Cottage Ties

If I were a Kardashian, writing and publishing a book about myself would probably make sense, but 99.99% of the world's population doesn't know or care who I am. So what would make someone want to read my book?
I have put together some snippets from a period of my childhood that played an important role in forming the foundation of who I became, when three generations of our family worked together to change a two room hunting cottage into a four bedroom home. In my naivety I am hoping that these will be a catalyst to stimulate the reader's memories and appreciation of who and what contributed to the foundation of who they are.
What influenced my parents and grandparents influenced me, not directly, but through what I learned from the way they conducted their lives. I was born in 1950. I didn't experience the Depression or World War II, but I was influenced by both events.
My dad lived through the war and because of what he saw and had to do he felt nothing in his life could be worse. He considered the rest of his life a bonus with no need to sweat the small stuff, and sometimes not even the big stuff. My grandparents, parents and all my aunts and uncles lived through the Depression and they all learned how to do with what they had and that family and friends are important.
Each event I have written about, catching fish with pickle jars, discovering the importance of a pile of dirt, herding chickens, learning that family are friends and friends can be family and all the others, by itself taught me something, but stringing all of these lessons learned together helped make me someone.
Our minds do the stringing and most of the time we are oblivious to it happening. As children we don't realize we are learning and growing and as adults we take past events for granted.
Life isn't just you living it, its a never ending series of events of which you are a very small part. Too late in life do we appreciate the life we have shared.
To take a quote from the ending of my book;
"There is no closure to life, only a changing of participants."

Dettagli