352.7 Census: Where's the Interesting Stuff?

I did my duty over the break. I filled out my census form.

Yep...it took me less than 10 minutes for me to fill out the 10 questions...mostly because it is just me these days.

I was asked my name, age, date of birth, race and whether I lived in an owned or rented property and how many people resided with me.

What I miss are all the interesting questions found in previous census records. Being a family historian who has poured over old census records looking for facts about my family members, I was often drawn away from my primary task looking at interesting things I found on the old sheets and interpreting the spellings and handwriting of the day! I loved it...but then I am weird that way.

One of my favorite finds was on a family sheet of mine. For many census years, folks were asked their occupations. That was always very interesting and I would eat up lots of time reading what folks did for a living. Children were often listed as "at home" or "at school." The wives were usually "keeping house" as one would expect. Imagine my delight when I read that my Irish immigrant great-great-grandmother Annie's occupation was "kept tent!" It turns out that in 1880, she and her teamster husband and four daughters (soon to be six girls!) lived in a canvas tent with wood floor near the horse barns at Ft. Concho, Texas. WOW!

I later found out that they were able to move into an abandoned officer's house because Francis, the teamster, was retired from active duty and the fort was losing population as it was beginning the process of being shut down. I have seen a replica of the house...and yes, it was an improvement over the tent, but still was a tight fit for a family of eight!

Another interesting tidbit...Francis' job as a teamster...was to move the soldiers buried in the fort cemetery to the military cemetery in San Antonio...a part of shutting the fort down. No that was not found in the census forms, but there is so much that is.

If you have never looked at an old census form, the 1880 census is available on the internet for free at several locations including ancestry.com

I bet you a dollar you will find some interesting stuff!

I am really sorry that 72 years from now when the 2010 census becomes public record, the information will be so sterile and clinical and even missing the handwriting and ink spots of the day. I can't wait to see the 1940s records (and the gems they may contain) when they become public in 2012!

Here is a video about the 2010 Census and how to fill it out.

Images:

Census form census.gov

1880 form screen shot from personal collection

629.45 Apollo 11: 40 Years and Counting

I know exactly where I was, who I was with , and what I was doing on this date at about this time 40 years ago today. I was watching a scientific miracle, the culminating activity of years of hard work, and the dreams of countless others come to fruition.

Man...two men in fact, walked on the moon...and I, for one, was spellbound! I was 17 years old and on the brink of my own adventure---senior year in high school, but I had planned for this event as if I were in the module on top of the rocket.

You see, not only was I child of the 60s, a product of the Cold War and post-Sputnik jitters, I lived around the space program. My summer neighbors were teachers of the astronauts and friends with people who knew the chimps who had been taught the rudimentary tasks to be performed in space. We got visit some retired chimps in their New Mexico compound. School field trips were routinely made to rocket launches in the desert outside my hometown. My family wandered around the deserts and mountains of the same general area encountering signs indicating Government Property-Keep Out Signs because all kinds of things were going on and being tested.

It was an exciting time. My mom and I decided we needed a color TV so we rented one for the special night. We could not imagine this special occasion occurring in our house in mere black and white. Of course, neither of us knew that the actual event itself would be broadcast IN black and white, and grainy at best! And we watched every minute...and held our breathe along with all the guys in Mission Control until we too heard: "Houston, the Eagle has landed!"

If you ever doubted the reasons for it beyond the sheer need of man to explore where he has never been then take a look at these lists of the benefits from the needs of the space program.

It goes WAY beyond Tang, Corningware, and velcro.

http://www.spacecoalition.com/products.cfm

NASA Spinoffs

Medical Benefits

It was a team effort, a team success. If you want to see how a team works, watch the mission control room. Watch the teams that suit the astronauts up and lock them in the capsule. Everyone had a job to do and everyone had to rely on everyone to do his job. It was something!

Do I hope we go back? Do I hope we go to Mars? You bet....I just hope I'm around to see some of it. My daughter has selected Coringware for her newlywed home. Do I hope SOME day to get to tell some cute little munchkins all about when it was first made and how...you bet! Do I want to hear them laugh about renting the color TV? Absolutely! And will I hold my breath until the adventure ends...count on it!

P.S. My father finally stopped pacing that night and went down to Sears the next day and bought a little 20 in. COLOR TV on a rickty aluminum stand...it was to be our rocketship to the future. We had to be up with the times! Who knew a microwave oven was just around the corner!

371.22 Videostreaming For the Younger Set

Last week, I was told this site existed so I went to see what it is all about. TOTLOL is for younger children and their parents to share the "funny" video experience. It is powered by YouTube and includes videos rated by parents as safe and appropriate for the younger children in the family. Here is the background behind the site which just launched about two weeks ago.

