memoir writers homework/police

We would watch the police come and go,but not much seemed to happen on our street and they never seemed to stop much.Once we were playing street hockey and they stopped to chase us,but we gathered everything and ran away.Sometime when you played hockey on the street they would take all of your sticks and make you go to the police station to get them back.

At times we would see a police car turn on his lights and race through a red light.If it was ten to eleven at night it often meant he was on his way to a fast food outlet and wanted to get there before they closed at eleven.Everything seemed to close at eleven in those days.Seeing the cops do that would make my father angry and he would say he wasn't paying taxes so they could do that.I didn't guess I begrudged them a meal though when they were working to protect us.

One December two cops were killed while investigating a kidnapping.It was a sensational crime for Moncton,and it commanded the attention of the community for a long time.Our neighbor was what we would call today a police groupie of sorts-right wing,no nonsense from anybody,strict law and order.He had a police scanner,which was a radio that could receive police and other emergency frequencies.All week end long,while the manhunt was on for the cop killers we sat around in our neighbors living room listening to the scanner,trying to catch any news of the unfolding events.It seemed very busy,but anything pretaining to the killings was being scrambled,so all we would hear was static.We did get to hear the other call though.Things like loud party complaints,and barking dogs,and people urinating in public,and auto accidents.That sort of thing.

Before Christmas my father bought a scanner so we could listen in to the police too.Our neighbor supplied us with a list of all the police codes so we knew what they were talking about.For the most part,they were talking about auto accidents,barking dogs,loud parties and people urinating in the streets.After the killings,Moncton went back to being the quiet town it was most of the time.Sometimes there were unusual,but not especially serious things going on.Like someone mowing their lawn in the middle of the night,or kids throwing the old paper bag on to someones doorstep on Halloween.There were checks for outstanding warrants and vandalism and routine traffic stops as well.Really,listening to the scanner was not all that entertaining.When I got older some of the names of kids I knew came over the scanner,as they came into contact with police for one reason or another.What really seemed odd though was hearing the police going about their business,but not seeing them all that much.And even though most of what went on seemed routine,I got much more of an appreciation for what it was they did,and how busy they really were.

music by bethany burie

memoir writers homework/something I'd rather not do.

Over twenty years ago I began writing with thoughts of creating a memoir.You see,nobody else was,so our family history was falling by the way.Then,of course a certain family member started trying to alter the picture of that history to suit their own perceptions.Well,to make a long story short,most days writing is a labor of love.Some days,it's something I'd rather not do.

Many things are discovered in the process of writing and research.And not nearly all of it is good.Nearly everyone that I have to present in order to produce a memoir with integrity has a vested interest in some of the stories that might be told.But it's my story,right?Well,yes,but not exclusively mine.

as a writer,I understand that I must sometimes present people who are not always good.They may break wind in church,or perhaps they are not in the habit of referring to African Americans as African Americans.They use words that I'd rather not use because I find them repulsive.Or,they may have a dark secret that still has the power to affect people still living.I've discovered at least one of those.

Now,we should tell the truth,right?Well yes,but not all truth should be told.Sometimes a painful truth needs to be revealed because it has a compelling lesson.And some truth just injures people needlessly.The need to be truthful is never an excuse to do that.That is simple cruelty.If the pen is mightier than the sword,there are some moral decisions to be made in writing.

I try to keep the story of Noah and his sons in mind when I write memoir.When his sons discovered Noah drunk and naked,two of them covered him up,while the third laughed and ridiculed him and had no respect for his dignity.I don't want to do that to anyone,so God help me.

It's an awful responsibility to write history,in whatever form,to hold the power to immortalize some other.Not for the faint of heart.There are stories that I fully intend to take to the grave with me.And there are stories that I think must be told.And,I don't always perfectly know the difference.Moreover,because my memoir is not exclusively mine,there are moral decisions to be made about my right to hold back any particular story.I've never imagined so much risk involved in writing.Some days I wish I'd never started.But most days it's a labor of love.

memoir writers homework-visiting a historical site.

Being a memoirist,I've a natural inclination towards history.Over the years I've been to many historical sites,and have enjoyed and been edified by most of them:Fort Henry in Kingston,Fort Louisburg in Cape Breton,Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump in Southern Alberta,The Aviation Museum in Ottawa and numerous ghost towns in British Columbia.My favorite sites are Kings Landing,upriver from Fredricton,New Brunswick and the Museum of Natural History in Ottawa.

