THAT'S NOT THE WAY I REMEMBER IT!

     Have you ever gone to a family gathering and someone began a conversation about some event or person in the family's past.  As the story progressed you start to wonder if you were in the same family!  Your first instinct is to jump in and say, "no it happened this way."  but you don't because you realize that if ten people were watching a baseball game they would all see it a little differently.  So, what to do?  You write it the way you remember it.  Aunt Helen can write her own memoir.d

     William Zinsser in his book, "Writing About Your Life."(Published by De Capo Press, 2001, ISBN-978-1-56924-379-4) gives advice on writing about family.  "first of all be compassionate, but be true to your culture.  Have the courage to tell the story as only you can tell it."
     A great example of a memoir that treats the family with love and grace is Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes."  I would find it difficult to teach a class about writing family memoirs without this exceptional book. If any writer had reason to feel bitterness about his family it is Frank McCourt. Growing up in abject poverty in Limerick, Ireland, he could have written  a dark, sinister story of his parents who probably could have done better by their children, but he chose to write a survival story of love and endurance. 
     ZINSSER SUGGESTS YOU GET YOUR INTENTION CLEAR BEFORE YOU START AND TELL YOUR STORY WITH INTEGRITY.

                                        MR. SCOTT COMES A'COURTING
                                     (From "Trunk Tales' by Darlene Eichler)

     My Aunt Pearl was a spinster.  In impolite terms, or as my mother said, she was an 'old maid.'  She was a single lady who was getting on in years.  But she did have a gentleman friend; Mr. Sam Scott.  As far as I can remember they never went out on a date, just kept company in the parlor.
     Mr. Scott did no have a car.  He walked miles every Sunday in a suit and tie, when the weather permitted, to see Aunt Pearl.  they spent their time together in the nicest room in the house.  The parlor existed for special company, for playing the piano, and a viewing room when a family member passed away.  the floor was covered with an Oriental type rug; lace panels hung t the windows and crocheted doilies covered the backs of the settee, chairs and at the tops of the tables.  Several nick knacks sat on the mantle and piano.  Today I have in my possession a piece of Carnival glass that made its home on the piano.
     the parlor was off limits when Mr. Scott and Aunt Pearl were in there.  I could not understand why they would not want the pleasure of my company!  After all my aunt doted on me at other times.  it was explained to me that they wanted to be alone.  I was always glad when Mr. Scott went home...to be continued in part 2.

Comments are encouraged.

HOW TO BEGIN YOUR MEMOIR

     There are many times a person might have an interesting memoir to write but they don't have a clue where to begin.  As a memoir teacher I have no magic formula. We have talked about memory joggers but now you chosen your topic, having narrowed it down to a manageable size.  There are times even more reduction is required.  For the sake of example do a story in a well known time period--WWII-1941-1945-FAMILY STORIES. Family stories is a broad topic and needs to be reduced. " How about, "How Shift Work Affects a Household" You lived through this time period and you know the story.  You may be an out liner and here is the time to make one. Perhaps you' re a little fuzzy on some details.  This is a good excuse to call a friend or a family member you haven't talked to in awhile.
You have your outline filled in with just a few gaps. You're ready to begin:

                                                                                                      
                           "HOW SHIFT WORK AFFECTED  HOUSEHOLDS"


                                              WORLD WAR II-1941-45

     The Shortts and Langs were neighbors. Coming from opposite ends of the state to work in the large defense plant, they were different in so many ways. One family moved from the mountainous Southwest, the Langs,the  red dirt of the Piedmont. The adults spoke in the vernacular of their respective areas, and the children snickered, wondering why they talked so funny.  They ate different foods, planted different cops by different methods and attended different churches.
     There was one custom which tied them together and had a great influence on their daily lives.  Shift work! The Arsenal ran  twenty-four hours a day, and there were three shifts.  The first, and desired one was from8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  The second shift and the children's favorite was the evening one  from 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 Midnight. Mother's were more relaxed during these evening hour and the children were allowed to stay up later.  Supper could be breakfast and no one seemed to mind. The third shift was the dreaded one, especially by the mothers. Running from 12:00 midnight to 8:00 a.m., its other name was the "grave yard shift."   Mothers' main responsibility consisted of keeping everyone quiet while the fathers slept. Keeping a colicky baby from crying could cause tremendous stress for everyone.The plant's hours dictated the activities of the families from friends' visits to meal schedules.

