Columnist John Moore (bottom left) is pictured with his father, mother, and sister in 1965. Photo: Moore Family Photos

By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

In 2014, I was contacted by a newspaper in Tyler, Texas. Unbeknownst to me, the publisher of said paper had been reading a blog I’d been writing for my family. The person who called me said the owner of the paper wanted to take my blog and make it a column.

You can imagine what a family blog contains. Who’s doing what, where they’re doing it, and how it ties into the rest of the family. Much like the Christmas letters some families like to send to you.

But my blog was different.

Each one was a story. A story that featured family members. The difference was the stories weren’t current. They were old.

And the reason I was writing the blog wasn’t for attention. It was to get my father to write down his life stories.

My dad was born during the Depression. His family, like other Southern families of the time, struggled. You worked hard just to eat. There were few if any luxuries. Listening to the radio was the entertainment. That and making your own fun.

My dad told my sister and me about his grandparents; growing up by the railroad tracks in Foreman, Arkansas; and the blacksmith shop his grandfather and dad worked in to put food on the table.

Dad told stories of his first car, a Model A Coupe, that he got for $25. He kept it going so that he could have a way to get to school and to work at the Jitney Jungle, which was a grocery store.

He talked of joining the National Guard and being deployed to Central High in Little Rock, where his division provided the needed protection for children to go to school. Children who’d been denied entrance because of the color of their skin.

Dad told stories of buying his first transistor radio in the 1950s, so that he could listen to St. Louis Cardinals baseball while he was in his military bunk at night. And of the other enlisted man who had a ham radio, and called CQ all night seeking others to talk to.

He told stories of being one of the early computer programmers for the government. Dad was a tank mechanic at Red River Army Depot. He said one day a man came outside where he was working and asked if anyone had any interest in learning how to operate these new computers Washington had sent.

Dad said it was air conditioned where the computers were, and that he had no idea how to operate them, but the AC made it worth it to learn.

My father told the story of being at work one day when another man came in and asked if he wanted to retire early with full pay and benefits. President Clinton was closing down part of the depot. So, at 54 years old, my dad went fishing full time.

I feared that my dad would never write these stories down, and that my children and grandchildren would lose the opportunity to know who my father was and what he had done.

So, I wrote a weekly blog about my growing up years and would publish and send it to my dad to show him that it wasn’t that hard to do.

But time passed, and he showed little interest in writing anything.

After my writings started appearing in the paper, other newspapers contacted me and asked to publish it. I was asked by a reader how to buy my books. I didn’t have any books, so I published some.

I guess all of that activity helped. One morning at 3:17, my dad sent me his stories. Not all of them, but many.

Two weeks later, my dad passed away.

Looking back, I realize this journey was never really about newspaper columns or books. It was about preserving voices that otherwise might have been lost to time. Every family has stories worth saving. They don’t have to be dramatic to be meaningful. They simply have to be remembered before memory gives way to silence.

I tell you all of this because this week marks my 600th newspaper column. I remember my wife asking me when it started how long I thought I’d write it. I flippantly said 500 would be enough.

But we’re now 100 past that. My wife said she’d thought I’d have run out of stories by now. I did too. But here we are.

My reason for continuing to write and to speak on the lecture circuit is to encourage you to write down your life. No one else would tell your story better than you. And it will allow you to talk to family members who’ve yet to be born.

And if you can get your parents or grandparents to write down their stories before they’re gone, that’s the best story of all.

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