There are historical sites I've never been to as well.I've never been to the Smithsonian,but can imagine myself getting lost there for a week or more perhaps.I've never been to a city where the whole city is the museum:London,Rome.Jerusalem.Well,thats not strictly true.The village of Frank in the Crowsnest Pass is like that on a smaller scale.One look tells the whole story.I've been told that Gettysburg is haunted.I can't say that it's not,since I've never been there.But the place where the Battle Of Little Bighorn was fought definitely has a lot more going on than just the wind blowing through tall grass. And I've never been to Auschwich I think everyone needs to go there.

But those are the places that are "historical because someone has said so.They build a fence around it,build a parking lot,put up signs for miles around that say something like"yo,dummy...over here there is something you need to see.That will be thirty dollars please."And of course they sell t-shirts made in Phillapines or Thailand.Well,one can hope that Auschwich isn't like that.It shouldn't be.

I might just have my own ideas about what makes a historical site,and those ideas are not likely to be mainstream.I've long had the idea of going on an archaeological expedition to that old place in Western New Brunswick where it is said my grandfather called home in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.How did they live.What sorts of things did they own,what kinds of tools did they use?Only the bears and the moose give that area much though today,so likely no one would be there to hawk cheap shirts.It will likely never be defined as a historical site.But I expect it would speak to my history.

memoir chapter III-continued.

Regular trips to my mother's family farm became more frequent after our move to Moncton too.We'd visited there before,but not often.I'd been baptized in the United Church at Dead Creek by Reverend Roy White,who went on to become a protestant chaplain with The Canadian Armed Forces.My baptism must have been in the spring of 1961.There is also a picture of me ,that must have been taken during that same trip.In the picture,my grandfather Graham is holding me up on the back of a huge bay horse.His farm was about a mile from the church.But visits likely only happened once a year then,as we still lived in the north.

My mothers people were very different from my fathers.The land on which they lived was not anything like Springhill.There really were no minerals in the ground,hence no mines.They lived a lot farther from the water too,and while they would eat fish,those fish would have been whatever was available in the local lakes.In fact,those fish often included eels..Mostly though,they depended on the forest ,and the crops they could grow on land that was rocky and not all that fertile As a people,my mothers's were English,United Empire Loyalists,unquestionably protestant and much more like their neighbors beyond the nearby Maine border than like people elsewhere in New Brunswick.In fact,some of my mother's family were Americans.Those who were not lived within sight of the mountains of Maine,which were not much different from the mountains of New Brunswick.

Dead Creek could only be called isolated,even then.The nearest town was Canterbury,and it was isolated.I've heard other people call those living in Western New Brunswick hillbillies.I've heard that area referred to as the Badlands and,ever since I can remember I've heard the references,only half joking, to inbreeding and ignorance.Nevertheless,that is where my mother's family hailed from,and,as far as I know they were all decent people.

Travel to Dead Creek from Moncton,in 1965 and before would likely have taken more than four hours.The roads were not straight or wide like they are now and the distance was nearly the full width of the province from east to west.I don't recall a lot about that first road going there,because in those days that road was being replaced with a newer one.A dam was being built above Fredricton,so a higher road was needed.Eventually that old road would be flooded.The first trips up river were visions of a lot of road construction.

The place where we turned off the main highway to travel into the back country was a place called Crow Hill.It was usually dark when we arrived here.Very dark indeed,because we usually arrived at night.If we were still awake,my mother and father would begin to make crow noises-caaaw....caaaw,to signal us that out trip was nearly complete.But I don't think I've ever seen a crow there.

Sometimes we would start back for home during the daylight hours,and I could see what Crow Hill really looked like.But it was many years before the significance of it settled on me.In very few words,let me just describe it as the place comedian Jeff Foxworthy warned you about.I'm eternally glad we never broke down on that road at night-drive faster,I hear banjos.Crow Hill couldn't have put travelers going farther back into the woods at ease.We didn't know anyone who lived there,and we never stopped there.

The road leading from Crow Hill to Dead Creek was Route #122.The town of Canterbury lay about two thirds of the way there.Later,that's the town my grandparents would move to.It is the only town that lies on that entire stretch of road that winds through the forest until it comes to the American border.

In terms of appearance I suppose Dead Creek didn't look a lot different from Crow Hill.It may well not have been,either,except that we knew most of the people living there.There were a lot of abandoned farms there back then,most of them with farm machinery rotting away and buildings starting to fall,while nature started to replace fields with crops of her own.At the end of the driveway where the English's lived there was an old threshing machine,and my uncle Clifford,who lived right across form my grand parents had an old hay rake,plow and a tractor,turning brown and falling apart.All those people had already,or were moving to town back then.My grandparents would soon follow.

The old homeplace,my mother's childhood home was a crude,rough looking place,set on the side of a hill that people referred to as a mountain.It had a front porch,and maybe three rooms inside,but it was very unfinished,with not a single sheet of drywall to be seen.Outside,it was not painted,but covered with brick colored asphalt shingles,which seemed to be favored locally over the tar paper in other parts of rural New Brunswick.

