memoir writers homework/nostalgia

As a memoir writer,I love all things having to do with nostalgia,because,really,where would we be without it.Nostalgia is one of those concepts that is going to send me looking for the dictionary as soon as I'm through with this write on demand exercise.Of course I have a good idea as to what it means.Its just the precision of the words meaning that seems to elude me.In my mind,it means to be homesick,not just for a place,but usually for a past time as well.It also carries the connotation of being perhaps overly sentimental and not as realistic about that time or place as you might otherwise be.

I believe it was Thomas Wolf,a writer from North Carolina who once said"you can never go home again",or words to that effect.I always wondered what exactly he meant by that,because,obviously,I could hop on a plane or into my car and arrive at the place where I grew up and called home in a matter of hours.Such a view is,I think,unique to those who are young and foolish and haven't put much thought into the ways of the world.Of course I could go home.The only thing is,home was not the same place and really had only taken very few years to change.I left home for a reason.It had a lot to do with economic reality,but also about the perception that people where I lived were mean spirited and I wanted to be away from them.Through the years I carried around a lot of my own,mostly unreasonable prejudices about Moncton.I suppose I though there was more excitement in the big city too.Most young people do.Then,after a few years,or maybe only months,nostalgia comes to call and I want to go home.To the home I thought I knew that is.But it's so very different.Not so many of the old friends still around.All the old hang outs are occupied by a younger crowd.I got to thinking I could live there again and it seemed like a great idea when I was living far away,but I get home,and it's wonderful for a few weeks,then I'm ready to leave again. I visit all my old friends and they become fewer and fewer all the time,not because they are passing,but because,like the place itself,they've changed,and so have I.I walk across the old covered bridge at Hartland,the worlds longest,stick my feet in that wonderful old stream I used to wade in when I was a pre -schooler and pick up a stone from it's bottom.That stone has worn a hole in my pocket now.That's nostalgia.

Home has changed too much.Maybe that's just the thoughts of an old man.There used to be a road that cut up through the heart of New Brunswick.It was the main road when I was growing up,and we would take it from our home to my grandparents place 200 miles away.You would travel through woods and meadows,up hills and along the river bottom below Fredricton,where huge trees grew in the river.But now that road is gone,replaced by a straight,wide road that cuts in a line from east to west.You can get there in much less time,but you never get to see any of the countryside.It's ruined my home.Nostalgia.

Walking up the street towards the old school,there is a little girl in pigtails.A very ordinary young lady.It makes me think,there really is only one thing in my home town that has not changed very much in all these many years.

memoir writers homework/security.

Security meant something very different when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's than it does today.Today we think about things that would  rarely,if ever,have crossed our minds back then.Security,when I was small meant that I had a home that had two parents and that I could trust that they had the best interests of my siblings and I in mind in everything they did.We had a home and food and a bed with warm blankets.When I share experiences with some of my friends it also seems to have meant that I had no worry for some of the things that befell them.For instance,a good friend of mine and her family became homeless when their father lost their home in a poker game.So far as I know,neither of my parents did anything that would put us in that kind of danger and for that I am grateful.

We played outside until dark even when I was very young and no one had any great worry.We were told not to talk to strangers,of course,but then,in my home town there seemed to be very few strangers about.Most of the people I met,I knew.Seldom,if ever did we lock our front doors.If some family member,or close friend came to visit while you were out at the store,especially if they were from out of town,you wanted them to be able to come in,make something to eat and wait for your return in comfort.It was the way in Atlantic Canada in those days.Never did we experience a break-in or robbery.Crime rates were very low.

Today,I still know people who leave their door open to welcome guests,though it's much more rare.In Toronto or Calgary there seems to be a preoccupation with home security.We never knew that in Moncton,for most of the time I was growing up.I suppose it's necessary in the larger cities.There came a time though,when I was in grades eight and nine,that our sense of security was severely tested.Just before Christmas in 1974,two policemen were killed in the line of duty.It had the whole town in a state of fear for a few days,but two suspects were quickly arrested,tried and initially sentenced to hang.They were among the last people ever to be sentenced to death in Canada,but their sentences were commuted.

