The Crab Chronicles

Dee's Taco Salad

When I worked full time and had to come home and help kids with homework and get a meal on the table and do housework and try to find 5 minutes to myself (which is a typical weekday evening for most working moms) all between 6 and 7 p.m., I devised a recipe that has become one of my "go to" recipes. Taco Salad. 

No, it's not like what you get at a Mexican restaurant. It's my hillbilly gringo version -- but it's still tasty, y'all. And best of all, quick. Usually only takes me 20-30 minutes, depending on how much chopping I do. Although my kids are grown, I made this tonight. So yummy. 

 

TACO SALAD

1 onion

1-2 bell peppers

1-2 cups beef stock or broth

1 lb. ground beef [i use sirloin] or ground turkey

1 package Taco Seasoning mix [see photo below]

Fritos

shredded Cheese [any kind]

 

1) Now, if you are in a hurry, you can skip this step, but I urge you not to. Chop an onion, and if you want, chop bell peppers. 2) Saute onions/peppers in the skillet until tender. Add the beef broth, plus salt and pepper to taste. Open the taco seasoning and add a little bit. Cut it on low, cover, and cook 10-20 minutes, depending on how crunchy you like your onions and peppers.

3) In another skillet, brown your meat. Add the meat to the skillet with the onions and peppers after the meat is thoroughly cooked. 

4) Add the rest of the taco seasoning mix. Stir. Stir a lot. Add more beef broth if necessary - you want a mixture with lots of liquid.

5) To serve, take a soup bowl and put a layer of Fritos, then a layer of the beef/onion/pepper mixture, then as much cheese as you like.

I usually serve this with my version of guacamole -- mashed avocado with lime juice and sea salt -- on the side.

Trading Places

Have you ever talked to a friend and thought wow, I would HATE to have her life! I had that experience last night. I had a phone chat with a friend I haven't seen or spoken to in many months, although we have been friends for nearly 20 years. 

I only got a call back from her because she was in the car headed home from working out at the gym. She works 40-60 hours a week at a law office, and works out every day.

She lives in midtown, walking distance to the Fox Theatre. I would love to be able to walk to the Fox. However, when she was pulling her car into the lot behind her condo she was annoyed at having to wait a couple of minutes while a guy standing right on front of her car took his time peeing. 

EEUW. 

Compared to her, I live in the country. It's suburban Atlanta, inside the perimeter, but comparatively? The country. I saw a rabbit in my back yard last night when I let Lola out to tinkle. Lola wanted to chase the rabbit. Holding her back from that was fun. I've seen foxes, possums, coyotes -- in my back yard.

She can walk to fancy, expensive restaurants, to museums, to theaters. She lives smack dab in the heart of everything the city has to offer, and in Atlanta that's quite a lot. I can't do that, but I don't want to.

She is going to have to continue to work the punishing hours, at a high-stress job, for the next 15 years or more, to be able to retire and live at the same high standard she has now. I started to feel sorry for her, after we hung up and I reflected on that. Then I thought about it some more and realized wait a minute, she is very smart, very educated. If she WANTED to change jobs, to get out of the city, to get away from all that stress, she could totally do it. Her child is grown. Her car is paid for. She bought her condo years ago and I doubt the payments are that bad. She is working those awful hours and putting herself through that stress because she WANTS to. There is something holding her to that, and deep down she likes what she does. 

I cannot fathom it. Then again, she asked me about my life and what I do all day, and I told her about caring for Mother, Lola, and Michael, and her response was "I don't know how you do that. I couldn't do it."

I started to chuckle but I realized she was being serious.

I used to think I wanted to travel. Ireland, Scotland, Japan, Australia -- lots of plans and daydreams about going places and seeing things. Now I watch Travel Channel on my nice TV and I am grateful my feet don't hurt from all that walking, and I don't have to worry about finding a clean restroom in some out of the way place. I've been to places like that. I don't care to go back.

