You and I have an opportunity to do something no other generation ever had the opportunity to do.

That opportunity is to capture history and make it available to others.

Neither of my parents lived to see their 70th birthday.

The last few years of my Dad’s life were filled with fuzzy recollections of his life with frustration in his voice as he was forgetting details that he wanted to share when I asked him.

I was determined that I would not let that happen a second time, and bought my Mom a cassette recorder with a dozen blank tapes asking her to just start recording anything about herself and her life.

She had good intentions but never got around to it.

So when she died suddenly in 2001, I was left with boxes of her stuff and my Dad’s stuff including photo’s of people I never met, letters (the real hand written ones) and these all sit in a few boxes in my attic.

Technology has changed.

A couple of friends of mine were in the one hour photo processing business a decade or two ago.

They were driven out of business by digital cameras, including the kind I now have on my cellphone.

My laptop has software that allows me to not just edit photo’s but create video’s.  Your computer probably has this bit of tech too.

In this digital world we live in, with access to online photo sharing services like Flicker and Picplz along with video services including you tube we can share these creations as we capture history.

Last week I drove to Michigan where I spent a couple days as an Addy Award Judge for the American Advertising Federation.

After it was over, I decided to capture history.

Not just any history, but some personal family history.

When I was 26, I moved my family to Detroit where we stayed for nearly 8 years, lived in 4 houses, and my kids spent the beginning of their lives.

It has been 19 years since we left.

I decided to capture some family history for my kids and will be writing and producing a video with narration and about 40 photo’s I shot on my trip.

When it’s complete, I’ll give each of my kids their own DVD but I’ll also post it on my youtube channel and feature it on this website under the Really? The Personal ScLoHo category.

I urge you to do the same, in your own unique way.  Use this web world of ours, combined with the technology sitting in front of you to capture history for the next generation.