The Girl of the Silent Generation

One of the writers in my Thursday morning class wrote a piece which expresses anew how powerful stories can be, not only for future generations, but to many who hear and read them now. She gave me permission to share it with you.

Perhaps reading this piece will inspire you to write your stories for your family and friends--perhaps even get together a group with others eager to share their writing.

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Keep in mind that every story you write from your heart will be cherished by someone, sometime, somewhere. I can almost guarantee it, because everybody loves a story.

The Girl of the Silent Generation
By Georgia Meshke

Here I sit in a small room located in the basement of the Tigard Senior Center. A florescent light glares overhead; many long folding tables are gathered in the center of a small conference room surrounded with chairs of various heights and comfort. In one corner is an open door exposing a broom closet and flanking the two entrances to the room are unisex bathrooms. There is no art or decoration on the walls . . . three walls are white . . . the fourth, institutional green.

This is where I spend my Thursday mornings from ten to twelve. Why do I devote my time to this room? I think I'm classified as a senior, but that is not why I am here! I have paid good money to be here!

There are over a dozen men and women that share this space with me, most have been attending these sessions for years. I feel like the new kid on the block, as this is my second term of PCC class, "Write Your Life Story."

Many of the group, from what I can gather, are about my age and demeanor. Most are retired from jobs that we may never know about and, in any case, jobs or occupations no longer define who we are.

The common denominator of the group, a goal we all share, is a desire to put to paper our life memoirs. Whether it is for our families or our own enjoyment, it seems a driving force to "just get it out." The class gives me energy to complete the goal . . . one I started several years ago.

Our instructor is a stately woman, a professional; she has published a series of books for young girls. The stories she reads to us of her childhood years evoke my memories and inspires me to record my story. There are no tests or homework, she encourages to tell our tales in our own individual way. . . there are no set rules. She does recommend using lots of paragraphs and more paragraphs . . . and once in while, “throw in an antidote or two.”

A myriad of stories stream from this group. It is the year of a new president and some of the folk's political views are exposed. Some describe their feelings of how they handled the great snow story of 2008, One woman takes us back to the age of the dime store. I think to myself, "Gads . . . what can you buy for a dime today?" Several doting grandmothers leave a legacy of words for their beloved granddaughters. A sophisticated lady takes us around the world to the exotic land of India . . . I am envious of her daring travels to this land.

I am intrigued by a story that sticks in my brain of a mother-to-be, being prescribed by her doctor, to drink three cocktails a day to presumably prevent losing her baby! Wow!

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From a poet's mouth flows a bouquet of words of his memory of a childhood Christmas. He plays to our emotions of a longing for a simple toy, causing a hushed silence among the group, with a few tears thrown in.

We have a veteran of the terrible, romanticized World War II. As a young man he went off to defend his country as a paratrooper, he seems brush it off as just a great adventure. He shares his viewpoint of this famous event and of the times, things we will never find in a history book.

We hear narratives of cats, horses, sewing and simple daily things. One woman has pulled stories and pictures of unknown ancestors from a long forgotten box stored away in her mother's attic; a treasure most of us will never have the fortune to find. I long for that treasure. What would it be like to hear my grandmother's story of her youth in her own words telling how she came to America.

A retired policeman acquaints us with the politics of the Portland police union during his long tenure. Ears perk up as he relates trade information, things we have never read about in a newspaper or seen on TV. A lady from Turkey spins stories of her youth, written in words for a younger reader as she is aspiring to be a writer of children's books.

A gentleman relates the horror of his first day of kindergarten . . . this was at a time when kindergarten was all fun and games. He so longed to learn to read and felt all his hopes dashed on discovering the only thing offered at kindergarten was play.

Stories are gleaned from old neighborhoods, schools attended, jobs, friends from long ago, relatives, and simple day by day things. We hear stories of childhoods that are tragic, mysterious, wistful, some as typical as, "Leave it Beaver." Others are sad, some happy, a gamut of emotions and thoughts spill from these stories.

The hours fly by, my tummy is growling, I want coffee, a bite to eat, but other than that I don't notice the time. There was not enough time in this session to read my story, but not to care, it was an entertaining and learning two hours.

I will go home, carry on with day to day life . . . write more words and next Thursday morning at the senior center, I will read my story.