Now I am perfectly happy to be right here, in Atlanta, in my own messy old house, doing pretty much exactly what I want all day. Yes, caretaking can be really tiresome, some days, but most days now I am pretty content. I wish I had more money, but I don't want to spend 80% of my waking life at an office slaving away for people who don't care if I live or die, who view me simply as a cog in the wheel. (I used to work where my friend works, still, and I know what type of place it is. Stress City.) In that instance, I would have more money but less time to spend it.

No, I can go outside and take a photo of beauty that's right in my back yard, like the shots below, and marvel at how beautiful Atlanta is in the early spring. I love watching the robins and cardinals in my back yard. I wouldn't trade walking Lola and chatting with neighbors for walking city streets where drunks feel free to pee right in front of me. No thanks.

This country mouse is a happy camper right here.

Missing a Hand is NOT a Disability

I have a young friend in England who is raising his son who has one hand, like my son Michael. We were Facebook chatting this morning and he told me something that makes me FURIOUS. He told me his 10 year old son is not allowed to go on school field trips because the school says he is "too high risk."

Ridiculous. If I had been told that my son couldn't go on a field trip simply because of his hand I would have been at that school that day, raising hell. 

However, other places in the world are not as tolerant as Americans are about children who are differently abled, I'm sad to say. Bullying happens. Prejudice happens. Makes me furious.

Honey, if you have never been around a person missing an arm or a hand, let me school you. 

A missing limb is NOT A HANDICAP. It's just not. Michael may do things a bit differently than a person with two hands, but he CAN DO ANYTHING. 

I thought when I adopted Michael and brought him home he would never be able to play with a Gameboy or a Wii or an X-box or anything like that. Wrong. He has no trouble and is, in fact, a terrific gamer.

I didn't think he could put together Lego things. Wrong again. I got him Lego models and he typically put them together in less than 15 minutes. In fact, Legos bored him pretty quickly because they were so easy for him.

Here is a list of things I never thought Michael could do with no help [and no prosthetic] and he proved me wrong, right quick:

• tie his shoes
• clip his fingernails
• chop an onion [he does this as fast as I do]
• cut his meat at the dinner table 
• ride a bicycle
• play the piano [he just does this for fun]
• cook

I didn't think he would be able to serve a tennis ball like everyone else. He mastered that skill in an hour. I didn't think he would be able to catch and throw a baseball, but he simply caught the ball, stuck the glove under his arm, and threw the ball -- and he learned to do that very quickly. He was one of the best hitters on his baseball team for the three years he played. 

We really didn't think he would be able to get his lifeguard certification or Red Cross certification so he could be a lifeguard. Part of the test involved picking up a large brick off the pool bottom and swimming it up to the surface and over to the side of the pool. Michael practiced it and did it, first try. That was in 2014. He had only learned to swim in 2007 when he came home.

I didn't think he would be able to drive a moped but he does that quite easily, with no modifications. He drives a car easily too.

Below are some photos of Michael doing things people doubted he could do, and doing them WELL. 

ADDENDUM: Perhaps I should explain something to those not knowing the entire story about Michael. When he was put in the orphanage at age 8, the good ladies who ran things realized quickly they had a very smart, very sweet little boy, who needed to get out of Kazakhstan. They campaigned for him to get listed on a website for special needs kids, hoping he would get adopted by an American. That's where I saw his photo. In Kazakhstan, he would be considered completely unemployable. It's very unlikely that any employer would hire him. He would get a very small payment from the government, like welfare, and written off. He likely would have become a petty criminal and spent a lot of time in jail. That was his likely fate, had he not been adopted. 

When I went to visit him in the orphanage, the ladies all told me "He is a good boy. He can dress himself, feed himself, write." They had him embroidering things, as a sort of occupational therapy. Those ladies were angels because they saw his potential, and worked hard to get him adopted. I still have those lovely pieces of embroidery, BTW, although Michael has not done any of that since he has been here. He is teaching himself how to do tattoos and is quite skilled already, and an excellent artist. 

