Second Avenue Story Club

Relax. You'll be more productive.

2022-02-02T10:42:00.000-05:00

It seems that running from task to task only makes us feel more productive.

Not long ago, the New York Times featured a fascinating article by Tony Swartz titled “Relax! You’ll Be More Productive”. I often feel like I have more to do than my time and energy allow, so I was drawn to the idea. There is mounting evidence in studies done at prestigious institutions that our habit of working at all hours, skipping lunch and not using vacation days is making us less, not more productive. Here are some main points from the article.

1. To accomplish work we use time and energy. While both assets are finite, only energy is renewable. If we’re careful to consistently renew our energy, we’re able to accomplish more in the same amount of time. A study done in the 1950’s established that we sleep in cycles of roughly 90 minutes, shifting between light and deep sleep cycles. A decade later, one of the authors, Professor Nathaniel Kleitman found that our waking lives work the same way. We move from alertness progressively into physiological fatigue every 90 minutes.

2. Professor K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues at the University of Florida followed performers in the fields of music, athletics, acting and chess. In all these fields the best performers practice in sessions of no more than 90 minutes. The most efficient and effective performers start in the morning, rest between work sessions and rarely work for more than 4 of these 90 minute intervals each day. Dr. Ericcson notes, “To maximize gains from long-term practice individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.

3. One of the most damaging results of our penchant for working as many hours of the day as we can is a lack of sufficient sleep. A recent study found that sleeping too little, defined as less than six hours per night was one of the best predictors of job burnout. A Harvard study estimated the cost to US companies of lost productivity because of insufficient sleep could be as much as $63.2 billion a year.

This sounds counter intuitive but it’s worth exploring. Using more hours for work doesn’t mean we’re accomplishing more. Our bodies are not meant to go full steam until we fall exhausted into bed. The quality and quantity of our production will increase if we allow ourselves time, even in the middle of a work day, to renew our physical, mental and emotional selves. But how do we use this information while fitting into our office/corporate environment? What do you think? How do you manage your time and energy stores? Share some of your thoughts and methods.

Tony Swartz is the CEO of The Energy Project. You can find them on the web.

Read the entire article: Relax! You'll Be More Productive

The Immovable and Everlasting

2022-01-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

In June, I crossed ‘a close up view of the Rocky Mountains’ off my bucket list. They are the perfect antidote to the crazy way we live.

On the Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian-only space in Boulder, you can stand amid the stores, gelato stands and restaurants and look up at the Flatiron Mountains. A constant presence, they reminded me there are things we can count on, like the beauty of creation.

It takes a few days to become accustomed to the altitude, so on our first day we took an easy trail into the Flatirons. The murmur of the breeze through the pines was the only sound and their scent was heavenly.

On our third day we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s worth the ride and a good place to start your relationship with the Rockies. We climbed a well-marked trail to Alberta Falls. You can go further into the back country but we were still not acclimated enough.

On our fifth day we drove through narrow canyons, between steep peaks to Roosevelt National Forest, to Brainerd Lake. We walked 2.5 miles in to get to the lake and along the way, wonderful things happened that reminded me again of things you can always count on, love and friendships.

“Can I ask you a question about taking pictures with an I-Pad?” a sweet-faced lady asked my husband. We began to walk together. Her husband joined us and so began our journey together. Pat and Marty met in Colorado in the sixties and they return every year in the month of their anniversary to re-visit and remember. When we started to tire, they encouraged us to continue to the lake. They knew there was something there we could all count on.

After walking for twenty minutes, in a clearing close to the road, we met a group of gray-haired ladies who were watching a mama moose and her calf. They have been friends since their children were young, and they have been hiking the mountains together for years. Lifelong friendships cultivated in the sight of those glorious, ever-lasting peaks.

We talked and watched for a while then said good bye, and the four of us continued on. Talking and getting to know Pat and Marty helped us to keep going. Two hundred feet down the road we saw the papa moose, a majestic bull with full antlers. You can only watch in silence and marvel.

Then, in a second, around a bend in the road, there they were. “Wow! Look at that!” I exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

Straight ahead of us, in a semi-circle were the Indian Peaks, snow-covered and jagged, the tallest rising to 13,000 feet. After we took some pictures, including one for a bicyclist from Denmark, I sat on a rock that seemed to be put there just for contemplating the mountains.

The sense of serenity, permanence and strength were overwhelming. Those mountains have fostered relationships that have lasted for years. Pat and Marty invited us to join them for a hike to the Isabelle Glacier next year. They’re there every June. So is the glacier.

The Writer's Life and Some Who Live It

2021-12-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

For a little bit of something different, this post is part of a writing process blog tour. It’s a chance for writers to network about the writing life. I want to send out a big ‘thank you’ to Lisa Vogt, a fellow ReadWaver for turning me on to this tour and inviting me to participate. I urge all of you to check out the blogs of the writers I’ve profiled.

First let me answer some questions about how the process works for me…or how I work for it.

What am I working on?

Warming Up was such a personal story. Writing parts of it was wrenching. I decided to write something completely different for my second book. About that time I reconnected with my best friend from childhood who was the model for the character Rosie in Warming Up. We recalled that, as children, she wanted to pursue her drawing and painting and I wanted to write. We always dreamed that one day I would write a story and she would do the illustrations. We’re working on a children’s book set in the marshes we used to play in as children.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

If the genre is literary fiction, I think the one thing we all have in common is that the stories are personal. It’s the courage to mine those personal histories and emotions that makes the writing worth reading. That also means that every story is unique because it comes from the mind and heart of each writer.

