Week Nineteen: Your Community

It's been two weeks since I've posted a prompt. "Your Community" is the focus this time. You can choose the current community you live in or any of the past communites in which you've resided. Perhaps you will want to write about all the communities of your life. Here are some things to consider:

*Describe your community: the location, including county and state; its size, and if a small one, its relation to a larger community; how long you lived there.

*What do you know about the history of your community? Who were its founders? What were major events of its past?

*What indigenous peoples lived there, and what ethnic groups immigrated to it?

*Why did you settle in this community?

*What do you like about it? Dislike? What would you change? What do you hope will never change?

*List some of the physical features and structures of the community...its parks, community centers, churches, and businesses, especially the ones you frequent.

*List events and celebrations that make this community unique, especially ones you have participated in.

*Write about your neighbors, friends and any family that live in this community, and describe your relationship with them through the community perspective.

*If you are active as a volunteer, committee or board member of your community, write about your experiences and responsiblities.

*What is the economy like? What is the economic makeup of its citizens? What is the rate of unemployment? What is the housing market like?

*What major political leanings does the community have? Major religous denominations? Are you in the majority or minority as a citizen in the political and religious areas? How does that shape your everyday life?

*What do you see as the future of this community, and why?

Week Eighteen: Your Neighborhood

Most people have fond memories of the neighborhood in which they grew up: the hangouts, the haunted houses, the secret hideouts. Rural or urban, every location has something unique and attractive to children. In this busy day and age, most children's lives are very over-scheduled and with the dangers of sexual predators, gangs, and drug dealers, as well as the electronic attractions of computer/video games, cell phones, and instant messaging/MySpace/FaceBook, kids don't roam free as they once did. Leave a record of some great memories for your descendants!

*Describe the neighborhood of your childhood. Was it rural or urban? If urban, what stores, parks, and businesses do you remember? If rural, describe the woods or plains, streams or lakes/ponds that you explored. Or perhaps you lived in a small town or the suburbs, which were a combination of the great outdoors and the community services.

*What was your favorite place to go hang out with your friends? Why? What were some of the things you did there?

*Who were your friends and where did they live? Describe them...how old they were, how you ended up becoming friends, what was special about them?

*Are you still in touch with your childhood friends? Why or why not? Where do they live now?

*What was your favorite place to go to be by yourself? Why? What were some of the things you did there?

*Was there a haunted house or cemetery or some other scary place in your neighborhood? Did you ever go exploring there? What happened?

*Was there a place from which your parents told you to stay away? What was it and why were you supposed to stay away from it? Did you ever visit it anyway? What happened?

*Where did you learn to swim? What was your favorite "swimming hole?"

*Where did you ride your bicycle?

*Where did you go to the movies? or shoot pool? or play video games (before they were available for home use)?

*Where did you go bowling? or rollerskating? or skateboarding? or sledding? or ice skating?

*What kinds of outdoor games did you play with your friends? Hopscotch? Marbles? Cowboys and Indians? Capture the flag? Tag? Jump rope?

*What kinds of mischief did you and your friends get into? Were you ever caught? If so, what were the consequences?

*Was there a house in the neighborhood that everyone gravitated to? You know, the one whose mom didn't care if you hung out there all day, as long as you cleaned up after yourselves? Was it your house, or someone else's? Describe what you used to do there.

*Was there a convenience store, malt shop, Mom and Pop store, candy store, or some other place that all the kids loved to go to get their treats? What kinds of treats were your favorite? Was there an ice cream truck that you used to frequent?

*Did you ever have a lemonade stand? Write about your successes or failures with that.

*If you lived in the country, where did you like to go fishing, hunting, hiking, or ORVing? Tell your stories.

*Did you ever run into wild animals (bears, snakes, etc.) or fierce farm animals (bulls, roosters, etc.) while playing out in the country? Tell about your adventures!

*Did you ever run away from home? Why? Where did you go and how long were you there?

*Did you have a tree house or clubhouse? Was it secret, or did everyone hang out there? Who built it?

Instead of writing down your responses, you could make an audio recording and transcribe it later. I can think of so many stories about running around as a kid, that writing them down would take a very long time! A recording would be simpler and faster. Find some photos of you and your friends hanging out, or of the places you used to frequent to illustrate your written journal.

Next week,we'll expand a bit and on focus on "Your Community."

(P.S. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!)

Week Twelve: Your Daily Life

After reading some ancestral diaries that others have posted on their genealogy blogs, I thought it would be interesting to provide our descendants with a narrative of our daily lives. In other words, on a typical weekday, what happens? Here are some things to consider:

*What time do you get up?

*What do you do first?

*How do you get to work or school (or do you work at home)?

*What ordinary, perhaps even boring (to you) things to you do at each hour of the day?

*What people do you interact with on a daily basis (co-workers, friends, neighbors, family, community workers such as the mail carrier, etc.)?

*What do usually eat, and where?

*At the end of the workday, what things do you do at home?

*What do you do to relax in the evening? List television or radio shows you watch, music you listen to, websites you visit, etc.

*When do you go to bed?

Now spend some time journaling about your typical weekend day:

*What sorts of things do you normally do on Saturday?

*Where do you go?

*Do you attend worship services on Sunday, sleep in, or regularly participate in some other activity?

*How do you prepare for the coming workweek?

If you have regular activities that happen on certain days of the week, you could add those. For instance, I like to visit my Family History Center nearly every Thursday evening to do research, and I could write about what I do and the volunteers I have gotten to know there.

If you like, you could list this in an hour-by-hour procedure, such as "6:00 a.m. - wake, get dressed; 6:15 - work out on treadmill; 6:45 - eat breakfast: yogurt and a cup of coffee," etc.

It would be interesting to bring your camera to work and take pictures of your workplace and co-workers to add to your journal; or even the commute, if you're sitting, stuck in traffic. If you work at home, you could use the auto-timer or arrange to have someone taking photos of you.

It's often the ordinary days that are overlooked; and I think our descendants would love to know what a typical day was like for us...after all, wouldn't we want to know the same about OUR ancestors?

Next week, we'll be talking about marriage, significant others, or the loves of our lives.