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Friday, November 25, 2011

Life Reports

Along with thousands of others, I sent off a short autobiography to David Brooks, the columnist for the New York Times. The only qualification was that you had to be over  70. I made that cut.

He has started publishing them on his blog, feed://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/feed/ and hope he publishes them as a book. They are stories of survival,  of overcoming obstacles, of joy, of grief. I can identify with every one. So many saw their parents as loving but distant, even dysfunctional, as negative examples.

I wonder if they are typical of all 70-somethings, or just those who chose to write to David Brooks about their lives? I wonder if our children will write their autobiographies. I wonder how they will remember us?

3 comments:

"Mean Dean" Flewwellin said...

Well Carol, My Dad wrote 76 pages concerning his life, & I have dozens of letters from my mother. I followed-up with "The Flewwellin Family History & Genealogical Library," so have written plenty about my parents. I've benefited greatly from their tutelege - including spankings. Hope my children will add their own generation of life, liberties, & the pursuit of girls....er happiness. :)

mabry said...

I assume that yours will appear soon; I didn't but want to see it.

As a writer, I have hundreds of pages written but I don't think my children are interested at this point. Maybe after I am gone.

CarolBe said...

Dean, Don, you can't finish it after you're gone. Start a blog, and publish in installments, like Dickens. Keeps the suspense up! Also, after a certain age, you can make stuff up, and no one can call you on it.