Why do I write what I do?

I’m convinced that we all have stories to tell, and that the best of them come from family experiences. I’ve talked to people whose family histories rival anything you’ll ever read in classical or contemporary literature. I try to mine the stories and experiences I’ve been hearing about since I was a child. These stories, so grounded in reality, are the best place to start.

How does my writing process work?

While working on Warming Up I had about four months to write full time. What a joy! I found the best thing was to wake up early, grab a cup of coffee and set to work before the ‘inner critic’ woke up. After 3 or 4 hours I would go for a walk to the center of town and watch the people and traffic go by. Then I would go back and edit what I had written that morning. That was ideal but it’s not always possible. Mostly it’s carving out blocks of time and having the discipline to push everything else out of my mind and write.

And now I'd like to introduce you to some writers I have admired.

Aaliyah Miller is an award-winning screenwriter who believes the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Miller has a passion for storytelling and enjoys writing for theatre, film, and her blog, In the Mix.

Her film credits include After the Headlines, a short film she wrote, directed and produced (official selection of the Kent Film Festival, Action on Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival), The Anniversary (short film), and Moonshine (feature film). Her script Finding Patience was the recipient of the Sir Edmond Hillary Award and her short screenplay, After the Headlines won ‘Best Dramatic Scene’ at the Action on Film (AOF) International Film Festival and was an official selection at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival.

She holds a master in Communications and Leadership from Gonzaga University and a master of fine arts in Professional Writing with a focus in screenwriting and public relations from Western Connecticut State University. She currently works as a communications professional in Connecticut.

Blog Link: http://aaliya-miller.blogspot.com/2012/06/emerging-women-series-interview-with.html

Sid Schwab is a native of Portland, Oregon and has lived in Seattle for the past 32 years. He attended Amherst College, went to medical school in Cleveland, Ohio and did his surgery training at the University of California, San Francisco. He is retired from his general surgery practice, although he still assists on complex cancer surgeries.

He has written a book about his days of surgical training titled “Cutting Remarks, Insights and Recollections of a Surgeon.” It is available on Amazon.

His “Surgeonsblog” was mentioned in the New York Times as a worthy medical blog. He says of the blog, “My aim was to bring the lay reader into the life of a surgeon, to get a feel for what it’s like to operate on fellow humans, as well as to provide information on various surgical illnesses, and to tell a few good stories.” His most recent post is a sampler of sorts, with links to several of his favorite and representative posts.

He also wrote a year-long column on various issues for a local newspaper.

He and his wife Judy are expecting their first grandchild any minute now.

He blogs at www.surgeonsblog.blogspot.com and www.sidschwab.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading and special thanks to Aaliyah and Sid for taking part.

Best Friends

2021-11-22T11:31:00.000-05:00

There are some memories that are so vivid you can feel them as if they were happening again. On an unusually warm afternoon in November I walked home from Washington Elementary School with my best friend, Marcella. For some reason we had been let out early on a Friday. In the fifth grade, that’s usually a reason to celebrate.

As we walked we heard conversation among the older kids about the reason for our early dismissal. The president had been shot. We weren’t sure what to make of it. We were growing up in uncertain times. A little more than a year before, we had walked home wondering if the Russian ships had turned around or if there would be a war with atomic weapons. On that sunny afternoon we wanted to know if the Russians had shot our president.

We separated at the driveways that divided our properties, agreeing we would change (there were school clothes and play clothes back then) and meet at Marcella’s house. I can feel myself standing next to her, squinting at the television as the late afternoon sun shone through the living room windows. When a picture of the young, handsome president appeared, the glare made the screen a little hard to see. I shifted my stance to the right a little and saw the graphic in the upper right hand corner. John F. Kennedy 1917-1963.

“I think that means he’s dead,” I said.

“Yes, it does,” she confirmed.

And every November twenty-second since then, when the nightly news carries the inevitable piece about that sad anniversary, I remember that day. I remember standing next to my best friend and learning one of the most frightening things I had ever heard. The next three days are firmly etched in my mind, too. For anyone who was alive then the images of the coffin lying in state, the widow and children paying their respects, the funeral, the cortège and a host of sad events are all a permanent part of our memories.

First Day of School 1959

And through it all, my best friend was there. We talked about our feelings and the reactions of our parents and the world. And sharing those confusing times with someone I loved and trusted made it bearable.

So it was through many years. Whenever there was something to talk about, something we struggled to understand, we handled it together. We negotiated our way through the births and deaths in our families, the confusing stages of growing into women, matters of war and peace and every big and small event in our town, country and the world.

I want to say ‘thank you’ to Marcella for traveling that road with me. And I encourage everyone to think about the person you considered your best friend when you were growing up. Have you talked to them lately? If not, find them. It’s not hard to do in this information age. Tell them how much they meant and still mean to you. They’re part of who you are.

A Summer Evening in the Piazza del Popolo

2021-11-10T11:09:00.000-05:00

The singer’s deep and throaty basso floated on the wind of the orchestra, bouncing off the sides of the 16^th century Piazza del Popolo. The orchestra, seven violins, two cellos and a double bass were joined by a lead and bass guitar, drums and a keyboard. It all combined for the soaring, operatic genre of popular music Italians have always loved. The Festa di Pesaro was under way in all its sound and color.

