eBooks, eReaders, eGads!

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Throughout human history we have experienced challenges with change. For many decades the changes came more slowly and we were able to adjust before the next big change hit us: candle to light bulb, horse to car, talking with family to watching TV. Oh, wait. That last one isn’t really the same. (Or is it?) Change was still difficult but it was the way the world worked and we adjusted whether we wanted to or not. Imagine going from an agrarian society to an industrial society. And that’s when “you-know-what” hit the fan. It was right at that point that change “changed” and started speeding up. Now it often changes not only decade-by-decade but year-by-year and month-by-month and sometimes day-by-day. Technology is loose and it’s not going to be caught and put back into the box. Is that bad?

I’ve been working on my family tree and in records my aunt collected and shared with me I have read about interesting family members. Most all of them were farmers and slowly they began using mechanized farm equipment. Electricity came to their homes in the country and even in remote areas. Farms closer to cities started joining water and sewer lines. Roads became paved with the increase of automobile purchases. Street lights, electronic traffic signals, telephones, radios, TVs, it just kept coming.

When I was very little we had a wringer washer machine. (Yes, I’m old.) Our dryer was a clothesline. My grandmother once fell out of a three-story building pulling her laundry in on a pulley system clothesline. She pulled, it pulled back, and down she went. She broke almost all of her bones and was in bed for a year. She was thrilled when clothes dryers were manufactured and bought one immediately and did not pine for the days when she ran her heavy wet laundry on a clothesline three stories up.

I was an adult with my own home when I got my first dishwasher. We were young and liked to entertain and I remember countless nights and even the next day working on dishes and pots and pans after a night of entertaining before we had the dishwasher. The trash would be piled high and took multiple trips outside. If trash pickup day was later in the week we had to stomp on the trash and it began to smell. Then years later we got a disposal and a trash compactor--after the dishwasher. I had my priorities. When the trash compactors became a home appliance I was stunned (and thrilled) to learn of their existence.

I remember having phones in every room of the house in my young adult homes. When I was little we had only one phone and it was on the wall. (Wish I had it now. It was wonderful.) Now I have no landline at all. Just my cell, which goes where I go in my pocket, my purse, or a clip. My dad told me that when he was very young many people in the remote area he lived in still used horses for daily transportation though some of the more affluent folks had cars. My grandmother had lots of stories about horses and no cars. I am lucky that I’m the age I am to remember personally or through family stories that not too long ago we lived quite differently than we do today.

Now we live in a world of technology that changes so fast that unless we read tech magazines or tech news articles we can miss giant chunks of what’s going on or what’s coming. And so I remember not too long ago reading about eBooks. I was amazed and, frankly, though I love and embrace technology I found the thought of an eBook hard to fathom. I didn’t “get it.” It was purely an emotional response as I looked at my collection of books. Maybe that’s how folks felt when they looked at their horses on the day they bought a car.

Several months ago I watched a documentary on the demise of small independently owned bookstores. Even fairly large family owned stores with long histories of being in business were closing every day. Instead, the giant discount bookstores with their in-house coffee cafés were drawing the customers who once visited the neighborhood bookstores. It wasn’t only about the discounts though. Often the giant bookstores are located in shopping centers so that patrons can shop for many items in various stores and even pick up groceries without leaving the parking lot. Today’s working family wants to get it all done at the fewest locations possible. With that in mind, how are the big mega discount bookstores going to compete with the eBooks?

Not only are families busy on the weekends with home maintenance and family maintenance tasks there are thousands of TV stations, thousands of video games, thousands of things to do on a computer, and countless hours to be spent texting our family and friends on our phones. How about the video stores? Music stores? With a click we can buy whatever we want or rent whatever we want online. We can store it all on our computers and/or portable devices.

I just read that eBooks outsold hardbound and paperback books last year. It seems I just learned about eBooks and already they are outselling traditional hard copies. I myself have a published novel out there in the world, which published in 2005. I was stunned at the speed of acceptance at which the eBook platforms took off. Of all technology it seems to have hit the world running and has not looked back. It’s growing and growing and people are reading more than ever.

I don’t have an eReader [yet] but I asked a few people about them and I was impressed with all the eReaders can do. They can hold thousands of books. They are comfortable to use physically regardless of where or how one sits. The battery charges last for a long time. They are slim and easy to put in a purse or large pocket or travel cases. They can be adjusted for those who need large print. They bookmark where readers leave off. They are easy to search if going back to a topic is necessary. The list was huge. The most important aspects though were comfort when reading and cost of books. Thousands of titles are available for .99-cents and instant download (download is free on the models my contacts use). And many titles are free.

It’s always been challenging to get some children to sit still and read even when they enjoy reading. There are so many other things competing for reading time today. But now with eBooks, and especially the .99-cent eBooks, kids are flocking to their eBook downloads. They are reading. Adults are reading. Everyone is reading more than ever. Because of eBooks. And not just books. Magazines, blogs, newspapers, and so on.

