We’ve been writing a lot about family lately, which is certainly a subject worthy of exploration, but lest we find ourselves stuck in a rut, I’m going to prompt you this month into a new direction.

I remember my first job.  While still in high school, I talked my way into a weekend slot at a car wash, back when minimum wage was close to one dollar.  This was one of those car washes where the driver exited the car before it was pulled through a tunnel by a chain, and then the driver, and whatever happy kids came along, could watch through a long glass window as the car travelled down the line.  The car was washed, wiped, buffed, sprayed, scrubbed, bristled, and blow-dried, mainly by machine, but a few rough-edged older men stayed inside the tunnel and did some of the more difficult hand-work themselves.

When the cars came out of the tunnel, two guys with cotton towels finished drying the chassis, while another fellow jumped inside and cleaned the dashboard and inside window.  Then this final fellow held open the door and said to the driver, “Thank you for coming to Jim Taylor’s Car Wash.  Have a great day.”

Probably because I was the only worker with a respectable haircut and clean trousers, the owner put me in charge of the final step.

Much to my surprise and delight, however, every third customer or so would thrust some money into my hand as he entered the car.  Usually it was a shiny quarter.  Sometimes two.  At the end of the shift, I may have made an extra eight to ten bucks, and that seemed grand.  I must really open a door well, I thought to myself, riding my Schwinn back home.

A few weeks went by until the other workers caught on.  These were tips, and in all fairness, I should have been sharing them with everyone, especially the rough guys who did the hard work in back.  The owner fired me on the spot, once the guys complained, which was probably the only reason I didn’t get the living daylights beaten out of me.

It all seems so stupid now, especially my never questioning why I was going home with my pockets sagging with quarters. Youth can be a powerful hallucinogen.

So, what was your very first job?

Here are a few prompts to get you started:

• What was your very first job, outside of your own home?  What frightened you most about this new environment, or what amused you?
  
  
• What was your earliest lesson about work and fairness?
  
  
• Did you ever get fired?

We’ve been writing a lot about family lately, which is certainly a subject worthy of exploration, but lest we find ourselves stuck in a rut, I’m going to prompt you this month into a new direction.

I remember my first job.  While still in high school, I talked my way into a weekend slot at a car wash, back when minimum wage was close to one dollar.  This was one of those car washes where the driver exited the car before it was pulled through a tunnel by a chain, and then the driver, and whatever happy kids came along, could watch through a long glass window as the car travelled down the line.  The car was washed, wiped, buffed, sprayed, scrubbed, bristled, and blow-dried, mainly by machine, but a few rough-edged older men stayed inside the tunnel and did some of the more difficult hand-work themselves.

When the cars came out of the tunnel, two guys with cotton towels finished drying the chassis, while another fellow jumped inside and cleaned the dashboard and inside window.  Then this final fellow held open the door and said to the driver, “Thank you for coming to Jim Taylor’s Car Wash.  Have a great day.”

Probably because I was the only worker with a respectable haircut and clean trousers, the owner put me in charge of the final step.

Much to my surprise and delight, however, every third customer or so would thrust some money into my hand as he entered the car.  Usually it was a shiny quarter.  Sometimes two.  At the end of the shift, I may have made an extra eight to ten bucks, and that seemed grand.  I must really open a door well, I thought to myself, riding my Schwinn back home.

A few weeks went by until the other workers caught on.  These were tips, and in all fairness, I should have been sharing them with everyone, especially the rough guys who did the hard work in back.  The owner fired me on the spot, once the guys complained, which was probably the only reason I didn’t get the living daylights beaten out of me.

It all seems so stupid now, especially my never questioning why I was going home with my pockets sagging with quarters. Youth can be a powerful hallucinogen.

So, what was your very first job?

Here are a few prompts to get you started:

• What was your very first job, outside of your own home?  What frightened you most about this new environment, or what amused you?
  
  
• What was your earliest lesson about work and fairness?
  
  
• Did you ever get fired?

When I was about 4 years old my life was saved my the family cat.

A little background for this story will put it into a better perstective.