     Added to the stressful and changeable schedules were the physical tolls  it took on the men working in the manufacturing of nitroglycerin and other toxic substances.  They were stricken often with migraine-like headaches and other maladies.  Frequently this brought about short tempers and fatigue.  Here, again, the mothers stepped in to smooth over and try to explain why daddy did not feel up to playing with them or for that matter, just being in their presence.  It was understandable how these unreal schedules and added stresses affected the children all their lives.   After the war ended some of the parents became aware of the negatives affects, others didn't see them.  As in all adversity some come out stronger and others never recovered.  So it was with the children of the shift workers.
(Some material taken from "The House of Straw," by Nan Turner, 2006.  ISBN: 0-9791543-0-8)

Comments, please.

A SPECIAL MEMOIR

Today I feel compelled to write a memoir.  There will be no instructions or memory joggers.  I may break a few rules but this comes from my heart.  This memoir was originally meant to be an eulogy for one of my oldest, dearest friends.  She has been on life support for several days and the doctors little hope for recovery. But her younger son would not give up until he knew for certain his Mother was being kept alive only by mechanical means.  He called yesterday to say that he believed he had witnessed a miracle.  His Mother opened her eyes, and even smiled.  We know that she has a long way to go but as her son said, we'll take whatever we can get, one day at a time.,

A TRIBUTE TO MY FRIEND, AILEEN

It was late spring,(the end of May to be exact) of 1958 in Washington, DC.  A young woman, still a girl, really, walked a few blocks to the "car barn" to take a trolley to a new job.  She felt safe on the trolley, it would go only where the tracks took it.  The shy country girl hoped she wouldn't have to pull the cord for her stop.  She needn't have worried, several riders seemed to be going her way.  Seeing a large building come into sight, she knew this was  the place.  National Geographic.  Her heart skipped a beat as she entered the front door all the while keeping an eye out for the office.  Soon she had filled out the necessary papers and was on her way to her work station,

This country girl felt a little intimidated when she walked into the huge room with many rows of desks almost touching each other. One sole desk sat facing the rows where an older woman was peering over her spectacles perched near the end of her nose.  She reminded the country girl of a
school teacher she had in fifth grade; any minute she might say to  the bodies occupying the rows of desks, "take out pencil and paper and write one hundred times, 'I will not talk in class.'
But she didn't.
Introductions were made and one woman remarked, "Aileen is absent today.  I know you will become friends when you meet.  I never asked her why she felt that way.
But she was so right.  Our friendship began the moment we met.  We introduced out husbands and they became friends.  We were together every week- end.  Her husband was an MP in the Army and I knew they would be gone in a short time.  I tried to put it out of  my mind.  We visited every free attraction in Washington and there were lots of them.  We had little money for entertainment, so we made our own.  One of us had learned to play Canasta and we taught the other three.  We spent many Saturday evenings playing until the wee hours of the morning. One week-end we went to Ocean City and Rehobeth Beach in their Ford convertible.  Only one of us made it to work on Monday and that was the MP!  We had terrible sun burns!
After awhile Aileen left National Geographic to work as a typist at the Library of Congress.  I was lonely at work without her so we made it a point to get together more often during the week. Then there was a change in my life.  I became pregnant and had morning sickness that kept me from going to work. The older lady with the spectacles at the tip of her nose did not understand the needs of a pregnant woman!.  I quit my job and stayed home trying to stay busy.  I knew the day was coming soon when the Heralds would be returning to Indiana and Aileen would not be here for the birth of the baby. There was more to that statement than I could ever have imagined.  I gave birth to twins two months early.  My friend and her husband returned to Washington to see the babies after they came home from the hospital in March.  We made them "unofficial godparents."
The years rolled on and I had two more children and after several years of trying she and Elliot had two sons.  We developed a tradition of visiting them every Thanksgiving--that meant the old West Virginia Turnpike! A snow storm coming or going or both.  Now, is that not proof of a true friendship?
In 1969 a few days after returning from the Indiana Thanksgiving trip we received a call early one morning.  A nurse in a hospital in Louisville told  us our dear friend, Elliott, had passed away from burns received in an accident at work.  Aileen needed us and to please come as soon as possible.
This blog is getting too long and I will close by saying , there were long periods of time we were not in touch but whenever we were it was just like we talked yesterday.  Many stressful and emotional events have taken place since that day in 1969.  There have been divorces, remarriages, serious illnesses, grandchildren, and deaths of parents, great grandchildren  But nothing has weakened the friendship that was forged one day in May, 1958.  I'm praying for your healing, my friend.  Darlene