Barely had that incident passed-in fact it was about six months later-when something else unheard of happened.A seven year old girl disappeared from in front of her house and was never seen again.I had a four year old sister.Everyone in town seemed to think that the world was going to Hell in a hand basket.Two sensational and very high profile crimes in less than a year was unheard of in that part of the country.Things were worse here than in Toronto,and there was beginning to be a bit of a blood lust for law breakers.It was a kind of loss of innocence for Moncton as a community.People talked of doing ugly things to anyone caught in the act of committing a crime,even a very small one.That,for me was the bigger loss of security because I began to see a very nasty side to some neighbours that I thought I knew.A thought crossed my mind:evil things happen because people lack or lose their civility.

When I visited home in 2006,I noticed how careful my sister was about locking the doors when she went out.I guess times had changed.Once too,there used to be whole swarms of children walking to the school I used to attend.But by then,the swarm had become a trickle.And not because there were fewer children.One morning ,I took a walk and noticed that a great many kids were being dropped off at the school house door by parents in SUVs.Unheard of in my day!

memoir writers homework/an accident.

Writers note:at memoir group,this entry and the one before it seem to have been undertaken in reverse order.Luck of the draw.But I've presented them here in this order for largely literary reasons which I hope will be obvious.Creative license.


There is really only one accident that comes to my mind these days.It was needless in the sense that my mother should never have been there.She loved her grandchildren,and didn't mind caring for them.But she didn't really need to be running halfway across the province of New Brunswick on a cold February day to pick them up for the week end.But she would never have said no.

It was only about ten minutes from home.A young man coming the other direction swerved into their lane and hit my mothers car head on.Both drivers died at the scene.It's said he may have fallen asleep as he was supposed to have had narcolepsy.At least thats the story my younger sister told.

My older sister recounted how she first heard about the accident when I visited for the funeral.She was sitting there watching the evening news,she said,and the accident flashed across the screen.Of course,you couldn't see it well.You never can see such thing clearly.She told me,she watched and said to herself"I'm so happy that my parents aren't out on a night like this.A few moments later,the police called.They'd called my other sister in Fredricton too and she had driven all the way back to Moncton.As she approached the accident scene she was detoured,and she must have known how bad things were.

Neither of my sisters knew how to reach me in Calgary as I had recently moved.My mother had the address written in an address book,but of course it was with her in the car.On Sunday morning two police officers came to my door.They had the look of soldiers coming to the door and I wasn't instantly aware of why I thought they looked like that.They said "you need to call your sister"And I did.She didn't have the message I was by now expecting.My father had been in poor health for years,so,of course,that's why she was calling.She said"there was a car accident and Mom didn't make it."To this day,I don't recall which of my sisters I called that day.

A few months later I made my one and only visit to the accident scene.It was a warm June night and my best friend from high school drove me there and made a u turn before pulling up to the place my younger sister had erected a white cross.I stepped down into the ditch and touched the cross and tried to think of what that night must have been like.It looked so different.I noticed a firefly at the foot of the cross as I was standing there,then another and another.When I came back up to get in the truck I looked back down into the ditch,where a glowing storm of fireflies circled that white cross.And I knew that God is good and merciful,that there is a place where we know nothing but his grace and loving kindness,and that my mother was there and that step from the side of that damnable roadside was very short and swift indeed.

memoir writers homework/a past relic.

When my grand parents moved into town,from the farm,in the mid 1960's it's as though they brought the past with them.There were old rusty tools in a gray wooden shed out back.Many were the tools of a lumberjack or a woodcutter.There were old farm implements too.A hay rake,to be pulled behind a horse,every bit of it red and pitted with rust.A seat was mounted to it on a big coil spring and it was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever sat on,even when I didn't imagine the roughness of the fields where the horse would pull it.

My grandfathers car was a relic too.The only thing was,he didn't know that and continued to drive it.It was a 1953 Chev BelAir that used to be a light metallic blue until he repainted dark blue with a paint brush.It had hard seats with no seat belts,and years and years of dust embedded in its upholstery.The window wipers went faster the faster you drove,so that if you were to encounter a torrential downpour you would need to drive very fast indeed just to be able to see.That seemed like maybe something the engineers hadn't given all that much thought to,to me.It would push my mother way beyond her 40 mph comfort zone.My grandfather wouldn't be caught dead driving in the rain,or the snow.Every October he would take the battery out of the car and put it inside the house,on the staircase where you could spend the winter stubbing your toe on it during nocturnal trips to the washroom.