We lived in South Western Montana, which is where I grew up and this story takes place.

My father loved cats and dogs. My mother loved dogs and tolerated cats. I was an adoptive infant and my parents were the best people I've ever known.

When I arrived, the family already had a dog, an English Cocker Spainiel named Mr. Brown, and a cat who's name I don't recall.

I was about a month old when Mom put me in my bassinette and took it out to the clothsline so I could get some summer breeze and sun. As she was hanging up the laundry, the cat, a large male belonging to my Dad, jumped into the bassinette, put both front paws on each side of my face and scratched me deeply and drawing blood.

When Mom heard my screams she grabbed the cat and threw it about 10 yards against a Douglas fir tree in our yard. This stunned the cat and while he was shaking off the impact Mom got the 12 gage shotgun that was kept hung over the back door and let the cat have both barrels.

When Dad came home from work, he was told what "his" cat had done and where it was so he could clean up the mess.

Poor Dad, he had to greive the cat and bear Mom's wrath for the next few weeks.

Living in the mountains of Montana in the 50s was hard, and there were lots of vermin about. Chipmunks, squirrels, pack rats, skunks, etc., so a cat is almost a necessity to help keep these vermin out of the house.

After I turned 4 Dad was allowed to have an "outside" cat. Of course this was only temporary. I haden't sufferd the trauma Mom and Dad had, and didn't really remeber the scratching incident. I loved the kitty and chased it though the house and it allowed me to maul it as children will. It always escaped when I got too rough and then came back for more.

My great-uncle Jim came to live with us around this time and became my de-facto baby sitter when Mom was busy helping Dad build a garage on the weekends.

This particular Saturday, Uncle Jim was thinning brush by the creek that borded the property. It was a large creek, 3-4 feet deep in the center and I loved the water so I asked if I could come and watch Uncle Jim work.

Mom asked Uncle Jim, and he said fine, so off we went to the creek which was approxomatly 100 yard from the house. No one noticed the cat was following at a discreet distance.

Uncle Jim worked for a couple of hours and then went to the house for lunch, forgetting I was with him because I'd wandered up the creek looking for frogs, bug, etc.and the brush was taller than I.

As soon as Uncle Jim came in, Mom asked where I was and then the panic set in. Mom, Dad and Uncle Jim headed for the creek, spread out for the best chance of finding me.

They found me following the cat up a game trail headed back to the house. The cat would run a few feet, stop and call to me, and as soon as I almost caught him, he'd run a little further and call again. The cat was leading me home and away from danger.

Mom cried and Dad was happy that I was ok and "his cat" had saved the day. Mom even forgot that she disliked cats and accepted it into the family.

Uncle Jim was pretty fond of that cat from then on too. Mom had forgiven him as soon as I was safe and sound.

I don't rememeber the cats name, but I do remember him being a great hunter, bringing lots of chipmunks and mice an leaving them by the back door for our approval.

We moved into town about a year later and left the cat with the house and new owners who promised to take good care of him. They appreciated the necessity of having a good mouser in a rural setting.

I still love cats and dogs as did Mom, Dad, and Uncle Jim till the end of their days.

 The title above is actually the title of my recently published memoir which took a number of years and lots of fortitude to complete. Reviewing one's life is a daunting task, but nuch is gained in the process. For one thing; i have never given myself credit for what I managed to achieve against all odds.  Furthermore, as I read the completed manuscript I discovered that one important career related victoriy was left behind. Never the less,' mission accomplished" has never been sweeter.

  English being my second language, my manuscript required some serious editing to meet  quality literary requirements. This  came as a surprise to some who know me to speak rather well. Writing however is more demanding as I found  while I struggled to express my thoughts with written words, The benefits of derived from my time and emotional investment are tow-fold; I managed to heal some old wounds and leave the past where it belongs while i managed to seriously  improve  my  writing skill.

As  much as the book is about my life, it is not merely about me. It is also about people who crossed my path in and out of situations; some of which is out of our control

 Published by Wheatmark, the book can be found on Amazon and Barns and Noble on the internet.    

