Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:30 a.m. in "This City."

The sun will rise at 6:30 a.m. today on cloudy skies that will be delivering rain and T-storms and a high temperature of 67°. Right now we are at 59°, but that feels like 56°. As the sunset nears at 5:37 p.m. the rain should move out in preparation for a sunny day on Tuesday and a high of 64°.

As a history major, I should note that this is President's Day. Instead of giving honor to the various men who have held the office in our nation's history, for convenience sake, we've lumped the birthdays of men like Lincoln and Washington into a single day. Oh well, that's the way it goes.

Additionally, yesterday was Valentine's Day, a day set aside for showing the people that we love and cherish just how important they are by giving us a reason to buy roses, chocolates, and jewelry. In our case, Mary and I bought roses for each other and tickets to see Swan Lake. We enjoyed the roses all week and Swan Lake was  a delight. The staging was minimalist, and the dancing was superb.

But that's enough about that. I'd like to depart from my usual format to discuss some things that came to mind, both yesterday and late last night/earlier this morning.

I got an email from Adam yesterday in which he asked me whether I had yet to read The Last Open Road, by Burt Levy. It is a story about the open road auto racing circuit in the 1950s. I haven't yet, but when I get back home, it is on my list of things to do on a winter's day. In addition, Adam asked about a man I used to work for, Bob, who often laced his conversations with anecdotes and sayings that I like to believe could only have come from a man of Bob's background and experiences. Bob was indeed an American original who taught me as much about life as anyone I've ever known.

Which leads me to the balance of my thoughts on the subject. As I was lying in bed, listening to a satellite broadcast, I heard people discussing the concept of a lens approach to understanding the history of African Americans in the United States. The discussion centered on an effort that the man being interviewed had made to find artifacts for the Smithsonian Museum of  African American History. He had traveled around the country to see people and listen to their stories about things they had in their basements and about the ancestors who had given them the artifacts in question, the "real" history of African American people in this country.

The idea of a lens is something that the school district I retired from used to focus students on a particular facet of a subject, from literature, to history, to everything else that is part and parcel to life. In order to aid students understand, it was the job of the teacher to get students to see things from differing perspectives. In that way, a more rich fabric of literature or history was revealed.

One summer, I took a class for teachers of writing that focused on, surprise, writing, Each participant was asked to write something new to open the class. We could then share or not. I distinctly remember one woman who was a teacher in Chicago as she described her personal family history. My written response the next day was that although she and I shared a common history of presidents and their reported activities, her history was vastly different from mine, as she was an African American woman.

All of that is a roundabout way of describing something I used to ask my own students to do, ask questions about the history of their own families while the "Keepers" of that history were still alive. Once those people passed, their personal knowledge of the family history passed with them. Sadly, when we are young, we are often too busy learning to live that we don't take time to learn about how we got to where we are. Then poof, the chance is gone.

I lament all the time that I didn't ask my grandmothers, my parents, and others more questions about our family history. Now, that knowledge is gone and my brothers and I don't see each other often. So for myself, the chance to learn more will quickly be gone.

Being adopted, Mary has a history, that came from her adoptive family that is rich, but not entirely hers. Whatever came before she was adopted is a mystery. Who were her birth parents? What were they like? What was their medical history? We are all shaped by our past, but for Mary, her life, her past, is one that she shared with a German/Polish family from Chicago who adopted her. What does that mean in the context of a world that is unknown to her? We'll never know.

I have spoken to Stephany about her family's history and I hope that she finds time to record her memories and thoughts and ask questions before the keepers of the family history are gone.

Each of us is a personal curator of history, a veritable museum of the lore and artifacts of our lives. I gave Adam numerous pictures taken during his life, along with artifacts of his school activities and items that I got from my parents. Vacation pictures, certificates and awards that he had earned, and some things that I forget. I still have things that are emblematic of his contribution to our family. I hope that when Mary and I are gone, that he will cherish those things.

At any rate, one of our school librarians, Toni, was fond of saying that history doesn't change, what we know about history changes. I find that she was more accurate than I knew at the time. Everyday, history is distorted and seemingly changed. But history didn't change, the facts didn't change. What changed is how we choose to remember that history, and how we selectively interpret the memories that we have.

Oh well, it is getting late and I should be off to bed, again. Thanks for taking time to read my ruminations and remembrances. Ciao.