My grandfather modernized his car in about 1976.Sold the 53 Belair to my father and upgraded to a 1961 Ford,to stay more current with the times.We went to pick up the old blue chevy and bring it back to Moncton.I wasn't sure how such a car was going to go over in Moncton.It might clean up well enough to be considered a classic at some point,but as it was,once it was parked on the back lawn,it was likely to send the neighbors a very clear message.We are the folks that Jeff Foxworthy warned you about!

That trip is one I recall so well.My father was there and so was Phillip Wilbur,to drive my fathers car back.We stopped at Davidson Lake on the way home.The lake has a beautiful sandy bottom and,as it was a very hot day,we swam until late at night,then decided to wait until morning before driving the rest of the way home.In the morning we loaded up the cars and set out for Moncton.When we came to the place on the old highway that's called Cambridge Narrows,we came upon a sight straight from Hell.During the night,a fuel truck had gone off the road and plunged into a small gully on the opposite side of the road where it rolled and exploded.It started a small forest fire too.by the time we came along,they were retrieving a body from the ruins.I was amazed at how few those ruins were.What was once a tractor trailer was smoking and probably small enough to put in a small basement.What was once a human being was just a skull and a hip bone.It was a good thing I guess we decided not to press for home the night before.No point risking car problems in the dark with that old relic.We would likely have been very close to right on scene for that tanker truck accident.I knew then,standing at the roadside,smelling kerosene where everything was blackened,that some very bad things could happen in this life.

River levels are high here in Calgary and once again as well as in communities south of the city.Everyone is watching the skies with nervous anticipation as more rain is being forecast for today.Not what would really qualify as torrential amounts,but more than we need at the moment.

To the eye,the Bow River seems to have at least twice it's normal amount of water flow,all of it muddy and filled with debris.Some of the lower islands are nearly submerged upstream of downtown.But the Bow is not really the problem child of rivers as Calgary and southern Alberta go.It has fairly larger banks to contain it,and though there are some low lying areas around,most of the buildings are a fair distance back from the rivers edge.

Not so with the Elbow however which snakes its way in from the southwest,forms a huge reservoir behind the Glenmore Dam then cuts through a number of very high end residential areas,past Stampede Park and into the Bow east of downtown.On the Elbow,dwellings are often built right up to it's banks,as is the case on 24th Ave,S.W. where I lived during the June floods of 2005.Usually the Elbow is a pastoral little stream winding through the heart of a large city,and is lovely to have literally in your backyard.But it does not have high banks at all and can flood easily even with moderate rainfall and snow melt.The Glenmore Dam holds back a lot of water,but it's old and in 2005 there was a need to release some of the water behind it.Water over ran the banks and we were forced to evacuate for nearly a week.The stock footage of that event  that was played over and over by The Weather Channel was filmed at the very bottom of my street.Local news today is showing very similar scenes,though I no longer live in an area that causes me as much of flooding.Still,people seem to be gearing up for a flood,much the same as they were then.The situation doesn't seem nearly as dire as in 2005,but that could change very quickly if we get the rain that's anticipated.Watching the radar is rather spooky this morning as there seems to be storms all across the west,including a rather big, nasty looking one in Montana,about 200 miles away as bad weather flies.There is a concern of tornadoes east of here as well and there are watches and warnings out all over the place.It's calm right now,but the sky is smudged with gray all about and it's cool and damp with a slight wind.Kind of like what might be called a pregnant pause in the weather for now.

                                                                              

memoir writers homework/joke,tricks

I seem to be getting behind in my homework.Over the past few weeks the memoir group to which I belonged while living in Toronto has taken on some most interesting topics and you are likely to see a few appearing in this weeks offerings.This topic is from the Monday,June 18 meeting

I think as kids we all love a joke,or trick and most of us don't seem to ever get over it completely until some short minute before we die.what else could account for the fact that everyone who has ever gotten married seems to end up with an array of cans tied to the back bumper of their car.at least that was still true while cars still had bumpers that allowed you to tie cans to them.A very innocent trick,familiar to the point of cliche.But we once tied nearly forty oil cans in a string to a car of a friend of mine who had just gotten married.Oil used to come in cans.Those cans used to be made of aluminum and were big and very hollow and made a lot of noise.But at the very last moment,just before he was about to leave the church,we all did one better than that.While some of us distracted the newly weds,some others brought out a milk can-the kind you use in a barn to collect milk before sending it to the dairy-and chained it to the back of the car.When the married couple drove off it sounded something like they were dragging an entire scrapyard behind them.

