Bobby Tony becomes a Grandfather for the first time | Eastern North Carolina Now

I may have taken 70 years, but it was worth the wait.

    One of my dad's favorite sayings when someone asked him if they had shown him the latest pictures of their grandchildren was "No and I want you to know how much I appreciate it". It was obviously a joke but he did not have to endure the endless parade of pictures.

    Well on July 18, 2015, I became a granddad for the first time. I was almost 70 years old. My dad was 74 when my daughter was born, which was his first grandchild. I guess my family gets off to a slow start sometimes.

    Most phycologists will report that young children's earliest memories tend to change over time, being replaced with "newer" earliest memories until around age 10. As this happens, memories occurring in the preschool years tend to be lost (WebMD). When I learned that I was going to be a grandfather, I got to thinking that there is a good chance that I will not be around when "Sully" reached that 10th year and begins to replace his childhood memories and those of me and his grand maw with other memories.

    That is when I got serious about putting down some family history for him and any grandkids to follow. Most of my family post on BCN is the result of that effort to record history. I was very fortunate to have numerous pictures of my childhood and my children were fortunate enough that my parents lived until they were 19 and 20. I have always been an avid photographer and have numerous pictures taken through the years. Most of the crazy icons I use are extracts from various pictures over the years.

    I have written the more personal stories but not posted for publication. BCN has provided me with the opportunity and discipline to put down some of the memories in black and white as well as digital format. I thank Stan for the chance to let a Georgia boy use his remarkable platform to develop that history.

    In reflecting back on life and the future, I have tried to put a personal face on my journey as well as that of my parents. There are and will continue to be plenty of factual data available to identify the month, day and year of any occurrence of events as well as a context to the event. However, how that event affected and influenced my family will be up to me to record. In addition to writing about this, I have started to create a video series of interviews, which I hope will survive in some format for later family historians.

    Ted McDonald, another writer and high school Classmate here on BCN, has the benefit of family letters and many family members who have documented his family history.

    Technically, I am not a member of the Baby Boomer generation (born in 1945) which generally covers the years 1946-1964. One aspect of my generation is our tendency to think of themselves as a special generation. As mentioned above, there is ample research available about "The Boomers" and I have some outline notes that I will use to address its influence on my family. Suffice it to say that my generation was more focused on "Me or I" than any generation before it. As proof of that, one of my past posts covered the overuse of "I" in this overly privileged generation. (Used 22 times in this post so far).

    Here is the previous post on "I"

    What has changed in the past 70 years? A whole bunch, but just to put all our importance into perspective, I went back into the archives and found this invoice from the Esteemed Emory Hospital presented and paid on my Mom's release with her new born Bobby Tony.



    This may be the sum total of my existence so far on this earth. A dollar a year for almost 70 years. My work here is almost done.

    Did I show you the pictures of my grandson "Sully"?