1. What is your favorite color?
2. What is your favorite time of year?
3. Do you like the beach, mountains, desert, high country, coast, prairie, or what?
4. Do you have many friends or just a few close friends?
5. How do you feel about each of your family members? Pick at least one word to describe each of your family relationship. Write one paragraph about each person.
6. Are you a morning person? Or do you come alive at night-time?
7. What is one item you can’t live without daily?
8. What makes you cry?
9. What makes you laugh?
10. How do you want to be remembered?

These are just a few questions to get you going. Think of more. I know it will take time to walk through the process to find the value of you, but it is important! Don’t just sleep walk through your life. Get to know yourself. Voltaire said it so clearly: An unexamined life is not worth living.

Is Hope Real . . . This Time?

Adults told us to dive under our desks, grab the metal legs, and keep our heads down. This action was to protect us from The Bomb. On another occasion we were let out of school early and were told to go directly home. The object was to time our trip home so our teachers would know exactly how long it took to get home in case of a bombing.

Then . . .

We were told Cuba had missiles aimed at us and ready to fire. Where was Cuba? Why did they want to hurt my friends and family? I didn’t even know what a missile was, but I could tell it scared all the adults.

This president would frequently come on the black & white television and make us feel like everything was safe and going to be okay. His speaking taught me a new word, inspired. He had a way of speaking that caused you to well-up inside with hope.

At a different time he encouraged the whole country with his confidence that we could send a person to the moon. To the moon! What an incredible thought. He also called on everyone to give their time and talent to help others. He started a group called the Peace Corps to reach out to help those in need. His sincerity took the fear out of diving under my desk and made me believe the world was full of possibilities.

Then . . .

My principal came into my classroom, whispered into my teacher’s ear, and she started to cry. Was it the bomb? No. It was my president. Someone had killed him and we were sent home. Children and adults across the land went home and sat in front of their television for days.

Darkness spread over the landscape. Sadness and grief was the norm for a long time. I’m not sure it ever really went away, just settled deep inside.

Life moved on, but slowly.

Years later, the president’s brother, Robert, decided to run for president. There was a memory of the inspiration we had once known, the hope, and the challenge to be more. Robert came through my hometown on a train. The train stopped and as he spoke from the back of it the mood of the crowd was electric, his speech was rousing, and our enthusiasm and hope for the future was high.

Then . . .

Two days later, after his acceptance speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angles, he was shot while leaving the building through the kitchen area.

This series of events spanned the time from my second grade class to high school and set in place my lack of hope in all things political. This lack has only been reinforced over the years with Watergate, Iran -Contra, White House intern scandals, Iraq war, and on and on. Whatever party is in office seems to become haughty and makes stupid mistakes while the other party only points fingers and declares this is the worst leader ever. My conclusion is they are both wrong and much more alike than different perhaps just two sides of the same coin. I have become a member of the disillusioned majority. You don’t hear from us very often because we are busy going about our jobs, raising our families, taking care of parents that are aging, and just living.

And Now . . .

We are facing a new presidential season. Hope is in the air. Will this time be different? My hope is it’s just more words from adults telling us to dive under our desks for safety. I want real hope to be demonstrated. May it be so.

Pallin is not Teddy Roosevelt

To all of you who are sending or have received the email “Who Am I?” that goes as follows:
I'm under 45 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor's office.

Who am I?"
If you said Teddy Roosevelt you are right !Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.

Here are my comments to this email:

Teddy Roosevelt is a personal hero of mine. I have read his writings and several books about his life. Governor Pallin maybe a lovely human being and wonderful Governor of Alaska, but she is in not even in Teddy Roosevelt’s league. Let’s keep things in perceptive:
Before he was vice President:
He struggled as a sickly asthmatic child and overcame it
He was proficient in French, German, Latin and Greek
He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard
He was a New York Assemblyman served 3 terms
President of the Board of New York City Police Commissioners
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Instrumental in the Spanish-American War
Won the Medal of Honor
Colonel of the Rough Riders
Wrote the History of the Naval War of 1812 set the standard for studies on naval strategy and was required reading at the Naval Academy in Annapolis for many years.
Established two cattle ranches in Dakota Territory
Lost both his beloved mother and wife on the same day
Published the Life of Thomas Hart Benton
Published Life of Governor Morris
Published Ranch Life and Hunting Trail
Published Essays in Practical Politics
Four volume history of the frontier The Winning of the West published
U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, Washington
Published History of New York
Published The wilderness Hunter
Published Hero Tales from American History in collaboration with Henry Cabot Lodge
Published American Ideals
Published The Rough Riders
All before becoming vice president in March 1901.

Genealogy Websites

Here are the list of sites I've discovered and found to be helpful. There is a LOT of stuff online now. This is just my suggestions.

Here you go:
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp The LDS site. The best!
http://dir.genealogytoday.com/index.html Free general site good.
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/ Olivetree is good for other things beside ship lists, but that’s the link I saved
http://www.cyndislist.com/census.htm I’m sure you already know about Cyndi’s List. Tons of information. The site for lists of other sites.
http://www.immigrantships.net/ Great source for passenger lists
http://www.idreamof.com/newdata.html okay, but not the best site
http://www.us-census.org/inventory/ Need to know what specific state and county you are looking for to really use this one.

One tip too is to put information in the search site www.Dogpile.com. You can write in things like “Samuel Locker 1736 Virginia” and you will get information that way too. You will need to do a lot more stiffing though. Best of luck.
I traced a friends mother’s side of the family back to England as far as 1302 by just using the FamilySearch.org site. What was even more amazing it that it only took about three minutes. That isn’t normal. Like I said in the other blog, I’ve been working on Locker for years and still haven’t gotten them off the East coast to England.

I'm thinking about putting together easy search steps to follow. Maybe in the near future.