There were always the standard jokes or tricks,of course,like the one that involves a doorbell,paper bag and contents and a small fire.Everyone knows that one.Most everyone has pulled that off to perfection at least once.There was one miserable old woman who used to fall victim to this trick every year.We even invented a variation to this theme once.The variation involved a pair of latex gloves,a jar of peanut butter and a small parking lot beside a doctors office.No fire though.We did this trick on April Fools Day,but never on Halloween.

On a washroom wall in a gas station across from my high school,there was a little white box that sold a certain product not nearly as commonly used in the 1970's as it is today,and not nearly as available either.You see,we hadn't heard of AIDS then and virginity seemed to be somewhat more popular then too.But,finding these things,you just know that boys are going to be boys and at least one really good use for the product will be invented.Aside from the one it was actually intended for that is.Well,we found two new uses for them.One involved the product,of course,and the tailpipes of cars in the teachers parking lot.The other involved some helium from the chemistry lab and some of the airspace directly outside the principals office.In fact,considerably more airspace than we imagined it might.It seemed to be a very durable sort of product,but getting the end tied off was a bit of a trick.It sure was funny though to hear a loud"what the hell..." coming from the hallway,halfway through class.

Americans/Canadians

Often I look to our southern neighbors with a kind of morbid fascination,especially when they've elected Republicans.Up here it seems to be somewhat of a pass time laughing at or ridiculing Americans.And while it's true that you have to come north of the border to get a decent doughnut,there are some very important things the Americans get right.Even the Republican ones,or to be more correct,perhaps,the right leaning ones.And it doesn't even pain me to say so from my somewhat left of center political viewpoint.

One such thing is the way Americans deal with dangerous criminals like child molesters,specifically,in this case Jerry Sandusky a former football coach at Penn State University.I am not certain what sentence Sandusky faces,but it will likely be much greater than the two miserable years handed to former hockey coach Graham James north of the border.In fact,most of the articles I've read suggest that Sandusky is unlikely to ever see the outside of a prison again.And for that alone I salute our American friends.

As a liberal,I often argue that we need to be putting fewer people in prison,not more.But to be more specific,we need to be incarcerating more of certain kinds of offenders for longer periods of time.People like Sandusky or James.People who lurk in the shadows of respectability with the sole intent of destroying young lives and tarnishing the institutions they represent.Americans get this.Canadians do not.Republican get it,most certainly.I suspect most Democrats do as well.But this is not about partisan politics on either side of the border.It is plainly about common sense and informed self interest.Children must be protected.That is the bottom line and the only thing I care about.

So,in a few more years,after the sentence is appealed, Graham James will be off to serve his sentence here in Canada.But,with parole eligibility and time served,I wonder how many more days it will be until he is happily living in some neighborhood unknown to all the families that also live there.And this is not his first time at the rodeo.It's been nearly twenty years since I first heard of this beast.By comparison,Sandusky will still be rotting in a Pennsylvania prison in a few years.No further generations of young players will be subjected to his perverted appetites,because he is likely to be there for life..And I don't know many people,even among my liberal friends who are calling this draconian.Most people seem to favor the word "enlightened."

Child molesters ruin children, often beyond repair.Its long past time Canadian leaders grew a set and started providing forever protection from these monstrous individuals.If you  molest children I have no difficulty at all in saying you should be locked away in the dungeon of a prison in the far north,out of sight and out of mind until you rattle out your last pathetic breath.I'm not interested in your rehabilitation or your redemption.You can look to God for your mercy because you'll get none from me.I'm not even interested in your comfort beyond insuring you the necessities of life,like food and water and basic medical care.Do you hear me loud and clear?Molesting a child is a forever decision and it should have forever consequences.I don't want to worry about such persons in my neighborhood.I want to be safe in knowing that they are forever sequestered in their own neighborhood,that being a federal prison until they die,and Hell thereafter,providing that they still have not repented.

What kind of makes me chuckle though is that there is likely a Canadian,conservative politician who will read this and come to the conclusion that I'm far to radical.Well,if that's not a case of the Red Tory calling the Liberal a cracker!But again,it's really all about common sense,not partisan politics.