What I have heard many times over the years, by friends, is that once you get to know Michael, the hand is not an issue. It's never thought about again, because he never asks for any special treatment. When he played tennis matches his opponents were always amazed at his talent.  

below, whitewater rafting and skiing, when he was at Amputee Adventure Camp a few years ago

Michael waiting to bat for his baseball team

With two of his tennis buddies, waiting to play a match

Riding a bike around Hilton Head with his sister, 2010

Michael recently making himself some homemade cookies -- he likes to cook and can make terrific guacamole, omelets, crepes, cookies, etc. 

 

So if you think a person with only one hand cannot do something, give them a chance to prove you wrong. I guarantee you they will do it.

 

 

Gardens of Life

Ever since I wrote my blog about Comfort Farms I have been pondering what makes gardening such a healing experience. I wanted to share a few thoughts about that.

I also think that it's time to start some seeds. It's time for gestation. I need to get going. Cheaper to start seeds on your own than to buy plants already started.

I always plant three seeds in each cup of dirt; one for the father, one for the son, and one for the holy spirit. Three seems to be about right because usually only one or two seeds will germinate, but sometimes I hit the trifecta and get three seedlings, and I feel as if I had given birth to triplets.

I grew up wondering why my silly parents wasted their time gardening. I grew up resenting Mom's telling me to water the garden, or weed the garden. I wondered why my father -- who normally wore expensive suits to his office in the bank, and who smelled of expensive cologne and multi-million dollar deals -- why he hurried home to buy cow manure and spread it around the garden, and why he liked to wear old clothes and get dirty.

Why did my parents choose to get dirty and sweaty and go to all that trouble when they could just get in the car and go to the White Store and buy vegetables? I was such an ignorant child. I also didn't like vegetables.

I didn't understand it then. 

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." -- Alice Walker

Skip ahead many years, to 2005, when my mother and daughter and I moved into this house. There was a pitiful little garden plot adjacent to the back patio. Mom suggested I plant a garden, showing my daughter how to grow vegetables. 

I was game to try it, but also somewhat fearful. After all, I had watched my parents struggle to grow veggies utilizing their considerable intellects, and my dad's muscle, and the collective genetic wisdom of generations who had gone before. My mother spent World War II living on a huge farm my grandfather managed. My dad grew up just a few miles from the family farm owned by my Henderson great-grandparents and still operated as a farm until the 1950's, by my great uncle. Dad had seen the hard work that goes into farming.

Generations before me farmed not for fun or for instruction, but because they wanted to eat what they grew. Farming meant food on the table. Growing food -- including pigs and chickens -- was a necessity. 

above, my great-grandfather

I gave it a try. I had nothing to lose, except the cost of seeds and soil. 

A few months later I watched my daughter pick a tomato, rinse it off with the hose, and stand there outside and eat it like an apple. I felt a surge of pride, joy, and relief. 

I also felt pity. In a Russian orphanage, fresh fruits and vegetables are rare, and she had probably never eaten a fresh tomato like that, warm from the sun.

Growing a child is much harder than growing a garden.

Becoming a first-time mom at the age of 42, to a child nearly as tall as myself, who spoke almost no English, was the most terrifying thing I had ever been through. We struggled mightily for a couple of years there. It was a huge adjustment for her trying to fit into an American family, and a huge adjustment for me, trying to understand her needs. 

"Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow."-- Zora Neale Hurston

I remember feeling a surge of incredible joy when I saw those little plants in my garden flourishing that first year. Excited as a child, I delighted in each bloom, each bud that turned into a tomato, a squash, a melon. 

There were so few things in my life that I had any control over, but I had control over that little garden, at least somewhat. I couldn't control the sun or the insects, but I could control the water, the fertilizer, the harvesting. 

