This is something I've suggested before, and Lon Frank's thread sparked this particular comment.

If you watched Ken Burns' Civil War series, you realize how much we got out of the journals and letters written during the event. I'm archiving material as best I can, and so are hundreds of others, most likely. But the best resource when it's time to write Y2k's history will be journals people write as they experience it.

I'm not much of a diarist. If you are, or ever wanted to be, now would be a great time to start one.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), October 19, 1999

Answers

I've kept a journal off and on for many years although I regret I wasn't as diligent as I would have liked to have been. Yes, I've been better about writing regularly since last year.

After my grandmother died, I inherited her diaries - kept since 10 years before I was born, until she was unable to keep up with it on a daily basis. This collection of small books is priceless to me.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

Any journal or diary written for the purpose of others (The public) to read is disregarded and doesn't hold any historical value.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), October 19, 1999.

BTW: The most historical thing you can do is simply list all that your Y2K stash contains. No comments. No opinions. No explanations. Just a list. 4 cans of Jolly Green Giant Beans, 8 oz, purchased for 69 cents each.

The second is to catch what you can on film outside of your own experience.

One thing to remember is that the net has changed history itself. We're no longer in dark corners. The various archives have all the Y2K posts from misc.survivalism, odds are a number of sites were archived (Possibly by law enforcement or intelligence) etc. Historians will probably prefer the "raw material" from the net than to little personal diaries dying to be read. (Grandchildren can look up Grandpa when he was a teenage nerd sassing the globe on posts.)

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), October 19, 1999.

If some sort of civilization survives, the history books will be written by the Klinton Ministry of Propaganda, telling posterity how courageously Uncle Bill saved us from the Y2K crisis and those evil hoarders/survivalists/Christians/mormans name the label de jour.

Praise the ArkenFurher,

MFU

-- Man From Uncle 1999 (mfu1999@hotmail.com), October 19, 1999.

Are you keeping a journal?

No, but my wife is. If this thing doesn't come off, she'll be submitting it as evidence to support her case for divorce and consigning me to a nuthouse.

-- Sometimes I've wondered. (wandererful@werld.gov), October 19, 1999.

Paula,

I beg to differ....somewhat. The true value of a journal is the personal reflection it provides. While it has been, and will be again, easy for researchers to determine what people did, it is another concept altogether to understand why they did it, and how they felt about it at the time.

As example, we know all about the Civil War in America. When and where the battles were fought, who won, and who lost, and why. But the journals and letters of soldiers lend a poignancy to our understanding. They are the enduring human bloodstains upon the grass of history's battlefields.

I began a journal as a young teen. Two weeks later, my father died, and it became my personal treasure of remembrance. I know when my father died, I know where we buried him, but still, I still read it occasionally. It reminds me to go hug my sons.

And, all journals are not discounted in merit, if written for other readership. Was not Thoreau a journalist? Do we not value the journals of discovery; of Meriweather Lewis; of John Wesley Powell?

I do not know if personal journals will play a part in the records of Y2K. But, along the well-marked paths of history, it is sometimes the graffito which is most revealing.

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), October 19, 1999.

It has long been my observation that people who care about other people's thoughts and experiences do enjoy reading published diaries (even if written for that purpose, ala Thoreau) and published letters.

It has also been my shorter observation that some folks on this forum (apparently not "chowbabe") do care. I may not write one, but someday (I hope) I will read the journals of those who did. Especially when I stop and think what it means if none are ever published.

-- Solange (birlady@hotmail.com), October 19, 1999.

They are the enduring human bloodstains upon the grass of history's battlefields.

Lon, you are a poet at heart. Somebody is going to steal that line if you do not copyright it pronto.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 19, 1999.

Thanks Unk.

I'll get my legal beagle, Percy Primeaux, Esq., right on it.

:

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), October 19, 1999.

"those who would repeat history, must control the teaching of history." -- Frank Herbert

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 19, 1999.

Paula, dear, you have no soul. Pity. Nothing can convey the true feeling, the exerience of an event as well as a first-person account written to one's self. Many here have mentioned Travels With Charley-- how about Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl? War correspondent Ernie Pyle used his everyman's journalistic style to show WWII not as a collection of statistics, but as a collaboration of personalities. Real people, real names and faces, all with hopes and fears and plans for the future. What history book could ever do that?

-- Sam Mcgee (weissacre@gwtc.net), October 19, 1999.

Lon,

Is that the very same Percy Primeaux who told me that Burma Shave limericks were a wide open territory for capitalization and big profits? The same one who enthusiastically endorsed my bid for Yoohoo to be the drink of the "Yoohoo generation"?

Call me. BTW,

Your way with words humbles me, my friend.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 19, 1999.

Yeah, Unk.

Old Percy's a capitalistic visionary alright. When I wanted to franchize Juan Beaudreaux's Gator Tacos, he said we'd all become bazillionaires.

But, "the YooHoo Generation". Now that does have potential. Could be right up there with Virgin Bus Line (never a lay-over).

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), October 19, 1999.

Bazillionaires?

Never trust a lawyer who cannot count.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 19, 1999.

Thanks for the reminder, bw.

I started in August, but haven't been keeping up lately.

It's time well spent reflecting at the end of a day.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), October 20, 1999.

Paula, you miss the concept of lost technology - if y2k is bad, the technology to access the records of the net may well be lost. Since most journals are still hand-written, the ability to read them is more likely to be retained (I hope). And that's all beside the point that Lon made - the human touch is what makes history readable, IMO.

(If you journal on computer, save to hard copy as well as to disk.)

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), October 20, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

(If you journal on computer, save to hard copy as well as to disk.)

That's what I'm doing. I'm also saving my posts to my own webspace.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 20, 1999.

If you save web files as just text files, you lose a lot of ancillary stuff - the ads on the margins, etc. I print web pages, then scan them to GIFs (which are a pretty vanilla format) and store on CDs. That saves the data, the timestamp when I saw it, the marginal notes, etc. Takes lots more room than plaintext, of course.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), October 20, 1999.