This is my fourth time offering a prompt to the AARP Writing Memoir group and I want to say first what a positive experience it has been for me, and how much I have enjoyed the various memories and stories that have been posted here.  So many of you have made use of crisp description, vivid sensory details such as touch and taste, and other aspects of memoir writing that turn a private memory into something that can be felt, experienced, and appreciated by readers who were not there.  Well done.

I have noticed, however, that very few of us have been using dialogue in our memoir pieces, so this month, that will be my focus.  Dialogue is tricky, of course, when writing about something that happened three years ago, thirty years ago, or fifty years ago.  Unless you were one of those strange little kids who lurked behind the sofa with a tape recorder, you can’t ever be sure that you have every word correct.  In fact, you can be fairly sure that you don’t have every word correct.  Memory is not a magnetic hard drive.

Still, the sound of a human voice is one of the most important sensory details we have, so memoir writers constantly struggle to include it.  Likely you cannot remember full conversations word-for-word, but there are phrases your mother or grandmother always used, and you likely remember them.  Or excuses your little brother repeated over and over.  Or toasts, jokes, songs, stories that were repeated often enough around the table that you do have a fairly firm memory.

For instance, I remember Christmas mornings when my mother would jump up halfway through the opening of gifts and proclaim, “Oh my goodness, Santa left something else.  He told me to hide it.”  My older sisters and I would laugh as we heard her dig through the linen closet upstairs for a present she had forgotten to place under the tree, because by then we knew who Santa really was.  Moments later, Mom would shuffle down the steps, a present or two in hand, claiming, “He dropped this off a few days early so his sleigh wouldn’t be quite so full.”

I remember too the night my father’s drinking buddy Jimmy showed up in a red suit and beard, and the big fuss over “Santa” coming right to our house, in person.  I sat on his lap and asked for gifts, smelled cigars and whiskey on his breath, and then my Dad said, “Does Santa need some coffee?”  The white-bearded man answered, “Boy, Bud, I sure do,” and the adults retreated to the kitchen.  I peeked through the doorway just long enough to see a brown liquid going into three coffee cups, but the liquid wasn’t dark like coffee, and no one had boiled water.  I distinctly remember my mother’s voice asking, “Do you think Dinty believed it?,” which marks the beginning of my figuring the whole thing out.

What voices, conversations, repeated phrases, mark your childhood or earlier memories?  Your job is to do your best to remember these conversations correctly: but, relax, you are not swearing an affidavit before the Supreme Court.  Your memories needn’t deal with Christmas, Hanukkah, or any of the other December holidays, but it is the season, isn’t it?

Here are a few prompts to get you started, but feel free to improvise:

• What words did your mother, father, older sister, grandmother, or other loved one use to soothe you down when you were sad, angry, or upset as a child? Were these words unique to the situation, or a mantra of sorts, used on many occasions?  Where would you be sitting when these words were spoken?  What do you remember about the face of the person speaking these words?
  
  
• Is there something that was said each and every year by your mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather at the head of the table on holidays or large family gatherings, just before you ate?  What was it?  What other memories do you associate with those words?|
  
  
• Was there some phrase of wisdom or advice one of your parents would speak to you often that you suspected then or suspect now that they probably learned from their parents, something maybe passed down over one or more generations?  Do you find yourself repeating it now, to your grandchildren, or to yourself?

I’m sure all of us have childhood memories related to food. It is often the smells emanating from our grandmothers’ kitchens that define us as a family, whether it be the sweet aroma of tomato sauce or the pungency of boiling cabbage.

Many of us of AARP age, however, grew up just as convenience foods started to take over more and more of the pantry, and food that came from cans, jars, and packages can be just as evocative as Old World family recipes.

I still recall my first experience with a TV dinner and the searing puff of steam that arose when peeling back the foil cover. I’m not sure the turkey and mashed potatoes had much flavor, but back then – before the microwave – it seemed absolutely miraculous.

Many of my childhood food memories revolve around specific brand names. For instance, the strict use of Hellman’s mayonnaise in our house seemed almost as important as what church we attended. It would have been blasphemy to suggest using Miracle Whip.

