BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

As some of you know teaching memoir writing is one of my passions in life.  Everywhere I go I see a potential for incorporating a new idea into my class. Sometimes it is just a new twist on an old idea. Just a few weeks ago I was in Southport, North Carolina n a wonderful gift  shop.  I started browsing among some books written by local authors.  Soon a lady walked over and introduced herself as a writer. One of her books piqued my interest after she told me it was a memoir.  She said that she had fourteen friends from childhood who kept in touch and had reunions over about fifty years. Eleven out of the fourteen contributed something to her memoir.  Here was another way to construct one's memoir.

 I was in the right place at the right time.

This past week-end we went to Bedford, Virginia for a family celebration.  I'm a long distance member of the Bedford Museum and have wanted to tour it for a long time. The Director was not there that morning but several nice staff members guided us to the special displays. After we finished the self guided tour we went to the gift shop.  The two women who had seemed to be going at the same pace as we were had arrived a few seconds ahead of us. The attendant began showing me books she thought I might be of interest to me.  One was a beautiful book of paintings done along with a memoir. Another aid for my teaching!

 The right place at the right time!

Then she said, "this lady did the book." It was one of the ladies we seemed to be following. We began to talk about writing in general and her book in particular.  I bought a copy and she bought one of Trunk Tales.  Both books are set in Bedford County.

 It was the right place at the right time.

On Saturday morning we headed to the family cemetery after stopping for some flowers. As we arrived and parked behind the church, a man came out the back door. He was cordial and walked over to ask if he could help.  We told him we were visiting and I was reminiscing about spending my summers in that area and attending the Church beginning as an infant. Soon it became known that he is the pastor of the Church. One thing led to another and he realized that he knew my sister and brother-in-law who run a bed and breakfast in town. He has two young grandchildren.  He was delighted to get a signed "Where's the Kitty" book?

 Another right place at the right time!

It seems to happen more often now.  Could it have anything to do with being a senior citizen?  It's possible.

MY HOMEPLACE-THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME.

A TREASURE FROM THE TRUNK

Some years ago I wrote a memoir titled, "Trunk Tales." It was to be a Christmas gift for my children and grandchildren. Just that simple.  I had no idea at would become my best seller.

Here is a quote from the back of the book cover:

"Trunk Tales " is a collection of stories brought to mind by memorabilia found in an old trunk left unopened for over fifty years.  The photographs of family members long gone, receipts for crops, tax bills and the original deed to the old home place brought back memories that need to be preserved for future generations.  The basic facts are true with some embellishment for the readers' interest.  It is with pride and pleasure I share these treasures from the trunk.

There were some treasures that I had forgotten about until my sister presented them in a recent visit. They were quilt squares "pieced" (sewn) by hand many years ago.  Some were in surprisingly bright colors for that time, others in floral prints, on very thin fabric.  There were no two alike.  I suspect that is why they were never made into a quilt top.

My sister, who lives in Southern Maryland, had no trouble finding an Amish lady who knew fabric and threads well.  She studied each piece handling them a if they were made of the finest , the most delicate gossamer fabric.  She was fascinated and determined that they were from the mid 1800s. Looking back in our genealogy charts we have decided that our great-great grandmother Mildred Turner was the one who stitched the majority of them.  The stitching was the same on the majority of squares.  The stitches improved the more she put together.  I can imagine her sitting close to the fire on a winter's evening sewing by the light of a kerosene lamp.  Summer evenings were too busy with farm chores to take time piecing quilt squares.

As an added fact of interest, the thin fabric is why women wore petticoats.

The Truth and Only the Truth, In Memoir Writing?

I'm in the middle of revising lesson plans for memoir class.  I continue to find new titles about teaching how to write memoir.  That "one-click" button on Amazon is so tempting.  Today I received two books and have been perusing them this evening. One,"Inventing the Truth" by William Zinsser, Houghton Mifflin, 1998, is his first book on memoir writing to which he refers quite often, The second, is a compilation of well known memoirists and their writings. I was not surprised to see Frank McCourt and Russell Baker included among them. I have cited them often in talking about writing the truth in memoir.  The author, Judith Barrington, ("Writing the Memoir" The Eighth Mountain Press, ISBN0-933377-50-9), 2002), has a little different slant in writing what she determines as the truth. Sometimes it is difficult to know the truth when research has conflicting dates and other data that does not line up with the story.  She cites another writer, Mary Clearman Blew, : "For my part, I struggled for a long time with conflicting claims of  the exact truth of the story and its emotional truth as I perceived it."
     Blew believes that both factual and emotional truth are important but sometimes the two are not the same.Too much research, for her,may prove the story you have carried around in your head for years, is confusing and could not be true due to conflicting data.  She goes on to say that until recently she did not do research--she went with the memoir she had carried around in her memory.
     She gives those memoirists who are like her and detest research some advise; do your research in matters that are public record.  Have historical events in the right time period, names and places correct. A writer will save themselves embarrassment when they are meticulous about facts.  She goes on to say that public records side, try not to worry about someone not remembering the story just as you do.(I've written about this in an earlier post.)  "Memory is such a personal thing. and it is always revising itself."
     In the past writers of memoir shied way from writing about harsh and shameful realities. ("Inventing the Truth" by William Zinsser, Houghton Mifflin, 1998). " Today no remembered episode is too sordid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the wonderment of the masses in books and magazines and on talk shows"(Inventing the Truth).
     There are many good memoir writers today.  Zinsser often cites Frank McCourt.as one who used" grace and humor to beat back the past." .   "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood; the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.  Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood and one yet worse is the miserable, Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." ("Angela's Ashes " by Frank McCourt, Simon and Schuster, 1996, ISBN-9-684-87435-0).
     Katherine Bomer in her "Writing a Life," believe that the memoir writer owes the reader honesty..this does not mean the writer isn't allowed too embellish the facts to give he story interest.  The basic truth is there but just prefaced with "it could have been...or "I can;'t quite recall it that way."
.  I advise my students to be honest but temper your writing with kindness. Memoir is not the place to hash over old disputes.

 Thank you for taking the time to read this post.  Comments are welcomed.
    
    



















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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.