Dr. Shades wrote:Ray A wrote:I'll go through it. As you know, I burnt mine.
You shouldn't have.
Well what's even more shocking is that I'm also thinking of burning the remaining portion. I started keeping a journal in 1975, and have a few volumes which amount to over 2,000 pages. I stopped recording journals in the late '90s, If I recall correctly. No, I lie. I did occasionally record in the 2000s, and that would be worth keeping. I'm still undecided about what to do with the remaining portion, but it holds little interest for me. After separation and divorce in 2000 I began a completely new and different life, and much of the recorded portions have a lot of commentary about my ex-wife. For me that is now totally meaningless, even boring.
I much prefer photos, and as they say a picture speaks a thousand words. I have a fairly rich photo collection, especially saved on the PC, which reminds me I have to transfer them to CD. Some of these are real gems, some of my parents going back to the 1920s and 30s, and one rare photo of my Carib Indian great grandmother, taken in 1927. It is the only one in existence that I know of, which I recently shared with my American cousin, who was completely blown away by it. He couldn't believe that I had this photo, but I am known somewhat as the "family historian", which began when I did the four generation genealogy back in the '80s. All of these are of great worth to me. I would never part with them, nor the photos of my children. But the journals are a pain in the arse, especially having to cart them around every time I move. I've kept all of my letter correpondence as well, and have an extremely rich collection. I even have my excommunication request letter, and a letter written by my brother in 1974, after we parted working together, which was quite prophetic. I also have correspondence with a member of the stake presidency in 1988, when he tried to dissuade me from going through with my excommunication. Those I will keep, but I think the personal journals are about to be thrown into Hades.
I also have some 2,000 pages (?) of correspondence with Max Nolan, a friend from Western Australia, where for 15 years we discussed mainly Mormonism, with letters sometimes going to 40 pages. Max died of cancer in 2000, so these letters have some interest for me, as well as looking at my perplexing journey through Mormonism over that crucial formative period.