And with Thanksgiving coming up, what’s your take on canned cranberry sauce? Martha Stewart probably wouldn’t approve, but for many of us, the quivering tube of burgundy jelly is as necessary as the turkey and stuffing.

Most “write about your childhood food” prompts focus on special family recipes and long holiday mornings in the kitchen, but for once let’s focus on the quick and easy foods our parents and grandparents used as shortcuts.

Here are two prompts. See where they lead:

• What were some of the packaged food peculiarities in your family? Were there certain brand names you always used, or peculiar convenience foods that seemed wonderful back then and just plain odd when you think about them now? How old were you when you realized vegetables didn’t have to be limp and tasteless?
   
• Write about a time you visited your Aunt Dora in New Jersey or stayed for dinner with the family down the street and found yourself baffled by someone else’s food choices. We tend as children to imagine that our family habits are “normal,” until we get out in the world and see just how different every family can be. What surprised you at someone else’s table?

I’m sure all of us have childhood memories related to food. It is often the smells emanating from our grandmothers’ kitchens that define us as a family, whether it be the sweet aroma of tomato sauce or the pungency of boiling cabbage.

Many of us of AARP age, however, grew up just as convenience foods started to take over more and more of the pantry, and food that came from cans, jars, and packages can be just as evocative as Old World family recipes.

I still recall my first experience with a TV dinner and the searing puff of steam that arose when peeling back the foil cover. I’m not sure the turkey and mashed potatoes had much flavor, but back then – before the microwave – it seemed absolutely miraculous.

Many of my childhood food memories revolve around specific brand names. For instance, the strict use of Hellman’s mayonnaise in our house seemed almost as important as what church we attended. It would have been blasphemy to suggest using Miracle Whip.

And with Thanksgiving coming up, what’s your take on canned cranberry sauce? Martha Stewart probably wouldn’t approve, but for many of us, the quivering tube of burgundy jelly is as necessary as the turkey and stuffing.

Most “write about your childhood food” prompts focus on special family recipes and long holiday mornings in the kitchen, but for once let’s focus on the quick and easy foods our parents and grandparents used as shortcuts.

Here are two prompts. See where they lead:

• What were some of the packaged food peculiarities in your family? Were there certain brand names you always used, or peculiar convenience foods that seemed wonderful back then and just plain odd when you think about them now? How old were you when you realized vegetables didn’t have to be limp and tasteless?
   
• Write about a time you visited your Aunt Dora in New Jersey or stayed for dinner with the family down the street and found yourself baffled by someone else’s food choices. We tend as children to imagine that our family habits are “normal,” until we get out in the world and see just how different every family can be. What surprised you at someone else’s table?

I wrote this on my website last month while my mother was visiting us in Greece...

Mothers and Daughters

We have a history. When your mother is 83 and you are 60, we're talking a lot of years over the dam. The funny thing about our relationship is that somewhere along the lifeline it sort of froze in time.

For my mother I will always be 16.

The stories she remembers are when I was a baby and my dad and me and mom were a perfect post war family, even though she didn't speak much English. She'd met my father during the War, and they married in Belgium while he was affiliated with the Embassy. (he was a regular "joe" during the war, but was recovering from his wounds when he met her)

The world was full of hope and, after a couple of miscarriages, a child was born! I was that perfect child.

[mom and dad and precious in the middle]

When I was five, she decided to go "home" to Belgium to introduce the family to her perfect child (and said perfect child was towed along!) while my dad stayed back in the States to wait for our return.

Back in 1955, travel was via the big Ships: we traveled on the SS Sumeria. When we arrived in Brussels, it was to discover with great sadness that her father (my grandfather) had been blinded in an explosion from a still armed WW2 bomb in the train yard where he was chief of scheduling. He'd almost died but as she was pregnant with me, at the time of the accident, her family was afraid to tell her so she wouldn't lose the baby.

[me, my mom and my grandfather walking in downtown Brussels ==> note the extreme pigeon-toed stride- I have yet to abandon completely!]