My book cover is beautiful and I was sad to hear that the eBooks were taking over the paperback sales until I downloaded an eBook app for my computer and my smart phone and took a look at some of the eBooks. They are equally as beautiful. They have not removed the beautiful covers. They have not removed the dedications or acknowledgements. They are books. They are just a new type of book.

I lived in a small northern California town for many years that relied heavily on the lumber industry. The lumber industry started having serious problems and many lumber workers lost their jobs and homes. Support businesses closed right and left. It was devastating. Eventually everyone moved and found new work in different areas and life went on. People adjusted because they had to.

Remember farm aid? When the huge agri-corporations started encroaching on the farmers of the world, family farms that had been in business for generations died seemingly over night. They too either had to work for the large corporations or moved on and sought other work. After losing their farms.

The auto industry imploded on itself and killed Detroit. I lived there for a few years and learned the magnificent history of Detroit in the auto empire’s hay day. Detroit was a world-class city. It was tremendous. People lived well and had good lives. Take a look at Detroit today. It breaks my heart.

But it isn’t good to wallow in what we’ve lost. Somehow we have to find a way to live with the changes and move and change with them. We have to keep up. It’s even harder for seniors to do that. My daughter changes cell phones with her hair color. I had one cell for many years until she bought me a fancy new smart phone. I think she was embarrassed that I had the old clunker. But I love my new smart phone. I took the time to learn how to use all of its features and now it’s my computer-on-the-go. I’m looking at tablets now. I might get a tablet instead of an eReader since the tablets are comfortable for that purpose and can be used for other applications.

I love all the technology and changes but I’m just old enough to know that it hasn’t worked for everyone and some older folks than I am have a very difficult time. Some can’t even manage their TVs anymore. My mom is 85 and I sort of forced her to use one of our old laptops. She has mobility issues so I showed her how to order things online and how to do a little research on topics of interest to her and email and I’m getting ready to put her on Facebook. I think she’ll enjoy that. She’s not so sure.

So rather than lamenting the changes, which we can’t change, we should try our best to adjust. We may not love the changes or even like the changes but to continue to live in the world without our brains closing down we have to adjust. And for seniors I believe it’s good to constantly strain the brain cells and force ourselves to learn new things. I spent a week figuring out my new remote control for my satellite dish I recently had installed. I now love it. I can’t believe what it can do. I don't like most programming on TV but with this new service I can pick and choose and get quality programming that I enjoy for the first time in years. I installed this service because my daughter and her boyfriend gave me a flat screen TV for my 65^th birthday. It was crying for the satellite package. Now it’s happy and so am I.

So my own published books have now been placed on a popular eBook inventory. I visited the website’s inventory and there they were. They look wonderful. (My sister did the cover art and she’s a genius with paint.) The first book is still in paperback as well and next to it is the eBook edition and next to that my second book which doesn’t have a paperback. It went straight to the eBook platform. If it does well I will publish in paperback because I still love to sit with a nice book by the window and read the morning away. Plus my story is a three-part series and I envision all three of them in a box set one day, next to the eBooks. I’m comparing eReaders and tablets and pricing them. For now I just have the eReader app on my computer and one on my smart phone. But I know I’ll get one. I just know it. And, yes, I want one. But I also know I’ll continue to buy hard copy books too. Probably not as many. Part of me is sad about that but part of me knows it’s how technology works.

Sometimes I end my posts with some sort of conclusion or resolution but I don't have one this time. It is what it is and we either continue to learn and grow or we’re going to be left behind. And we don't have to like change. Though my grandmother loved the electric clothes dryers she still preferred the wringer washers for cleaning power. She accepted that the dryer was more convenient and though the wringer was hard work she still used it for many years. I don't believe she was ever satisfied with the fancy new washer she eventually got.

For me, I do know that I don't want to hang my laundry on a pulley line on the third floor of a building. And I don't want to spend two days washing dishes after a party. My old tapes and CDs and records are stored. All of my huge collection of music (over 10,000 titles) is on my small digital music player which I attach to my stereo. I can’t go back.

[Note: I deliberately left brand names off of all the technology I wrote about. I didn’t want to favor one or the other and that wasn’t the point of the posting. We know what’s out there and it’s worth comparison shopping.]

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

The Ghosts In My Computer

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My mom was interested in tracing our family lineage and started working on it a year or so ago. She used a popular online site but found it was above her basic computer comfort level. So it remained untouched until the holidays. During the holiday season our thoughts naturally turned to family, past and present, and we also recalled recent losses. As we age our family historians pass on and sometimes they don't leave behind records we need. We should all take better care of our family histories but sometimes we don't get to it until we retire. Probably not a good plan given memory issues. So we both decided I should dig in since I’m one of the youngsters in the family (at 65) and I have now taken over the task. Oh, boy.

I should clarify that I’m enjoying working on our family history even though I groaned a bit in the first paragraph. I have quite a few documents my paternal aunt gave me a few years ago and with online research and the genealogy website search choices I have been amazed how quickly I’ve populated my family tree. But I think I may enjoy it too much. It’s addictive. So addictive that a friend told me a story about one of her family members.

