Writing the Memoir

EVERYBODY HAS A STORY TO TELL

Perhaps everyone has a story that could break your heart. ~ Nick Flynn

Last Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day, my brother and I went with our spouses over to Tryon for lunch. Later we spent the afternoon doing what the four of us love: antiquing. Quite by accident, we discovered an enormous antique mall hidden away off Hwy 176, so we wore ourselves out looking at things, picking up things and trying not to break any of it.

We had planned to continue the hunt in Landrum, but we needed a shot of caffeine first. Once again quite by accident, we found The Open Road, a dear little coffee place where all four of us concluded that Starbucks should be worried. Not only did The Open Road have everything our sagging body required for a caffeinated perk up they also had Susan, the resident pianist.

She grew up during WW2 and played one song after another from the war years, ones she had always loved. As it happened, they were the same songs my brother and I had heard growing up because they were also our mother’s favorite tunes.

As soon as we sat down in the cozy alcove to sip our specialty coffees, Susan played, Sentimental Journey. It was as if Mama had requested it. I glanced over at my brother when my eyes began to fill. I thought: Mama is with us right now, happy that her two children are together. She wanted us to know that she was there too.

We lingered over our coffee listening to those old beloved tunes, and just before we left, Susan played, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” another of Mama’s favorites, and one that never fails to fill my heart with memories of her.

This story is not how I planned to begin my talk today, but the events of last Saturday perfectly illustrate what I want you to do as you gather material for writing memoir. Fleeting moments, meaningful at the time but too often forgotten over time, can trigger long forgotten memories that you want to include as you recount the days of your life. 

Recollection is the first step you take when writing memoir. This is what happened for me on Saturday when I heard a certain song:

 

MY SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

by Cappy Hall Rearick

“You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, 

but never the one with whom you have wept.”~ Kahlil Gibran

Laughter can be cathartic, but a good cry is how I cleanse the clutter from my soul.

My penchant for sad movies where heroines die an untimely death began the day Mama took me with her to see the movie, Sentimental Journey. She was crazy about John Payne and I guess because she was Irish, she believed Maureen O’Hara was her distant cousin. Mama apparently kissed the Blarney Stone at a very early age.

I was six-years-old but I clearly remember that day in the theater. Mama started to sob about five minutes into the film and I, lacking the capacity to understand her tears, cried along with her. She would pull out two tissues at a time from her pocketbook, hand one to me and then blow her nose with the other. 

Mama loved going to the picture show and it didn’t much matter if it was a drama, comedy or musical. Whatever was showing at the Carolina Theater (with the exception of Roy Rogers and Trigger) was the movie she stood in line and paid a quarter to see. For years, I went with her. 

Together we saw Pinky, Johnny Belinda, Imitation of Life and Little Women, of course. Tearjerkers, every one of them. Occasionally, she took me with her to see a murder mystery. After seeing Edward G. Robinson stab a woman with scissors in The Woman in the Window, I woke up screaming for weeks.

But Sentimental Journey set the emotional bar for Mama and me. For the rest of her life, anytime that movie was mentioned either in conversation, a recorded version of the song, or even if the movie was replayed on television, Mama would look over at me with a knowing smile. That long ago day in the theater with her when I was just a child continued to be our shared moment in time, one that lingered between us for nearly fifty years. 

Once when I was living in Los Angeles, she sent me a newspaper article about the movie. It was a tiny thing, not much more than a blurb, but I still have it. It’s tucked away in my memory box, yellow now with age. The day I got it, I opened the envelope and lifted out the two-inch square newspaper clipping and thought, “What in the world is this?” Then I read the heading: SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. It said that TMC was running the movie again at such and such a time. 

I skimmed it and then read the note Mama attached which said: “I saw this in today’s paper and thought of you. How could I not?”

Oscar Wilde said, “Memory really is the diary we carry around with us.”