WRITING A MEMOIR IS HARD WORK!

Before I start this post I want to talk about a memory jogger I left out of the last  one.  Some people believe that the best memory reminder is one of the five senses--the sense of smell. You're probably thinking, "no way."  But try it and you will agree an aroma from your past will conjure up memories.  If I think of my elementary school I smell the oil on the old, worn wooden floors and the cooking odors which clung to the ceiling of the basement.  The basement--lots of activities went on down there--first and second grade class rooms, the cafeteria, the clothes closet, the custodians' niche beside the furnace.  It was the place where we had cake walks and where once a week government issued foods were given  out because we lived in a depressed area of the Appalachian Mountains. There was the special place in the far end of the cafeteria where I had my little second grade remedial reading class when I was in the sixth  grade.  See what mentioning an scent in my elementary school brought about!

"WHEN YOU SET DOWN A TRUTH ABOUT THE PAST A NEW FUTURE DAWNS" (Shimmering Images" by Lisa Dale Norton, ISBN 6312382928, Macmillan, 2008 )  That is a strong statement.  But I believe it. I also, believe that writing a good memoir takes work.  The author of "Shimmering Images" states, "Writing about your life is hard work.  It requires you to be emotionally truthful and truthful tales of the inner life are hard to get out, a little like digging embedded slivers from the soft part of your hand,"

Students have come into my classes with no clue how to begin to set down their memoirs.  i remind them that you came to class and hopefully together we'll figure it out.  The first thing they have to realize is that most of us want to write about too many memories in our first try. Lesson one--"Put Your Memories On a Diet."  Here's a small example of how to do that:

List you have made of things you would like to write about;

1. My birth on Christmas Day.
2. Growing up in the forty's
3. My first baseball game.
4. My little sister's talent.
5.. My first camera.
6. Crosscountry camping trip
7. Catching my first fish on the crosscountry trip.
8. My first car.
9. My first day at school.

Take a look at your list and choose topics that could be put together.
 How about the crosscountry trip, add catching my first fish, and surely you took pictures with your camera on that trip. It could be that your sister's special talent was used.

Now you have something to build the frame work.  If you cannot come up with enough details to fill in a section of the story, ask someone who was there on the trip, a parent , perhaps.  This memoir you are constructing is about one major incident--a crosscountry trip.  It is just one slice of the pie.

In the next post we will talk about how to add flavor to the pie so your readers will ask for more!

Comments are invited. 

HINTS ON STARTING TO WRITE YOUR MEMOIR

If you keep a journal you are ahead of the game.  People keep journals for many reasons.  Some are simple, recording daily activities, others may be to release  stress and/or as therapy.  The only time I have kept one is on a trip. I found it helpful when putting together scrapbooks and albums.  Even if you don't journal everyday you will find that just writing a few times a week  will serve as a good memory jogger when beginning to think of memoir topics.  Last year I had a student in one of my memoir classes who had kept a journal for thirty years!  I asked him if they were problems to store.  He chuckled and said that he would always find a  place for them.

