Monday, October 18, 2021 Mini Memoirs

When my dad was in his 60’s (like I am now), he took the time to write a series of short memoirs about certain parts of his life: “Camp Miller” (where he was a camp counselor in 1943), “Canoeing Adventures” (trips to the BWCA), “The U.S. Army Parts One and Two,” and “The Band Man” (various bands he was a part of in his youth and his experiences as a band teacher in the public schools). Dementia started robbing him of his memories as he grew older, so I’m awfully thankful he got going on those when he did.

After he died, I found all sorts of notes he’d written, clearly intending to write a memoir about his childhood. He’d even given it a title: “Duluth Days” and had written a dedication: “A Memoir for Mary,” (my mother). I cobbled them all together, typed it up and gave copies to my mom and siblings for Christmas in 2015. It felt good to finish a project that he’d started, but became unable to complete.

A few years ago I started writing down some of my memories of growing up, inspired by my dad’s example. There’s something about the process of getting older that gives me a sense of urgency about recording those things before they start drifting away. I got as far as the beginning of my college years and dropped it, mostly because at that point I really needed to rely less on my memory and delve into my many journals for details. As soon as it started to look like work, it lost its appeal, sadly.

It’s not like I think anyone but our children would be interested in these things. Frankly, I’m not even sure our children would be interested. Maybe it’s just for me. But now I’ve started thinking about what my dad did, choosing certain themes and experiences to write about. What sorts of mini memoirs would I write? Here are a few possible titles:
“Education: Trials and Triumphs of a Timid Child”
“A Musical Life: How Can I Keep From Singing?”
“The Holy Suitor: God Found Me and Took Me In”
“He Said, She Said: How We Met, Courted and Married”
“And Then There Were Six: Adventures of Sinners Raising Sinners.”
”Going Places: Over Land and Sea”
“Homeschooling: Trying to Teach Logic Was My Undoing”
Getting Older: What’s That You Say?”

I spent a pleasant 20 minutes just thinking up those titles and I hope it was just as pleasant (though not as long) for you to read them. And now that I’ve gone to the trouble of coming up with the titles, shouldn’t I write them?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Hey, that could be the title of my memoir about blogging! Wait – that would just be me writing about writing. I guess not…I got carried away. Never mind.