The friend’s relative, a gentleman, liked ancestry research so much his wife physically removed his computer—and hid it. I’m not there yet but I can see how that could happen. I don't have a spouse so one day years from now I may be found at my desk shriveled up and dried out like a mummy, with an old sepia photo of my great, great, grandfather eerily glowing at me from my computer screen. That’s how addictive it is.

I started as we all do with the immediate family. As I completed all the spaces new “suggestions” would appear. Sometimes I could tell instantly they were my ancestors but sometimes I had to dig. Suggestions and other similar pop ups are just that--suggestions. At first I occasionally picked the wrong person and learned later that person was not an ancestor. It’s up to the researcher to determine if the people appearing on the pages are family members. The computer merely “suggests.” And that’s when the addiction set in. The pop-ups kept going and going and going and going. I’ve now gone back so far I think I might be at Adam and Eve. Not sure. I’ll have to check my notes.

My mother’s family all came to California from Portugal’s Azores. My first fun surprise was about a grandfather who was a merchant seaman who hopped ship outside San Luis Obispo and swam ashore. Our family’s illegal alien. What courage and how scary. I’m proud to be descended from such a brave man. That was my first surprise discovery though mom and I had discussed his arrival and we knew some of the story. These ancestors married other European immigrants when they arrived but mostly they stayed within the Portuguese community. I have traced us back to four generations of California born folks, descendants of the ship-jumper. That’s pretty good for California-born people unless one is a Native American or a Mexican American who were here first. Most of my friends weren’t born here and they are all in their 50s and 60s. I’m a fourth generation Californian. I’ll sign autographs on demand. My mom’s American history stops at that point.

My father’s family is huge. We go back to before the American Revolution. That’s a lot of lineage. In fact, we own a farm in Virginia that has been in the family since that time. My family is still living there on the farm. So we’ve been here a while. My aunt did an amazing job finding all of these people but she did it the hard way many years ago. Visiting countless courthouses and libraries and consulting with genealogy experts and begging relatives for Bibles and spent a lot of time on it. She ended up with a hefty stack of folders filled with our family records.

My next surprise discovery after my ship-jumping ancestor was to learn that we are blood relatives to Davy Crockett. I’m still trying to figure out the bloodline as opposed to the marriage line. It blurs sometimes. But we have Crockett’s bulging folder and I have to dig through it when the sun comes up because artificial lighting isn’t doing it for me with these old records and fancy handwriting.

Let’s also remember that some of our more humble ancestors were not scholars. Some of the names are spelled in what can only be described as gibberish and some of the “information” must have been dictated to someone writing by candlelight with a bad wick. The genealogy site knows that and they search for countless variations of common names. I found six spellings for Catherine and had to research each one to find the one I needed. That includes endless typos. And Catherine was a popular name so I have more of that coming my way. Also, our ancestors were fond of naming each generation like the last generation. John Sr., Jr., I, II, III, or then after many years of that they switch to John as a middle name and on it goes. John Catherine, Catherine John, Jon Katherine, and so forth. Dozens of men are named James with the addition of their mothers’ maiden names as a middle name. Then they give that combo to their children but reversed. I have no idea at this rate who any of them are but I can follow the tree. Always follow the tree.

Surprise number three was a coffee-spitter. My aunt tucked away many wonderful newspaper and magazine articles of the time and handwritten documents from our family. Wills, diaries, etc. I found a property list today, which is what inspired me to write this piece. There in one of my ancestors’ actual rather fancy and formal handwriting is a list of his property, which included the following after a list of farm equipment:

·      Boy $150.00

·      Woman (named Ann) $400.00

·      Girl $250.00

·      Man (named Will) $450

I’ve watched a few TV shows on the topic of tracing our families and some families are shocked to discover that their families once owned slaves. But until it happened to me I didn’t realize how shocked they were. It made me instantly light-headed. I can’t even describe the impact. I sprayed my computer with coffee and then spilled the remainder of the cup when I hastily placed it too close to the edge of my desk.

After I cleaned my computer and carpet, I pulled the document out again. I have more stacks of handwritten documents to examine but I’ll remember to be beverage-free. Though I doubt I will experience the same level of shock if I see more slaves because now I know. Why was I shocked? I’ve watched the shows. I know white people owned slaves in the south. I’m white with southern lineage. Why was I so shocked? Not only shocked but I’ve been in a blue funk all day and can’t shake it. I had absolutely nothing to do with my ancestors’ lifestyle choices but I swear I’m feeling the guilt of generations. Piles of it.

I wonder where the slave descendants are today? I wonder if they’re looking on genealogy sites? Do the sites list property lists for slaves? I don't even know how to find their descendants. Ann is a very popular name. And that isn’t my current task. I’m currently just tracing my family for my mom and other family members. However, when I’m fairly well done with all that I’m going to find a way to find out who those people were. To me it sounds like a husband, wife, their son, and daughter. Were they able to stay on the family farm forever? Were they sold? What happened to them?

We weren’t rich people with a plantation and lots of slaves. But many humble farmers had a slave or two back then. Slaves were bought and sold like other farm labor saving items like horses and mules. We all know that. So did they just go to town one day and pick up a slave and a mule? I think they did. And the cost of the adult slaves was tremendous for the time period. $400 and $450 in those days must have been huge. And it appears they bought the family.

