Come on in - it's warm here

Of the best moments in my life is coming inside from working hard in the cold and stepping into a warm kitchen where there is a hot pot of coffee or tea waiting and something new to read on the table.
 
I hope that you get a similar feeling from reading the articles here.

Site Map

Below is a table of categories. There is some duplication of articles within the categories. The map is also represented on the Site Map sidebar to your left.

Enjoy!

Those Who Came Before Country Poems Early Days These Days
Those I've Met Along The Way The Rest Of The Story IT Rising The Long Road Home
The Knee-Jerk Chronicles Animals (not in bars) Joint Ventures  
       
       
       

 

How it all started

When our father died in December of 2011 at the age of 98, he had 53 direct descendants. Thirty-three were grandchildren that had been born between 1974 and 1992. Most of them would not remember a life without cell phones, computers or the internet. Of the children of my father, none of us could remember a life without landlines, or electricity or cars. Some of us can remember a life without running water or television.  Our father was born on a homestead in a sod house. His family traveled by horse and wagon until they got their first car when he was fourteen.  I choose to write about our father as both an homage to his life and as a timeline. See "98 Years". 
 
As I wrote the article about our father, it began to occur to me that although I have not had extraordinary life, I have seen extraordinary things around me. Thus I have created a series of articles as narratives in an "oral history" style which attempt to reveal some aspect of life in the past in terms of the technology of the time.

My Inspiration

My name is Tim Johnson. I live in Palmer Alaska. I am a retired computer programmer.  I grew up on a farm in North Dakota, south of the town of Turtle Lake. I was the second generation born on a homestead. My father was born in a sod house and lived on the ground that he was born on until 2009.
 

All of us go through life on a path that moves forward and that path leads all of us to the same place. We can't go back, but we can look back. What we see behind us can inform us and sometimes it can comfort us. What we can learn from looking back can help us to move forward.