Former presidential candidate John Edwards finally admitted to the rumor that dogged him all during the 2008 campaign. Yes, indeed, he is the father of his mistress's baby girl.
Edwards just keeps on smacking it to his traumatized wife Elizabeth, who is still battling cancer. According to press reports, the child was conceived in the middle of 2007, right around the same time that John and Elizabeth renewed their wedding vows for their 30th anniversary.
We're not here to preach against the pitfalls of infidelity -- although we are on the record that we are wholeheartedly against it.
The Edwards case begs the question of family legacy. How will his other kids see their new 2-year-old sister? How will this wind up on the Edwards Family Tree?
Essentially, when you make a personal documentary about your family, you are faced with two choices. Do you want to be a journalist/biographer telling the story from a detached, objective perspective -- or do you want to preserve family stories and memories for future generations?
There is no right or wrong answer here. Some people embrace the warts of their ancestors, even wear it as a badge of pride (like finding out an ancestor was imprisoned at Alcatraz or was a prominent mafia hitman). Others find it shameful.
When you put together a family documentary, it is up to you about whether to enact your power of selective omission.
Unfortunately for Edwards, his dirty laundry cannot be shoved back in the hamper.
So how about you? If you are the family historian or family filmmaker, do you see yourself more as a journalist or more as a memory keeper?
It is extremely rare that we know when history is unravelling before us.
Pearl Harbor. The JFK, RFK and MLK Assasinations. 9/11.
One of the best ways to merge personal history and American history in a personal documentary is to ask your interview subject what he or she was doing when the World Stopped. Tomorrow's interviews might be anticlimactic, with answers like "Why, I was on Twitter, of course."
But your parents and grandparents likely have fascinating snippets on how earth-shattering news impacted the most minute details of their lives.
World War II veteran Clifford Barrett, who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Nazi Germany, was 15-years-old when America entered the war. He heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. A dramatic reminder of how close teenage years are to adulthood, he was running around Europe with a gun only three years later.
For the past 41 years, Barrett has been writing letters to politicians, celebrities, athletes and military figures -- asking them to share their personal memories of Pearl Harbor. The amazing collection of correspondence, which he refuses to sell to memorabilia dealers, includes replies from President George Bush (the first one), first lady Lady Bird Johnson, golfer Arnold Palmer, broadcast news legend Walter Cronkite and actors Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney and Gene Kelly.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, actor Walter Matthau ("The Bad News Bears") wrote that he was listening to a New York Giants game:
"I was listening to a football game and I thought it was very
presumptuous of them to tell us about Pearl Harbor while this important
game was going on. I have since changed my mind."
Sometimes the contrast of life's simplest things are the most powerful reminders of history.
Of course, putting a life story in a wider historical context need not be centered around tragic events. You may choose to get your interviewee animated about a World Series game, a county fair, a presidential election, the theater release of a classic movie or even the music that was popular decades ago.
These personalized stories used in a Reel Profiles documentary can be enhanced with archival footage and photographs of historic events, and of course, vintage music.
Do you know your grandparents' wedding song?
Who's your local celebrity? Who in your community takes those extra steps to make life a little more special for everyone around them?
Over the past 40 years, Carson City gas station owner Bill Williamson delighted audiences at the Nevada Day Parade by riding shotgun in his antique Model-T Ford with one of his dogs happily performing the driving duties.
Hats off to driving doggies Buddy, Beaver, Budd and Beauregard, and the remarkable man who trained them. You can read the 88-year-old Williamson's obituary in the Nevada Appeal. Like any good magician, he never revealed how he pulled off the trick.
No offense to the canine community, but we wouldn't want any of those dogs driving a school bus or ambulance.
As pictured above, Williamson's dogs also were chauffeurs for Santa Claus during his hometown's annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony.
Who are the characters in your community who really make your hometown shine?
Wouldn't it be great to pay tribute to them, give the ultimate thank you, with a personal documentary capturing their life story?
Again, no offense to the canine community, but we use REAL people, not dogs, as editors, writers and cinematographers!
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Pedro Martinez, who inarguably owns one of the biggest egos in professional sports, was unable to deliver his team to the Promised Land this postseason.
But Pedro already has a bunch of Cy Young Awards and a World Series ring from his Red Sox days, so what's another trophy mean? Just something else to collect dust on the mantel.
What's really important to Pedro, discovered Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley, is Pedro's legacy.
“Normally, when you die, people tend to give you props about the
good things. But that’s after you die. So I’m hoping to get it before I
die," the ballplayer told Buckley.
“I don’t want to die and hear everybody say, ‘Oh, there goes one of
the best players ever.’ If you’re going to give me props, just give
them to me right now.”
Pedro's right. We don't praise him as frequently as we should.