We’ve all watched the movies, read the books, countless documentaries, famous people from both sides of the color spectrum have shared stories and information with all of us. It does not help me one bit. I am descended from slave owners. I didn’t want to be descended from slave owners. And the slaves didn’t want to be owned by my ancestors. Do I apologize? Who to? Is it just history and out of anyone’s control? Do we just “live with it”? Are slave descendants “living with it”? I guess we have no choice given the time this all took place.

There is one tiny solace in knowing this though. I have devoted myself to a bias-free life long before I knew I was descended from slave owners. My dad shared his upbringing and some of his experiences and observations “down on the farm” and he was not happy about race relations in the that area or in the world in his youth (or later). He was one of those people who liked everyone and people from everywhere sought him out for friendship. This included an inmate at Alcatraz who upon release met my dad and they became lifelong friends. [The inmate wrote a book on his life of crime and ultimate incarceration at Alcatraz entitled Alcatraz from the Inside: The Hard Years by Jim Quillen. Many years later I worked with a woman whose father was a guard at Alcatraz. Both men are included in the self-paced audio tour tourists take when they visit the island. If you’ve taken this tour you met my dad’s best friend and my dear friend’s father. It’s a small world after all.]

So with that parenting I then raised two kids who brought home the United Nations of friends. Even today when I meet their assorted adult friends I’m always thrilled to see they mix it up and have friends from many cultures and backgrounds. They do not seek diverse friendship pools but because they don't have biases they are open to making friends with anyone they happen to meet and they don't shy away from anyone who is “different.” Having friends from many races and cultures is the most rewarding life experience humans can enjoy. 

So here’s my gene pool: Portuguese, French, Scottish, Irish, and English. My grandmother told me there was some hanky-panky between an unknown Spaniard and one of our Portuguese ancestors long ago that may have produced a child. Naturally that lineage will not show up unless I do a DNA test which I’m thinking about. It’s fun just knowing it’s probably true. I’ve just scratched the genealogy surface and found fun news (illegal aliens and Crockett) and sad news (slaves). I learned that one relative was “killed by an Indian.” It was listed in an official document as “cause of death.” An English ancestor was a Lord, another French ancestor a Marquis. Hopefully not de Sade. There’s a rumor that we are also related to Abe Lincoln via Davy Crockett. (Haven’t come across that yet but talk about irony.) I hope I have the stomach for this project. So far I have not discovered I’m related to Lizzy Borden.

[Update: Before posting I found several “slave data collection sites.” That will be my next project. I hope to be successful because I have documentation. I will post a follow-up.]

[Update: I have not found a connection between Davy Crockett and Abe Lincoln and my line is connected to Crockett so no Lincoln ancestry. No salvation for me there.

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

Happy Anniversary To Me: 100th Blog!

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This is my official 100^th blog. I might be cheating though since it’s a blog about a blog. But it is a blog so I’ll count it as 100. Many people thought this would be short-lived and not worth the effort. Au contraire. People fail at blogs by giving up on them too soon or posting too many (daily, hourly, etc.,) and wear themselves (and their readers) out. If a prospective blogger wants to be successful they must keep at it and be willing to change.

Special interest blogs are very popular (fly fishing, travel, pets) and some “diaries” have huge followings. Julie and Julia was a very interesting look at how a blog can explode in popularity. (It was also a fun movie.) I haven’t given up and I’ve tweaked what I’m doing to keep it going and here I am at the 100^th blog. Wow.

But I didn’t start this devotion with any delusions I would be hitting the big time. I started it for a million reasons and monetary gain wasn’t one of them, though it’s nice when our efforts are valued and we receive monetary recognition for those efforts. Google’s eBlogger site pays bloggers on hits and hits on ads. I can control the ad content. It’s all about the numbers.

Driving people to the blog site is rewarding. Word of mouth is tremendous. I’m also an unabashed promoter of my site and hand out business cards with my site info like candy. Being invited to post on other websites is fabulous for the numbers. But I started it because I enjoy writing and love to research topics and it’s a great way to vent frustration but also a great way to share sadness, general societal angst, and also a little fun and absurdity.

Many blogs provide thoughts on a particular subject. Others function as more personal online diaries, travel journals, funny stories, and so on. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic. It’s good to mix it up and I try to provide some of my research on hot topics. Everything I write about is meticulously researched. I often receive thoughtful and funny emails from readers. In all my blogging I’ve only received one negative response to a posting. It was a Michael Jackson piece and the reader felt Michael didn’t deserve a blog because of his molestation charges. It was a nice response and not in the least bit offensive. Just a point of view. (July 2009 on the drop down list to the right of this blog.)

There are some negative jabs aimed at people who blog. Who do we think we are? We aren’t professional journalists. In fact, I’ve heard the same negatives about unknown folks who write books. Unless one went to Harvard some people don't think what the writer says is valid. Really? What baloney. I suspect there are people living low on the grid with stories to tell. I think everyone has a story to tell but not all can put it down on paper, or a keyboard. That’s a shame. I think if someone wants to tell their story they should write it and then have someone go over it to clean it up and see what happens. Technorati tracked more than 112,000,000 blogs a few years ago. It’s competitive and apparently lots of people love to write. Hooray!

