{"id":10637,"date":"2025-06-01T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10637"},"modified":"2025-06-02T18:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T18:26:15","slug":"june-2025-newsletter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10637","title":{"rendered":"June 2025 Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Memory Lane<\/h1>\n

It\u2019s time to get your story down on paper<\/h2>\n

By Dale Dauten<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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One of the joys of writing articles for Silveridge is getting to meet residents and getting them to talk about their lives. Those conversations often start with someone saying to me, \u201cOh, that would be a dull article,\u201d often adding,\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re just ordinary people.\u201d Well, as I learn and relearn \u2013 there\u2019s no such thing. Fate and chance make every life story suspenseful.<\/p>\n

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At the other extreme are the people who tell me, \u201cYou should write my life story! It would make a great book!\u201d Some people even offer to hire me to write a biography or ghost write an autobiography. Given that I have a list of my own writing projects to get to, I have to take a pass on such offers, but I decided it was time to put together some thoughts on how you might go about writing down your life story.<\/p>\n

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No, hold on. That sounds too daunting, to talk about \u201cyour life story.\u201d Writing is intimidating to most people, even to successful authors. (Sidney Sheldon: \u201cA blank piece of paper is God\u2019s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.\u201d) So let\u2019s just talk about getting a few memories down on paper \u2013 and when I say paper, I mean paper, computer page, audio or video file. Doing it is easy. Starting is hard.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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A walk down Memory Lane<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s begin with the image of \u201ca walk down Memory Lane.\u201d That\u2019s going to make the process easier. I was curious where that phrase originated and read that it was popularized by a song \u201cMemory Lane\u201d in 1924, although the first use was in the\u00a0Hamilton Literary Magazine\u00a0back in 1894, used to describe the main street of an old town: \u201cThro the centre of the town a quaint old street, paved with square blocks of various hues from a somber gray to a bright crimson, runs down to the sea. This is Memory Lane\u2014lonely and drear to some, pleasant and gay to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Why am I trying your patience with that story is that it suggests to me a nifty way to make the process of writing your memories come alive. Here\u2019s how I suggest you start:<\/p>\n

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Create a timeline of your life, your own Memory Lane. No need to throw in genealogy or a family tree just yet; rather, put down a line from your birth to today and start adding events in between: homes, moves, schools, marriages, jobs, birth\/deaths. That\u2019s Memory Lane.<\/p>\n

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But I wouldn\u2019t suggest you start your writing journey down that lane in a linear fashion. No, you just want to begin to collect short stories about your experiences. Look at your Lane and let your thinking be like movement on a Ouija Board — let it land on a spot and that\u2019s where you start. Then, let memories flow. This isn\u2019t a time for \u201cless is more\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s the editing part, for much later. Now you\u2019re just asking yourself questions about that point in time:<\/p>\n

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What did that place\/time look like?<\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019re remembering the house your parents moved you to as a teenager. Your might describe your teen bedroom like this:\u00a0\u201cIt was ugly, I suppose, with cheap imitation walnut paneling and no windows.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Okay, that\u2019s not terribly interesting, but you\u2019ve set the scene. Now you start to ask yourself about the place\u2026<\/p>\n

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What did it feel like?<\/p>\n

Who there mattered?<\/p>\n

What did I learn from that place and time?<\/p>\n

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And here you might let your mind and memories wander. Back to that teen bedroom as an example:<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt wasn\u2019t much, but it was my own room. It was private \u2013 at least if you didn\u2019t say anything. The walls were so thin I could hear everything my sister said in her room next door. I\u2019d hear her talking to her best friend, making fun of the boys who flirted with her, the same ones she\u2019d just been nice to on the phone. That made me suspicious of women and that may explain why I waited so long to start dating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now we\u2019re getting somewhere. That recollection will lead to others — in our example, the writer might then add a new entry on Memory Lane: the first date.\u00a0It won\u2019t be long until you have to redo your Memory Lane, expanding it. Soon you\u2019ll have a collection of memories.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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GROWING THE COLLECTION<\/h3>\n

