Wrapping up Volume 45

As 2019 ebbs out, the annual ritual of waxing nostalgic assumes center stage. One thing about keeping a daily journal is it makes one very aware of time in the sense of days, weeks, months and years that have passed. As this tailored ponderable undergoes its yearly evaluation, here are some items worthy of note.

Volume 1 was established on New Year’s Day 1975. To place it in the appropriate timeline perspective, one must understand that this daily account of how Yours Truly experienced life in the first person all began over nine months before the first episode of Saturday Night Live aired. I was legally still a minor at age fifteen. I had traveled limited distances and other than a Learner’s Permit, did not even possess a real driver’s license. I was an average high school student with grades to prove it. On that cold evening of Wednesday, January 1st, 1975 as the first ever journal entry was made, I had four living grandparents, my own room in my parent’s home, was a devout believer in deity and was convinced of how the World and my place in it was going to be. In four years time I would have no living grandparents, would travel great distances from where it all began, would opt for periodic departures from my chosen faith, come to understand that being told “NO” is not necessarily a bad thing and that when opportunity presents that initiative accounts for 90% of accomplishment.

This daily personal journal has, by any reasonable metric, endured the test of time. It contains a written account of the evolvement and enlightenment of a soul as it has been transformed by over twenty years association with a religious organization and describes the departure from it. There can be found details of challenging educational pursuits in three institutions of higher learning as well as multiple relationships with women, pets, old friends, shipmates, and practice partners. Not only all that but also three marriages, the trek of a 22-year career in the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserve, the particulars of a demanding civilian professional career, multiple movements of household and coast to coast adventures in seeking personal improvement in the service to country and community.

Free speech and personal opinion is a wonderful thing and anyone may say what they will regarding it. That said, having a tangible record of who did what, where, with whom and when can be priceless. Yours Truly was once called upon to testify as a witness for a neighbor who was being sued for damages. It was the record I retrieved duly noting my seeing and speaking with the plaintiff near my home on a specific day and time that made it difficult for him to make the case that he was out of state on that day when a key event in the case occurred that week. His “victory” was the original funds he was due and not what he was seeking, the difference being over forty thousand dollars.

Admittedly, much of the daily grind that makes its way into this first person account of my own human experience is pretty boring and mundane stuff. This should however never be underestimated as when looking through it one realizes just how much of it has happened concurrently with great World events or occurrences that effect the lives of so many . Once in a while I get to note how I experienced history in the making in the first person and these are essential for future accuracy. There are multiple examples available not the least of which are the OKC bombing, the 9/11 attacks and any one of a number of storms and earthquakes. Perhaps I wasn’t in the immediate midst of any and maybe I was just a bystander from afar, but how these things are processed are critical in getting the history accurate for future generations.

There have been excerpts from this record that have highlighted the finest hours of our lives. The caveat is that at the time I had no idea it would have such a profound and meaningful effect in the hearts and minds of so many so long after the event.

From 1996 through last year this daily record has been kept on a monthly Word file. The decision was made a year ago today to keep the record of 2019 in a fine leather-bound professionally prepared “Nothing Book” with some 400 blank pages using pen and ink and my own handwriting. This has been accomplished and provides proof that Yours Truly can still write. After the final entry is made in 2019 tonight, tomorrow this ongoing record in the latest volume with revert back to being kept on a monthly Word file. It is true that if a person is not a master of anything, or even good at anything, or even mediocre at everything, they can at least keep a record of what happens in front of and around them. This has been the case with regard to my own human experience. The significance of this year’s Personal Daily Journal is that it chronicles the final full year of my professional working life, for better or worse. It validates that most of what I have done has been undertaken out of a sense of need, be it actual or perceived. That motivation is going to carry forward into my next career, seeing what needs to happen and making or at least trying to make it occur. It is my hope that it will be viewed by all future readers as actions and deeds performed for the greater good. Inside the front cover of this fine volume is pre-written, “This journal belongs to…” To which I penned one word, “Posterity.” Farewell, 2019. May we all remember as much of the good in you as we can.