I started my blog just because I love to write. And I love learning about new things (airport groping) and I like writing about things that bug me (politics) and about things I like (animals) and sometimes little “how to” pieces in areas I have a comfort level with (photo organization, embracing technology for seniors, etc.)

Things just pop into my head each week and I’m usually about 10 blogs ahead of myself. Sometimes I’m ready to post my weekly blog when a current event knocks it out of first place. Sometimes I work on several at one time then when Friday rolls around I have a hard time picking which one will be posted. I’m not an expert at anything but I like to share thoughts and ideas and ask questions and research anything and everything. Sometimes my research doesn’t provide anything of interest so I put that blog on the back burner. Sometimes the research is overwhelming. It’s all about learning and I love that.

I now have a large readership base. After 100 blogs I’ve had roughly 15,000 hits. It could be more but my hit counter developed an illness and died and I had to insert a new counter. I wrote down the hits weekly to learn what topics appealed to readers. I wrote a great piece on Micro Singularities that I knew would only appeal to those “in the know” and I was right. I received my favorite emails from the group who “got it.” Yet, I received the fewest hits on that blog because unless one knows what that means it would not draw readers. I didn’t care because it was a blog of pure love. (I’m not telling. It’s listed in my blog archive on my blog site for those interested. It’s a worthy read. October 2010.)

I’ve been blogging every week since March 2009 without a miss. It takes a while to develop a base of readers and it also takes readers/numbers to make any money. I wondered if I could manage a weekly blog but it turns out there’s always something to write about. I check the news each morning and it’s full of goofy things to write about. I also pay attention to what’s going on in the lives of people I know and sometimes emotional blogs come out of those observations. There’s no subject I won’t write about and sometimes I receive incredible suggestions.

One topic I’m grappling with is the horrendous impact pornography has had on humanity since ease of access via the Internet. It’s a disgusting topic so it’s taking me some time to work on it. It’s woven in with sex slave trafficking and child molestation and drugs and other criminal activity and isn’t as innocent as people would like to think. All of it is just so awful I can barely manage to do the research. It’s horrific on all levels. Anyone who thinks pornography is harmless and fine for adults is not paying attention to the horror some people are living in because of the wide acceptance of pornography.

If we accept it and pay for it sex slavery and mistreatment of the very young will continue to flourish. And there’s huge money being made on the backs of those slaves. Many are children. Another topic that took literally months to write about was the impact of reality TV on society. It’s a lot worse than people realize.

I’m also preparing a piece on competitive sports. I’m not a fan. So many reasons. It’s taking a while to put it together because a lot of people are fooled by the sports world and I’d like to paint the picture I see. Gambling, outrageous money paid to players, even more outrageous money paid to the professional gamblers, and outrageous money to owners, the financial burden and uncertainty foisted on the communities hosting the games, unsportsmanship behavior on so many levels, truth about how games are won and called, drugs, criminal behaviors, the lie we teach our children (“it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, Jimmy, it’s how you play the game that counts”), out of control children’s “sports,” and obnoxious pushy parents and so forth. It will be ugly.

Writing a blog to develop income is not the same as writing vacation journals or things the baby did in the last three months. Some of those do take off but most folks that post those are posting them to have fun with friends and family. I wanted to reach a larger audience and so I put considerable time and effort into promoting my blog. I maintain a separate website that is sort of napping right now but at times has been full of content and other times I don't tend to it but I put it through the web crawler often and have lots of hits. I’m on Twitter and Facebook and I have five emails I use, each for a different purpose, and each contains links to my sites. I also became an invited contract contributor with VibrantNation.com, which is primarily for women 50 plus. This opened a huge door for me and I’m also able to read lots of blogs on topics important to me on their website. Writing for fun and writing for profit are very different animals. I’m doing it for both reasons.

There are so many things to write about I have had to put myself on a writing diet. I just finished my second book and I’m finishing the editing and I’ve gone through a complete draft of the third book. All three (first one published in 2005) are part of a series. Didn’t start out that way but readers wanted more of the original family so I aim to please. (Jane is back!)

The fun part of all of this is that I made it to 100 blogs. I’m shocked I made it and shocked even more that I have so many topics lined up. And I have the opposite of writer’s block. I can’t stop. Once I get going it just goes and goes and goes. My family and friends will attest that my verbal skills are equally as flowing and I know they prefer the writing.

So thanks for being one of my readers. You must be if you’re reading this! Send me suggestions from time to time. Don't know when I’ll get to them but I will. I write every suggestion down but sometimes I’ve received duplicate ideas or ideas I’ve already posted. It’s okay. Send suggestions to me. Even if it’s a subject I don't like I’ll write about it. It’s particularly rewarding to me when I finish something that I don't like to write about. The blog on reality TV took months of painstaking research. I hated every moment of it. I loved the blog that came out of it though. It’s quite nasty. (August 2010)

I’m sharing all of this information to encourage those who have thought about starting a blog to do it! It costs nothing and could be rewarding. If nothing else, it’s fun to write about things we love and hate and to have our brain cells chugging away in search of new ideas. It’s great exercise for the brain and especially senior brains. Gotta keep those brains active and pushing hard till the bitter end.

