So you want to investigate your own past. How to begin?
First you should access and organize your own personal records. These are going to be extremely valuable assets in your research. And it's here that packrats have an inherent advantage, although many of them may need help organizing their stuff.
Grade-school report cards, college financial aid letters, tax returns, bank statements, tax bills, car maintenance records, even simple receipts can tell a story. When was it that you had that tire blowout on the freeway exactly? You remember the exit sign but which tow company came to help, with that nice man who turned out to know your cousin?
And, yes, that's how you found out why your uncle had to leave town so suddenly back when you were a kid.
Records tell stories, you just have to allow them to speak.
An even more powerful treasure trove of your past lies in the letters, journals, photos, tapes and videos you've stuffed in an old box in the garage somewhere. Fifty times you almost threw them away; fifty times you didn't.
Now you're seriously contemplating your history they are suddenly fifty times more valuable than they were yesterday.
Most of the letters were addressed to you from someone else among your family members, friends, or associates. But you also have of your own letters, like those you wrote overseas that your sister saved for you.
Pay attention to the language usage in these letters. Look at the stamps and the postmarks. Note the dates. In stories, certain details matter.
And there is your college application essay, your first job application cover letter, an angry Letter to the Editor of the local newspaper. Your own writing is always a window into your prior self -- how you presented yourself to the world back then, and how you used language to express your feelings.
As you pore through this mass of material, think as if you are conducting a forensic analysis, as if your former self were somebody alien to you now. The reason I say this is you need to try and be as objective about yourself as possible in this process.
It should be as if you are writing a biography of another person.
Photographic evidence is particularly revealing. Note the expressions, the body language, who stands next to whom, what's in the background, which smiles are natural and which are forced. Who snapped that photo.
Every picture tells not one but many stories. Much of what you are seeking can be glimpsed through the lens of cameras past but you have to be able to see it.
Beyond physical records and let's be frank here, most of us don't have many, you have a great tool in your computer. Your grandmother didn't have that when she wrote down her memories. So take advantage of your advantage. More and more digitized history is available, as various efforts to catalogue the past and bring it online proceed here and there.
And of course there is original web content itself. Stories about you that appeared here and there. More photos. More citations. Look up your name at academia.edu. You might be surprised how many scholars have cited your work.
For the past 25 years or so, there's the Wayback Machine hosted by the non-profit Internet Archive. You can familiarize yourself with how to use it or there are articles to help guide you. <https://gijn.org/2021/05/05/tips-for-using-the-internet-archives-wayback-machine-in-your-next-investigation/> I just unearthed an old article for a friend that brought back memories for her.
While there is the frustration of dead links <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/> you can sometimes find workarounds for that issue. For instance, try locating the author of any article you seek -- authors tend to maintain their own clip files apart from the web.
And when researching family history, please don't overlook obituaries. Many details of the lives of even people you knew well only appear in print at the end of their stories.
For deeper forensic analyses, you want to probe legal files, including criminal and civil cases, divorce judgements, adoption papers and bankruptcy filings. Property records from the assessor and recorders offices are public records you can obtain.
If this all sounds scary it isn't. Just give it a try. The clerks in most agency offices prove extremely helpful.
Do not overlook the Freedom of Information Act, which allows you to find out what data government agencies collected and maintained about you. You may think only of intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA but most FOIA files are far more mundane, but perhaps more relevant to what you need to know.
Most states have some sort of sunshine laws; in California it's known as the California Public Records Act. There are non-profit organizations that can help you draft letters of inquiry and interpret the results when the agency in question sends you the records you requested.
But all of this record-seeking is only one aspect of investigating your life, or what I call Memoir Journalism. It is other people who hold the majority of the information you with to know locked away in their memories.
To help them unlock those memories, you need to perfect your interviewing techniques. Fortunately there are many available resources to help you with this, from YouTube videos to journalism classes or some friendly retired reporter, lawyer, investigator, insurance adjuster, historian or homicide inspector.
Many people know how to obtain information through conversation.
And conversations can be the fun part of all this. Like fossil fuels stored in the rocks beneath our feet, the memories locked in the brains of others need to be mined and released.