Young families with small children, teens, grandparents and every age in between strolled the cobblestone piazza, enjoying the moon lit night. We were impressed by the sight of teenagers, walking in pairs and groups, as they stopped to converse with elderly ones. There seemed to be no problem communicating across the years. It happened a few times and we realized it wasn’t a fluke. Grandparents were not separated away, not in housing developments and not in the life of the community or the minds of young people.

Earlier in the evening, at dinner in a local restaurant, we had begun to adjust to the slower pace of everything. As in many places in Europe, in Italy it is understood that when you sit down for dinner, the table will be yours for the entire evening. Turn-over is like take-out, it simply doesn’t exist. When the food arrived it was worth the wait. We finished our delicious meal, asked for the check and noticed the waitress looked a little put off. What had we done? When she returned with a bottle of limoncello, the wonderful and popular lemon liquor, we understood. Where were we going before the dinner was complete? The after-dinner drink was just part of the service. It was the owner’s home-made version and it was delicious.

Amid the sound and bustle of the Festa, at a small stand next to the post office we bought some pignoli gelato. We marveled that the small, sweet nuts had been so delicious in our pasta dinner and here they were, perfect in our dessert. Standing in the middle of the piazza, listening to the orchestra it seemed I had wandered into a movie. If Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianno had been the next two people to glide by, it would not have surprised me at all.

In the fountain at the center of the piazza four white marble pipers held up a clam shell that shot water straight up into the night and in front of each figure a horse fought mightily to escape out into the square. I scanned the scene and willed myself to remember all the sights, sounds, smells and sensations. Two months on, if I close my eyes I’m there. I can hear the music and the splash of the fountain, see the crowds and taste the gelato. The best thing about travel is what you carry away with you. In an instant you can return to those places by memories so vivid and easily summoned.

Clearing a Path Down Memory Lane

2021-10-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the word nostalgia is derived from the Greek words “nostos” meaning homecoming, and “algos”, meaning pain, grief or distress. In 1688, after observing a tendency in soldiers stationed abroad to focus on memories of home, a Swiss doctor named Johannes Hoffer described nostalgia as a “neurological disease”.

If you’re like me you have no trouble understanding what this discussion is about. I readily admit to spending time strolling down the tree-lined path of those sweet days gone by. Is this an unhealthy thing, as Dr. Hoffer defined it? No, in fact a recent New York Times article lists some distinct benefits to those journeys of heart and mind.

In an article titled “What is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows”, published on July 8, 2013, John Tierney discussed research that has changed attitudes toward time spent enjoying memories of the past. Dr. Constantine Sedikides of the Centre for Research on Self and Identity, The University of Southampton is quoted as saying “Nostalgia makes us a bit more human.”

In 2011 Dr. Sedikides and colleagues published a study entitled “Nostalgia: The Gift That Keeps on Giving”. Nostalgic feelings are said to “typically involve interactions between the self and close others such as family members, friends, and romantic partners. These social interactions occur in the context of momentous life events such as reunions, vacations, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and childbirths.” Dr. Timothy Wildschut says the stuff of nostalgia is the same everywhere. “The defining features of nostalgia in England are also the defining features in Africa and South America.”

Not surprisingly, the researchers found that music is a good way to induce nostalgia. They can say that again. Who hasn’t heard just the first few bars of something from ‘Sgt Pepper’s’ and been hurtled right back to the summer of 1967? “She’s Leaving Home” is the song that’s most evocative for me.

So do we have permission to spend our days lost in reminiscence while ignoring the here and now and making no preparations for the future? No. Dr. Sedikides mentioned the need to be cautious about the kind of remembering that causes us to think the past was better. This can rob us of our initiative and hopes for the future. Think of nostalgic thoughts as a little vacation, a long weekend so to speak. Those warm, pleasant memories can bolster our sense of well-being and strengthen our feelings of worth at having our own personal history and roots. “Experience it as a prized possession,” he advises. “When Humphrey Bogart says, ‘We’ll always have Paris,’ that’s nostalgia for you. We have it and nobody can take it away from us. It’s our diamond.”

And here’s my favorite part. Dr. Sedikides encourages looking to the future. “I don’t miss an opportunity to build nostalgic-to-be memories,” he says. So think about the features of nostalgia, warm memories of family, friends and special occasions; and lay the foundation for tomorrow’s nostalgia. Today’s good times will be tomorrow’s wonderful, sustaining memories. We can delight in the past, enjoy the present and look to the future.

A Mania for the Lads from Liverpool, Times Two

2021-09-14T20:41:00.000-04:00

Mania can be defined as an excessive enthusiasm or desire; an obsession. The one that stands out in my memory was elicited by four young men from the British seaport of Liverpool. If you don’t remember the Beatles, the word mania may seem like a stretch. If you do, you know exactly what I mean.

Although it’s a sweet and amusing memory now, it was serious business then. My friends and I spent many hours hunched over our transistor radios, just about bumping heads. (Those radios were not very big.) Beatles music was a source of unending happiness, each new song or album convincing us we knew them better than we did before.

As if the music, the fan clubs and the Beatles cards, (which came with bubble gum) didn’t get us worked up enough, in August, 1964 the roof just about caved in. A Hard Day’s Night was released. It was a madcap romp through a few days of their lives, punctuated by song. As soon as we heard it was playing in our local movie theatre, we knew we just had to see it or we would die.