Just kidding. Although Pedro's words are hardly meant to be altruistic, they do apply to those of us gathering family histories, planning a milestone birthday or anniversary gala or a corporate tribute dinner.
Why should a person's obituary or funeral eulogy be the most prominent occasion to lavish praise or celebrate a life's accomplishments?
Pedro's life has been well covered -- although we will take your business Mr. Martinez if you are interested -- but one of the moments we would include in a Reel Profiles personal documentary about him is captured here:
When you are performing exceptionally well at your job, participating in acts of medical tape bondage is hilarious. If Pedro were a so-so pitcher, these hijinks would probably be seen as a sign that he doesn't take his job seriously.
In any case, you don't have to win a Cy Young Award or wrap yourself up in medical tape to have a movie made about you. Whether you are interested in commissioning a personal film about family history, a business legacy, an amazing philanthropist, a military experience or a profile of your nonprofit organization, just remember what Pedro said.
If you are going to give someone props, give them props right now.
Looking over old letters, the kind that get read by actors in those Ken Burns documentaries, you have to wonder what's been lost due to the dominance of text messaging and email.
Will our children's grandchildren fondly scan their grandpa and grandma's Facebook messages with the same sense of wonderment that many of us feel toward handwritten letters?
Author Nancy Rial, a library media specialist for the Cambridge Public Schools in Massachusetts, just wrote a book about her Uncle Alan W. Lowell, who was killed during the Battle of Metz, shortly after landing on the beaches of Normandy, France.
The self-published "Alan's Letters" is exactly what it sounds like -- a compilation of his correspondence during World War II, interspersed with a detailed account of the actions of his comrades in the 66th Infantry Division.
"Alan represents all the young soldiers voices when he expresses a
yearning for a normal home life again after the war," Rial writes, "and an appreciation
of all that he has had as a youth growing up in America."
Although Rial was able to create an amazing tribute to her uncle by interspersing world history with the thoughts of an average guy, you need not have such a dramatic purpose to preserve your family letters.
Whether your uncle wrote love letters to your aunt from the foxhole or from his college dorm, it's all precious stuff that helps bring him back to life for the family who never got an opportunity to know him.
Even if you don't have an ambition to tell "the big picture," it makes sense to scan all your family letters and documents worth saving, sort them in chronological order, and publish them in a simple photo book.
We've used all of these on-line publishing companies and have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the printing and binding:
1. My Publisher
2. Blurb
3. Mac Photo Books
But if you do want to tell a bigger story with your letters and photographs, the Reel Profiles team can help you accomplish that. Writing thematic family history coffee table books -- using the best interview anecdotes and your favorite photos and documents -- is one of our specialties.
Ask about the coffee table book option when you are exploring our personal documentary services!
By Darren Garnick
Other than harboring a deep gratitude that the Good Guys won World War II, my personal connections to that chapter in history are peripheral. I have a few great uncles who fought for the Good Guys -- and I am feverishly documenting their service -- but I did not know any of them well.
So I was fascinated to observe how my 7-year-old son would respond to an overnight educational sleepover on the U.S.S. Massachusetts battleship, which saw action against both the Nazis and Japan.
Looking at a display of plastic models of enemy aircraft, my son asked: "Dad, did America win?"
For the most part, these Cub Scouts enjoyed the battleship as a playground. The canvas and steel Navy bunks were jungle gyms and the endless series of ladders and corridors comprised the Greatest Maze of All Time.
For the dads, those jungle gym beds were a chiropractor's fantasy. I would love to see what today's Navy sailors sleep on for comparison, but the World War II guys had to be much much tinier -- or they got over claustrophobia rather quickly.
For anyone lucky enough to have World War II veterans in their family, what an amazing experience it would be to follow them on a ship like this with a camcorder -- recording their dates with destiny for future generations. Wish I had footage like this of my uncles.
The WWII Navy vet on board to talk with the Cub Scouts surprised many adults with his frank and candid anti-heroism. "What was it like being on the battleship when it was under attack?" he was asked.
"I don't know. I couldn't hear anything," he shrugged, explaining that he was usually going over inventory in a supply room deep within the ship.
(Click here for more information on Battleship Cove's Maritime Camping Program)
The Guinness Book of World Records gives out a lot of framed commemorative certificates for the World's Oldest Living Person for obvious reasons. The moment you achieve such notoriety, in this case at age 115 (!), your heart's expiration date is already way overdue.
Gertrude Baines, the daughter of a Georgia slave, first gained notoriety last November as the oldest African-American to vote for Barack Obama for president. In January, after the competition passed away, she was honored with the title of World's Oldest Person, period.
Here's how the Los Angeles Times described the hoopla at the Western Convalescent Hospital:
"Reporters, photographers, and camera
crews descended on the quiet Los Angeles hospital that had been the
supercentenarian’s home since she broke her hip at 107. She made
headlines across the globe. Fellow senior citizens at the hospital,
some approaching 100, said they desired her longevity.