A check search thru the videos shows that animals and pets are a big part of the collection. I'm sure there are many other things that I will find when I return again. I selected this video because I too have a dog with a crazy habit. Enjoy!

http://www.totlol.com/watch/CoiFGva_JoY/Dog-Vs.-Balloons/0/

There are some "learning" videos included on the preview page as well...look like pre-reading and vocabulary building activities.

The site does not include file info (that I can find yet), so I can't put the video up here, but I'll be watching to see if things change.

I will be checking to see if it is available in district tomorrow...my initial thoughts are that it is not, at least for now, because of its association to YouTube.

Update: It is NOT available in district (for now anyway)

I will be adding it to our recently created wiki page of early childhood materials so others can check it out as well.

306.8 Reflections on Mothers

During a long solitary drive home the other day, I was flipping thru my mental file cabinet and remembered some of my favorite "mother" books...used both in my professional and personal life. They are "old," but still get a lot of use and probably represent some the love-worn volumes in your collection?
Are You My Mother? P.D. Eastman...a simple classic
Is Your Mama a Llama? (author's name escapes me)...drove by a pasture of llamas and was thinking about the eyes on the character in this book...they have always amused me!
A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams...a sweet story of saving
Just Me & My Mom...the Little Critter books...I had tapes for my girls and loved the character's voice....all the stories were/are so cute!
O My Baby Little One...a "new" book so to speak, but I fell in love with it when I discovered it at a book exhibit or a meeting with the author Kathi Appelt, I forget which. tender descriptions
Guess How Much I Love You...sweet story with little bunny characters.

Ok, there 's one more and I have racked my brain...someone please help me! It made the rounds of our book exhibit/fairs a few years ago...it's a little paperback volume...blue patterned cover with picture of small child...at the end of the story, the parent ends up sitting in the lap of the grown child. We had to keep the kleenex close by! The title just totally eludes me at this time.

and there is the passage from Little Women where Marmee describes what she hopes for her girls...it is "dated" by 21st century standards, but none the less, a sweet passage of mother/daughter relationships...

What about you own thoughts? Other titles...

006.7 National Blog Day + One!

In going thru some of my favorite professional blogs (1, 2, 3...) earlier today, I realized I let National Blogging Day go by without posting about some of my favorite blogs. So I'm a day late and a dollar short in sharing these with anyone who is interested...they are still worth it!

1. Library Stuff written by Stephen Cohen who came to the Texas Library Association annual conference a couple of years ago and really hooked me into the fun of the blogging world with his talks. I had not read any of his blog before hearing him talk about it and all of his other adventures related to this thing called blogging. I had some limited blog experience (mostly teen angst) and was ripe to see the bigger picture. His blog posts are short and sweet and to the point...they take you to all aspects of the library world and points beyond. Thanks Stephen!

2. American Presidents Blog is my favorite blog for trivia type info. I look forward to any and all of the interesting facts (and stuff) the team comes up with, but I am kinda of a history nerd anyway so this might not appeal to you. But if you have ANY reason to want to delve into all things presidential, this is the blog for you! (one the blog writers also blogs at History is Elementary, another one of the first blogs I found and devour on a regular basis)

3. Karbon Kounty Moos is written by a Montana ranch/farm woman who includes the most incredible photos of the area that I can actually feel like I'm standing in her pasture looking at a horizon full of mountains that bring back such fond memories of my own high country experiences. Her posts are full of things totally foreign to my daily life, but I can so easily escape into her world for a few moments of reading. Those adventures are some of the greatest mini-vacations I have ever had. I found this blog thru my friend and colleague over at

4. Of Life, Education, Travel, E-Bay & Books who started her blog as a means of recording a special trip and by doing so let me go along for the incredible ride she had during that adventure. She has gone to write about kinds of things, especially in the world of books and school libraries from her very unique and in-depth level of understanding. She entertains me, but more importantly she makes me think. Thanks G!

5. My last entry for this post is a "group" of bloggers made up of 2 former teachers turned stay-at-home moms and one former teacher turned librarian who write about their lives and make me laugh out loud EVERY time I read them. I am not linking to them here as they are a little more personal & private in what they write than what I like to include on my professionally-based blog. Their almost-daily expressions of life itself are like reading chapters in a good book and wanting the experience to go on and on...luckily it does...one of the grandest values of blogging. If you would like to have a peek at these blogs, let me know.

And I also must pay a small tribute to my own two daughters who used this social networking tool many years ago and introduced their mom to it in an interesting way. Neither write presently, but I look forward to their grown-up adventures if they ever do and I cherish the opportunity I had in seeing the world through their adolescent/YA eyes.