Then in what can only be described as oddly typical in my family, they forgot to tell her after I was born! This meant that when we arrived, she was confronted with the new and had no time to process it or grieve! (Meanwhile of course everyone else had had plenty of time as were a little disconcerted over her reaction!)

My memories at five were similar to being tossed about in an emotional blanket. But I remember that I learned to speak French!

In 1959 my father died. Great sadness- and for my young mother, a yearning for family.

Again with the ship: this time the SS Atlantic. My memories of making it through the grieving is mixed through the veils of two cultures. It was a strange experience (with many good memories- of course, some not so good.)

[<== still toe-ing in with the feet!]

Shortly after we arrived in Belgium, the SS Atlantic was purchased by Princess Cruise lines and we had no ship to travel home on! My first airplane flight!

A great memory... but of course it still didn't make up for losing my dad.

When we returned to the U.S.A. my mother had to work. She became a successful Interior Designer, but the cost was time.

I was fortunate that she took care to give me a great education, in an all girls convent school with great nuns to teach me and a school of great companions to live with during the school year (I was lucky to be able to go home every weekend!), and in the summer, I would go to my grandparents in Belgium during my school - 3 month- long vacation. In Belgium, I had my grandparents, my great aunts and great uncles - and my mother's sister, my aunt and her husband, my uncle as well as my only slightly older guy cousin, to spend the summer with.

I became independent in many ways, (I traveled to Europe alone!) but dependent too (European mores didn't give young ladies too much freedom even in the 60's!). Fortunately my cousin was male and we could get away with more things together than either one of us could do on our own!

Meanwhile, my mother often treated me like a sister through my teen years, but then- of course- she'd pull rank (as parents do...)

ah we both have many memories of the sixties!

[can you tell my mother is terrified of heights?? ah the things she'd do if I "dared" her...]

Often on my weekends off she'd have to work and we'd combine a mini-holiday when her "job" had finished.

These years to my mother were profoundly memorable, though for me it was so much more about what was going on outside our lives together. For her, each moment we spent together became a book of memories, shelved with all the others... our history in stone.

We are currently - as we do each time we're together- now reliving all those memories of time and place.

Not too much to do with Villa Methavrio or Greece... but Oh well!

My parents never had a happy marriage, or at least not during the years that I was old enough to understand and form impressions of the world around me.  Certainly they must have been happy when they first fell in love, or when they moved to a beachfront trailer park in Hollywood, Florida, to await the birth of their first child, my older sister Susan.  But I was the third baby, and by the time I came along, the family trouble was deep.

When my mother finally left my father, I was age ten, and she pulled me out of school and told me of the separation after the fact.  In the five short hours since I had slouched at the kitchen table that morning to wolf down cornflakes and milk, a moving van had arrived, cleared the house of nearly everything, and my mother, my sisters, and I were in  a new home, new lives, utterly altered circumstances.  Mom knew what was coming, of course, had planned it for months, but I had absolutely no forewarning.  

Neither, it turned out, did my father.

I can’t write the memory of how my father reacted when he came home that evening to an essentially empty house, because I was not there.  But I can still write memoir around this incident, including my father’s possible reactions, by using simple phrases such as “I don’t know for sure, but I imagine …” or “My guess is that my father …”  What I envision says as much about me, perhaps, as it does about my Dad.

Likewise, I can’t write about the time when my parents fell in love, or moved to Florida, because I was not yet born to have such memories.  But I can again imagine, speculate, conjecture, and as long as I am honest with the reader, what I am writing is truly nonfiction.

Here are two exercises that use memories that you do not have clear in your mind to shape a piece of memoir: 

• Start a short memory essay with the words, “Even now I question whether I am remembering this correctly …”
  

• Write about a time your parents went into another room to talk, and you couldn’t hear what they were saying, but let us know what you as a child imagined was occurring behind those closed doors.  Or write about a time that your mother left for a weekend, and you had no idea where she went, and no one seemed to speak about it.  Or visit some similar mystery from your past, maybe an innocent enough mystery, but one that seemed significant at the time.  (And yes, this can be a happy memory, if perhaps the mystery revolved around a special birthday present or a new baby sister.)