I could pick what I grew and each bite tasted of sunlight and goodness. 

Gardens are filled with life and gardens give life. 

Gardens even give life when they die, and the old plants decompose and add their nutrients back into the soil. 

This year, my children are grown and my mother is in the twilight of her life, but I will still plant my gardens. I will rejoice in the summer showers that nourish my gardens. I hope to have enough produce to share with my neighbors -- which is a big part of the fun of gardening, to me, the sharing. 

I will thank God that I am still able to garden, and thank God for the privilege of watching that magic happen, just outside my back door.

"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust." -- Gertrude Jekyll

Carlton’s Cakes -- The Perfect Marriage of Science and Art

When I was 16 years old I was asked to cut the wedding cake at my cousin’s wedding, and I realized when I saw the lovely multi-tiered cake that I was not up to the challenge. I did my best. Most guests got slabs of cake that looked like they had been hacked off with a hatchet, but so be it. My cousin didn’t fuss at me, likely because in addition to getting married she was deathly sick. [That was 1978, just FYI, and she is still happily married and has grandchildren..]

I have recently been thinking about wedding cakes a lot more, because I have a friend who makes incredible wedding cakes and I follow her on Facebook and Instagram. Her cakes blend art and science and they are delicious as well as beautiful. They are scratch-made cakes, too, which is very rare in the wedding cake or specialty cake markets. If I were a young bride I would totally covet one of those incredible cakes.

Jenean Carlton doesn’t just whip up little cakes for friends in her kitchen. She did that for years, while also taking classes in cake decorating, but she decided a few years ago to turn her hobby into a business. Carlton’s Cakes was born. In just a short time, she has gone from hobbyist to celebrated professional, featured on sites like The Knot and Bridal Extravaganza of Atlanta. Modern Luxury Weddings named her as one of their Top Ten Wedding Experts in Atlanta in 2017.

Jenean figured out the secret to creating luxurious cakes. “My cakes are science and art united. It can’t just be pretty,” she says.

Unlike most high-volume bakers, Jenean makes all cakes from scratch, and uses only the best quality ingredients – French butter, Mexican vanilla, a Swiss type of fondant. She tests out recipes exhaustively to find the best-tasting cake which her clients will love, but it also has to be suitable for being highly decorated.

Jenean also proudly offers gluten-free cakes and even dairy-free cakes. She lives on a gluten-free diet so she has dedicated herself to learning how to make delicious gluten-free cakes. [below, a gluten-free cake with salted caramel and praline pecans]

THE HANDS OF A POTTER

Jenean grew up in Columbus, Georgia and at 16 her family moved to Germany, where they lived for four years. “It was a wonderful experience and it completely changed me.” Jenean feels strongly that living in Germany made her open to adopting a child from China, years later – “Without that experience I would have thought no, that’s too foreign. I can’t do that, adopt from China. I would still have been a very small-town southern girl, but that experience really opened my eyes and made me a citizen of the world.”

After returning from Germany, Jenean attended Georgia State and studied German and Art. “I loved pottery – the sculptural aspect of pottery. It’s also extremely therapeutic. Pottery feels primal. It feels like we’re supposed to do it. You have to focus when you work on the wheel. It clears your mind. Before you know it, it’s been 8 hours and you’ve completely lost all that time.”

Jenean feels developing pottery skills paved the way for her cake sculpting years later. “When you find that thing that really feeds your soul, you lose yourself in it. Also, I like to create and produce something that is tangible.”

After her brother passed away, the therapeutic aspect of pottery, art, and sculpture became a lifeline. He was an amazing cook, her brother Jimmy, as was her grandmother.

MAKING A BAKER

Jenean’s first career out of college was in the optical industry, and she was very successful at that for years before even starting to think about a career as a cake designer.

However, she loved baking.

“Since I was a teenager I have loved baking because of the chemistry aspect of it. When I worked for an optical business in Savannah, we had thirty-something employees and I made cakes for every single person’s birthday, every year. Everybody was used to me bringing in cakes all the time.”