All
the while, Ms. Baines slept away in her robe, now and then breaking
from her routine of eating crispy bacon, watching Jerry Springer on TV,
and participating in church services to take interviews. The attention,
the questions, the fascination people had with her age in her final
year amused and perplexed her.
“Why all these questions?’’ she snapped back at reporters once. “I want to know.’’
The question Ms. Baines seemed to like the least was the one she got the most. What’s your secret? How do stay alive so long?
Each time, she shrugged her bent shoulders and referred people to God, saying, “Ask him.’’
People Magazine also reported that Gertrude enjoyed a daily dose of The Price is Right, years after iconic game show host Bob Barker left the Showcase Showdown.
When capturing life stories for Reel Profiles personal documentaries, we cherish the delicious details as much as Jerry Springer loves watching his guests throw chairs.
Sometimes it's the so-called trivial day-to-day stuff that spices up a personal biography.
How your grandfather survived and fed his kids during the Great Depression is worth preserving as family lore. But so is the fact that he attended the 1946 Red Sox-Cardinals World Series or that he cursed the television every time President Richard Nixon popped on the screen.
What are some of your favorite "trivial" family stories?
Wow. Where do we begin?
Britain's Henry Allingham is a World War I veteran. Great-great grandfather of 14 kiddies -- and great-great-great grandfather of one. And, following the death of 113-year-old Tomoji Tanabe in Japan, he's now the World's Oldest Man.
Far better to be the World's Oldest Man in the Guinness Book of World Records than that guy with the long creepy fingernails, but then again, maybe we're being judgmental.
Can you imagine having six living generations at your family reunion?
Better make sure the buffet table has lots of vegetables. The Japanese elder credited leafy green treats as a major factor behind his longevity.
Screenwriters Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, founders of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, are the latest feel-good Internet success story. But they also may have inadvertently changed the character of future family tree research.
Right now, if you try to dig up information on three or four generations back, you'll be lucky to get a birth certificate, military record or a passenger list of a steamship. If you are super-lucky, you might be able to unearth an old sepia-toned studio picture in which no one in the family is smiling.
Was life miserable back then -- or was there just horrible customer service at the first photography studios?
Fast forward to 2109. The descendants of Australian science fiction novelist Sean Williams will be able to see him pretend to choke his mother.
THE CHOKER
Williams' legacy is already well affirmed as the author of best-selling novel, "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed."
He also is the world's only science fiction novelist to create a character who speaks only in the lyrics of British pop star Gary Numan (remember the MTV video "Cars" when MTV played videos?)
He now can add Awkward Family Photo fame to his legacy. Williams is the well-dressed teenage strangler.
"Obviously, it's a joke, something I did to pass the time while waiting for the photographer to get the lenses or lighting right and mum played up to it nicely," he says. "Somewhere in my photo album is the staged snap he took thirty seconds later, but I've always preferred this one. It colorfully captures the dynamic of my family in a single glance."
"There's so much in the shot that I love," adds Williams. "My dad's shorts, the mock-choking, my sister's glare (and her clothes), my digital watch. People have responded to all of that, and that did surprise me. I thought the photo, if it appeared on the site at all, would barely be noticed."
Sean's father was an Anglican priest who cherished a relaxed dress code outside of church.
"He did play Australian Rules football, but that's as close as he got to being a gym teacher," Williams recalls. "He died in the 90s, but I like to think he would have found this all rather hilarious. His fashion sense was just awful!"
BUT BACK TO THOSE SEPIA-TONED SNAPSHOTS that document many of our family history stories.
Does anyone out there have ancestors who liked to smile?
What will future generations think about your family photos? Any gag pictures in your wedding album that would make a hilarious part of your family history? What pictures of your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents make you laugh?
Send us your favorite pictures and the backstory!
A personal documentary is the kind of investment that can't be wiped out by a cruddy economy.
Future generations will be able to skip the DVD biographies about Paris Hilton or Justin Timberlake and snack on popcorn while enjoying your life story -- or the amazing lives of your parents, grandparents or other "real" people who have inspired you.
Make your family tree a family documentary tree -- or even better, commission a film to celebrate your personal hero at a tribute dinner, birthday or anniversary celebration.
It's a much more engaging approach than thetraditional scrapbook or photo slideshow, harvestingarchival research and incorporating American history and world events.
Back in the 1920s, pilot Anne Wood-Kelly was told that little girls didn't learn how to fly airplanes. In the 1930s, she was told that teenage girls didn't learn how to fly airplanes. In the 1940s, she left Maine to volunteer for the British Royal Air Force to ferry planes to fight the Nazis.
Reel Profile documentaries include personal life stories, military histories, family histories, business profiles and celebrations of religious and nonprofit organizations. For more information, drop us a line about your amazing story.