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RECOLLECTING TOGETHER<\/h4>\n

Some of those memories will be important\u00a0shared moments.\u00a0If the other people involved were still around, you\u2019ve set yourself up for a meaningful conversation, going to the others and asking, \u201cWhat do you remember about\u2026?\u201d This might add context to your own reflections, or simply allow you to record a different version of events.<\/p>\n

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VISUALS<\/h4>\n

You can also start to add in photographs. These not only add a welcome visual element to the stories, but they will be an aid to memory.<\/p>\n

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OBJECTS<\/h4>\n

Another avenue into memories is through possessions \u2013 a car, a watch, a musical instrument, a piece of jewelry or art. Tell a story about these and they could help turn the objects into family heirlooms, perhaps ones with enormous sentimental value.<\/p>\n

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EXTERNALS<\/h4>\n

Connecting your life with historical events can give perspective to anyone who might read what you\u2019ve written. There are giant events like the moon landing, more localized ones like a flood or tornado, and also events like a real estate crash.<\/p>\n

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* * * *<\/p>\n

As you can see just by reading this far, you\u2019ll soon have a lot of memories for your Memory Lane.<\/p>\n

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THEN WHAT?<\/h4>\n

At some point, you\u2019ll turn to editing what you\u2019ve been putting down. As any professional writer knows, \u201cwriting is rewriting.\u201d Here a spell- and grammar-checker is helpful. But, more importantly, you\u2019ll want to tighten up some stories and add details to others. Some thoughts on creating a readable recollection:<\/p>\n

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Write for one person.\u00a0Even though you might share your memories with a number of people, it helps if you picture one or two people in your mind as you write. Write the story for, say, your daughter or your nephew. By picturing that person, you\u2019ll know what will make them laugh or cry or gasp. Your goal is always to share the feeling, not just the event.<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t try to write impressively.\u00a0If you\u2019re trying to impress readers with your vocabulary or complex sentences, you\u2019ll just take them out of the story. You want colorful language not polysyllabic words. Take that little example from earlier, about a teen bedroom \u2013 the longest word was \u201csuspicious\u201d and the example used first person (I\/me\/my) five times in a short paragraph. Keep things clear. If I ask a colleague to read a draft of something I\u2019ve written, I always say, \u201cPlease put a mark next to any sentence you had to\u00a0reread\u00a0to make sense of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It’s a garden, not a jungle.\u00a0As you\u2019re putting done memories, the more the better. But if you want to shape those stories into something others will gladly read, you\u2019ll probably need more pruning and less fertilizing \u2013 in other words, ya gotta cut. Here\u2019s where it helps to have a specific reader in mind (the one person you\u2019re picturing as you write that we described above). Picture yourself reading your text aloud to that person and you can imagine where their interest is waning. It may even happen that you start to bore yourself \u2013 that\u2019s a good thing because that\u2019s when you know you\u2019ve become objective about what you\u2019ve written and you are becoming skilled at pruning.<\/p>\n

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Time to share.\u00a0Finally, if you\u2019re ready to share what you\u2019ve written, you\u2019ll want to ask someone who is kind but honest to give you feedback. It\u2019s probably wise to start with just a story or two. They will, no doubt, be supportive and tell it\u2019s great. So you need to ask questions. Where did your mind wander? What parts did you have to read more than once to make sense of? Did it ever feel too slow? Too fast? Where did you have questions?<\/p>\n

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A \u201dMemory Lane\u201d Writers\u2019 Group?<\/p>\n

Even better than asking a friend for feedback would be to have a writers\u2019 group to share excerpts with. Perhaps we should start one. If you\u2019re interested in being part of a group at the park that is writing memories, let me know. We could start writing over the park\u2019s off-season and meet in person in the fall.<\/p>\n

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(Photos: the writer, Marcos Paulo Prado; street scene, Olivia Hutcherson)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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