After 20 years of teaching music, I retired at the age of 60.
Since I earned no Social Security while teaching, I wanted to build
up those units. One memorable job I had was driving a taxi.
“After 20 years of teaching music, I retired at the age of 60. Since I earned no Social Security while teaching, I wanted to build up those units. One memorable job I had was driving a taxi. After a few weeks on the job, I was held up by two young men of 23 or so. It happened at 3am on a Friday. From the back seat, one of them pinned me to the seat while the other, sitting next to me, cut the radio wire. He ripped my shirt pocket off, expecting to find money.
“I pressed hard against the seat, making it difficult to reach my wallet. My hands were free to fight, but it was too dark to see much, so my hands and face kept getting cut with the knife he held. Finally, I managed to reach the horn button. The sound startled the attackers but didn’t immediately stop them. Now my hands received even deeper cuts, but I managed to hold down the button. Some lights appeared in a nearby house, and one of the men broke and ran. His friend followed. I chased them down an alley, but they disappeared in the dark.
“On the way back to the taxi barn, I radioed in several times, not knowing if they could hear me. They could since only the receiving wire was cut. The police and taxi owner met me before I got to the barn. Since the cuts weren’t too serious, I washed off as much blood as I could and returned home, going directly to bed without waking my wife. What a shock she had when she saw me the next morning! Not very pretty. I decided there must be a better way to make extra money!”
This is an excerpt from the memoir of James Clutter Elliott, a WWII veteran with a lot of mettle well into his 80s. This is just one compelling anecdote from the memoir he left me. He wasn’t famous or well-known for anything, just a regular guy who was my dear friend and adopted uncle. I really treasure having his stories of the war, of his work, and of his spiritual journey and the way they bring him back to me when I read them, as if he were still here beside me, joking and adding more ice cream to the root beer floats he liked to make for me.
Local writer Matilda Butler is one who has seen how much it means to a person to reflect on his or her life. She says, “Sometimes we write memoirs for ourselves, to understand and appreciate the past, to gather insights for the future. Sometimes, we write memoirs to share with a few others or with everyone. In short, everyone has a story and telling that story can be interesting, instructive, even healing.”
The memoir genre is a field that is really coming of age, according to Butler. Here in Gilroy, we’ve had Louise Steinman speak at our library about her memoir “The Souvenir,” and Betty Auchard spoke at Gilroy Writers Project about her memoir “Dancing in my Nightgown.” Cathy Miller also spoke at GWP about her memoir “The Birdhouse Chronicles,” just to name a few.
Butler’s interest in memoirs grew out of the research she was doing for a book called “Rosie’s Daughters” (to be published later this year), a memoir of the generation of women born during World War II. Shaped by the social revolutions of the 1960s, they are the FW2 (First Woman To) generation who transformed business, government, family life, and our national consciousness. The 100-plus interviews for the book were based on the desire to examine the experiences of “everywoman” rather than the “famous.” From there, it was a short, logical step to begin working with women who want to write their own memoir.
Butler’s next “jumpstart” class will be offered March 17, through Gavilan College. She will teach a half-day class (9:30am to 12:30pm) at the Morgan Hill facility. Follow-on monthly workshops are offered privately, at Cielo-Casita on 10 acres overlooking Gilroy-Morgan Hill valley, a setting designed to call forth the muse. Visit http://www.WomensMemoirs.com or e-mail Ma*****@***********rs.com for more info.
