Just for you

7/11/09

Adding To The Menu

Notice, we've added a new Thesaurus of sorts.

Check it out on the right side-bar!!!

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

4/11/09

Where Have We Been????
From the looks of things, busy with checking out what's for dinner. Oh my.

Seriously, we have taken some time off from the workshop to take care of something more important; our sweet little mama. And she does keep us busy with keeping a full menu on hand.

Thanks for your support during this precious time of making memories with her.

Keep checking in while we are in transition and construction of adding more of the student's stories.

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

1/1/09

New Year Wishes 4 U And Someone Else

Wishing you many new stories for the New Year. See you soon. Begin writing about a new wish you want to give to someone else that might change their life as well as yours!

12/18/08

Toasty Christmas Memories

Pull up a chair by the fire, sip on a toasty cup of rich hot cocoa, with pen and paper and begin your story...

Merry Christmas to you all! I love you and hope to see you in the New Year.

11/27/08

Memories Shared Just With You!

It's been some time since I have posted your stories. I have been busy making many memories with college kiddos, my precious mom, and grandchildren. What a wide array of adventures! I'm enjoying them all. Yes, they have their challenges, but still there is so much to be thankful for this season.

I must tell you, I'm eternally thankful for the memories you brought to my life this past year. And I'm looking forward to many more in the upcoming year.

Keep the emails coming as well as the stories.

Blessings!

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

9/28/08

Staying in Tune

Please stay tuned! I will be publishing more stories from the workshop this coming week. I'm away from my desk this week while at a conference.

Thanks for stopping by.

You might want to visit our writing website and or blogsite:

www.thewritememories4life.com or www.writememories4life.com

9/1/08

Memorial Day Memory

Consider! What a picture speaks.

Serve your country this year and vote!

8/27/08

Westward We Go by Irene

Westward We Go

In 1945 we had been living in the Choctaw house for about two years. Shortly after moving into the house, Daddy was sent to Portland, Oregon to work in the Kaiser shipyards building warships. Mother had coped with us alone on his allotment in Oklahoma. She had gone to Portland early in 1944 to visit Daddy. My brother, Mike, had been born in December 1944.

The war had finally ended and the soldiers were coming home. My father wrote and told Mother that he had decided that he was not coming back to Oklahoma. He had already found a job in Portland. She was to pack up the family and take the train to Portland. So, my mother with four kids ages 9, 8, 6 and 1 (two who were bed wetters) set out for the west.

We first took a local train from McAlester to Kansas City, Missouri. There we had an eight hour wait in the station for the “City of Portland, stream-liner that would take us the rest of the trip. We slept on the benches in the station and ate the food that Mother had packed in boxes for us.

When the time came to board the train, an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying that all civilian travelers were to wait until all military personnel and their families had boarded. As we waited, a young soldier came up to my mother and asked, “Ma’am, are you and your children catching the City of Portland?”

“Yes, we are,” she answered, “But we have to wait.”

“Why don’t you come with me,” he said. “I will tell them that you are my family and you can board with me.”

So, he helped us board and made sure that we were seated together for the trip. We celebrated Mike’s first birthday on the train.

We passed the wide open plains, fences going up and down the hills (some falling over), and the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Since it was winter, we saw lots and lots of snow. The route took us through Green River, Wyoming, Pocatello, Idaho then along the Columbia River into Portland.

Daddy met us at the station and took us to our first apartment on North Benton Avenue in the back part of a large house. We had one large room the width of the house with a stove in one corner and, wonder of wonders, an inside bathroom with the first flush toilet we had ever had.

July 26, 2008

This is a vivid description of Irene's journey to Portland. She brought in dialogue, which adds a nice flavor to any story. I enjoyed reading the description of their journey from one end of the country to the other. I don't know about you, but I was traveling right with her family.

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

Spreading My Wings by Irene

Spreading My Wings

When the family moved to Portland, Oregon in 1945, the winter weather consisted of rain and more rain. Snowstorms were usually limited to one per winter and did not last more than a few days. But by 1956, the weather seemed to have undergone a major change. While attending Portland State College I suffered frostbitten fingers and toes waiting for a bus in a snow storm so I began to think of warmer climates.

My older brother, Jack, had left home in 1954 right after graduation and moved in with my Aunt Tommie in Los Angeles, California. Aunt Tommie invited me to come for a visit for Christmas in 1956 so I took her up on the offer. The average temperature while I was there was 80 degrees. It seemed that I saw bougainvillea and poinsettias growing up every wall and blooming riotously. What a wonderful place! The beach was only 20 minutes away. There was even a college with tuition of only $28.00 a semester. This place seemed like paradise!

