VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! YES, IT IS PRIMARY VOTING DAY.

Even if there are no contests in your precinct, go and vote. It is our right and our obligation. We are privileged  to have the opportunity to vote in a peaceful legal setting. To retain the right we are obligated as citizens to invest in our election system. So please, exercise your right and VOTE!

DOWNSIZING, SAVING, SHREDDING AND HISTORY

I read an interesting piece in The Star Tribune Monday. Freelance writer Tod Nelson writes about how to manage your records as you move into smaller facilities and possibly a simpler life.. The idea apply to young adults moving into full independence and to people making mid-life alterations. Nelson also applies his recommendations to oldsters, like me, who may be able to glimpse the terminal at the end of the line.

The one missing element in the story that I found quite disturbing, and, I suspect, is disturbing to many historians, is to at least thoughtfully consider history. It's true, most of us will live and pass out of this life without making newsworthy contributions to the fabric or the perseverance of humankind. However, the lack of documented life is a constant source of frustration to researchers, especially those who lie to include context in their work.

Perhaps its my close and long association with an assistant director of publications and research at the Minnesota Historical Society that has influenced my position here. I recall learning of a political leader who's family and staff deposited twenty linear feet of documents with the MHS! Of course, most of us won't have that kind of record, but we should all recognize that ordinary daily life provides vital context for almost all historical research, writing and presentations.

I've been present many times, listening to the the intense frustrations of historical researchers who seek well-identified photographs of local folks and local events to give depth and understanding of daily life in ordinary towns and villages. And it isn't just the big archives like the National Archives or the MHS that are interested. Local, city town and county societies  employ trained historians who may be excited to consider and evaluate what you consider ordinary and useless documents and photographs.

So, before you turn on that shredder, contact your local historical society and find out what they are interested in preserving. Do it before you find yourself traveling that path through a dim landscape into the next possible obscurity.

WHITHER THE WEATHER

I often have more than one news souce running early mornings while I scan late news and early disasters. In this morning's darkness, listening to the steady downpour that used to signal an all day rain, I realized that it's already August and I haven't been to the lake.  Normally by this late in the season I've had an early morning swim in Lake Johanna a dozen times.

Not this year. Only once so far this summer. What happened to summer and heat? I keep hearing from the fast-talking weather people on local media about climate getting warmer, about hot spells and storms. Mother Nature, in this part of Minnesota, apparently missed that memo.

It's been cool to warm most days and there's been a lot of rain. Good for the flowers, but the kind of stalled heat waves?--Not in my neighborhood. Right now, it's raining really hard. The only persistent heat is of the political kind and while that seems to radically change every week, it stays hot and volatile. Hope you, dear reader, are having a happy summer, filled with hope and warm positive beliefs.