Start a blog! See where it takes you and how you feel after a few posts. Next to the birth of my two children (and my adoration of dogs) writing is my favorite thing in the world. It’s like having a baby every week. But no stretch marks. Not on the outside anyway. Lots in the brain matter I hope.

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

The Trouble With Marriage

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"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing."  Anais Nin

Ah, yes. By the title of this piece am I about to attack the sacred cow? The institution that classic novels are written about, movies of every description from comedy to tragedy, TV shows, family, friends, coworkers, neighbors? It’s everywhere in every culture. It can be sublime but it can be ugly. Sometimes within the same marriage.  Because .  .  . marriage evolves with or without us. And who do I think I am? I have experience. Don't we all? Like cancer, almost everyone knows someone with cancer or a diseased marriage.

I’ve been interested in marriage, scientifically, for many years. When my own marriage ended I sort of began a lifelong study of the institution we call marriage and by “study” I mean-observation. Sit down with an address book one day and alarming information can be found. Include the office list of coworkers. Throw in some neighbors. Spend time per address and really dig into the folks listed therein and the facts pour out of the pages like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Then there are celebrities, Congress, and corporate giants. But it’s just simple deduction, my dear Watson. Marriage doesn’t work well.

Certainly statistics prove the sad state of marriage but not entirely because some choose not to divorce and they simply live in misery. Or complacency. I can just hear the shouting “but my parents were happily married 80 years.” Those folks are more rare than hen’s teeth. It’s like hearing about someone who lives to 105 and smoked and drank and ate steak every day. How many of those are there in the world? Most people who smoke and drink and eat poorly do not make it to 105. Some are lucky if they make it to 40.

Of the marriages that go the distance a good number of them are together because they have to be for a variety of self-imposed reasons. Many would have given anything to be free but could not or would not leave. But don't take my word for it. Since this is posted on the Internet it means readers have a somewhat comfortable familiarity with how research works. Go for it.  It’s easy but let me help a bit. I’ll post some interesting things to read at the end and cite some statistics. Please dig in if stomach issues aren’t a problem. It isn’t reading for the faint of heart. It’s depressing but it’s enlightening as well. It’s a learning experience. If we learn from it. (I did.)

But that’s not really what this particular post is about. I’ve written about that before. We all know the statistics and they are not pretty. What I really want to touch on is why? Why isn’t marriage changing and why aren’t we, individually, demanding better marriages? Why can’t we learn early on how to select mates and once selected why can’t we see that if we marry at 20 by 40 we will be different and perhaps too different for our mates? Why can’t we accept changes in our mates without divorce? Of course, if our mates end up with addictions or become mean and/or violent we have issues that are more serious to deal with but many marriages just end because one person is bored with the other or really hates his golf or hates her shopping or hates his nights out with the boys or hates her snoring or hates kids (even their own) or hates being in bed with the same aging body day after day night after night week after week month after month year after year and so on. Most couples seem to divorce out of monotony and not animosity. I know many.  Traditional marriage vows vaporize into thin air. For better or worse but not for mediocre? And do all of us need to marry? Can we live life without marriage and kids? Is it our duty or our desire to marry?

So more interesting to me are the statistics on folks not getting married. Some of those statistics include people who have divorced and decided not to marry again along with those who plan on never getting married or who thought at the time of the studies they were not getting married.  The reasons for both groups are often—the same! If someone is married for 20 years and things don’t go according to the Cinderella story it is somewhat likely they will not look for a second marriage. But that story affects those who never married because they have observed so many failed marriages in their own family, their friends, coworkers, neighbors, and so on. In particular, young educated women who have developed careers find it hard to find a husband with the same values and goals regarding lifestyle choices whereas many years ago, i.e., in the ‘40s and ‘50s, women placed high significance on marriage for security. Today’s young women provide their own security so they look for something else in marriage.

I recall in my youth some teen girls were a bit shallow if boys asking them out on dates didn’t have the right car! I thought that was terrible and never considered that an important part of a boy’s value. But now that theory has morphed to a high level. Does the young man have a good education followed by a good job followed by a home or at the very least a decent apartment while saving to purchase a home and does he take quality vacations, does he have a solid retirement plan, does he smoke or drink, does he maintain a healthy lifestyle, does he have a nice family, and dozens of other qualities that a self-sufficient modern woman requires? Is love enough for the modern woman? Certainly it’s desirable to find a mate with the qualities we hope for and love would be a big plus but years ago love came first then the life values and lifestyle choices came hit or miss thereafter. Some cultures spend considerable time selecting the right mates for their children and then force the children to marry. Western cultures don't like that idea but I certainly understand why it exists. I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to select a husband for me but then I didn’t do so well on my own. Could their choice have been worse? 

