It's time to say farewell to February. It has been a brutal and unpredictably cold and icy month. For days, we seemed trapped by the weather, and when the sun finally came shining through the clouds, we cheered. The temperature rose to above freezing, whereas the week before, we were below zero. I mention these facts because it leads me to related how in diaries, people enter details about the weather more than any other bit of news.
Years ago, I gave some talks about diaries based on the fact that my father and my grandfather both kept diaries, I kept one at the time in a haphazard way, and I was fascinated by Thomas Mallon's book , A Book of One's Own People and Their Diaries. I had access to the diary of a school teacher in Coldwater, Michigan, during the year 1876. Believe it or not, that poor teacher recorded in just about every entry of his diary that he trudged through snow from his rooming house to school. I also own the diary kept by Lillie McTighe, a single woman who lived in Auburn, Indiana, during the early part of the 20th century with her sister and her brother-in-law. It seems there was some friction between them because Lillie was infatuated with a certain man who in the eyes of her brother-in-law was unsuitable. It occurred to me to at the time to continue my research about diaries, but life got in my way.
Thomas Mallon's book categorizes writers of diaries as one or the other of the following: Chroniclers, Travelers, Pilgrims, Creators, Apologists, Confessors, and Prisoners. If you were to think about each, you would realize Mallon nailed the categories accurately. It is hard not to keep a record of one's travels, restaurants and inns visited because one might want to experience them again or at the very least read about the trip later. Truth to say, most travelers jot down the facts, and when home, forget the notebook entirely. My mother-in-law's records of her trip to India and China are in a box in the basement.
Young people often make confessions in their diaries. It's instinctive. I kept one when I was a sophomore in high school, jotting down the amazing fact that a certain guy in the eleventh grade who in my opinion at the time was the most handsome person in the world had actually looked at me and said "hi."
No one can deny that much history written is based on diaries of explorers, dignitaries, inventors, and celebrities. Movies and novels also are stories culled from diaries. Certainly the movie " Doctor Zhivago" captures the scenery and beauty of a Russian winter, but Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago tells a totally different winter story. His eight year imprisonment and suffered hardships in the labor prisons make a person weep. (His book is deemed one of the most important of the 20th century.) In the mid-1660s,Samuel Pepys's diary tells everything, and do mean everything. Mallon writes, "His diary gurgles like a full stomach and jingles like a full pocket." James Boswell's account of the great Samuel Johnson, gives readers a view into the 18th century.
A dairy is a "carrier of the private--the everyday, the intriguing, the sordid, the sublime, the boring--- of everything. " Whether called a diary or a journal, "both are rooted in the idea of dailiness." So, with this month's daily dose of ice, snow, and biting wind, I say farewell to February 2025, hoping for a warm
Years ago, I gave some talks about diaries based on the fact that my father and my grandfather both kept diaries, I kept one at the time in a haphazard way, and I was fascinated by Thomas Mallon's book , A Book of One's Own People and Their Diaries. I had access to the diary of a school teacher in Coldwater, Michigan, during the year 1876. Believe it or not, that poor teacher recorded in just about every entry of his diary that he trudged through snow from his rooming house to school. I also own the diary kept by Lillie McTighe, a single woman who lived in Auburn, Indiana, during the early part of the 20th century with her sister and her brother-in-law. It seems there was some friction between them because Lillie was infatuated with a certain man who in the eyes of her brother-in-law was unsuitable. It occurred to me to at the time to continue my research about diaries, but life got in my way.
Thomas Mallon's book categorizes writers of diaries as one or the other of the following: Chroniclers, Travelers, Pilgrims, Creators, Apologists, Confessors, and Prisoners. If you were to think about each, you would realize Mallon nailed the categories accurately. It is hard not to keep a record of one's travels, restaurants and inns visited because one might want to experience them again or at the very least read about the trip later. Truth to say, most travelers jot down the facts, and when home, forget the notebook entirely. My mother-in-law's records of her trip to India and China are in a box in the basement.
Young people often make confessions in their diaries. It's instinctive. I kept one when I was a sophomore in high school, jotting down the amazing fact that a certain guy in the eleventh grade who in my opinion at the time was the most handsome person in the world had actually looked at me and said "hi."
No one can deny that much history written is based on diaries of explorers, dignitaries, inventors, and celebrities. Movies and novels also are stories culled from diaries. Certainly the movie " Doctor Zhivago" captures the scenery and beauty of a Russian winter, but Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago tells a totally different winter story. His eight year imprisonment and suffered hardships in the labor prisons make a person weep. (His book is deemed one of the most important of the 20th century.) In the mid-1660s,Samuel Pepys's diary tells everything, and do mean everything. Mallon writes, "His diary gurgles like a full stomach and jingles like a full pocket." James Boswell's account of the great Samuel Johnson, gives readers a view into the 18th century.
A dairy is a "carrier of the private--the everyday, the intriguing, the sordid, the sublime, the boring--- of everything. " Whether called a diary or a journal, "both are rooted in the idea of dailiness." So, with this month's daily dose of ice, snow, and biting wind, I say farewell to February 2025, hoping for a warm
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