Catch a Falling Star

Almost seventy years ago, the song “Catch a Falling Star and put it in your pocket.” It was a catchy little ditty that was sung by many artists. In 1958, one of the most prominent artists to release it was Perry Como. His crooning voice made the song a hit.

I have no idea what its actual meaning is, but for myself it means to capture moments in time before they fall away into obscurity. Like meteors that shoot brightly across the dark night sky, memories flare intensely for a moment before they begin to fade and finally disappear. So many things that my dad, Carl Beck and my mom Sybil Miner Beck have slipped into dark crevices and may never be recalled again. Stories of my grandparents Edson and Anna Kalp Beck and Ray and Rebecca Rugg Miner have been lost. Sometimes someone will breathe on the coals of a memory and I can fan it into flames. When that occurs, I quickly write about it in my BlogSpot. I try to replace as much of the facts from the incident. Sometimes it’s not completely accurate and when another relative furnishes more facts, I will go back and correct the mistake or expand the scope of the story.

I wish that I would have paid closer attention to the details passed down in an oral tradition. I’m trying to record the pieces of my heritage and pass it to my children and grandchildren. I don’t have the patience or the ability to do the research of the genealogy of our family. I will let that task to others. To me that path is dry and dusty. I try to add flesh to skeletons of the past and make the readings of them more interesting.

Catching that falling star is what I am attempting to do. I want to create a verbal picture sharing the beauty, the sadness, or the joy of our family’s past. I share some of my own stories of my life growing up; from the time of my youth through school, the Navy, college, and days of work. Not too long ago I shared a story that I hadn’t shared with my children. They were surprised to hear that when I was in the Navy, my “friends” had planned to kill me, thinking I was a snitch.