It seems prudent to study a relationship early on before latching on to a lifetime of misery just because one’s toes curl. Toe curling doesn’t always carry over on the long haul and is often replaced by a different love. After the toe curling there must be mutual caring toward each other and the overall value of the relationship and where it’s going. Nothing can flatten one’s toes like living with a partner who was just a happy-go-lucky partier years ago but eventually turned into a lurching and drunk blackout danger to society.  People change in marriages and sometimes there are good changes and sometimes not so much. None of us have crystal balls so we need to be a bit more scientific. When we meet someone and on the first date they have four or five martinis while checking porn on their smart phone, that’s a sign. The sign says “RUN.”  Read the signs. They may be able to hold that amount of liquor at age 25 but will they be able to do that at 45? If they are even alive at 45?

Then, we all know relationships that hit the skids when the babies came. Loving children to the point of insanity is somewhat normal but that obsession with them often can bring down a shaky marriage in just a few years. I know countless women who raised kids alone when the tough times hit the family over the addition of children. It had nothing to do with the love the couple felt for their children but rather they were unprepared for the cost, the crying, the sleepless nights that go on forever, the throwing up, the cost, the endless diapers and smells, the weight gain that stubbornly hung on even when meals were hit or miss (and crappy), the cost, the trips to the doctors, some at the speed of light due to serious illness or injury, the lack of “couple” time, the cost, the lack of “me” time, fighting over religious choices that had never been discussed, the cost, the home growing too small over night [tiny babies have so much “stuff”], in-laws butting in with parenting advice, the cost, one parent finding working full-time horrendous but part-time or time off impossible, the cost, and the list goes on and it’s huge. Then there’s the cost.

Today’s young men and women are looking at marriage as a total package, including a hard look at raising kids, and some are deciding, nope, too much, not for me. Because they are capable of maintaining their own lives comfortably and do not need the additional income to enjoy a nice life, they are choosing to remain single. Some choose to have a child without a partner through a surrogate or adoption or insemination or whatever. I know I found raising two kids without a second person in the home much more rewarding than when that person was around. I was able to become a benevolent dictator and called all the shots and I never had to run it by someone else who may or may not have the same ideas about raising children. Huge gigantic arguments take place over parenting. Or one parent does it all while the other checks out mentally and emotionally. I don't think a lot of young people today want that and they know it’s out there.

I have young people in my life who have married and some who have not married. I’m impressed with the young married folks in my circle of acquaintances and family members and have noticed they do not resemble at all the marriages I grew up with or the marriages in my young adult life. There’s much more give and take, much more sharing of responsibilities, usually both work or at the least one works part-time when the kids are very young, and they seem to understand the complexities of changing as they grow older. At least, so far. The statistics still include that group but then the statistics also allow for those who never marry or are not marrying at a young age or those who choose not to have children. But we know how statistics are. Dig deeply enough and there’s a statistic to support any opinion.

I know there are a variety of instructional classes kids participate in regarding child rearing and family issues but I think these classes need to be stronger and larger and a more intricate part of education beginning with preschool. Every level of education should include the very basics of human behavior in a family and especially finances and babies. Those two issues are tremendous and if not handled with maturity and a solid background in what it takes to deal with those issues marriages will fall apart. Sadly, often a few years after the babies come. Religion doesn’t always keep couples together either. Some divorce because one member of the couple is too religious or not religious enough.  Some change religions completely during the marriage.  Some marry with different religions completely (toe curling) only to discover when the babies come it’s a lot more important than they thought it would be.

Because I have a big fat address book that I’ve maintained since my teens, and because I’ve had the good fortune to live in many different locations, I have known a large number of people. All I can say is, I’m sure glad I can put my addresses on my computer now because the divorces were causing cramping in my fingers when handwriting the changes. So much easier to type in the despair and misery.

But divorce doesn’t have to be miserable. It can be a boost to a sad life. It can bring peace and tranquility to shouting and uproar. It can bring second chances at changing lifestyles and release the bonds and baggage of long forgotten promises. It can set one free from suffering. It’s better to choose more wisely but when that doesn’t happen, be free. Life is short. As a popular advice columnist once wrote, it’s better to be alone than to wish you were. It’s my mantra.

The following link lists cold government statistics. Not emotional, just the facts:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm

Then here are a few interesting tidbits I found (but there are thousands of these):

The average age of a woman getting married in the United States is 27.

— Bride's Magazine

The average age of a man getting married in the United States is 29.

— Bride's Magazine

88 percent of American men and women between the ages of 20 and 29 believe that they have a soul mate that is waiting for them.

— University Wire, Louisiana State University

59 percent of marriages for women under the age of 18 end in divorce within 15 years. The divorce rate drops to 36 percent for those married at age 20 or older.

— "Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the United States," M.D. Bramlett and W.D. Mosher

60 percent of marriages for couples between the ages of 20 and 25 end in divorce.

— National Center for Health Statistics

50 percent of all marriages in which the brides are 25 or older result in a failed marriage.

— National Center for Health Statistics

65 percent of altar-bound men and women live together before getting married.

