As we’ve said before, it’s important, especially for senior citizens, to write things down for future reference. Most of us still retain a good memory, and what we remember is more important than we may think. This winter will be a good time for you to get started, and don’t think that something that may be routine to you will not be of interest to someone else.

Recently I was interviewed by a couple of young folks who are going to become teachers. They wanted to know what it was like growing up here. as I rambled on about where I was born (on a farm in Windham), the young woman asked where exactly I was born. I told her the location of the farm and that, yes, I was born at home, as were most people in my generation. Half an hour later, she went back to that concept and asked if a doctor was present. When I told her that I was actually delivered by my aunt, she was just amazed. She asked about a midwife and just couldn’t seem to digest the idea of how common home births were. When I told her that three of my siblings had also been born at home, she was almost speechless.

It’s the everyday routine that has changed the most. Consider communication. Many of us are reading a weekly or daily newspaper as a routine part of our life. We take that for granted, but there was a time not too many years ago when a weekly newspaper in our then-small country town was unheard of. We now have two weekly papers.

Remember what your life was like. You may even know what your parents’ lives were like, if yours was a family that discussed such things. My mother walked to school in Windham. She lived on the Webb Road and walked to Friends school which was where today’s Human Services building is. Kids today, but mostly their parents, would raise a fuss if asked to walk this distance. Of course, I rode a school bus. Today, many youngsters drive their own car to school. Three generations – three different scenarios. Changes like this demonstrate why it’s important to record the everyday life.

A few years ago I visited Maine Historical Society and was reading through some old diaries or journals kept by a woman who lived in Windham. She faithfully wrote nearly the same thing every day, the weather and a one- or two-sentence summary of what she had accomplished that day. One entry was repeated with little change, for a couple of months. On one day in August, she wrote, “Did up the work. Put up tomatoes. Haying.” Unless you are of a certain generation, you would have no idea what those few comments meant.

August in the early 1900s in Windham means hot weather. “Did up the work” in an eight-room house with no air conditioning, no automatic washer, no dishwasher…well, you get the picture. Brooms and dust. Washing clothes by hand and hanging them outside. The phrase “Put up tomatoes” is a vivid image to me of picking tomatoes, putting them in a hot water bath (first you pump or carry the water, get a fire going in the wood-burning kitchen stove and boil the water); slipping the peelings off, cutting out the bad spots and cooking the tomatoes, putting them in jars and sealing.

The “haying” term means that about in the middle of this tomato processing, several hot and sweaty and hungry men and boys will be coming to the kitchen for cold drinks and food. Lots of food. And how do you keep water cold with no refrigeration? That’s where the ice house comes in, but that’s another story.

It’s important to remember what life was truly like, and really important to fill in the details and write it down. The woman’s diary entry will mean little to future generations unless there’s someone around who remembers what “put up tomatoes” means.

Make a note for a good winter project. Start writing down things you remember. Forest fires and other catastrophes. Going off to war. When the first restaurant came to town. What you did on Memorial Day and 4th of July. When fireworks became illegal. What your first job was like. Or, as one third-grader asked me once, “What did you do for fun?”