Letter to my friend Walter Watts - 6/3/2018
I have been thinking about your response to my little Facebook essay about my 1600th daily diary entry. To quote - "Good for you Don. I started my life story 10 years ago and got stuck. Takes stick to it stuff which you have and I don't."
I want to make a few comments which I will direct to Walter Watts, but which I will share with others on Facebook, because it seems like I have some thoughts that might be helpful.
First, my diary is a separate thing from my dream of writing the history of The Toycrafter - my wooden toy business that I started in a friend's basement back around 1972, and continued to be the center of my life until I sold it in 2002. Such a long story, and such a monumental task to write it all down. Added to The Toycrafter story is the story of Don Olney - even longer - and full of other things that really have nothing to do with The Toycrafter!
On the diary front, both my Mom and Dad wrote diaries for a while that were not daily entries like we associate with diaries. Both of them wrote weekly summaries. I do not know if they each knew the way the other was writing. Dad did so on his computer. He loved playing with his computer - both writing, and working on family genealogy! Mom left a handwritten diary in her desk - found by me after her death, and I never shared it with Dad. It was only a couple of years, but she also did a weekly summary format. Just a little additional note - I have a little collection of old diaries, Some from my family, and a few others. I get a daily e-mail from E-bay telling me about new diaries listed there for sale. Fascinating stuff, but amazing how many diaries sputter out after a few days, weeks, or months. (Sometime I may write a little essay on my observations about the sale of diaries on E-bay.) (Maybe another essay on the death of diaries with the advent of blogs, and the subsequent death of blogs with the advent of Facebook!)
I have been thinking about your response to my little Facebook essay about my 1600th daily diary entry. To quote - "Good for you Don. I started my life story 10 years ago and got stuck. Takes stick to it stuff which you have and I don't."
I want to make a few comments which I will direct to Walter Watts, but which I will share with others on Facebook, because it seems like I have some thoughts that might be helpful.
First, my diary is a separate thing from my dream of writing the history of The Toycrafter - my wooden toy business that I started in a friend's basement back around 1972, and continued to be the center of my life until I sold it in 2002. Such a long story, and such a monumental task to write it all down. Added to The Toycrafter story is the story of Don Olney - even longer - and full of other things that really have nothing to do with The Toycrafter!
On the diary front, both my Mom and Dad wrote diaries for a while that were not daily entries like we associate with diaries. Both of them wrote weekly summaries. I do not know if they each knew the way the other was writing. Dad did so on his computer. He loved playing with his computer - both writing, and working on family genealogy! Mom left a handwritten diary in her desk - found by me after her death, and I never shared it with Dad. It was only a couple of years, but she also did a weekly summary format. Just a little additional note - I have a little collection of old diaries, Some from my family, and a few others. I get a daily e-mail from E-bay telling me about new diaries listed there for sale. Fascinating stuff, but amazing how many diaries sputter out after a few days, weeks, or months. (Sometime I may write a little essay on my observations about the sale of diaries on E-bay.) (Maybe another essay on the death of diaries with the advent of blogs, and the subsequent death of blogs with the advent of Facebook!)
All of which leads to one of the most important things I learned from my Dad. I knew he was a great story teller. Sometimes repeating a story, but usually a new one, or at least additional information on a previously told story about his life. I knew that a few of these stories were written down - on his computer, but I did not know how many stories were written down, or that he had organized them into his "book". While attending a memorial service given by the folks at Elder One - a program for older folks. Mom and Dad had both been helped a whole lot by this program. After the service, one of the staff members told me about how much they had enjoyed Dad's book. A big surprise to me that he had written a book? Found his "book" file on his computer, and discovered that he had assembled many of his stories/essays into a wonderful 62 page collection.
With some very minor editing - mostly spelling - I printed out quite a few copies of "The Promised Land" - adding a cover with a photo of Dad, and some info on how to contact me. I have shared Dad's book with many of my friends.
The point of this little essay of mine is to suggest to Walter Watts, and anyone else who might want to share their story, that writing a collection of "stories/essays" is a lot easier to do than to start from the beginning, trying to organize things in chronological order, and just getting bogged down! I have written down quite a few of my stories both about The Toycrafter, and about Don Olney. I don't pretend to myself or to others that this is not still a bit daunting. I have a relatively long list of stories I have not yet written, but I do find it pleasing that there are about 10-15 stories of my life that can be found and read by my family and friends. I did start a blog that is my stories about The Toycrafter. http://thetoycrafter.blogspot.com/ I find it is a bit embarrassing that there are quite large gaps between my stories. The longer the gap gets, the more I find it difficult to post them. The few stories I have posted so far have been well received, and several are written, but not posted yet. Bottom line, while not perfect, writing down stories as I think of them is a lot easier than outlining, planning, etc. the whole thing. I carry a notebook that contains lots of notes, and quite a few of them are keywords that remind me of one of the many stories that I would like to write at some point.
I guess I'll stop this one here - maybe add more later?? If you would like to read Dad's book - The Promised Land - contact me, and I can send a hard copy spiral bound version, or just e-mail the PDF version.
