Even though they all have the latest I-Pads and Kindle Fires, the kids love coming over to grandpa's house because I have all the cool old board and card games. Giggles and laughter ring out when they gather around the dining room table with the game of Life set up. Or the sound of dice rattling across the table fills the air when Yahtzee is in play. It only gets quiet when the cake and ice cream is handed out.
It seems lately that whenever the family gets together, the same question always comes up. "Grandpa, when are you going to write your life's story?" OK, I give! Although I never really considered my life to be very interesting, being a Baby-Boomer had me growing up during some interesting times.
The question is, where do I start? Should I go back to the little boy living in an abandoned chicken coup in the deep south where returning GI's with a Nazi war bride were treated worse than blacks? Or maybe I should jump forward as a young teenage boy trying to find his identity while watching his mother die of cancer, and believing for some reason that it's his fault. Then there is always Vietnam.
I wonder sometimes how many folks would actually believe any of these stories who hadn't actually experienced it for themselves? I doubt I'll ever share these publicly, but at the rate my memory is fading, maybe the kids are right and I need to put my life down on paper.
Thanks for reading.
I think that I would start probably with a chronological rendering of your life. That's what I did and I got six chapters. I started off with the earliest recollection that I could come up with which surprisingly put me in about 2 years old. Then I think probably has things come to you that need expanding or could be rendered into an interesting tale of some sort that you can then you take another Avenue. I mean after all it is your story so you can tell it any fashion that you want. In any case I can relate, you and I have similar backgrounds we were the same rating in the Navy we serve during the same time periods with Vietnam and so I think that we probably have a lot of the same shared experiences in different places at different times that overlap. So it's definitely time to get started. The reason for that is that sometimes we want to go to some of our relatives that are still living to fill in some of the gaps. Some of the things that I remember being one way my sister doesn't remember being that way so I'm not sure who's really at fault her memory or mine. I really do think that my sister's remembrance is probably better than mine however that said I think that my remembrance is probably more interesting. So good luck and write away.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments and suggestions, Jerry. Right now I'm just struggling with writing anything at all. But I keep believing that, "This too shall pass."
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