  

Ben Franklin Slept Around

By Cappy Hall Rearick

 

My 11-year-old grandson and I flew to Philadelphia during the worst heat wave in over a decade. Okay, so I didn’t think things through.

 

After breezing through baggage check-in, we approached the next checkpoint (the one preceding the 50-mile trek to Gate A-5), and that's when our troubles began. I yelled at Parker to quit leapfrogging the crowd control barriers before handing over my picture I.D. to a stoic Security Agent named Charleeka Chakendra. 

 

“Your driver’s license is expired,” she deadpanned.

 

“I wasn’t reminded,” I argued.

 

“Are you from Saluda?” As sure as I am of my birth date, that woman was thinking: ‘Gawd help us.’

 

Homeland Security thought my senior moment deserved special attention, so the contents of my purse were scrutinized by a machine resembling a blowtorch. After that, they shoved me into a stall the size of a phone booth filled with small torpedo-shaped projectiles.

 

“Don’t move,” commanded Checkpoint Charleeka, who sounded too much like my mother-in-law.

 

Warm air poofed out of the midget torpedoes and poofed until the poofs covered my body. It was kind of a turn-on. 

 

“What is the purpose of this humiliation,” I bellowed.

 

“Explosives,” Checkpoint Charleeka said, staring at me with narrowed eyes.

 

“Seriously? Seriously? You think I’ve got a bomb in my Wonderbra? I’m not a bra-bomber. I’m just a freaked-out grandmother.”

 

She rolled her eyes and waved us through.

 

We arrived in Philadelphia, but the hotel shuttle did not. I finally had to fork over the equivalent of Parker’s college tuition for an uber ride into town. The City of Brotherly Love was making me feel like a stepsister.

 

Parker threatened to lapse into chocolate withdrawal and my stomach craved something more than airline pretzels. Clutching a handful of “Kids Eat Free” vouchers, we high-tailed it to the Holiday Inn dining room. The “Kids Eat Free” program was the reason I booked the $200 a day room.

 

The kid’s menu is the biggest farce since Homeland Security poofed me for explosives. Parker took one look, visibly shuddered, then ordered fettuccini for thirty bucks.

 

Our plans for a morning tour didn’t pan out, either. We were wiped out and didn’t get to Independence Hall until noon where we bought tickets and hoped to stay awake while riding through history.

 

I hate to whine but sitting atop a double-decker bus in 200-degree heat while an actor/tour guide dropped Ben Franklin’s name every other sentence, screams equal whine time.

 

Next we rode the Duck, an amphibious vehicle promising a one-of-a-kind 70-minute ride around Philly. It concluded with a dunk in the Delaware River where the tour guide dropped Franklin’s name fifty more times. I don’t want to hear it again unless it’s linked to a hundred-dollar bill.

 

“Let’s ask him if Ben Franklin was with General Washington when he crossed the Delaware, Mammy,” Parker said. 

 

I snatched his hand in mid-wave. “Say that name aloud again, I’ll rip your lips off.”

 

Since our early flight home the next day held the possibility of more jet-poofing, we returned to the hotel and left a pre-dawn wake-up call.

 

We should have known a fire alarm would go off in the middle of the night that included evacuation orders. I thought Parker was going to wet his boxers. “We’re on FIRE, Mammy! Suuu-weeeeet!”

 

I grabbed my laptop, iPhone and the purse containing my expired driver’s license. It’s all about priorities. As it turned out, nothing was fired up except disgruntled hotel guests standing in the street sweating like packhorses at midnight.

 

At the airport, no torpedo poofers searched for grandmothers packing heat. I was treated instead to a personal pat down. Discovering no incendiary devices inside my bra or shoes, Homeland Security patted down Parker to make sure Granny wasn’t planning to blast him and everybody else into the middle of next week.

 

Parker grinned wildly during his body search, his mind busy embellishing his Philly adventure stories for when he wrote an account of, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.”

 

Genes don’t lie. Gawd help us.