OK, I've gotten over it

I just noticed that the last post that I've made was in anticipation of the Green Bay Packers expected victory over the New York Giants and then expected participation in the Super Bowl.

Now this is a topic for a book about the Green Bay Packers that I'd love to do. And something that illustrates the power of personal history...

I'd like to write fan stories about the Packers. I'd like people to send me their stories of what it means to be a Packers fan.

Knowing the passion that people feel for the Packers, I'd suspect the stories would be intense and at the risk of duplicating my words, passionate.

For all of us who are trying to get over the loss or have, there's always next year.

Packer Mania and Personal History

These are the days when everyone in the state of Wisconsin (with a very few notable exceptions) wear green and gold and considers cheese headgear. "Go Packers!" is how we begin and end conversations during this week leading up to the NFL championship game on Sunday with the Giants.

It's a good time to mention my work on The LeRoy Butler Story: From Wheelchair to Lambeau Leap, co-written by LeRoy and Jim Keller. I was the editor, but LeRoy gives me lots of credit for this inspiring book, something about which I am quite proud.

"In doing my book, Sue Hessel helped me share the lessons of my life--that perseverance, dedication, loyalty, and strong family ties will lead to success," he said.

It's hard to imagine an All-Pro NFL football player once in braces and a wheelchair, but that was LeRoy Butler. He literally broke out of his leg braces (much like Forrest Gump), started running and never stopped until injury ended his career with the Green Bay Packers.


I was certainly honored and inspired to help with this book because of how far he came.


Since then, you may have seen LeRoy in the area working to raise money for breast cancer research. He uses his foundation to help others.

I-Wish-I-Knew-Syndrome

Meet my parents.

I drove from Wisconsin to Arkansas last summer with my daughter to see my Aunt Irene, a woman I had not seen in more than 30 years. As the last surviving sibling of either my Mom or Dad, I went to her seeking to cure my case of I-Wish-I-Knew-Syndrome.

I coined this condition, which refers to having my desire to know more about my family history coming too late to get the information from them. Like so many people, I was bored to smithereens when my parents tried to tell me about it. At the time, my eyes glossed over and I had drool coming out of the side of my mouth.

And then one day, after I had developed a passion for history and become a personal historian, I realized I was like the cobbler's children who have no shoes. That's why I urge other people to get started on their own family histories. Now.

So, with a smidgen of hope in my heart, I went to see Aunt Irene to learn what I could about my dad by driving with Maggie to Hot Springs, Arkansas. It turned out to be great fun getting to know Aunt Irene again.

I hoped to discover she had photos of my dad as a child. He was the youngest in the family and she was the next in age to him. Before this one, the youngest photo of him was one that I think was taken in his 20s when he was with my Uncle Al on a business trip to Mexico.

She only had the photo above of my parents taken in San Francisco during World War II. But it was a delight to bring it back with me and put it in a frame. I had no idea that my parents ever did the carnival photo thing but from seeing it, I realize that I come by my love of corny photos naturally. Need proof? Look to the right.

What's interesting about family history is it mostly consists of tidbits like the discovery that my parents did fun things prior to my existence (imagine that). Mostly, our parents' or grandparents' stories are not important because they inspired world peace or cured cancer (although I certainly wish they had).

But they explain why we are the way we are. That information is important. Memories and stories about our families can help us understand ourselves, give us strength to go on with life when the going gets rough and amuse the heck out of us.

One day my grandchildren (I don't have them yet and that is NOT a nag) will look at this photo and others of me and think, "Grandma was once that nuts?" And hopefully my kids will say, "She sure was."

Finding Your Voice

How could I possibly connect Personal History with the New Hampshire Presidential Primary results? Well, the results are so yesterday ...

This is not an endorsement for either John McCain and Hillary Clinton, but I think they shared victories Tuesday because they showed who they really are (keeping in mind that they are politicians after all).

Hillary Clinton referred to "finding her voice" in New Hampshire. What does that mean? It means she said what she really felt. In today's political world, honesty is groundbreaking.

Showing who you really are is exactly what personal history is about -- sharing your story so future generations will know who you are. In a sense, you define yourself so others will know you -- the real you.

Want to know more about personal history? Check out my website, www.lessonsfromlife.com.

Impeached in the Fourth Grade

I always tell this story in my Write Your Life classes. It certainly makes me approachable to the students who may have uncomfortable stories to tell. And the main concept behind writing your story is to move from facts to memories to meaning from the memories.

But it was not until the second round of teaching Write Your Life that I gleaned meaning from one of my most telling life’s experiences – being impeached in the fourth grade. Like Bill Clinton, I was not removed from high office, but that is getting ahead of my story.

There I was in Mrs. Portnoy’s fourth grade class in Old Bonhomme Grade School in Olivette, Missouri, in the early 1960s. And yes, my teacher’s name really was Mrs. Portnoy. I was very awkward at the time, overweight and frumpy in that fourth grade way. What I wanted most was to be liked.

How was that going for me?

In Mrs. Portnoy’s classroom, we held regular class meetings as part of our study of government and had changing class officers picked periodically by elections, probably quarterly. I was not among the first, to say the least. Late in the year, I was finally chosen for vice president, a role that usually has little or no power (present vice presidents of the U.S. excepted).

I had observed one of the jobs of the class president was to write on the board the names of the kids who were talking while Mrs. Portnoy was out of the classroom. When the president was not there, this smartypants wrote names down as well. I figured it was my job to take over for the president, after all.

One day in our weekly class meeting, the president asked me to lead so he could make a motion. The expression, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely,” could have been all about me at that moment. Once I had the control of the meeting, I did not want to give it up. Instead of calling on the president, I instead called on another kid, who said, “I move to impeach Susie Hessel as vice president.”

I have no idea what happened next, although Mrs. Portnoy said we would not be impeaching anyone. I’m sure I cried in my mom’s arms later. It was a devastating moment that is quite laughable now.

So what meaning did I get from being impeached? First, squealing on your classmates is not the road to popularity. Second, I was unhappy with Bill Clinton’s relationship “with that woman,” perhaps because I had a daughter at the time in high school whom I knew would have internships in her future. I felt at that time that he should have resigned, but not be impeached.

Why was I so fervently opposed to his impeachment? Perhaps because he and I shared that painful memory from our government service.