Autobiography Workshop

About a year ago, I visited a site (the name escapes me now) that said a good way to start my story was through memory lists.

Memory lists?

Memory lists.

Basically, you think of a category of something that happened in your life: events, high school, friends, family, etc. and make lists.

For example,

Schools I Attended:
Juan de Anza Elementary School
Dana Junior High
Longs Peak Middle School
Hawthorne High School
El Camino College
Brigham Young University

It’s that easy.

But I can even expand those lists so that I would make a list of events, friends, or places associated with any of those schools.

For example:
People from Anza
T.C.
S.A.
P.R.
J.T.
M. and C. T.
K. and S.N.
Ms. H.
Ms. T
Mrs. L.

Just creating the list starts to produce a constant flow of memories.

Ms. T was my second grade teacher. I was the best speller in her class. In fact I was the best speller K-2. I never missed a spelling word. I always won the spelling bees. This was all true until one fateful spelling test.

The whole list consisted of contractions: can’t, don’t, I’m, etc. Number 8 was o’clock. For the first time in my young spelling career, my mind went blank. Finally, I came up with a’clock.

I don’t know if my teacher even looked at my paper. Maybe she just assumed that everything would be spelled correctly. When she returned my test to me, the customary 100% and smiley face appeared at the top. I thought nothing of it, except that I was proud that I had guessed correctly.

My mom always check my work. Proudly I showed her the test. She smiled but it only took a second longer for her to find my mistake.

“You must tell your teacher,” she said.

The tears and chest heaving commenced immediately.

“Do I have to?

“Of course you do.”

At the beginning of the next school day, with my eyes still red and puffy, I walked up to Ms. T to show her her mistake, er, my mistake. I couldn’t even get the first word out before the tears choked off any means of communication.

I managed to squeek out, “I” sniffle, sniffle “made” sniffle, sniffle “a mistake.” Nose wipe, sniffle. I gained a little composure. “I shouldn’t get 100%.” Sniffle. I handed her my test. “I misspelled o’clock.”

This in the time when a teacher could still place a comforting hand on a shoulder. And so Ms. T placed her hand on my shoulder and got down on my level.

“Oh sweetie, you should get a hundred percent for telling me.”

One last sniffle and a smile.

She didn’t give me a hundred percent of course. I learned an important lesson about honesty.

I hadn’t thought about that incident for quite some time. But you can see the power of lists.

Now…
Lists, an autobiography do not make. But they are the best way of starting that I know. The number of lists that you make are limited only by your imagination.

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