My memory of bedtime stories

(response to Poets & Writers Prompt "The Time is Now" 1/20/19)

My memory of bedtime stories begins with my Grandmother Dice (my mom's mom), reciting "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man" (by James Whitcomb Riley).  My sister, cousin and I cuddled under woolen blankets in the attic bedroom at my grandparents' farmhouse on Randall Road in Elgin, Illinois.  I didn't learn until years later than my grandmother and my mom grew up entertaining other farming families by poetry and dramatic reading recitations.  One of  mom's childhood favorites (also by JWR) was "Our Hired Girl". 

Grandmother would perform her stories on the side of the bed and end with "Had a little calf; that's half.  Put him in a stall; that's all."  Those lines meant: no more stories, no more trips downstairs to go the to the bathroom; it's time for bed.  And she meant it.  A couple of time I tried tiptoeing down the creaking stairs and she'd be waiting for me at the bottom.  "March right back up young lady!" was her command. Sometimes a hard swat would follow if I tried to resist.

Mom's nighttime routine included hand gestures, voice inflections, and tolerance for "just one more."  She never seemed to tire of sharing her performances.  Later, when my sister and I became early readers, we had the "Big Big Story Book" and illustrated fairy tales.  Sitting on each side of her on one of our twin beds, my sister and I would lean in and look at the pictures as she read in her mesmerizing dramatic voice.  I loved "The Wild Swans" and "Beauty and the Beast" because both stories were long and mom never stopped a story before the ending. 

Mom continued this tradition with her grandson and two granddaughters--but not as often as she would have liked.  She made sure I understood that moving from Illinois to Arizona meant she expected more grandchildren sleepovers than what she experienced.  I think our son (being the first born) benefited most from her talents and she expanded her performances with him to include silly songs such as "On Top of Spaghetti" (sung to the song "On Top of Old Smokey") and "How much is that Doggie in the Window?". 

I started reading to her grandson when he was a month or so old.  The family tradition continued (I only needed a quick "read me a story" anytime of the day) until he was 12 years old.  I read all of the C.S. Lewis  books twice and several books by Brian Jacques--along with Pooh stories and fairy tales, of course. 

In my late 50's, I began to volunteer read at elementary schools and the public library.  The last story I read aloud to 5th graders was "The Little Prince" which had been published as a pop-up book.  We learned about astronomy, love, adventure, and death from that amazing story.

Entering my 7th decade now, I occasionally still read children's stories to myself.  I hear the harmonic voices of my mom and my grandmother in my head.  Sometimes I see my mom's gestures in the moonlight.  These memories create a sweet bedtime song I hope to sing for many more nights.

Learning to write

from Poets & Writers "The Time is Now"  Week 10 prompt for creative nonfiction

Credit is due to so many people in my life for teaching me how to learn to write.  But first, a little blame.  My pre-first grade teacher (or maybe it was in first grade), decided it would be better for me to be a right-handed writer rather than a lefty which is how I started out.  I remember someone tying my left hand behind my back until I got the idea and practice of writing with my right hand.  So that might explain by zig-zag life as it has evolved.  In any case, I write right-handed now when I use long hand and type with both hands--so maybe all's "write/right" with my world, after all.

So that is my first memory of writing.  I next recall Miss Meyers in 3rd Grade who bopped us on the head when our cursive letters didn't look perfect.  I received quite a few taps on the noggin for poorly shaped cursive capital letter "F".  Those green paper letters for print and cursive that lined the top of the blackboard throughout elementary school are burned into my psyche and still haunt me in midnight dreams.  The traumatic memory is so strong that, when I do write long hand notes on holiday cards, I often get a response such as "I can't read your writing, Anita."  So there you go, Miss Meyers,you couldn't bop me into submission.

That is the skinny backstory on my learning how to write--actual content development soared with Mrs. Hanson at Kimball Junior High, eighth and ninth grades.  Even though I struggled to get beyond a "B" on my essays, I had already began penning poetry thanks to the oral tradition of poetry (James Whitcomb Riley and others) passed along from my mom and her mother.  My poetry writing might have been the reason Mrs. Hanson recommended me to honors English when I entered high school.

First year at Larkin H.S. was a partial bust for English class.  My first teacher was pregnant and left early.  I have no memory of her and we had quite a few substitutes after that whom I also don't remember.  But then, after the holidays, we had a substitute that stayed for the entire semester.  I don't recall writing much in class except for book reports.  The glory in that experience was she let me make reports on books that were way beyond my age range.  Somehow, I had been able to convince a librarian at the Gail Borden Public Library that I could handle the content of adult books--mostly biographies on artists such as Michelangelo and Rodin.  Their biographies were rather "racy" for me and introduced me to homosexuality and illicit passions.  I wrote about those themes (and a few details).  The nameless, but important, 10th grade substitute English teacher read the reports and didn't censor my writing at all.  She did correct my grammar and composition and so the world of writing exploded in potential along with the world of reading.

Maybe she knew what was ahead when I entered Mr. Caldwell's 11th Grade English class, followed by Mr. Fuhs' senior year class.  Both challenged our class with Faulkner and Hemingway, Joyce and Shakespeare and more.  They were equally unfaltering in their critiques of our writing and stretched our vocabulary with weekly tests.  By the end of my senior year, I was not only well prepared for college English classes, I excelled.  English Literature became my major and I immersed my reading and writing into medieval English Literature, 17th Century, a semester on Shakespeare, a semester on American writers--mostly Mark Twain.  At my public university, Northern Illinois University, I learned poetry from Lucien Stryk, a poet himself and international translator of Zen poetry.  I joined a writers group and had week night poetry sessions with him a a handful of others "invited" into his dusty living room where we ate crackers and cheese and drank sparkling wine.

The years have passed since then (1971) and, in all of them, I have continued to write and to learn to write.  As I wake each day in my 69th year, I read daily poetry, bits of nonfiction, everyday comics, and nightly fiction that lulls me to let go of reality.

I am grateful to all of my teachers and--through my past years of teaching writing to GED students, graduate students at the UA, and tutoring a family of second language elementary students--I hope I have helped others enter the wonderful world of writing.