Stranger in a Strange Land

[Ed Rooney]

 

Vero, Carlo — e quanciale e pecorino Romano. I could buy this stuff in NYC but not in Liverpool. 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[spacecadet]

35 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

send me the results of the various tests

 

15 minutes ago, Thyrsis said:

Sign up to the Patient Access app. You can then access all your medical history with your current doctor including test results.

It works, Ed- my vaccinations were on it when I looked a couple of days after.

You can get it on a desktop computer, register here

https://help.login.nhs.uk/setupnhslogin/

You need your NHS number- you probably have one by now.

Then go here

https://www.nhsapp.service.nhs.uk/login

I set mine up on a couple of minutes. You get a verification code on your mobile.

[Ed Rooney]

Thank you, people in the south. I've had my NHS number for a long time.

[NYCat]

These days medical records all seem to be accessible here on a "portal" for the hospital, doctor, radiologist, etc. I am generally a "stranger in a strange land" with my portals. I can access them but find it way too difficult to find what I am looking for. The people who make these things should test them on me and Edo.

 

Paulette

[Ed Rooney]

 

In a way, they are testing them on me; I just keep failing the tests. Life has become complex for us, Paulette.

 

By the way, I stopped doing my weekly blog with this theme in order to work on a memoir. I've decided, for many reasons, not to write the memoir I attended to, and I won't be doing the blog any longer. I'm looking for something to write. 

 

Betty, you should write a memoir.

 

Edo

[Cecile Marion]

I think reading your memoirs would be very interesting, Edo, but I can understand not wanting to write a whole book. Formulating a collection of essays of memorable events/experiences has often appealed to me, and is something I’ve considered. Seems somewhat easier than the task of putting together a cohesive book.

[Ed Rooney]

 

Cecile, in the time I did my Radio Oxford weekly spot, most were memoirs. I left a type manuscript, about 3/4 of a finished book, in my lost apartment on Mulberry Street. That, with everything else is gone forever. Could I rewrite it? Maybe, but I don't intend to. 

[Cecile Marion]

I completely understand. 

[Betty LaRue]

10 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

In a way, they are testing them on me; I just keep failing the tests. Life has become complex for us, Paulette.

 

By the way, I stopped doing my weekly blog with this theme in order to work on a memoir. I've decided, for many reasons, not to write the memoir I attended to, and I won't be doing the blog any longer. I'm looking for something to write. 

 

Betty, you should write a memoir.

 

Edo

You mean a memoir that would include being kidnapped by a runaway stepmother who hitchhiked with us to California from Oklahoma when I was 7? One meal a day, a hamburger, then standing along Route 66 in a cold rain with nothing warm but an unlined wool shirt/jacket? And spending 2 weeks in a juvenile home (we were segregated from the delinquents) after the FBI tracked us down and took the stepmother away? There was no place else to put us until our mother (who was unaware of our dilemma) could borrow the money for bus tickets for us to come home alone, with signs hanging around our necks so the bus drivers could hand us off to the next one.

One small slice of a storied life. I can’t imagine I’d have much to write about.

[wiskerke]

23 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

You mean a memoir that would include being kidnapped by a runaway stepmother who hitchhiked with us to California from Oklahoma when I was 7? One meal a day, a hamburger, then standing along Route 66 in a cold rain with nothing warm but an unlined wool shirt/jacket? And spending 2 weeks in a juvenile home (we were segregated from the delinquents) after the FBI tracked us down and took the stepmother away? There was no place else to put us until our mother (who was unaware of our dilemma) could borrow the money for bus tickets for us to come home alone, with signs hanging around our necks so the bus drivers could hand us off to the next one.

One small slice of a storied life. I can’t imagine I’d have much to write about.

 

Wow! Re-trace it and photograph it?

 

wim

[Cecile Marion]

Sure. Those kind of stories.

 

i just finishing reading a fascinating book, though many of the events within were very difficult to stomach. The author took inspiration from the lives of her Southern Italian family and their emigration story, and she turned a timeline of real events into a novel. Poverty, hunger, earthquakes, dangerous NYC construction projects and threats from the Mafia were all included. The stories were based on her research, but also interviews of her grandmother recorded back in the 1980s. The book is called Elizabeth Street. 

[sb photos]

4 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

You mean a memoir that would include being kidnapped by a runaway stepmother who hitchhiked with us to California from Oklahoma when I was 7? One meal a day, a hamburger, then standing along Route 66 in a cold rain with nothing warm but an unlined wool shirt/jacket? And spending 2 weeks in a juvenile home (we were segregated from the delinquents) after the FBI tracked us down and took the stepmother away? There was no place else to put us until our mother (who was unaware of our dilemma) could borrow the money for bus tickets for us to come home alone, with signs hanging around our necks so the bus drivers could hand us off to the next one.

One small slice of a storied life. I can’t imagine I’d have much to write about.