I checked into the job market and found that many places wanted you to have lived there for several months so I went back to Portland determined to move and started making plans. I got a job with Pacific Bell Telephone Company as a long distance operator and after working for six months, I requested a transfer to Southern California. My transfer was approved at the end of August and I started packing my trunk.

After Labor Day, wearing my Lilli Ann suit and carrying my train case, I boarded the train headed south. I watched the scenery gradually change from thick pine forests in Oregon and northern California, past the Cascade Range peaks of Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta, to the rolling hills of the central California coast.

Since I needed to change trains in the bay area, I had made arrangements to spend two days with friends in Berkeley. They took me sight-seeing in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley and treated me to my first experience with pizza at a favorite University of California student hang-out.

When it was time to leave, my friends told me that I did not need to go all the way to the Oakland station to catch my train because that train came right though the Berkeley station. We arrived in the early evening and waited for the train. It did come through Berkeley but unfortunately, it did not stop in Berkeley as we discovered while we watched my train roll past the platform on its way to Los Angeles. I had to wait another twenty four hours before I could board the next train in Oakland. I finally arrived at Union Station in Los Angeles where my aunt and uncle met me. I was finally there in sunny Southern California.

I completed college while working for the telephone company and then began my career as a school teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District. I worked for LAUSD for thirty five years before retiring. I lived in Southern California for forty years from September 1957 until November 1997 when I moved to Texas. But that is another story for another day.

March 2003
Revised July 2008

Didn't this just make you want to go live in California? What a wonderful story. Irene painted this life changing event with the perfect words. We could feel the bitter temps of Portland one minute and in the very next minute Irene swept us away with her into the warmth of California beaches. Her next stop: Texas. Now that is a story to be told. Talking about warm temps!

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

8/24/08

Music To Read By

8/19/08

New Stories On The Way!

Greetings. I have been on vacation. Well, actually I was making life changing memories while taking my son to college over 1000 miles away.

Now that I'm back on the blog scene, I'll be posting more stories from our workshop and editing some of the stories.

Note that I don't usually touch the work of the authors on this site unless they request it.

So stay tuned and check us out over the next few days.

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.

8/1/08

A Smile of a Memory by Bob

A MEMORABLE MOMENT

by Bob

Certainly we all have had memorable moments which remain crystal clear in our minds as we reflect back upon them. One of those moments for me was when I entered the enormous palatial room at the Louvre in Paris and suddenly there it was, the Mona Lisa, the most famous and valuable painting in the world. That was in June 1998 shortly after I arrived in France on a seven week tour of Europe.

This time I was traveling alone with no schedule as to where I needed to be on any given day or week. The freedom of traveling without a time schedule is truly a wonderful experience.

Exactly 40 years before, in June 1958, I was part of tour group which began its tour of Europe in England and from there went on to France and then to several other countries. Though we moved from one country to the next as a group, we often had free time to visit or take tours within the cities where we made stops.

In London, while visiting Westminster Abbey, I met a lovely Fraulein from Dusseldorf who was studying English in the city. The result was that I remained in London while the tour group went on to France. When I caught up with the group in Paris a couple of days later, there was not enough time for me to visit the Louvre and see Leonardo da Vinci's famous work of art.

Thus, because of that morning visit to the church where kings and queens are crowned, I waited 40 years for the next opportunity to visit the world's largest and most famous museum.

It was a thrilling moment to finally see the Mona Lisa. Was it beautiful? Well certainly, after all, everyone says that it is. Would I have paid $10 to buy it at a garage sale?

The truth is, probably not unless I knew what the painting was. Yes, I did take a course in art appreciation while in college. Apparently the course did not help me very much.

Mona's smile has brought wonder to most of our minds. Bob just had the courage to put in print what we've all thought. Little did we know as we were traveling with Bob that it would bring us to unexpected humorous end. One we could all relate to. Our laughter made that evident. This was an enjoyable, informative, and entertaining read. I don't know about you, but I'll be back for more. Know of any good yard sales?????

NOTE: If you would like to take a look behind the scenes of Mona and her travels, click on Mona Lisa and enjoy.
Also, for some interesting pix on Mona, Google Mona Lisa and click on IMAGES.

Copyright © 2008 by The Write Workshop. All rights reserved.