Jenean loved the feeling she got from making someone a cake. “It’s a way to soothe yourself, and make other people happy at the same time. It’s a way to give of yourself to other people. I’ve made cakes for children whose father just died, and it’s their birthday. It’s a way to minister to other people.”

Jenean started thinking seriously about decorating cakes ten years ago. Jenean wanted to make her daughter a doll cake, like she had loved growing up. “My Mom got me doll cakes, when I was little, but I could not find ANYBODY that sold doll cakes.” When she couldn’t find such a cake, she made one. “I just started carving cake. I found a mold and inverted it to look like a skirt. I already had sculptural skills from pottery. All that pottery magic just started coming back, and then I was hooked.”

Her husband Andrew was supportive of her baking projects from the beginning. Jenean and Andrew met in 1994 when she was managing a huge ophthalmology practice in Jonesboro. She and a friend moved into an apartment near Emory and Andrew’s best friend was their neighbor.

I have known Jenean and Andrew since we moved into this house in 2005. I feel a great kinship not only because she is a talented and very kind person, but because she is a fellow adoptive mom. Andrew and Jenean brought baby home from China in 2007 and she is now a very bright, active 12 year old.

I have watched Jenean’s cake ministry/business evolve over the years and have tried to help when I could.“You gave me a great recipe in the beginning, that I fell in love with, and it’s one of my most important recipes, a sour cream pound cake,” Jenean recalls. “I have made that recipe about a thousand times. That is the basis for the recipe that I make the most.”

Jenean also remembered a guidance counselor years ago telling her she had both a scientific brain and an artistic brain -- the perfect brain for developing recipes and creating cakes that are works of art at the same time. “I have one of those weird brains, a fifty-fifty art and science brain. I kind of tend to like a lot of everything. I like the science and I love the art too. I like both. That makes a delicious cake.”

LEARNING THE ART

“I started taking classes at Cake Art and I took every class they had in cakes there. It was just a hobby, but a hobby I was pretty obsessed with because I wanted to master it pretty quickly. It was a way to create art but also to make things for my friends and my family.”

“Once you get the basics down of cake decorating, you start exploring. It’s a whole world. Baking is one world, and cake artistry and technique is a separate world. All the elements in that world, like fondant, gum paste, and isomalt, all are different.”

Isomalt can be molded to appear like clear glass. It’s very tricky.

Jenean had to walk [learn fondant] before she could run [sculpt with isomalt]. Along the way she was always learning. “There are a lot of different fondant products. The one I use now is from Switzerland. To me, it’s the best in the industry. It’s incredibly expensive. The workability and taste are remarkable. It’s worth it, for a wedding cake.”

After ten years of making and giving away cakes while she was learning, Jenean started doing some 4 tier cakes, and donated wedding cakes, while still learning.

She now feels she now has the best of both worlds. “I can explore edible mediums that are sculptural and match them with my baking.”

CREATING AND TAKING THE CAKE

Baking cakes and decorating them is a much science as it art, and it demands discipline.

“You have to follow the rules and you have to be disciplined. Baking will make you a very disciplined person. You have to really focus on it. You can’t be talking on the phone and creating a recipe. It’s not going to work out,” Jenean says.

Although well-versed in the language of art – from Renaissance to Classical – Jenean’s newest passion is Industrial Design. That aesthetic is just becoming popular now. “The East coast is very slow to shift. The West coast has been on it awhile. I will be doing more of that.”

However, brides who still want a more traditional look are welcome clients. “I do those cakes all the time,” Jenean explains.

She also does groom’s cakes. A recent one looks incredibly realistic, beers in an ice bucket –yet it’s a cake. Jenean: “They’re usually very sculptural and art-intensive. I love doing them but they take up a lot of time.”

left, a groom's cake -- the ice cubes are isomalt

I am fascinated by how one can transport a cake to an event.