Just try not to be a reckless brain surgeon and try not to pollute the planet in the process.
The key to all of this, at the end, is to think like an investigator.
***
THE HEADLINES
* Being In Time -- How Much Should We Value the Past, the Present and the Future? (New Yorker)
* Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 do not need a booster shot at this point, according to the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their statement came hours after reports that Pfizer plans to file for authorization to give people a third shot of its vaccine amid the rise in more transmissible coronavirus variants around the country. [HuffPost]
* Lockdowns in Asia as some nations see 1st major virus surges (AP)
* Why Aren’t Millions of Unemployed Americans Finding Jobs?A mismatch between available workers and job openings is plaguing the labor market as potential employees leave cities or industries where businesses need them most. (WSJ)
* How New Biden Rules Could Make It Easier To Buy Hearing Aids Or Fix Your Phone (NPR)
* A Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake -- The climate crisis haunts Chicago’s future as a warming world pushes Lake Michigan toward new extremes — higher highs, lower lows, greater uncertainty. (NYT)
* California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked people and businesses to voluntarily cut how much water they use by 15% as the Western U.S. weathers a drought that is rapidly emptying reservoirs relied on for agriculture, drinking water and fish habitat. California's most important reservoirs are already at dangerously low levels. [AP]
* The record heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that claimed hundreds of human lives also cooked to death an estimated 1 billion sea creatures, like mussels and clams, according to a marine biologist. Such a massive die-off has a major effect on the environment. [HuffPost]
* Reservoirs are drying up as consequences of the Western drought worsen -- Over the last 20 years, human-caused warming has intensified what would have been an ordinary dry period in the Southwest into a potential “megadrought” — in some ways the driest such period in 1,200 years. (WP)
* Western U.S. readies for scorching heat this weekend (WP)
* Farmworkers are calling on Congress to pass basic safety standards to protect them from extreme heat after a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest killed hundreds of people, including an undocumented worker in Oregon. There is currently no federal standard for working conditions during extreme heat. [HuffPost]
* Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Partnership Did Not Survive Trump -- The company they built is wildly successful. But her Washington wisdom didn’t hold up, and neither did their close working relationship. (NYT)
* Study shows dramatic gap in religious diversity between the Southeast and much of the country (WP)
* Advice for Artists Whose Parents Want Them to Be Engineers -- How to follow your heart, even if it disappoints your parents. (NYT)
* Toyota said it will no longer donate to lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election, according to The Detroit News. Toyota credited the change to "stakeholders," but it should be noted it came hours after the Lincoln Project released a damning video attacking the car company. [HuffPost]
* In Michigan, Pro-Impeachment Republicans Face Voters’ Wrath -- Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump, seeks “decency and humility” in Western Michigan, but has found anger, fear and misinformation. (NYT)
* CDC says students vaccinated against the coronavirus can go maskless in fall; some states, schools had already lifted mask mandates (WP)
* The California Geological Survey released new tsunami hazard maps for the Bay Area. If a once-in-a-millennium tsunami hit, it could inundate more of the waterfront than scientists previously feared. (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Taliban says it controls most of Afghanistan, reassures Russia (Reuters)
* In Forceful Defense of Afghan Withdrawal, Biden Says U.S. Achieved Its Objectives -- The president insisted that the United States had done more than enough to empower the Afghan police and military to secure the future of their people. (NYT)
* Why Afghanistan’s growing chaos alarms leaders from Tajikistan to Russia (WP)
* Special Report: Afghan pilots assassinated by Taliban as U.S. withdraws (Reuters)
* Everyone On Camping Trip Just Gets Out Of Way While Friend Who Knows What He’s Doing Takes Care Of Everything (The Onion)
***
"Sweet Memories"
Night after night the past slips in and gathers all my sleep
My days are just an endless stream of emptiness to me
Filled only by the fleeting moments of her memory
Sweet memories
Mmmmmmmm
Wandering from room to room, she's turning on each light
Her laughter spills like water from the river to the sea
I'm swept away from sadness, clinging to her memory
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