Do you remember local movie theatres? At the Rivoli Theatre on Campbell Avenue in West Haven, Connecticut the tickets were 35 cents if you were under 12 and went up to 50 cents if you were 12 or over. The best part was we could walk. It was a five or six block walk to the theatre so we didn’t need a ride for the 2:00 showing. We were thinking we were about as cool as we could be.

The front of the theatre was a mob scene. People were pushing and yelling, trying to get in the door to get the best seats. My friends and I clasped hands and pushed toward the ticket booth with all our might. We made it and ran inside to get as close as we could. The place was filled to the rafters with very excited children, and the atmosphere was almost as out-of-control as the sidewalk out front. And then the movie started.

If you’ve ever seen the shots of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, you’ll know what I’m describing. It was a little hard to actually hear them sing over all the screaming and claims of love everlasting. There was nothing else to do but to join in. We yelled and jumped and sang along like people in the midst of a true mania. By the time it was over, our throats were raw but our hearts were full. We couldn’t have imagined it, but they were cuter in a movie than on TV or in photos.

When the movie ended we sat for a few minutes while some kids filed out. The manager of the Rivoli, an elderly fellow who, I’m sure had never seen anything like this crowd, came out to see how things were going.

“How did you like it?” he asked those of us who had stayed behind.

“We loved it!”

“Well, I’m glad. But you made so much noise and commotion I thought the roof would fall in.”

“’But we love the Beatles!”

“O.K. I’ll tell you what. If you promise not to scream and go crazy, I’ll play the film again. How’s that?”

We all started to scream and go crazy. And he really did play it again. That Saturday afternoon in 1964 was Beatle mania times two.

A Wonderful Life in the Neighborhood

2021-08-17T13:04:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I was driving on the new, wide boulevards of the town where I live, and it got me thinking about neighborhoods. It’s been a trend in the last 20 years to build towns from the ground up. This is one of those towns. The up side is that the roads are new and wide and ready to accept the volume of traffic that will surely come. The down side is that no matter how artfully designed these places are, they will only be a pale imitation of neighborhoods that have grown up over many years.

There’s something intangible about history. The passing of years gives a place some weight. You can stand on the street and feel the layers of life that have built up over time. You can imagine the generations of children who ran, bicycled and skated over those sidewalks. In the town where I grew up, many young parents have brought their children to the beach to escape the summer heat. As the years passed crowds of teenagers gathered on the sand to get some sun and some attention.

My favorite memories are the people. They were a collection of ages, backgrounds and personalities whose regard for each other made it a true community. On summer days we ran through each other’s back yards, swam in each other’s pools and piled into our parents’ cars for rides to beaches and parks. After a heavy snowfall, shoveling the sidewalks was combined effort. When someone was sick, their family ate very well, thanks to the efforts of the other mothers.

No one had a lot of money. Most families survived on one income. It would be difficult to replicate that now. It’s almost impossible for a family to survive on one job these days. So the houses have gotten bigger and the lawns have gotten wider. The pools are in ground and instead of running through yards on both sides children are driven to activities of one sort or another. Were things better then or worse now? Not really, just different. In either case, children make their way.

So it’s just a bit of nostalgia that keeps me thinking of the way things were in my old neighborhood. It’s fun to think of those streets and sidewalks, above ground pools and games of touch football under the street lights. We played from telephone pole to telephone pole. There were usually ten to fifteen people on each team, boys, girls and every age. No one cared who won. It was just a chance to feel part of the group, to run and yell, to feel the strength in our legs and enjoy the sweetness of a summer night. Life was good.

Life still is good. Children still play and run and feel how strong they are. We still watch them and relive how much fun it was to be alive and have unlimited energy on a summer night.

What were summer nights like in your neighborhood?

It's All There in Black and White

2021-07-14T10:16:00.000-04:00

In preparation for a recent move I took two boxes of photos down from the shelf in the hall closet, determined to place the yellowing pictures in albums. I figured it would take me two hours at the most. Well, that was a silly thought. I guess I spent about twice that and I wasn’t even half way through. I had to take the half empty boxes with us, hoping to finish the job in our new location.

You can probably imagine the reason why this has taken so much longer than I had planned. As I pick up every photo, I look at it. There’s no way I can just place it under the clear sheet and move on. These are all people I’ve known my whole life. Some are still around, but most have died. So I sit and gaze into the photos trying to relive their presence.

It might be a trick of the memory but they all seem happy. Everyone is smiling, of course. Many are taken at family events, like weddings. Others show family and friends relaxing, eating and drinking together. I think the black and white pictures have something to do with it.

The shadows seem to hold emotions. The sun-kissed faces are alive, as if, frozen in those frames, they would always be alive. The surprising thing is how vivid the memories are. I can hear their voices and laughter. It’s like it was yesterday that my brothers and cousins and I ran around outside, oblivious to the conversation of the adults. I want to believe that, even then, we knew those times were special.

But time moves on. People grow up and move to different parts of the country, even other parts of the world. Our grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles are part of our lives for a limited time. So we carry the memories of those days in our minds, hearts and boxes of pictures. It’s always nice to take those black and whites out and gaze into those contented faces. It’s the least we can do, really. All of those people deserve to be remembered. It’s only right that we sit and ponder the part they played in our lives, giving them life again in our memories.

So make the time soon to take down those boxes, or take out those albums if you’re one of those organized people. Black and white photos are the perfect memory aid. The vivid color that is possible in modern photography is certainly stunning. But sometimes it gives you too much to look at. In a photo of people on the beach, you’re more likely to stare at the water if it’s a beautiful shade of turquoise. In an old black and white, you focus right in on the person’s face. The images have a timeless feel, as if you must have seen them in Life Magazine back in the day.