 

Good, bad and mundane experiences documented, along with family photos, may be of interest to your family. I wish I'd talked more to my grandmother, aunts, even my father and mother re their past lives. In most cases, as mine, it is often too late once relations or friends have passed away. Some time back I tracked down my fathers best friend, he knew him from school, then throughout the WWII years. After leaving London he had been living and working as an electrician in a Cornish town that we had stayed in fairly regularly. It was very interesting talking to him, hearing a different angle to my fathers stories. My daughter, around 12 then, found it fascinating talking to someone who used to be close to her Grandfather. After my mother had her first stroke my sister talked to her and wrote up a part of her early life that she previously wouldn't talk about. I'm determined to document my life 'when I get time', but won't leave it too long.

[Ed Rooney]

Sounds truly harrowing, Betty. I made the hitchhiking trip back and forth from Washington, DC to LA, but I was 18 without the nutty stepmother. I did have a nutty stepmom, but she stayed at home. A lot of Okies left the Dust Bowl for the Left Coast but were not welcomed. (The Grapes of Wrath)

 

Cecile, Martin Scorsese grew up on Elizabeth Street. Of the three main streets in Little Italy, Mulberry was Neapolitan, Mott was Sicilian, and Elizabeth a mix of southern Italians. Mott is mostly Chinese now, and many of the Italians have long since moved away. 

 

Edwardo

[NYCat]

When I was a pretty young thing and looking for a NYC apartment a rental agent was trying to talk me into taking one in that area because I would be protected by the Mafia. I didn't know who was going to protect me from them. I didn't want to catch the eye of the wrong man.

 

Paulette

[Michael Ventura]

15 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

You mean a memoir that would include being kidnapped by a runaway stepmother who hitchhiked with us to California from Oklahoma when I was 7? One meal a day, a hamburger, then standing along Route 66 in a cold rain with nothing warm but an unlined wool shirt/jacket? And spending 2 weeks in a juvenile home (we were segregated from the delinquents) after the FBI tracked us down and took the stepmother away? There was no place else to put us until our mother (who was unaware of our dilemma) could borrow the money for bus tickets for us to come home alone, with signs hanging around our necks so the bus drivers could hand us off to the next one.

One small slice of a storied life. I can’t imagine I’d have much to write about.

 

I think I may have been the first one to bring up that you would make a great writer for a memoir.  Over the years, here on this forum, you have written about all kinds of tales of your life, some sad, some very funny...some sad and funny at the same time.  It's not that your life is so different, better or worse than others, it is your ability to recall moments of your life and tell those vignettes in a rich and colorful way.  There is something vey innocent and pure about how you tell your stories....learning about life, sometimes the hardest and best way....getting kicked by a farm animal, getting stung or covered with mud etc... you always seemed to get up, dust yourself off and learn from those experiences, until the next one comes along.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Michael Ventura

[Betty LaRue]

37 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

I think I may have been the first one to bring up that you make a great writer for a memoir.  Over the years, here on this forum, you have written about all kinds of tales of your life, some sad, some very funny...some sad and funny at the same time.  It's not that your life is so different, better or worse than others, it is your ability to recall moments of your life and tell those vignettes in a rich and colorful way.  There is something vey innocent and pure about how you tell your stories....learning about life, sometimes the hardest and best way....getting kicked by a farm animal, getting stung or covered with mud etc... you always seemed to get up, dust yourself off and learn from those experiences, until the next one comes along.

Yes you were the first to mention it, and said you enjoyed my stories. My children do want me to write my stories down. I really should get with it instead of putting it off.

The stepmother was very young and sweet. Not a mean bone in her body.  She took us because when the marriage fell apart, (very quickly) she had grown to love us and felt we would be better off with her back in her home state of California.  Her moral standard was low, though, and I won’t get into how she, on the road, funded our two week long hitchhiking trip, which I was too young to understand at the time. What she did by taking us was illegal, and taking us across state lines is why the FBI got involved. 
I happen to have an exceptional memory in the fact I have “memory snapshots” of small slices of life beginning when I just started walking but was still breast feeding. I walked at 8 months. Well…one memory of about 2 minutes long then, the next was when I was under two years old, and covered more time. That was when the bigger kids who were minding me rolled me up in a dusty carpet that had been taken outdoors in the heat of summer to air. They left me sweating and choking on dust. I’ve never forgotten the panic, heat, breathlessness, and how hard I cried before my mother found me.

These memories were later verified by adults there at the time. The next one, same summer, I rode on the back of a huge white dog (named Whitey, very original) my oldest sister put me on. It was scary because his skin slipped. That’s probably when the desire for a real pony begin, lol.

 

[Betty LaRue]

7 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Sounds truly harrowing, Betty. I made the hitchhiking trip back and forth from Washington, DC to LA, but I was 18 without the nutty stepmother. I did have a nutty stepmom, but she stayed at home. A lot of Okies left the Dust Bowl for the Left Coast but were not welcomed. (The Grapes of Wrath)

 

 

Yes, when Bob was in the Air Force and we were stationed in California, soon as locals asked where we were from and we told them, you could see the expression on their faces slide from friendly to disdain. We felt it often, in spite of being scrubbed shiny and neatly dressed. That was the only state we encountered that, but I understand it.

