Every year on my birthday I receive text or email messages from my kids, other family members, and sometimes friends. At other times during the year, I receive short messages about what is going on in their lives and asking me about mine. I usually answer these electronic messages but few, if any, are saved.

Before computers and the internet, I would receive hand written letters or signed cards in the mail, most of which I have saved somewhere. I remember my parents and grandparents also saved those they received.

The texts I receive on family threads started me thinking about how communications have changed over the past 20-30 years, and how history is being recorded or maybe lost these days.

A great deal of what we know about past history is through saved paintings, inscriptions, written letters, photographs, and documents that have been saved. We only have to watch one of the documentaries produced by Ken Burns and his staff to see how valuable they are in our understanding of human history.

I know, I know, texts can and do convey many of the same sentiments and emotions. But once read they are usually deleted into the void. I hope for future generations the new forms of recording that are going on in the world will at least be as good as before, and saved somewhere that can be retrieved and seen for both curiosity and understanding history.

Ken Kaiyala
9-30-2025