Happy memory hunting.

Are You Ready to Tell Your Story? No one else can.

2021-06-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

Do you have a story idea percolating just below the surface of your everyday routine? Is there an idea that has been tumbling around in your head for a while? There are some steps you can take to get your writing dream off the ground.

First, be the best writer you can be. Writing is a craft. If you practice you will develop expertise, technique and skill. Think about it as you would think about learning to play the piano. You wouldn’t expect to play a Bach concerto after a week of lessons. The good news is with writing, you don’t have to start at the beginning. You’ve been writing your whole life. You just need to bring your game up a few notches.

Second, be a student of writing. Take the subject on with gusto. If a classroom environment is the best for you, look at the catalog of your local community college. Chances are you’ll find a class that’s right for you at a reasonable price. If you don’t have time for a class or you enjoy a more self-directed approach, there are a lot of good books on writing you can use to sharpen your skills. Many great writers have been generous with their advice to developing scribes. We’ll talk about the best books on writing in a future post.

Third, be a professional. Even if you don’t plan to quit your job to write, you’ll benefit from treating your writing as a professional does. What does that mean to you? If you wanted to turn those piano lessons into a concert career, what would it take? You know the answer. You’d have to practice, practice, and then practice. You’ll be amazed at how comfortable you’ll become with the English language. The more you write, the more that part of your brain will develop, until you’ll feel confident of your ability to put your ideas down on paper in an accurate and engaging way. By the way, many famous writers had day jobs, so don’t let the need to make a living stop you. Robert Frost was a newspaper boy and worked in a light-bulb factory. Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote Slaughterhouse-Five, was the manager of a car dealership, and Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, worked as a messenger boy and file clerk.

So whether you’ve always wanted to be a writer or you’ve caught the bug as an adult, there is a process you can follow to arrive at your destination. You might already know what you’ll write about or maybe you know how much you want to write but wonder where you can find stories and characters. We’ll kick around some ideas in another post.

The Town Green

2021-05-11T13:27:00.000-04:00

It doesn’t matter where you grew up. It could have been the plains of Kansas, or the dusty fields of Texas, or the corner of New England I come from. For the rest of your life, no matter where you go, that place is still home. Even if you haven’t lived there in many years, a song, a taste or a passing thought can bring you right back there in an instant.

For me, the memory came back recently as I drove passed a town green. If the place you grew up had one, you know what I mean. That two block parcel of grass and trees crisscrossed by concrete walkways was literally the center of town. Every year the old growth maples and oaks signaled spring’s arrival, first with small, tentative buds, then tender bright green leaves. Finally, all the glory of summer days flourished in the deepest shades of green and shadow.

Of course, fall was a spectacle. The cooling air and shortening days gave the Green a stunning bonnet. The colors deepened and faded, and finally the leaves fell. And there were amazing piles of leaves! You could get lost in them. Until you were eight or nine, they were taller than you were.

Every winter, as soon as it was cold enough, the Parks Department would build two-foot high berms of sand around each section of grass. The Fire Department drove two blocks from the main station with a pumper truck to fill the basins with water. Most years it took at least over night for each level to freeze, and there was no skating until three levels had frozen. Sometimes the wait seemed like forever.

On Saturday mornings we ran out right after breakfast and we were skating by 9:00. At lunchtime we hurried home, ate and ran back to skate until the sun started to set. I can remember walking home after a day of skating on the Green feeling as tired as I’ve ever felt in my life. It was wonderful. Some days we hurried home after school, changed and grabbed our skates. That only gave us an hour or so to skate before dinner, but it was worth it.

On my first weekend home from college, there was a rally on the green before a football game at the high school. I remember standing in the noise and activity and being glad to be there. The energy of the gathering, the smell of earth and fallen leaves, and the crisp fall night was an intoxicating mix. I knew this was something I would want to store away for future reference. I told myself to remember it. How amazing is it that I did?

What do you remember most about your hometown? It’s always good to visit, even if it’s an armchair trip.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

2021-04-07T15:37:00.000-04:00

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ writing has the depth and force of childhood memories, your own. His endlessly captivating novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude shines with prose so rich and nostalgic you’ll think you’re remembering things instead of hearing them for the first time. What can you learn from this master of the art of fiction?

Have the courage to let your imagination run wild. Garcia Marquez is a wonderful example of unfettered imagination. His ability to get aloft and take you flying with him will remind you of Ray Bradbury. The stories are astonishing but you are drawn in because they are so masterfully told. His grandmother was evidently a great storyteller. She told fantastic stories, he says “…but she told them with complete naturalness. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories.” While your imagination soars, your feet need to stay on the ground. “I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face.”

Make the place a character. Macondo grows from a small village of adobe houses by a river to a thriving settlement, and then it falls and finally disappears. Successive generations of the Buendia family are the founding architects and principal residents of the town. And what a town it is! A colorful progression of characters finds their way to this isolated place. Troupes of gypsies demonstrate fascinating trinkets and processes, Arabs with the latest inventions from the wide world over, settlers from Europe bringing their books full of classical culture, a two hundred year old traveling minstrel named Francisco the Man, and more mix with native tribesmen to make the main street of Macondo a parade of delights.