[Ed Rooney]

Do you know The Paris Review, Betty? Since the 1950s, they've been doing interviews with most famous writers. Part of their interview is to ask the writer about their writing structure — when they write, for how long, do they count pages, and so on.

 

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews

 

I suggest you begin by writing for just an hour first thing in the morning after breakfast before you get into your day. 

 

[Vincent Lowe]

6 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

 My children do want me to write my stories down. I really should get with it instead of putting it off.

 

 

Get a voice recorder and tell your stories as and when you feel like, even if you are doing something else at the time.  You might not ever get around to writing them down but at least they will be out there, never to be forgotten...

[MDM]

20 minutes ago, Vincent Lowe said:

 

Get a voice recorder and tell your stories as and when you feel like, even if you are doing something else at the time.  You might not ever get around to writing them down but at least they will be out there, never to be forgotten...

A tablet or smartphone is perfect for this. I was using my iPad and the Voice Memos app to record my thoughts in relation to Covid during and after the acute phase. I hadn’t got the energy to write things down and it was also interesting if very disturbing to hear the changes in my voice brought about by the disease. 

[Betty LaRue]

7 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Do you know The Paris Review, Betty? Since the 1950s, they've been doing interviews with most famous writers. Part of their interview is to ask the writer about their writing structure — when they write, for how long, do they count pages, and so on.

 

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews

 

I suggest you begin by writing for just an hour first thing in the morning after breakfast before you get into your day. 

 

I’m not familiar with The Paris Review. But I agree if one doesn’t set a hard schedule, it’ll probably not get done.
Using a recorder is brilliant. I used to keep one in my younger years by the bed, after song lyrics came to me in my dreams a couple of times. I’d wake up and go over them in my mind to commit to memory,  go back to sleep and forget them.  The recorder never did me any good, though, because I never dreamed another beautiful song. This was back when I first tried the guitar, so music was on my mind. Maybe it will happen again, now.

 

It did help me when I'd wake up with dialogue or a plot twist in my mind when I was writing, though. Amazing what comes to you while you sleep. I think it’s because when you sleep, you let go of the clutter.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[Betty LaRue]

On 15/07/2021 at 10:23, Ed Rooney said:

 

Cecile, in the time I did my Radio Oxford weekly spot, most were memoirs. I left a type manuscript, about 3/4 of a finished book, in my lost apartment on Mulberry Street. That, with everything else is gone forever. Could I rewrite it? Maybe, but I don't intend to. 

I still have my unfinished book, Edo. Maybe half done. Cancer stopped me, then I became a photographer. It’s difficult to be a Jack of all trades, a master of none. I find I need to concentrate on one thing at a time, with only small forays into something else.

Since I bought my guitar, I’ve uploaded 5, only 5, pictures. 🙀 A small foray.

 

Today I went to the market and bought things to fix Poppyseed Chicken for my son tomorrow, along with roasted garlic small gold potatoes and strawberry shortcake. I did manage to squeeze in two guitar practices. My fingertips are starting to numb-up a bit. Good for if I burn them cooking tomorrow. (Not)

Edited July 17, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[Ed Rooney]

On 16/07/2021 at 23:29, Vincent Lowe said:

 

Get a voice recorder and tell your stories as and when you feel like, even if you are doing something else at the time.  You might not ever get around to writing them down but at least they will be out there, never to be forgotten...

 

I assume from that suggestion, Vincent, that you are not a writer. I've never know a published writer who worked that way. Dictation is useful for notes and ideas but not for manuscript. That has to be seen on the page. 

[Ed Rooney]

On 17/07/2021 at 04:34, Betty LaRue said:

 

Today I went to the market and bought things to fix Poppyseed Chicken for my son tomorrow, along with roasted garlic small gold potatoes and strawberry shortcake. I did manage to squeeze in two guitar practices. My fingertips are starting to numb-up a bit. Good for if I burn them cooking tomorrow. (Not)

 

Neither one of us is looking for a guru to follow or looking to become a guru, Betty. And of course we should all follow out own path (feel free to fill in the rest of this obvious blahblahblah yourself). 

 

But let me point out that, unless you're the next Jimi Hendrik, the world does not need another guitar player; there seems to be more guitar players on Earth than people, only outnumbered by free-form poetry writers. Do you have to be famous to write and publish a memoir? Frank McCourt was not famous when he wrote Angela's Ashes. He was writing about growing up poor in Cork, Ireland. 

[Michael Ventura]

Delia Owens was about 70 when she published her first novel, "Where The Crawdads Sing" and it became a national best seller. Reading it now!  It starts off being about a young girl, in the 1950s and 60s growing up in rural North Carolina (it is fictional). Being made into a movie now.