Scrap Your Trip Celebrates National Scrapbook Day & Honors WWII

I have to be a “braggy mom” for a minute. My 5-year old son, Logan, learned to read last week! My kids were on spring break and they spent lots of time in the “fort” of their playset with my daughter, Lauren playing teacher and reading to him (guess she missed school!). At bedtime story one night, it just clicked. I love it when kids learn to read. You can almost see the light bulb go off over their head when all the letters magically make sense. National Scrapbook Day is almost here! Do you have plans to scrapbook this Saturday? If not, at least try to create some “scrapbookable” memories. Scrap Your Trip is offering a 20% coupon on your entire order to help you with the supplies you need. Just enter “nsd2008″ at checkout and hit the apply button. (Fine print – this offer cannot be applied to previous purchases or used in conjunction with other discounts. The coupon is good until 11:59 pm Sunday, May 4th. Turnaround time on NSD orders will be 4-5 business days). I got an e-mail from a customer this week that really made me think about how we preserve our memories and I wanted to share it with you. The elderly parking lot attendant wasn’t in a good mood! Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach , FL , eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker, and musician was bone-tired after appearing at an event. He pulled up in his car and the parking attendant began to speak. “I took two bullets for this country and look what I’m doing,” he said bitterly. At first, Bierstock didn’t know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, “Sir”, he said, ” I have had a wonderful life in this country, and I want to thank you sincerely for what you did to preserve our way of life in this country.” Saying nothing in response, the man began to cry. “That really got to me,” Bierstock says. Cut to today. Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach – a member of Bierstock’s band, “Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band” – have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful “Before You Go” does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die. “If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot,” says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. “The WW II soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them.” The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on the Web, the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren. “It made me cry,” wrote one veteran’s son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss “the unspeakable horrors” he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio , Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach . “I can never thank them enough,” the son wrote. “Thank you for thinking about them.” Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web. The song can be viewed by clicking here: Before You Go. In honor of the World War II veterans, we have made several die cuts to help you with these heritage scrapbooks. Click here to see our WWII supplies: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/worldwarii.html. We will be donating 50% of the revenue from the Scrap Your Trip WWII title cuts to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). The song made me think about my grandparents, most of whose history I don’t know. It makes me sad to think that once these veterans are gone, their memories go with them and if someone hasn’t preserved those memories, then an important piece of history dies along with them. What I wouldn’t give to know what life was like for my grandparents back in those days. It’s one of the reasons one of my first scrapbooks was about 9/11. Once I had children, I became much more aware of how our lives are just one in a long chain…many links before us and many to come after us. So make sure you do something to preserve your own family history…your future grandchildren and great-grandchildren will love to hear about things like your Starbucks addiction, what the heck an iPod was and what life was like after the turn of the century. As always, thanks for your business! Julie Swatek, President Scrap Your Trip® www.ScrapYourTrip.com http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com ‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®

11 comments April 30th, 2008