I can't say for certain what my grandfather grew on his farm,but I suppose the bulk of it would have been potatoes and other root vegetables,and maybe some corn.I do recall a lot of hay growing everywhere,even right up to the porch.Inside the barn were the usual animals,but not many.A couple of cows,a pig or two and some chickens.One of the first memories I have of my grandmother is of her chasing away a rooster while she tried to gather eggs into her apron.There were cats there too,most likely feral,rodent eating ones.For some reason.they never seemed to have a dog.

At the time,when I was four,I was too young to have formed any opinions regarding Dead Creek.But I suppose I could have developed an attitude about it had I been a bit older before my grand parents moved.Dead Creek,much like the bogeyman's home place in Nova Scotia was the sort of place that could bring about negative feelings in people who didn't live there.But, by the time I was able to understand comments about the family trees of people who lived in such places looking more like fence posts than trees,my grandparents had moved to town.They were still very different from people in Moncton.They looked,spoke and acted different,but I never really regarded that as a bad thing.

memoir-chapter III-continued

We went to the beach at Parrsboro that day too,behind Ottawa House.It was not peak season for the beach.Really,it was rather cold.My grandfather took a spade from the trunk of the car and dug some clams as we walked out on the sand.The tides there,at the head of the Minas Basin are very high and come in very quickly.When the tide is low,there is a huge expanse of sand,but when it turns,you have to pay close attention and get to higher ground without delay.

In the far distance,out across the sand,I could see a huge structure that looked something like a corral made out of upright poles and some kind of netting.It had a small opening on one side.The purpose of this device was to catch fish.When the tide is high,fish swim in,through the opening or,perhaps even over the top.When the tide recedes,they become trapped on the sand and the fisherman goes in and scoops up his catch.So,with fish still in mind,we set out across the sand.I have no idea if this structure belonged to my grandfather,but there is every possibility that it did not.He may have been raiding it,or it may be that he had permission to take the odd fish out of there.The later would seem most likely,as it would have been nearly impossible to raid one of those corrals without being noticed and confronted.

In the end,it mattered not,as we were not able to make it to the structure before the tide turned us back.I was wearing rubber boots,and,in my mind today,the way I remember it,I somehow lost a boot on the sand on the way back to the car.We visited a few more places on that trip,and I recall my grandfather telling everyone we visited how I had lost a boot.

At last we came to a place that must have been somewhere near Five Islands or Economy,but not up the mountain by the provincial park.It was on the side of the road away from the water too,and the driveway went in in a kind of a horse shoe shape with the house halfway between it's two ends.There was a lot of junk in the driveway.Old cars competed for space with some small boats and various nets and traps and bouys.

We got out of the car,and this time I accompanied the two men.At the door a man appeared and we inquired as to whether he had any fish for sale.Indeed he did.Within the house in a large galvanized washtub was a silver fish,a salmon.To my eyes it was big enough to have been a whale.The tub it came in was of the same sixe and sort that my mother would use to give us a bath when we visited her parents farm,so the fish must have been nearly as big as me.It filled up the entire tub,save for a bit of ice.And,I recall trying to lift the creature and finding that I could not.

By the days end we'd likely traversed fifty or sixty miles.I don't recall in the end what happened to the fish,that seemed so hard to come by.My grandfather likely took the most of it,but it was a very large fish for just one person.He may have given some of it away,but I don't recall that it was eaten at our table.

On that trip I got to see how,when either my father or grandfather wanted fish,nothing was going to stop them from finding it.Over the next few years,attempts to get fish,to coax or coerce them out of the water,would range from a pleasant afternoon by the side of a stream with poles in hand,to a trip to the fish market on the way home from an otherwise unsuccessful expedition,to some downright bizarre and nearly heroic efforts to bring home fish.Eventually I discovered who the best fisherman in our family was and it surprised me when I did.

But,when my father wanted fish he would not be denied.Nova Scotian to the bone!A creature wholly indigenous to a province where you cannot set foot on land that is any more than about thirty miles from the ocean.

memoir chapter III-continued

Sucess,as far as my father was concerned didn't stop with owning a house.By the time we'd been in Moncton a year or two,he must have already been thinking ahead to a time when he could afford a small plot of land with beachfront.That was to be a few years off,but it must have been on his mind even then.

Nova Scotia was the province my father called home.And that is where he had the appearance of being most at home.In fact,by imagining a stereotypical Nova Scotian,you would be imagining my father.He loved the sand and the sea,and claimed you would never starve if you lived by the ocean,as anything therein,including seaweed could be eaten.The only thing that came out of salt water that he ever conceded thatyou could not eat were jellyfish.

