Every Family Needs an Anchor.

I can't count the number of times I've heard others say, "I wish I would have asked more questions while Grandma was still around," or "I'll bet Grandpa could tell some stories."

Larry, Me, & Sandy

   We owe it to our children to record what life was like in our early years. Those times are gone never to be repeated. Consider the changes that have taken place during your lifetime. For me, I went from vacuum tubes in radios, to television, the internet, and men actually on the moon's surface. My grandparents were working the land with horses, and they saw the industrial revolution as it was taking place. Now imagine the stories you can leave for your children and your grandchildren. Amazing stories from a time they can only read about.
   ​As I began on this writing journey, I was challenged with a need to weave stories I wrote to my mother many years ago, with recent memories brought alive through enlightening circumstances in the years since her death. ​

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Grandpa Johnson takes to sledding

     The result was the creation of a book described as a 167- page memoir and love letter to my lakeside youth.” I was raised on an actual island, the Village of Island Park in 1945, which I describe as 500-acres of convoluted gravel roads winding through hilly woodlands, and around swamps and open water; the very thing that provides untold riches to a young boy. Riches tied to Minneapolis grandparents who often visited to share the adventure and ensure family continuity.
     Simpler Times–A Memoir, tells of an era filled with goodness, innocence, and all too often misguided play. It is my desire to deliver you to a time and place that I cherished and to which I am intrinsically and forever linked.​

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Snoopy fishes for marbles

​   Follow my posts, as the next will be the announcement of Simpler ​Times–A Memoir.
   How different the times were then, we cherished the weekends and all that they offered; we grew close to the animals, built forts, and played from morning to night. This book has been described as possibly my best work yet.
​    I would love to bring to mind a place in your memory calling for your return. It is my hope that this book will make you smile, laugh, rejoice, and maybe even bring you to tears. As self-designated ANCHOR for my growing family, I am hopeful that it may lift a fog surrounding a fading memory from long ago and bring you to a cherished time in your past. A time that you can write down for your own family. Take the initiative and be your family’s ANCHOR.
 

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