Blogging is a unique way to find yourself a way thru many venues of your choice. You don't have to write, but I do hope you experience some of the adventures in reading... and learning that are out there.

P.S. Although my blog roll is long and my bookmarks even longer...share something you think I'd like! I am always looking for something to new to "read"!

371.002 First Day of School: A Celebration

One of my regular readers sent me a message wondering where I have been. This post should help explain my absence and is a celebration of sorts at the same time.

Yesterday was the first day of school for our district (and many others throughout our state due to a new state law.) It was a marker in my personal calendar of educational experiences in that it was # 33 for me. My 33rd year of "the first day of school" from the teacher's side or librarian's side of the desk...50 years if you also count those 17 years I sat in the "unfriendly to left-handed students" desks of long ago (17 you say? 13 + 4 years of college!!!) My life has revolved around the September-May calendar for virtually all my life. Yes, I know we go in August now, but you get my drift.

But more importantly, it was the first day as a teacher for Daughter #1...that is where my mind, my body...and my checkbook have been for the last month! I have been mentoring her through this exciting time. And it has been exciting! She is a 4th generation teacher...there has been someone in her family teaching for around 100 years...in the State of Texas.

If you have done it a few times like I have, you tend to "forget" some of the excitement, but you also forget the "scary" parts too! And there have been a few moments of uncertainty and frustration, but that's all of part of it. Do you know how fast bulletin board border runs out...even in a city as large as Houston? and do you know what works as a replacement in a pinch---blanket edging!! Pretty colors, wide enough to cover a multitude of sins, and long enough for a s-e-v-e-n-t-e-e-n foot long board...there should be a law! And technology issues are not exclusive to any one district!

Moving and starting a new job is a hard combination anyway, but if you add trying to finish up details on several other jobs you have had all at once (in order to survive), it has been a pretty hectic month. I returned home Saturday evening feeling comfortable that all was well and spent a little time getting myself into the frame of mind for my new year...although because I work all year now and had already spent about two weeks with various aspects of staff development, the first day was not that significant...except for the mark on my calendar.

I admit it was a long first day...because I was anxious for the results happening about 200 miles away. If i hadn't been so busy trying to catch up on some things I let languish, I might have paced back and forth. Every time the phone rang, I wondered. But don't worry...all is well. The day went well, the icebreaker went well, there was plenty to occupy the time period so no one had to sit and drum their fingers on the desk. So my First Day Jitters were not necessary!

The phone call came to an abrupt end however, when she made the statement "well, I guess I better go figure out what I'm gonna do on the second day"... arrggghhhhh, a mother's worries never end!

I know many of you had a great (or at the least, an interesting) first day and I bet you used some of these in many creative ways. Congratulations!

[P.S. Wasn't that a clever way how I turned a "personal" post into an informative and useful one?]

973.0992 American Presidents: Interesting Stuff the 2.0 Way

One of the first blogs I started following a few years ago was (and is) the American Presidents Blog. Just full of presidential facts, figures, and trivia...be still my ol' social studies heart! So much fun to read!

You can search thru the blog by president's name...first name alpha order There are also several key historical events (such as World Wars I & II or Cold War) and terms (such as First Ladies, impeachment, or Presidential Libraries) to use in searching for material.

A recent post described a 1500+ item donation of Lincoln memorabilia to the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum by a private individual. In the collection, is one of Lincoln's top hats, the gloves he wore that fateful night to the theater, and some early handwriting including some math problems and poetry. Can't wait for the opportunity to see more online.

Also attached to the post was a newspaper announcement about the acquisition and what sadden me personally were all the negative reactions to the new collection. So many readers were not impressed or thought it was a useless and wasteful purchase. Yes, I know I'm a nut for stuff like this, but I still think not understanding the value of all these artifacts and "primary sources" of history is sad.

In another post that I found wandering around the blog is the earliest recording of a presidential voice...that of Benjamin Harrison in 1889. It is part of a collection of presidential speeches and recordings from the Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. The library has created an online gallery of some of these presidential recordings and are available for use in mp3 or realaudio formats.

[Personal note (please bear with me!): This piece of history is particularly interesting to me because Harrison served on the staff of my great-great-grandfather during the Civil War. I have a photograph of the two of them together and now I have heard the voice of someone who stood in the same room with my relative. A sort of of 6-degrees thing courtesy of the web, don't you think!]

It's these kinds of online resources that make me appreciate even more (if that is possible) the WWW and all the forward-thinking individuals who do what it takes to bring the information to me.

912 U.S Map: Record Your Travels, Family Homes, etc.

Nothing fancy. Simple little website called Visited States Map that lets you check off the states you have visited, lived in, studied, etc. Results are saved as a jpeg, gif, or png.