— Bride's Magazine

Research indicates that people who live together prior to getting married are more likely to have marriages that end in divorce.

— The Boston Herald

A recent study on cohabitation concluded that after five to seven years, only 21 percent of unmarried couples were still living together.

— The Boston Herald


55 percent of cohabitating couples get married within five years of moving in together. Forty percent of couples that live together break up within that same time period.

— Annual Review of Sociology

Children of divorce have a higher risk of divorce when they marry, and an even higher risk if the person they marry comes from a divorced home. One study found that when the wife alone had experienced a parental divorce, her odds of divorce increased to 59 percent. When both spouses experienced parental divorce, the odds of divorce nearly tripled to 189 percent.

— Journal of Marriage and the Family

The likelihood that a woman will eventually marry is significantly lower for those who first had a child out of wedlock. By age 35, only 70 percent of all unwed mothers are married in contrast to 88 percent of women who have not had a child out of wedlock.

— "Finding a Mate? The Marital and Cohabitation Histories of Unwed Mothers," Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe

By the way, I have the fairy tale life I always wanted. I was married in 1967 and divorced in 1984 and I have lived happily ever after. 

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

New Year's Resolutions

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A lot of us think long and hard on what our New Year’s resolutions will be. Some are significant, some silly, some life altering. Year after year I was one of those hopeful souls vowing to lose weight, stop smoking, sweep more often, exercise more, and so on, each January 1st. Most of us keep our vows for a short time then it’s right back to where we were. Not losing weight, still smoking, lost the broom, lost our sneakers and, well, we just couldn’t do it.

I tried to find a resolution failure rate online but the figures were all over the place because the issues we are attempting to resolve are all over the place. For example, people who vow to lose weight seem to have the highest drop out rate over those who have less lofty goals, say, exfoliating their skin weekly. The more difficult the resolution the more likely it will fail.

I figured that out all by myself years ago and stopped coming up with New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I switched to Monday resolutions. And it worked. Whenever I have something I’d like to change, like stopping smoking, I start on a Monday. It took 260 Mondays but 35 years ago I finally did stop smoking. Each week I tried and each week I failed. Over and over and over. Then one week I made it to the next Monday and I was amazed. The success gratification came quickly rather than waiting for a year to see if I made it. And then I resolved to do it another week and after a few weeks then months I could finally tell myself I was no longer a smoker. That was huge.

Exercise is another Monday resolution that worked for me. The annual resolution to exercise every day always started well and in fact I did better than my nonsmoking resolution but after a few weeks the rest of my life caught up with me and before I knew it I was no longer doing my daily routine. I didn’t even realize it until I got a call from my gym checking up on me. Years after that embarrassing phone call, and around the time I successfully stopped smoking, I started my Monday resolution related to daily exercise. Many small failures but eventually it became habit and the bad weeks started turning into good weeks and soon I was a smoke-free exercising guru.

There are other resolutions I’ve attempted on Mondays (dieting, sweeping, etc.) and it’s all worked so much better than the New Year’s resolutions. [Note about the sweeping: I have pets.] I think psychologically I know that a week isn’t too much and if I do weaken next Monday is not so far away. I know that I can start over again next Monday when I’m not sick with the flu, or I’m not quite as busy at work, or my roof isn’t leaking. I guess the point is, our lives are messy and full of things we need to do and it’s very difficult to suddenly give up our reason for living (chocolate in large quantities) when we have serious issues elsewhere in our lives. But we can make it to Monday to try again. If we just give up and say “oh, well, I’ll try next year” we will be sicker, messier, fatter, and less likely to permanently quit the behavior we are resolving to quit.

I know someone who vowed to call her father more often as a New Year’s resolution. He was a cranky man (he was born that way) and she left home early to get away from him. However, she called so infrequently that entire phone conversations were about her not calling. Each year she vowed to call her father on a regular basis and each year she only did that for a few weeks. I explained my Monday resolution plan and she decided to give it a try. It worked great because she realized she could call him once a week and endure the call without the expectation of calling more than once a week. So her weekly calls became a habit and she even began calling him every Saturday morning and they had coffee together on the phone. He was still a cranky S.O.B. but they were communicating better than they had in years. (Why didn’t he call her, you ask? Beats me.)

Mom occasionally served broccoli when I was a child and I hated it. She was a wise woman and didn’t serve it as often as she would have liked but each time she did serve it she begged me to at least try it. Since it wasn’t crammed down my throat on a daily basis I always did try a small piece. Today I’m a broccoli fiend and in fact served roasted broccoli with minced garlic and pine nuts topped with shredded Parmesan for Christmas.

Some annual resolutions are easier to keep like donating more to charity the coming year, or volunteering more often, or not going out to eat so much or going to church more. Those are not as difficult as trying to break a physical habit (or lack of a physical habit like trying to exercise more). But for the most part I still think Monday resolutions are more realistic as long as we keep trying. 260 Mondays to quit smoking. Whew!

So no New Year’s resolution for me but Monday I vow to take down my Christmas decorations. But if I don't, there’s always the next Monday. Or the Monday after that.

Happy New Year!

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]