Ten Years of the Swann Family News

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the Swann Family News. A whole lot of life has happened in that time. The software I use for this project tells me I have written over 340,000 words recording the bits and pieces that I share here.

I remember how I came up with the idea of doing this. I had begun a form of journaling back in 1992 in the form of letters to my dad. My inspiration came from the letters Hawkeye Pierce would write to his dad on M*A*S*H. That lasted about nine months and then life with a new girlfriend (that would be Vicki) got busy and I put my pen down. My letters resumed in 1996, but with less frequency. By mid 1999 I quit writing Dad.

Overlapping my letters to Dad a bit was a daily journal I started keeping in September 1998. I kept this up until the spring of 2002 when once again I got to the point that I just couldn’t sit down and write up my thoughts each night. As I recall I was having to write up several days at a time when I got the chance. I tried to pick this back up the following spring in the form of recording an audio journal but that just didn’t work for me.

All this was on my mind ten years ago today when I was mowing Aunt Mar’s yard. I can remember exactly where I was in the yard (I was finishing up the area we call the strawberry patch) when the idea of this format crystalized in my mind. The accountability of sending this out to family and friends has been the motivation I needed to keep this up for ten years while the promise to myself that it is okay not to have to publish this on a regular schedule has kept me from giving it up.

I remember wondering as I was riding the mower that day how long this would last. I also wondered then what life would be like in ten years. I don’t think I would have been surprised by much of what our lives look like today from back then, though I never would have guessed that Pauline wouldn’t still be living across the field or that Ben would have lost one of his best friends to a brain tumor. I think what’s been the most pleasant surprise over the last ten years is simply watching my kids grow and develop into the people they are today. That’s something Vicki and I have enjoyed watching together and is a regular part of my expression of gratitude when I pray.

So, I wonder what things will look like for us on Wednesday, September 6, 2023? Vicki and I should be empty-nesters. How many of the kids will still be in college by then? Will any of them be married? Where will we all be working? Only time will tell on those questions.

Early on I was surprised with each milestone of this newsletter that I had kept it up for that long. I am not so surprised now, though I do wonder if this project will have run it’s course by the time all the kids are out of the house. We are certainly busy, but with more routine activities than when the kids were younger. I think there’s more to it than the schedule. Back then it was so easy to record our family activities because I was writing some from the perspective of a parent with small children. Now that the kids are older that perspective has changed. Vicki and I are just as much a part of their lives now as we were then but we relate to them differently and I am finding that this makes me write less often.

For now the Swann Family News is alive and well. I’ll write more frequently during some times of the year and less in others and that’s okay. I’m going to keep it up as long as it feels right. I’m just looking forward to the time when one of my grandchildren will crawl into my lap and ask me what their mom or dad was like when they were kids and I’ll reach up on the shelf and pull down a book (or maybe I’ll pull it up on a tablet) and catch them up on the Swann Family News.

Joe