Don’t be afraid of emotion when you write. In fact emotion is absolutely necessary to good writing. You need a mix of the mental process that lets you drive the story forward and strong feelings about what you’re writing. If you don’t feel anything, neither will your reader. The first sentence of One Hundred Years is a good example. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Whoa! You’re in up to your eyeballs right away. You feel distress and want to know how he got into this situation. Then you feel the fascination of a small boy in a tropical village experiencing ice for the first time. You just have to know who this person is and what led him to this point. You are emotionally involved.

If you are a writer One Hundred Years of Solitude is worth your while. We have to note that the book was written in Spanish. If you can read it in the original language, it will surely add to the experience. If you cannot read Spanish, Gregory Rabassa’s translation will do just fine.

Happy reading and writing!

Learning from Great Novels-To Kill a Mockingbird

2021-03-16T09:27:00.000-04:00

If you’re going to produce good writing, you have to read good writing. In this series we’ll look at some great novels and see what they teach us. We’ll start with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorite books. Here are a few things you can take away from this classic. Keep in mind this was the first novel Ms. Lee wrote so don’t think you can’t do great things as a first time novelist.

Write what you know.

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.” With that one sentence, Harper Lee transports us to a small Alabama town in the 1930’s. You can picture the dusty streets and the faded, clapboard houses that line them. You feel the sun beating down on your arms on a summer day. Why do you leave the place you’re standing in and step into that town? Because she was describing a place she knew well. She set her story in the town she grew up in and you can tell. Good writing is more than the words you put down on the paper. It’s about the emotions and impressions behind them. The more real those feelings are to the writer the more chance the reader will feel them. So don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s nothing worth writing about in the time and place you know best. There’s drama everywhere.

Base your characters on real people.

This leads to our second point. She based the people she wrote about on people she knew. Atticus Finch had a piece of her father in him. As she runs through the town, playing with Jem and Dill you are beside them, remembering what your relationships were with your brothers and the kids in the neighborhood. Of course, you can take artistic license. You don’t have to describe everyone to a tee. It’s probably better if you don’t. The rule is: if it serves the story, it stays. You might have to change people a little to get the story told, but imbuing your characters with personality traits from people you know will make them live and breathe to your readers.

Don’t be afraid to tell the good, the bad and the ugly.

Harper Lee writes about Alabama in the 1930’s and she includes negative and positive experiences. You get the sense of a small town community. You see her and Jem being raised by the village. You get to know Atticus as a quiet, courageous man, the type of father anyone would be proud to claim. But you also see the ugly side of the racial issues that were part of that time and place. This makes the story real. We all grew up in the same kind of time and place. There are people and events we love to remember and claim as our own and there are things we’d rather forget. To ground a story in reality both the good and the bad memories have to be there. It might be painful to remember and recount some stories, but that’s the kind of narrative that draws readers in.

I hope this helps. Next we’ll look at one of my favorite books, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marques.

Four Reasons You Should Be Writing

2021-02-10T13:51:00.000-05:00

Second Avenue Story Club is dedicated to the idea that we all have stories to tell. Here are some reasons the effort it takes to write about them is worth it.

1. It’s good for your brain.

The ability to say things correctly and in a manner that is understood by the reader is a bedrock skill of an educated person. Not just for someone who makes his/her living writing, but for anyone in any field. The benefits accrued to the brain and mind by learning to express ideas clearly in the confines of a grammatical structure are invaluable. In the same way a brisk walk or an aerobic workout makes your body feel good, using your mind to organize and express thoughts makes your brain feel good. You get a ‘brain exercise high’.

2. It’s good for your self.

Writing is a way to express who you are. We all need to be heard. It's essential to happiness to know that what we think and feel is important to at least a few other people. Expressing your thoughts and having someone listen is the antidote to loneliness. People choose from a myriad of ways to express themselves. Some sing, dance or act. Some paint or sculpt. The arts are a uniquely human pursuit. So join in. Express your humanity.

3. You know some great stories.

Some of them have been circling around in your head for a while. They might be things that happened to you, a family member, a friend, or someone in your town. Recently I read a story in a Sunday newspaper about a woman’s struggle to overcome being born on the wrong side of town as a member of a cultural minority. The way she handled the challenges she faced lit up all the lights for me. I’ve tucked it away for future work. If you have a writer inside you, you’ve likely reacted to a story or two in the same way.

4. You’ve always wanted to write.

If this is you, I commiserate. Do you remember how old you were when you decided to write stories for other people to read? I was eleven. Any writer will tell you they write because they have to. They’re not happy if they’re not writing. It’s the same as people who sing, dance, paint, or play an instrument. For a writer, the act of storytelling is a compulsion. Why deny it?

What kind of stories do you want to write? Do you have a great spy novel percolating in your head? Are you a fan of historical fiction? What about a great coming-of-age story? Any of these ideas can be the foundation of a wonderful adventure. Start scribbling down your ideas and get going on your first novel. Take the advice of William Wordsworth, who said “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

The Perfect Recipe

2021-01-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I was thinking about what to make for dinner. Thumbing through a cookbook, I saw a recipe for homemade pasta. It brought back the same memory that always accompanies homemade pasta. I thought about my grandmother’s gnocci.

Some people call them potato dumplings but to me they’re pasta. We ate them in all the ways people eat pasta, with all the same sauces and toppings. My grandmother made the dough, kneaded it then divided it into smaller portions. On a floured wooden surface she rolled each portion into long, thin ropes. After she cut the ropes into small pieces, it was my job to press down with my thumb on each one, making the indent that’s unique to these little pieces of delight. One of my most cherished memories is of helping my grandmother make gnocci. I say ‘cherished’ now but back then it was a different story.

