One of the biggest regrets in my life

[csziggy]

8. That's true - I'm old enough that I was an adult when they were top of the news

After all, one of the highlights of my youth was visiting the senator from our state, Spessard Holland, and being escorted by him through the underground passage into the Senate Building. Holland had already been Governor of Florida, then senator for several terms. He was not quite a family friend - his wife was a member of the DAR chapter my grandmother was in.

Maybe it's my interest in genealogy (though I have never been interested in DAR or their politics) that makes me think that ordinary people need to be remembered through biographies. As I am researching families, I look for the stories. That was one thing that my grandmother showed me. She wrote little biographies of the ancestors she had enough information on. Sometimes, the stories have not turned out to be completely true - oral histories can be unreliable - but they are still interesting and provide a depth that bald statistics do not.

So I look for stories and I am trying to get time to write them up on my blog. I'm not getting very far, but it's still fun to attempt.