The Power of Story

Winter term for my Writing Your Life Story students is almost over but Spring is coming and we'll start in for another term before summer hits. Looking back over these weeks I have to say that the one session I taught this winter which ended up as the most helpful, for the most students, had to do with the power of story.

Our goal this winter has been to write one story about each of the following: our birth, earliest memories, elementary school memories and our high school years. That last area had to be my biggest hang up: Every time when it came time to write about my own high school years, I'd stall then quickly go on to a different segment of my life.

This year I wanted to begin in earnest. Where should I start? At the beginning of course. Wasn't that what I told my students?

I sat down at my computer and wrote out two factual paragraphs. I was telling very well but showing? And suddenly I remembered THE POWER OF STORY. Okay, where's the story?

The result: My High School Years Begin.

West Linn High 1954-1956

My world changed dramatically the fall I started high school at West Linn. Wilsonville was at the end of the district, a small town which pretty much consisted of a grade school, a tavern, Aden’s General Store and Post office, and a feed store. Most of the people who lived in the town commuted to Portland by car, a few rode the bus. Others worked in Lake Oswego, Tigard and other small towns that offered more job opportunity.

The eight grade elementary school had less than a hundred students altogether, my graduating class had only eight. Now we were in high school and we were told there were more than 120 freshman alone, perhaps more. Instead of being in the same classroom all day students were responsible to attend six different classes. My best friend, Barbara Workman, and I signed up for General Math, English, P.E., Science, Social Studies and Study Hall and chose to have identical schedules. We even shared the same locker and that’s where the trouble began.

No matter how hard we tried, we two freshman girls from the back roads of Wilsonville, couldn’t quite master the combination. We tried it: 37 R, 19 L, two twirls all the way around twice. The door was supposed to open at 39, wasn't it? Except it didn't. That first week we must have been late for every class although we did eventually make it to most of them. Neither of us could quite figure out what we did right when that gray metal door would finally decide to pop open. Sometimes kicking the door seemed to help, at least occasionally it did. But we could could never quite figure out the combination, not really.

One night my brother Lawrence got mad at me about the whole situation. “I could hear you and Barbara kicking and banging that door when I was at the other end of the hall today. I was so embarrassed.”

I felt heat rise up in my face. “It doesn’t want to open,” I said. “Sometimes it does but most of the time—“

“It’s stupid of you to hit it like that, too,” he said. “I can’t believe you’d do such a thing. What will people think? Everybody knows you’re my sister.”

That was just the problem; nobody knew who I was. I was invisible.

I stuck my nose in the air and glared at him. I didn’t tell him how much I hated that locker or that I felt a whole lot more embarrassed then he did about the whole thing. Nor did I tell him how sick to my stomach I felt every morning when we went down and then up the little hill after the bus made the last turn towards the high school. And what about the sea of strange faces as they surged past us in the hall and the elbows that pushed and crowded? To me, a quiet country girl, the noise they made as they clattered down the hall was unbearable.

Barbara and I finally went to the office. That very afternoon the maintenance man put in a brand new combination lock and wonder of wonders, it worked perfectly. First Right, then Left, two twirls all the way around twice and “bravo” the door popped open right at 39. What a lock! After that we never missed a class, at least not intentionally! We’d proved we could conquer the locker. Now we could settle down to life as Freshman in an alien world.

What new challenge would tomorrow bring?

Can you tell when I stopped telling and began showing? Notice I used fiction techniques to write what is actually known in the writing world as an anecdote and it is anecdotes which put power into writing. Personally I like to think of them as short stories which make pictures in the reader's mine, grab the heart and make them eager to read more. My anecdote/story actually begins in the fourth paragraph.

I hope you learn as much from this entry as I did writing it. There'll be more too, I want to tell about Miss Foote, my English teacher, who told me the good looking guy with the dark hair and big shoulders who sat across the aisle from me thought I was cool. I want to tell about writing my first thousand word essay and earning an A+. And what about that cold winter day Barbara and I hiked across the West Linn Oregon City bridge to find a used couch for an upcoming play?

Those memories are still there just waiting to be captured on paper. It's like I tell my students: the more you write, the more you remember. And everybody loves a story!