The truth is, try as she did, my grandmother could not instill in me an appreciation for the domestic arts. I was much more interested in being outside, running around with my friends. I thought it was fun to eat gnocci but I had no desire to be stuck in the house making them while the world went by outside the window. It gave me the feeling I was missing something.

My grandmother, circa 1950

Now I realize I was missing something by running out the door so quickly. I have no idea what my grandmother’s recipe for gnocci was. I’ve found some good ones online and they suffice, I suppose, but I wish I could tell you how she made that dough. Like so many great cooks of her generation, my grandmother did not write down her recipes. She cooked from memory. I’m sorry to say the recipe for that gnocci dough is not in my memory.

One recipe isn’t so big a deal but the principle applies to so many things, especially collecting and writing a family history or memoir. People’s memories go with them and no one has forever. So if the idea of writing a family history appeals to you, don’t wait. Start now, while the thought is fresh, collecting those stories and writing them down.

If you have memories of being in the kitchen with your grandmother or your mother or your aunts, that’s a great place to start. Think about the aromas, the tastes, the conversations that made up those experiences. Maybe that’s where you heard many of the great stories you know about your family. Working together seems to loosen people’s tongues, particularly when it happens around food.

Wherever your memories are centered, make sure they’re not lost. Take the time to collect them and to write them down. It’s admittedly difficult in this busy life to find the time to reflect and to record those stories but the rewards are more than worth the effort. It might help to start by carving out ten minutes at the beginning or at end of your day. If you do that on a regular basis you’ll have a good amount of material in a short time.

Don’t lose the perfect recipe or the perfect story. Write it down so everyone can have a taste.

The Storyteller’s Art

2020-12-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

Have you ever listened to someone tell a story, sometimes about a serious or even dramatic subject, and found yourself bored and anxious for the person to stop talking? Their narrative just doesn’t hold you. On the other hand, do you know people who keep everyone on the edge of their seats with accounts of the most everyday events? What makes the two experiences so different? The first person has no idea of how to relate events in a way that holds our attention. The second one knows the storyteller’s art.

Is the storyteller’s art something you are either born with or not? Some people do seem to have a head start. Don’t despair if you feel you’re not a natural, though. Storytelling is an art, but also a craft and, as such, can be learned and developed like any other skill. What’s the first step? Ray Bradbury, one of the most instinctive storytellers ever, had a deceptively simple piece of advice. You have to read.

“I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.”

In that comment you can hear his passion for the world of stories and ideas. That passion drove him to read, literally, everything he could get his hands on. And he wrote…and wrote…and wrote. So how do we become skillful at the art and craft of weaving stories that hold people’s attention and move them? Ray Bradbury had a thought on that.

“I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice.”

So set some time aside. Carve out a little space in your day, even if it’s not as long as you would like it to be, to write. We’re not talking about thinking about writing. We mean writing. People who want to write usually have more than one story running around in their head waiting to be told.

It’s like coffee percolating on the stove in one those old metal coffee pots. It started to boil then you could watch the coffee being forced up into the glass knob on top of the pot. And you thought about now good the coffee would taste. And you watched the pot as it percolated. And you thought about how good the coffee would taste. And you kept watching the pot. It would have been all for nothing if you hadn’t taken the pot off the stove and enjoyed a great cup of coffee!

“We are all cups, constantly and quietly being filled,” Bradbury said. “The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

The challenge is to find the time to tip ourselves over and let some of the good things out that have been percolating. Start with fifteen minutes. Make yourself sit down and write about what’s on your mind. Do it everyday and it will turn into half an hour before you know it. Guess what will happen to the half hour. That’s right. It will become an hour. Writing will be a habit. And once you tip the cup over, who knows what beautiful things will come out?

Summer Wine

2020-11-18T08:51:00.000-05:00

We’ve been discussing the idea of becoming your family’s historian. A fictionalized memoir is one way to approach the task. This form will allow you to use some of the allowances of fiction to tell the stories that are important to you.

The characters can be as closely based on the people who inhabited your world as the story needs them to be. No one lives alone, so your alter ego needs a family. Why not use your own as the basis or type for the one that lives in your story? Everything has to happen someplace. Why not the neighborhood you know best? The setting can be exactly the place you remember or one you’ve created by combining your street with an imagined lane.

All of this comes to mind today because Ray Bradbury died recently at the age of 91. His novel Dandelion Wine is one of the best examples of the art of using imagination to tell the story of growing up. Dandelion Wine is Mr. Bradbury’s recounting of the summer of a twelve year boy, Douglas Spaulding. Douglas is growing up in Green Town Illinois, a place full of beautiful moments and awful fears. Mr. Bradbury wrote about his childhood often and the novel came out of that habit.

What better place for a writer to start? Childhood is a time of vivid and dramatic memories. We remember the sun shining more brightly, the trees being fuller, everything being bigger and the people around us were heroes or villains, nothing in between. And is there a more evocative time than summer? The days are long and lazy and you’re waking up when your dreams end instead of being jolted awake by the call of the school day. Most important, childhood is a time of wonder.

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds,” Mr. Bradbury wrote. “See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

No one wrote about the wonder of living better than Ray Bradbury. He was able to keep that sense of every minute being a miracle throughout his life. That’s not easy to do. Obligations, deadlines and the most menial of tasks can drown it out. The writer, more than anyone, needs to maintain that surprise at the beauty of being conscious.

