Revival

Starting the year I was born, my great aunt began assembling a genealogy of our family, tracing six generations of Crooks' in this country. Over the next several decades before she passed, my aunt's project grew into a large three ring binder full of sepia tone and tin-type photos of early settlers, family trees, one-page memoirs of farm life in Missouri circa 1910 and war memorabilia (lots of war veterans in my family). It was quite an accomplishment, the book full of records of births and deaths, marriages and estrangements, adventures and accidents, especially given that she was collecting information pre-Internet.
In any case, the now nearly unwieldy book/binder came out over Christmas dinner and we looked over the pages of photos of lost relatives and found stories, and I noticed how much my view of certain stories and characters had changed.  We also realized that the book was due for a couple of things: both a tune-up to render it archival as well some new entries to bring it up to date. Both of these actions have now been added to my to-do list for the coming year, tasks I'm both looking forward to and half-fearing. Already, the lives of my long lost relatives have been playing in my mind...
In the meantime,  I've been winding down 2012 close to home, playing a couple local venues amid making lists of what to keep and what to give away and digging through old songs for sparks of inspiration. Which brings us to Bessie Smith. This isn't necessarily my favorite tune, but in the spirit of revival....