Writing About Something From Your Past

Marilyn was just back from Australia, it had been a miserable, headline day for traffic tie-ups in town, I’d not slept well the night before, and I still didn’t feel very well. Even after a good night’s sleep, with the comforting sound of rain on the roof to help make it a good night’s sleep, I was still tired, grouchy, and badly in need of a nap. So, yesterday, I largely spent in my living room lounge chair, tilted back, asleep. When I was awake, I filled a yellow pad with pages of notes about a place where I had lived some fifty years ago. Write about something I know. I drew a little map of the town of my childhood to help jog the old fossilized memory cells. I made a few very brief notes.

For purposes of illustration, I insert here the exact words of my notes: Mrs. Robertson-soap & gardening; Dawg & Dewhit; Happy girls and the sailor; basketball hoop & backboard; Edwin Kenworthy; Tornados; Dad & the furnace. Here are the words I inserted on the map: home, honey locust trees, Chandler’s Garage, Robertson’s, Happy Family, Van Skykes’s & root cellar- retired RR worker, Post Office, disk plow& kites, Neer’s Store, Holy Rollers, Sparks, RR town/crew change, Chandler’s, maple tree, cellar in yard, Methodist, mulberry tree, Bingo, black walnut trees, croquet fields, garage & gas.

From these notes, not all of which have been used as yet, I have created thirty-one pages of handwritten notes, single spaced, on one side of pages in a yellow note pad 8.5 X 11. Experience tells me that about two of such pages, when typed, with any additions that memory will add as I type, will generate between 1,000 to 1,400 words. In the lists above the underlined words are those which I have yet to even mention in my notes, much less tell any story about them. Edwin Kenworthy, I have mentioned in one story.

There are other stories about Ed that would make great entertainment. Like the time Ed started to raise rabbits, and things kind of got out of hand.

My point is here that everyone has many stories to tell. One thing leads to another. Just this moment, I was reminded of my childhood efforts as a nimrod and my adventures in the river bottoms of central Oklahoma hunting rabbits. Seeing the words mulberry tree reminded me of the huge Bartlett pear tree that grew in the front yard of one of our playmates. The playmate’s name I don’t remember, the tree I do, and the yellow jacket wasps that shared that tree with us when the fruit was ripe.

Yesterday could have been an entirely wasted day. I did spend much of it asleep. But when I was awake, I was busy. I was working as a writer. I was thinking. I was writing. I was creating from nothing, simple memories, something of value. Now I know that I will spend thirty to forty hours bringing my notes to life. Getting them applied to the narrow confines of the fighting arena of an 8 X 11 page of white paper.

And, of course, there are all those other unused words above to also bring to life.

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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