How Will Future Historians Know Us?

As long-time readers of this blog know, I enjoy writing (and receiving) letters. Indeed, a number of you who have responded to my periodic offer of a hand-written letter have now become more-or-less regular correspondents whose letters I treasure.

Personal letters and diaries are some of the most valuable sources available to historians trying to document the march of time and events. There was a time, not so long ago, when almost everyone left a written trail of some sort, whether as letters, diaries, or journals. This was especially true of many of those who were the movers and shakers of history ... you may recall that the late George H. W. Bush was a prolific letter-writer, as were many other presidents. Our Presidential Libraries contain boxes of letters and memos, many hand-written or bearing written notes and asides, and those documents allow historians to piece together the development of our nation's history.

Unfortunately, not too many people write letters ... or much else ... any more. Cursive writing is seldom taught in schools, and recent generations have grown up in an era of e-mail, text messaging punctuated with emojis, and tweets that reduce complex ideas to 140- or 280-character bursts of capital letters and punctuation. My mother wrote boxes of letters to me when I was in college and stationed overseas, and I wrote boxes of letters back ... all of which I found in her things when she passed away. Someday, my great-grandchildren will have all those letters as a way of knowing why Bilbo was the way he was.

I got to thinking about all this again today when I read this opinion piece in the New York Times - All Text and No Subtext - discussing Mr Trump's reliance on Twitter for even the most consequential of presidential communications ... like announcing the precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Syria.

Administrations past left voluminous documentation of the discussion and debate that led up to major events and programs, allowing their successors to go back, review the documentary record, and - one hopes - avoid making the same mistakes others had made. One wonders what will be contained in the Donald J. Trump presidential library ... if, indeed, he leaves enough worthwhile material behind to establish one.

Although I love to write letters, I don't do it as often as I used to. I got an incentive this year when my oldest granddaughter went off to college and her father (my oldest son) was deployed for six months to an undisclosed location ... I tried (with moderate success) to write to them regularly. Nevertheless, as a retired guy I have more time available but more things I want to do, and so I find myself spread thinly among my many interests. I recently invested in a box of note cards as a way of trying to keep myself writing while forcing me to keep it a bit shorter.

Nevertheless, I plan to keep writing ... here, as long letters to friends and family, perhaps even as an occasional journal. If you want me to write to you, e-mail me your snail mail address and I'll do it, as long as you promise to write back. E-mails, tweets, and text messages don't count, especially if they consist of more than 35% exclamation points and capital letters.

Let's leave a tangible memory of ourselves behind.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

P.S. - I wrote about this general topic back in 2009 ... you can read that post here.

B.