Fish was a favorite food of my father,and from early on it was served often in our home.My mother would prepare salt cod in a casserole dish with potatoes and onions in some kind of a white sauce.Later,the onions would disappear as they bothered my fathers stomach.High in the cupboard,there was a green and red box that contained dried salt cod.I once tasted it straight out of the box and it was the saltiest thing I've ever had in my mouth. This was mixed with mashed potatoes and formed into fish cakes which were fried in oil.

Once I recall,and in  fact,I believe it's the first time I recall being on a road trip with my father and grandfather.The trip would have taken us from Springhill,across country via the Lynn Road,to Five Islands and Parrsboro.The purpose of the trip was to get a fish for dinner,and,as we didn't have any fishing gear with us,I suppose the plan was to but it from a fisherman.Or,they may have had something a bit closer to theft in mind.

We stopped at a few different places on that trip.The first place that I recall must have been on the Lynn Road,and there must have been a purpose to that visit other than to get fish,as that streach of road is inland.But I recall the place rather well.It could only be thought of as a shack,though not a small one.I don't recall any boards on the outside of the house.It was mostly tar paper,as were a lot of old shacks inrural Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the time.

It seemed that my father and grandfather were in the house a long time,and I did not go with them.Really,though,I don't suppose they were in there much more than an hour,but they told me to wait in the car,likely thinking I would fall asleep.

To a three or four year old,a few minutes seems like a long time,so I ended up out of the car and over by the front door of the shack.The shack only had one door,located on the narrow side of the building.It also had only one bathroom,which was located outside,to the right if you were sitting on the front step.It was a little wooden,unpainted house in a bit of a ravine,completely overgrown with weeds and brambles,and there were some hills and some woods behind it.

To this day, I have no idea who lived in that house.But,while I was sitting thereby the front step,playing in the dirt,which along with some thistles,seemed to be about all that the yard consisted of,a man I didn't know came outside with some kind of large black dog.He trotted over to the outhouse and disappeared inside while the dog sniffed around in the bushes.When he returned,I asked him where he went."just over to that little house."

I asked if I could go to the house too and he said"no,you shouldn't go there.When I asked why,he told me that it was because that is where the bogeyman lived.And he said there were wolves in the woods too,which was likely true.I didn't have to go to the bathroom,and,in fact,he never said that that house even was a bathroor.But what else could it have been?

Maybe I didn't have a proper sense of perspective,but I wasn't afraid.I'd heard of the bogeyman,and,of course the Big Bad Wolf,but I don't think I had any appreciation of what either really was.So I wonder,should I really have been concerned that I was sitting just a few feet from where the bogeyman lived?Maybe or maybe not.But I supposed he had to live somewhere,and if I just left him alone,he would return the favor.Nothing happened,except I've always though of that place as the bogeyman's home.

The big black dog was another story.Dogs I was not accustomed to at all.This one scented me with his big,wet nose,and I was neither afraid,nor exactly comfortable either.He got right up in my face,but the man told me the dog wouldn't bite,and he did not.

When I think back that was likely a very early experience with some of those people who would have required a kind of perhaps uncomfortable explanation.What's clear in my mind is that they,whoever they were,had a very different value system than what my parents were trying to encourage at home.We might read about the bogeyman in a storybook,but no one would ever tell you that he lived nearby,much less where.Somehow I think my mother would have been less than impressed with anyone telling such a thing to one of her children.

There is also the question as to just who those people were,and,of course,why my father and grandfather would visit there.The most likely answer is that it was just someone that they knew and hadn't seen in some time.My father knew a lot of people,and we visited a lot over the years.It was no at all unusual to stop by some place for a visit,then never see them again,nor ever have a clear idea as to who they were.Over the years I've done that many times.

It could be too,that we were visiting a bootlegger.I didn't know it at the time,but my grandfather had a fondness fot the bottle,especially rum.Yes,perhaps.Or maybe just an acquaintance withg a bottle of beer or a nip of dark rum.

It might well have been that my father just did not want me to see the living conditions of whoever lived inside.He always said he knew people who kept chickens and calves inside the house,but I'm not certain these were the people.Still,they were very poor,and a single glance of the outside of their house could evoke all those standard and stereotypical images of Appalachia.

Leaving a small child alone in a car would likely have concerned my mother as well.Today,of course,you don't do that.But in those days,both my mother and father would have done so for a few minutes at a time without concern.But an hour or more would likely not have sat well with my mother.Who knows,I might have put the car into gear and caused it to coast through that little monument to organic chemistry located at the side of the main house.My mother may not have known about all the places my father might take me to on a road trip,but I'm certain she never though that any of those visits would involve even the remotest possibility of pissing off the bogeyman.No doubt she would not have approved.