Everyone has lots of memories stored but how do you get them out and onto paper?  The following ideas have worked for many writers:

1. Bring out the old photographs.  You may have to ask older family members who they are and something about their lives..
2. Brainstorm---let your thoughts flow to the paper without punctuation or thinking about grammar or spelling.
3. Collect family stories.
4. Visit the neighborhood where you grew up or if that is not possible--sketch it, putting in as many details as possible.
5. Open an old trunk or box that contains objects from days gone by such as a baseball mitt or old letters.

I'll see you back next time with suggestions on how to find a theme in your memoir.

Comments are welcome.

EVERYONE HAS A STORY

Have you listened to a friend or relative tell a story of an event in his(her) past and you said, "you should definitely get that written down and published?" The majority of the time the response is," Me? I can't write and i wouldn't know where to start."  And  my answer,  anyone can write their memoirs with a little guidance.

First, we must define the difference between a memoir and an autobiography:

A memoir could be written at any age--ten year olds have lots of stories to tell.
  Example--a slice of one's life--the first time time I played baseball.

An autobiography is almost always a chronological--from birth to the present-account of a person's life.
  Example--I was born January 1, 1955, in Roanoke, Virginia, the fifth son of...............and so on.

There are some books published which are combinations of memoirs and autobiographies. They make for more interesting reading.

WRITING A MEMOIR:
1. Look at your life as a pie.  To begin you will take only a sliver.  You have to put your life on a diet!  There are too many things to write about.
2. Choose one topic.
3. Find a quiet , comfortable place to think and write.
4. Write without attention to form, spelling and punctuation.  Let your thoughts flow freely.
5. Go back through your writing, editing and correcting.
6. Do this several times until you are satisfied.
7. Now you have written a memoir!.

FIFTY CENTS WILL GET YOU HOME BY DARLENE EICHLER

The mountain village of Belspring was about seven miles from a town of any size. Since that was too far to walk, we sometimes had to be creative in our means of transportation, unless you happened to be a boy and you were allowed to 'thumb' a ride into town.  It was unusual for a family to have more than one car and the majority of the time the breadwinner of the family used that one.
There was a time when a bus ran between Belspring and Radford on Saturdays.  The fare was fifty cents.  Most of the teen-agers could afford the fare one way but not both.  As luck would have it most of the parents went to town on Saturday mornings to shop for  groceries and to take care of banking business.  This meant that the children could ride over with there someones parents and come home on the bus late in the evening. There was usually enough money for a movie and some snacks.  And fifty cents for the fare home.
Of course the time spent in  town and at the movies was great fun but we looked forward to that slow ride home in the lumbering old bus.  It was  time to talk about the activities of the day.  Critique of the movie brought some heated discussion at times.  There was always at least one comedian on the bus and we laughed until the bus driver would tell us to 'keep it down.'  And there were the 'love birds.'  The back of the bus was known as the place for flirting and stolen kisses.
Now just in case you think there was a lot of hanky panky going on you would be wrong. There were chaperons that saw to it that we behaved as good children should.  That didn't mean someone couldn't put his arm around you or once in a great while, steal a kiss. I look back now and wonder if those few adults who went along with us really enjoyed being with us.  I never head them complain.
Parents today could not give their children the  freedom we enjoyed.  i never heard of anyone being molested or approached to buy drugs or encouraged to drink alcohol on the bus.  We grew up in a time when our doors could stay open on hot summer nights--only the screen door was latched.  We could spend Saturday in town going from store to store--meeting and talking to friend on the street, and sitting through the movies at least two time.  We knew at the end of the day we could get on that bus, pay our fifty cents and look forward to honing our social skills on the trip home.  Or maybe just take a nap.