It's a topic that keeps coming up in memoir writing group in different forms.but among a bunch of writers I guess thats to be expected.Why write.Why sit down at a computer and make blog entries?Especially on a day like today when I seem to lack much motivation.

I.'ve been writing in one way or another for the past twenty or so years. and the real reason is just simply to tell my own story,to take ownership of it so that it's not left to others to do.because,to me that is intolerable.over the years some people have directed criticism toward me,some of it more than fair and a good deal of it not.I don't presume to answer that criticism in any manner but to offer my own story in my own words.So my writing,all of it is my own definition of myself.Others may disagree with what I offer.In fact,at least one of my siblings activly disagrees with every word that comes out of my mouth.So be it.But if I leave a written record,it's there for all to see so that they might decide for themselves what I'm all about.I have to keep reminding myself that this is why it's important to keep writing.In truth my life doesn't seem all that interesting to me.But it may to someone elsei try to look at it as a decendant of mine might two or three hundred years from now.

My grandfather was an interesting man.In the 1920's he was a bootlegger in the Province of Nova Scotia.Thats how the story goes anyhow.It's said that when he was a young boy,before WWI he once blew up the schoolhouse with dynamite.My father used to tell that story every time we drove past that school.But no one seems to know why he would do such a thing.Doing such a thing may not have been as unusual as it seems to me today.Dynamite was not likely hard to come by as he lived in a mining town.Dynamite being available is a concept very foreign to my post 9/11 mind.Worthy of his story in and of itself.But my point was not to tell his story.You see,I don't know his story and that is the whole point.

Once when we were very young my grandfather had come to visit us in Moncton.One night at bedtime my sister and I asked him to read us a story.he declined and I wondered why.Later my mother explained that he could neither read nor write.And so we never had a record of a life that must have been so very interesting.We have other peoples stories,to be sure but I would love to have heard what he had to say about his time on earth,his thoughts,his history.He never left a record.And that was because he lacked the means.So far as I know others in my family never left a record either.Not because they couldn't,but they just were not writers or historians.It never occured to them they needed to leave a written record.

I'm not like that!I'm not going to be like that!I started writing a journal when I took upgrading classes before I could get into community college and it just kept right on going after the class ended .That journal has grown to several volumes of coil notebooks,each more or less beginning with  the same explanation as to why I'm doing all this hen scratching-my contribution to family history.these days some of that history is going into my blog.It's my first time actually typing this out rather than writing it all in longhand.I'm not sure how I feel about that.

But,if you are takeing the time to read this,you are likely to find my thoughts kind of scattered.I make no apology for that.You might get a story from my childhood,political op/ed,history,a discription of my days activities,philosophy,humour,a portraitof a homeless person I see on a trip downtown and many other things.I hope you will keep reading,because,you see I'm writing all this for a reason.Even if I'm not sure what that reason is.I only know that for one reason or another I was inspired to write it.And,for that reason,it is pure me,and in one way or another part of my story.