Creating each cake is as much about architecture as it is about baking or decorating. “Cake will not balance itself. There has to be a support structure inside. It’s all about stability. A wedding cake is on display for four hours.”

A few years ago Jenean invested in a cake safe, a box which allows her to safely transport cakes to events, unharmed.

“It’s a plexiglass box and there’s a really heavy base on it. You put your cake inside of it and there’s a stainless steel rod that goes through every tier of the cake, and it locks in. The cake is very stable.”

However, her role isn’t done until the cake is installed. Jenean goes into each wedding and makes sure the cake is set up properly. She also urges brides to consult with their caterer to find someone to cut the cake properly.

“Professional cake cutters are very skilled at they do. We don’t do that at all. They usually make about $300 an hour. There is a very specific technique and they know how to get every serving out of it.”

For years, Jenean was an optical professional and baked cakes for fun. However, two years ago that all changed, when she was offered money for a cake.

Jenean now lives in a house where there is plenty of room for creating cakes, and she has left the optical world behind. Cake creation is her passion.

“I am focusing totally on cakes now,” she explains.

above, praline cake with Angelico infusion and dark chocolate ganache

 

March, April, May, September, October, November – those are the wedding months in Atlanta. Jenean: “Brides are not opting for weddings in those hot months, which is great for me. Cake is very temperature sensitive. When we are delivering we have to put dry ice, and when traffic is bad that cake may be sitting there for hours and it can just be a nightmare.”

Jenean loves creating and working with clients. “I love the science and technique of what I am doing, but I also love working with brides,” Jenean notes.

“I don’t like to reproduce things. I like things to be unique.”

Jenean takes pride in the fact that each bride gets a cake that no-one else will ever have. “The most important thing about a wedding cake is that it’s theirs. It’s not my idea. I offer a choice of about 4 cakes, and 9 fillings, and I offer different icings, when I have cake tastings with my clients,” Jenean says.

Her most challenging cake so far? “It was a really tall cake with tons of ruffles on it and a pom pom ball at the top that was covered in ruffles. It had a long burgundy ribbon. That cake was really hard – 600 ruffles. Took me 90 hours.”

Most of her cake elements are edible. Ribbons and flowers are sometimes not edible, or they might have elements that aren’t. “If you see a flower suspended, out there in space, it has a wire in inside that petal. Otherwise it wouldn’t float. That’s very normal and acceptable,” Jenean explains.

Although wedding cakes make up the majority of her business, Jenean also still makes special occasion cakes, for instance cakes for special anniversaries or birthdays. She likes making large cakes that can be highly decorated.

Once a customer has enjoyed a Carlton’s Cake “They don’t go away. They keep coming back for more,” Jenean says. “One client is turning 30 this year and she wants a cake. I end up building really strong relationships with a lot of brides, and their mothers.”

If you are looking for a unique, incredible cake, get in touch with my friend Jenean over at Carlton’s Cakes. You will be thrilled with what she creates for your special day.

If you want to vote for Carlton's Cakes as best wedding cake vendor in Atlanta, go to THIS PAGE and scroll down. Thanks.

Leaving Our Stories

When I was in 6th grade I won Honorable Mention or something like that in the Social Studies Fair with a poster I made called City of the Future. Basically, I envisioned that everyone would live in apartments on top of shopping malls. Everything would be in the mall that we needed -- doctor's offices, grocery stores, etc. We wouldn't need cars. We could roller skate down the hall to school. 

For a 6th grader who hated doing yard work it seemed like the perfect Utopia. 

Ironically, here I am forty-four years later, and I live in a house where I can use a computer to order gifts and groceries, and I really don't need to go anywhere. I do, of course, still go to the grocery store, the gas station, the doctor, the beauty salon, friends' homes, etc.

