Part 1: Family Interviews

After calling my mom to have her send a photo of my grandfather’s graduating class, I decided to ask some questions about him.

“Didn’t Grampie and most of his class go right into World War II?”

“Actually, thats a really good story. All seven of them were drafted into World War II only a few months after graduation. Your grandfather was the only one that went into the Army, while the other six went into the Navy.”

“Oh wow!”

“Here’s the best part! Every single one of them made it back to Jonesboro after the war.”

“No way! No one was killed? That’s just amazing.”

“To make the story better, they all lived until at least 70.”

“I know Grampie died just past 70, but I didn’t know about the others.”

“They all died of natural causes or are still alive.”

“That is spectacular! That would make a good book/movie!”

 

After talking about Grampie and his class mates, I asked my mom about his experience in the war.

“I know you’ve said Grampie didn’t talk about the war much, but what did he tell you?”

“Did you know he built his own dump truck?”

“Really? Thats quite an accomplishment!”

“Well lets back up first. Dad was originally boots on the ground. One day when they were marching through the Philippines, the general’s truck broke down. The mechanics couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Grampie, being a nosy downeaster, came to the front to ask what was wrong. The general told him to return to his post, but Dad insisted on checking it out. So they let him and in less than 20 minutes they had the truck back up and running. The general told him to report to where the mechanics worked when they got back to base. Thats when he got to build his dump truck.”

“That’s just amazing. I would have expected the general to like tell him he was on lateen duty because of his insubordination or something.”

“Nope, he was moved off the line for a little while to build vehicles that were shipped over in crates.”

 

I asked mom if she had any other stories and there was only one other she specifically remembered.

“You know how you meet someone everywhere you go?”

“Yeah…”

“Well when Grampie was in the Pacific, he had to go to one of the officer buildings. Low and behold, one of the guys who graduated before him was there. He mentioned that every time he saw a Jonesboro boy’s name come across his desk he would look out for them and assign them a duty shift away from a fire fight.”

“So Grampie had a guardian angel then.”

“Yeah, basically. He always used to complain about the amount of latreen duties or odd shifts he had to do. He ended up being further from the conflicts than involved in them.”

“Well I’m glad that he was looked out for. You and I wouldn’t be here without him.”

“Haha, no we wouldn’t.”

 

I never knew that about my grandfather. I knew bits and pieces here and there that Nana would tell me, but I never got to hear any of his stories.

 

Part 2: Artifacts

Part 3: Your Story

An incident that shaped me as a person was when I lost my brother. I was in Bush Gardens VA with my family (grandparents, cousins, etc) and we kids were quite young. I was only maybe 7 and I was easily led by my older cousin. I saw him as an older brother. My cousin and I decided we wanted to go in a huge tree house the went through the whole park. My younger brother, Ian, wanted to join us, so we reluctantly agreed. After running around for a little while, my cousin suggested that we ditch Ian and play without him. We ran everywhere, hid whenever we could, and sometimes left the tree to go in through another entrance. When we finally noticed my brother was gone, we giggled and made our way back to our family. My dad was the first to notice my brother was gone. We explained what happened and my dad got very angry. After my dad, uncle, and my oldest cousin searched all through the tree house, we saw Ian coming back with a security guard. We are so grateful that Ian made it back, but I will never forget that moment. I’m now always conscience of where my siblings are and I will never ever try to ‘ditch’ them every again.

One of my all time favorite memories is of my cat Bungee. This cat would always look out for me and my siblings. I remember that every night when we were getting ready for bed, he would check on each of us to make sure we were where we were supposed to be. I was the last one he’d check on. He’d sleep at the foot of my bed, but whenever I woke up in the night, he was wrapped around my head. I still have faint scars from where he would knit on the side of my head. If I petted him, he’d instantly purr, no matter how asleep he was.

I have a mystery that isn’t so much the situation thats a mystery, but my memory of the situation. When I was only 16 months old, we went to the hospital in Bristol, TN to see my dying great-grandfather. That’s all I’d ever really been told and I’ve never seen a picture, but I can remember everything pretty clearly. Here’s the mysterious part though, I can only remember the situation through my dad’s eyes or the nurse. I can see myself sitting on the bed as my great-grandmother helped keep me up right. I remember there were a lot of machines hooked up to him and that he had an oxygen tube. I can also remember how sickly and gaunt he was. I also can exactly place where everyone was in the room. I have no idea how I remember this, but that’s the only memory I have of my great-grandparents.

Part 4: Education

With my education, I hope to learn how to combine the different aspects of New Media and use them to fuel my future. I want to travel (at least around the United States) and to work with social media. I also would love to work at/with a museum, so learning about the evolution of technologies and where they are heading will help me fulfill this desire.

 Part 5: A Day in Your Future 

It was a sunny day. Much better than it had been in the past week. Visitors from all over ventured out to the museum. It was the day I would run my own exhibit. I’ve been involved with many others, but this would be my first solo piece. I would use different technologies to display and teach others about the issue/piece I had been working on. Many people asked questions and interacted with this new display. The display was holographic and did include tangible items. The display was a hit and was the first of its kind. This would revolutionize the accessibility of history and the ability for all to learn at their own pace. This is what I hope for my future to be like.