I think it was back in May when I wrote an article about a book I wanted to publish this March. It would be a book of other peoples’ stories. I asked readers to write a couple stories for this book. I’ve had a good response, but I need more stories.
We all have stories. We tell stories without even thinking about it. They are part of our life. Dorothy Canfield Fisher best explained it this way: “We treasure our remembered people and doings because they are comments on human life, drawn from somebody’s first-hand experience.…We know very well that these humble anecdotes would seem to people of the big world no more than pinches of dust – or perhaps single blades of grass from a meadow.”
Some say they can’t write. Nonsense, of course you can. If you can tell stories, you can write them down. Don’t worry about grammar. I have been corrected many times when I say, “I graduated Chester High School in 1969.” “No,” they say. “You graduated ‘from’ Chester High School.”
We do have our own way of speaking. I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s who we are. Gordon Gates wrote some wonderful stories, but he couldn’t spell worth a hill of beans.
Along with memories, I’m looking for those who just like to write. Maybe late at night, when you are alone, you set your thoughts to paper. I’d like to see them.
As I travel around the area doing business, I see interesting forms of yard art. Some are very creative. It’s something they are compelled to do. It’s in their bones. Yard art is a subject I want to include in the book. It is self-expression at its best.
Danny Clemons and I were out shrooming a while back. We saw a great sculpture of a motorcycle, made from found objects. We were in the Westminster area. It is fantastic. I’d like to know about it.
You can write anything you like. Days gone by, how things were done, or who married who. An experience you had, or something you remember. This book is not just Chester. People from area towns are invited to submit their stories. It is “The Story of Us.”
It would be great if someone wrote their memory of the Chester Carnival. Of course, I went and remember it, but not well enough to write about it. Maybe you’d like this assignment. I remember the Ferris wheel, other rides, but mostly the bouncing ball that bounced around on top of the muffin tins.
The bottoms of the muffin tins were painted different colors. There was a counter where round circles of different colors were painted. You placed a quarter on a color of your choice and watched the ball bounce around on the muffin tins, eventually resting on a colored tin. You won when the ball landed on the color you bet on.
I remember older teenagers having their dungarees rolled up, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up under the sleeve of their t-shirt, strolling along with their steady. Someone should write this story.
The old woman
This is a short story I wrote for the book. For many years, I maintained an antique clock for an old woman. I would get it running perfectly, here at my place. The last time I worked on the clock, I had it keeping time within three minutes in seven days.
Danny Clemons and I were working on postcards one winter day, when the old woman stopped to visit. Greetings were exchanged. I asked how the clock was doing. “It’s 10 minutes slow,” she says. That just didn’t make sense. I knew what I had done so I asked, “How often do you wind it?” Reply: “Every Monday morning,” which is the way it should be done, once every seven days. Now I’m puzzled.
I then asked, “When you wind it, do you reset it to the correct time?” “Do I have to reset the time?” she asked. Danny and I had a good laugh after she left.”
This week’s old saying: “He’s more complex than Vitamin B.”