I was watching the movie Passengers, and thinking about its' vision of the future, thirty or more years from now. The main characters record their story, of life as the lone surviving passengers. (I won't say more, in case you haven't seen the movie. Excellent movie, BTW.)

My grandchildren and their descendants will not have to wonder what Memaw Dee was like. All they have to do is read my blog, or my book about my daughter's adoption, or my poetry or short stories. I may write another memoir one of these days, too. I like to document my life and share it. 

Why? Where does this impulse come from? 

I don't know, but I have a theory. 

All my life, I have heard my parents talk about my father's parents, who died before I was born. 

I can look in Grandaddy's face and see Dad's face. I can look in the mirror and see Cordelia's high forehead -- and truthfully, I can see shadows of all my grandparents' faces there.

Mom always says I have Cordelia's giggle. 

I also have Grandaddy's impatience -- I am impatient and impulsive. He once got mad and shot a chicken that wouldn't get off his car. I've never shot a chicken but I could see myself doing that, if I was running late for work.

I wish I had more. I wish I had a letter one of them wrote, or a diary. I would love to hear their words, talking about their lives, sharing their ideas and philosophies with me. I would love to hear Grandaddy talk about what it was like to fight Pancho Villa in 1916. I would like to hear about his time as a professional gambler in South Georgia [a brief period, thankfully]. I would love to hear Grandmother Cordelia tell me what my dad was like as a little boy. I'd like to hear her talk about how it felt to have to go back to teaching school in World War II because there was a teacher shortage, and she found herself teaching her own son [my dad] one year. I so wish that I could read their words and imagine their voices talking to me, reaching across the years. 

I have one letter that my grandfather [Bob Hasty, Mom's father] wrote, in the late 1950's, to her. When I read it, I hear his voice. 

That's the power of the written word. 

Every blog I write, I give out little fragments of my heart, or I try to, at least. However, you cannot explain an entire life in a blog, or even a multi-volume autobiography, but you can offer glimpses.

What I long to do is read the words of some of my ancestors, to hear their ideas, their opinions, their thoughts. Sadly, there are no letters or diaries of my great-grandparents or further back. 

I had a membership to Ancestry.com for a while but I canceled it. It's too frustrating. I could spend hours running names through their database and only find stuff like census data, possibly land records, deeds, the occasional newspaper mention. Find a grave is mostly just photos of graves. Occasionally you get more, but it's rare. Even photos are rare. 

That's my great-great grandmother, Charlotte Wood Butler. Her son, Robert Edward Butler, I know a bit about, because my mom and my uncles remembered him. I know nothing about her, except she was well-off financially and lived in North Georgia, or possibly South Carolina.

I have a photo (not scanned in) of my father's grandmother, Annie Lou Lewis Thompson, made when she was a tiny, wizened old lady in the bed. They called her "Little Granny." She was widowed young, and my grandfather had to quit school and go to work to support her and his younger siblings. I wish I could sit down and chat with her, ask her about her life. I'm sure it was very hard.

I'd like to know, for instance, why she named one of her sons "Chillie" and one of her daughters "Nannie."

I have many friends who now have grandchildren. Most of us post on Facebook, write emails, send texts. What will our descendants know about us, though? We live in an age when it's so easy to take photos, to communicate in words, or Skype calls or Facetime calls. We walk around with tiny computers in our pockets. I feel strongly we should leave memoirs and tell our stories, all of us, so future generations will understand us. Doesn't matter if we are rich or famous, or very ordinary. What matter is, we were HERE. We made their parents, or grandparents, etc. 

We should tell our stories. We owe it to them. 

My ancestors lived in an age when paper was not easy to find, and pens and ink were not easy to get, either. Very few pieces of paper survive more than a few decades. It was very hard for them to leave records for us. 

Now, it's very easy.

We need to tell our stories, in our own words, and leave words and pictures, so they can learn, so they can know where they came from, and how we felt, and what we believed in.

In the end, it's the most important thing we can do, I think. Tell our stories.