My Map:
At this time of the year, I see a lot of use for family trips-- virtually checking off the states as the family travels this summer.

What about using it for family genealogy records? Trace the family's movement across the country and put it in your family record book.

Younger kids? Use it to mark states they have "learned"?

Don't like the automatic color choices? Drop the file into Microsoft Paint or other similar program and choose your colors to meet your needs. A Canadian version is also available, but no world version.

P.S. No Hawaii choice. (Rats, I could add one more!) The map was originally created for RVers to use. And as the site says, it's hard to drive to Hawaii!

792.028092 Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth

One of the best parts of attending the annual TLA conference is the all the opportunities for meeting up with great books that don't show up on my radar in other ways. An extra special advantage is having a conference "roomie" and traveling partner who has SO many free books, she just has to drop some in my bag for loading the car! And so I get to "borrow" them right away.

Good Brother, Bad Brother is one book I am currently devouring. As is my usual method, I don't start at page 1 and read to the end. I have flipped thru this book and poured over all the historical photographs. I can't help it– I am completely fascinated by old photographs, particularly of the time period when any photo would have been a rarity. To study the actual face of the infamous historical figure John Wilkes Booth and try to detect any sign of the tortured mind and its plan is special (albeit it strange!) and I did it again with this book. I also studied the good brother Edwin with the same intensity to try and read what must have hidden in the recesses of his mind regarding the horrendous deed his brother carried out.

I had spent several sessions with the book before I discovered that its intended audience was for young people ages 10-15. The various vignettes that make up the chapters and the numerous primary documents that were used to create much of the story seemed to be beyond the average young teen reader. Not that I think it is inappropriate information for the age group. It is not, the way it is presented. One interesting ironic fact was that Edwin is credited with rescuing one of Lincoln's sons from a possible serious accident.

It is a somewhat dark book in that it describes the typical dysfunctional matters that often occur when a parent drinks too much and how two brothers were split along the political divide of the day. But the reader also can see how, when one chooses how to react to a situation, two lives can take completely different paths and one can have a satisfactory and fulfilling outcome.

To say that I enjoyed this book is not a correct statement only because the subject material is mostly not of an enjoyable nature. Have I learned some things I didn't know? Yes. Has it made me want to read some more about these brothers? Yes. Has it added to my understanding of a major historical event and what makes people do what they do? Yes. For me, that makes a successful read! Thanks JB for the loan!

004.678 Social Networks: A Rating And A Review...of Sorts

Found this chart of social networks at Common Ground and showed it to Daughter #2 who is home on her last Spring Break as a student. She did guess that either MySpace or Facebook would be tops. She and I both were amazed that MySpace holds almost 81% of the market share!

She has been on #5 Xanga for four years and did not even recognize the names of #3 and #4. Of the 20 social networks listed, she only had visited MySpace, Facebook, Live Journal and had heard of Yahoo360 and Friendster.

I had gone to Classmates (and even signed in years ago (5+?)) when it was "free." Didn't know then that I was making a social networking statement! In an attempt to keep up with Web 2.0, I knew about MySpace, Facebook, and MyYearbook. Hummm...8 encounters of the 20 between us. Suffice it to say, we are not into these things too much!

Daughter #2 says she likes Facebook better than MySpace because it is easier to find people. You can look for people by their schools. She visits Facebook every day. She says MySpace is too hard to search to find anyone and only goes there about once a month. She said lots of people prefer MySpace because you can design your layout for your profile. Facebook just has a standard layout that everyone uses. She occasionally gets asked to join the others, but never does. Kinda goes along with her lack of blog posts since August.

598.47 March of the Penguins

Part of any extended visit home by Younger Daughter is often used for a mini-marathon of movies and this Thanksgiving was no exception, thanks in part to the bargain DVD bins at Target and Wal-Mart on Black Friday. We got some great $3.00 deals.

The most delightful and heart-warming movie was The March of the Penguins, a National Geographic / Warner Independent Pictures c2005 presentation so beautifully narrated by Morgan Freeman. I am in love with emperor penguins and the stark beauty of Antarctica.
If you have not seen this movie, buy, rent, borrow, or even find it on cable TV (I think the Hallmark Channel is currently showing it.) Here is a sample of what you will see. And remember, it was humans who endured the harshness to capture this beautiful story. Here is the director's thoughts on the adventure.

I checked the district catalog and there are several books I will be borrowing for my winter break reading. I want to learn more about these amazing creatures.

If you are working a lesson around any of this, here are some support materials including some more video that you may find useful.

Yes...Happy Feet is on my radar screen for my next big screen experience!