Do you realize you are an eyewitness to history?

Wednesday I told you I’m writing a vignette about my high school friend, Cindy, and her example of resisting peer pressure with dignity and grace.

Now, this is going to sound nerdy but I’ll just blurt it out: I’m surprised at how much fun I’ve had researching the story’s historical connections.

A few days ago, my hometown newspaper ran a story commemorating the fifty-year anniversary of a plane crash that happened at the end of my story—a tragedy I witnessed and one which also caught the nation’s attention. I was an eyewitness to history.

I’m also having loads of fun researching another part of my story: our neighborhood’s legendary rock ’n’ roll scene and the national attention focused on it. I was an eyewitness to history.

Has it ever occurred to you that you are an eyewitness to history?

In their blog post, Your Memoir is History, Nancy and Biff Barnes say, “Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a part of the sweep of history. Think again.” 

If you’re near my age, you’ve witnessed Sputnik, air raid drills, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK’s death, Rev. Martin Luther King’s assassination, the Vietnam War, mankind’s first walk on the moon, the construction—and destruction—of the Berlin Wall, Mt. St. Helens’ eruption, and 9-ll.

You and I have observed history-in-the-making, sometimes as bystanders and other times as the movers and shakers.

When we include our stories’ historical settings, we anchor them in time and place. Our stories can make history come alive—they can make history personal—for our readers.

All around us, history touches our lives. The history surrounding your parents shaped them, and the history you witnessed shaped you. All of it shaped and shapes your family, your values, choices, finances, attitude, expectations, assumptions, and probably your career.

Here are a few resources for you:

In Ian Kath’s blog post, Five Historical Timelines of Your Lifestory, you’ll find helpful links to several historical timelines: fashion, music, world disasters, World War II, agricultural history, and national histories of Australia, the UK, USA, New Zealand, and South Africa.

In their blog post, Your Memoir is History, Nancy and Biff Barnes include links to The Smithsonian Institution’s American History Timeline and Digital History.  

I Remember JFK’s website also has rich historical resources for Baby Boomers. Browse around the site and you’ll find lots of interesting stuff that will make you smile, including photos.

When we include historical settings, we place ourselves into a bigger story, a story that includes our city, our nation, ethnic culture, gender, an industry, or our religion.

Our stories’ historical contexts add depth, texture, and meaning to stories.

And all of it adds enjoyment for our readers.

How long will your memoir’s readers stay engaged, charmed, and beguiled?

Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

Pop beads. Pedal pushers. Poodle skirts.

Full skirts, straight skirts, pleated skirts.

Car coats and cat-eye glasses.

Bobby socks and saddle shoes.

Girdles. Nylon hose with seams up the back, held up with garter belts.

Sputnik. Transistor radios. Rock 'n' Roll.

Friendship rings. Going steady.

(Pssssst. You're reading one of my lexicons.)

Remember lexicons? Last Wednesday I said I've been working on a second type of lexicon Priscilla Long recommends,* a word book for an era. I've listed those words in my 1955 - 1962 lexicon.

My lexicon from another era, 1950 - 1955, lists air-raid drills, pocketbooks, halter tops, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the GI Bill, trikes, two-wheelers, and penny candy. Unicume's Variety Center at North 4609 Nevada. Woolworths. Tea towels made from cotton flour sacks. Barrettes. Bobby pins. Spit curls.

Collecting them is so much fun! I'll enjoy working some of them into my WIPs (Works In Progress—rough drafts).

But such words serve a function beyond fun.

They have to do with keeping readers "engaged," according to Priscilla in The Writer's Portable Mentor, and keeping them "charmed, seduced, and beguiled." 

Last summer I wrote, "Your story is important, but will anyone read it?"*

Here's the issue: Your memoir's potential readers have many distractions.

Consider the lure of the Internet, texting, tweeting, and TV.

And hobbies.

And how many of us have a stack of books on our bedside tables just waiting to be read?

So what can you do to entice people to read your memoir?

You can write stories readers want to read more than—or at least as much as—they want to play with Facebook, iPods, and Smartphones.

You can enhance people’s reading experiences by doing away with ho-hum words and, instead, choosing descriptive words, specific words that create images in readers’ minds and help them step into your world alongside you. You can immerse them in your story.

“Every childhood has a lexicon,” Priscilla says. Such words capture a specific time and place.

“Place names, certain trees and buildings, the toys of 1934 …,” Priscilla says, “they all make vivid a particular place, a particular era, a particular person, a particular experience.”

Here are words from Priscilla’s childhood lexicon: “greenbriar, dirt road…, 4-H Club, teats, stanchions, silage, milkers, mastitis, calf barn, gutter, manure pile, manure spreader, marsh grass.…”

You have to admit those are good words: they capture a specific place, images, and even smells. 

Now it’s your turn! Compile your own childhood lexicon. Choose words that will engage, charm, seduce, and beguile. Choose words the describe "a particular place, a particular era, a particular person, a particular experience. " 


Look over your WIPs and find places to include words from your childhood lexicon because they will enrich your memoir and keep your readers reading.

You’ll find fun resources and memory-awakeners at the following:

Melissa Marsh’s blog, The Best of World War II, at http://bestofww2.blogspot.com

Reminisce magazine online (1930s through early 1970s) at http://www.reminisce.com

I Remember JFK includes photos, most of which you are free to download, at http://www.irememberjfk.com

“The Libraries of Our Childhoods,” from I Remember JFK, http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/2011/04/the_libraries_of_our_childhood.php

Touching reflections on family life in the 1960s, from the Winston-Salem Journal,  
http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/nov/17/wsopin02-circus-of-family-values-ar-1617072

The Graphics Fairy has 2500 free images and vintage printables that will (a) help your old memories to surface (b) provide fun illustrations for your memoir. Here’s the link: http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com

Share some of your lexicon’s words with us: leave a comment below.

And if you know of additional resources that will help others create their childhood lexicons, leave a comment below.

*Resources and links:

Priscilla Long, and my blog post, Gather “crackly” words for your memoir,

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2012/01/gather-crackly-words-for-your-memoir.html

“Your story is important, but will anyone read it?” 

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-story-is-important-but-will-anyone.html