My Lifelong Childhood

"All letters, methinks, should be as free and easy as one's discourse, not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm."                               Dorothy Osborne (Lady Temple)  1627-1695 In my last post, I mentioned brief interactions with people of fame or notoriety but the written word stays with us in perpetuity, often requiring the care and conservation of an archivist.  While most of us don't have the financial means of succeeding at this endeavor, reading a few articles or watching the appropriate instructional YouTubes can go a long way in keeping these treasures.  These precious possessions are more capable of telling a story than chance meetings and short conversations, whether they are your own or belong to your family and loved ones. When I was in sixth grade, passing up to Junior High School, it was all the fashion to buy a small leather-bound "autograph book", in which school chums, teachers, and family would wri

"One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation."                                     Rev. Sydney Smith (1771-1845) Some people today would argue that "conversation is dead".  I would say if you consider it an interactive communication between two people, it is very much alive.  It has just evolved into other forms besides face to face, eye to eye situations.  Even e-mail and Facebook have fallen out of favor with younger generations, left in the dust for twitter, snapchat and texting among other newer iterations of communication.  With each new technology, without human contact, it leaves room for misinterpretation, impulsivity and even anger.  You can be a social isolate and spend your entire day on your computer, tablet or phone and hold court with thousands of people you may or may not know.  For me, personally, born in the 1940's, nothing can replace sitting down with someone for a chat, experiencing the personal give and take as well as the p