So where do you start? The elements of telling a story are always the same. We create drama by giving a protagonist a goal and putting obstacles in his/her way. The motivations that move her will have emotional dimension if you inhabit the character, so start with yourself. How would you have handled the drama you’ve created? Once your main character starts to react, your story will move along.

“Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write,” Ray Bradbury advised. “The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”

That ranks with the greatest advice on writing I’ve ever read.

So don’t hesitate. Push off from the shore and start to float. As you drift, you’ll pass by the people and places that hold the most meaning for you. Write whatever you remember, whatever moves you, whatever carries you back to that time and place. There’s no question you’ll do the best writing of your life.

Happy writing.

Where Do I Start?

2020-10-15T18:10:00.000-04:00

Making the decision to start a family memoir or to compile a family history is exciting. You remember sitting and listening with fascination to the adults in your life as they shared memories that made them laugh, sigh or sometimes caused a sad quiet to fall over the room. It was like looking through a window into a time and place so different from your own. It’s equally fascinating to revisit those stories and put them down on paper.

A window into the past

Your next thoughts may be more practical. Where do I start? Which stories should I include? How much do I need to remember about dates and details? Are there some things I should leave out?

Not to worry; you’re hearing the editor that lives inside all of us.While he/she will serve a vital purpose at some point, in the beginning you may need to ignore that voice. The first thing to do is just to sit down and write. Write about the first thing that comes into your head. This will make you remember other accounts and people. Before you know it, you’ll be off and running with plenty of time to edit and reedit later.

As with any task, writing your family history will be easier if you break the big job down into smaller ones. Which character will you focus on first? What particular story about him/her made an impression on you? What lessons did you take away from your time with that person? When you ask these kinds of questions the story begins to tell itself.

There’s no need to get bogged down with how it should sound, either. This is another matter for rewrites. The more time you spend writing, the more comfortable you’ll become. It may be years since you sat down to write something of any length, but it will come back to you. We all know enough about sentences and paragraphs to just start writing.

Of course you want your writing to be eloquent and grammatically correct. After you’ve gathered the raw material for an account, you can be your own English teacher. If you don’t already have one, it’s a good idea to get a grammar guide book. There are several excellent ones on the market. There are even online guides if you prefer a digital environment. It will be worth your time to do some research. I’ve found The Blue Book of Grammar and Pronunciation by Jane Straus useful. It’s easy to use and has all the information you’ll need to sharpen your skills.

How exact do you have to get about dates and places? The more detail you can include the more real and immediate your account will be. Sights, sounds, dates and details allow the reader to picture him/herself in the world you’re describing. If you’re not sure about some facts and there’s someone you can ask, by all means make the time to do that. With a little practice you’ll become a skilled interviewer.

If it’s your intention to publish your material for the public, you may also have to decide whether certain things will be included in your accounts at all. Some stories may include sad or embarrassing parts. Should you write them or skip them? Will everybody be pleased if you include them? It can be a sticky subject and may require some skill to tell the truth and still respect the dignity of all involved. This is a skill that will come with experience, too. We’ll talk more about this, as well as developing your interviewing skills in a later post.

So take a breath, jump in and enjoy the ride. Happy writing!

The Road Home

2020-09-09T18:43:00.000-04:00

When he turned eighteen on December 10, 1942, Andrew knew his draft notice would soon follow. It took seven days, arriving on December 17. His older brother Frank had already shipped out. The two brothers fought in different parts of the world, Andrew mostly in occupied Italy and Frank in Asia. As the war raged on they never communicated directly, hearing only snippets of information about each other when letters arrived from home.

Uncle Frank and Dad, 1946

Unlike many families, theirs did not suffer the ultimate loss. They both survived the war. In a circumstance that seemed written for a movie, after being unsure of the other’s condition for some time, they were discharged within days of each other and arrived home on the same day.

After returning from the war, both brothers lived with an uncle in New Haven, Connecticut. One day, to his horror, Andrew’s cousin came home from work and informed him she had volunteered him as a senior prom date for a girl who worked with her. He was livid, telling her he had no desire to go on a blind date or, at age 23, to take anyone to her senior prom. She told him she had talked him up to Elsie, telling her young friend how nice her cousin was and that they would make a perfect couple. She prevailed, convincing him to at least meet the girl. He agreed, and to his surprise, liked her enough to take her to her senior prom. In October of 1949 they wed. I was their second child. Good thing his cousin convinced him to meet her.

Mom and Dad October, 1949

Stories with those kinds of twists, turns and what-ifs are in every family. We all know accounts of almost missed opportunities, and the consequences. We’ve heard stories about people in our families who observed or even played a part in the major events of the twentieth century. It takes a little listening and asking a few questions to flesh out the accounts, but it’s worth it. The stories you gather are priceless and part of who you are.

Second Avenue Story Club is dedicated to the idea that you cannot make up the things that really happen to people.

In the weeks to come we’ll open up a conversation about writing family memoirs, whether actual accounts or fictionalized, as is the case in the novel Warming Up. We’ll discuss finding these stories and we’ll talk about how to tell them. The story teller’s art is in all of us. We just have to cultivate it a bit.

     Second Avenue Story Club will also include interviews with friends who have shown a knack for telling a story, and from time to time we’ll share some of the stories we gather.

     So, think about the unbelievable accounts you’ve heard from all the amazing characters at your family gatherings. You'll be sure to think of stories that need to be told. Maybe you'll become your family's historian.

     Thanks for reading. See you again soon.