Memoirous

I’ve mentioned here at my blog that I’m working on a non–fiction project that I’m loosely labeling a cycling memoir: Francis and Me. There are several junctures, actually multiple junctures, where I ask myself: does this make sense? Regarding, will the reader get this, believe it? Mostly dealing with kids on bikes. You know what I’m referring here to: the 1970s. To that period of time where –for some reason—kids were not supervised. This past weekend I was in Sheboygan, WI for the Stoneboat literary journal 10th anniversary open mic reading (I was a contributor). One woman made an interesting observation. When she was a kid it seemed as if women had limited freedom, but kids could do whatever they wanted. As opposed to today, where women have greater latitude when to comes to work and academic options, and kids have little freedom. I’ve appreciated and blogged here before about Jonathan Goldstein’s writing on This American Life. He has a podcast called Heavyweight (Gim...

Susan Jordan, This American Life Radio and Memories Even on the radio I could tell: She was a nice person. I recently listened to the podcast This American Life where they re-aired a piece originally from 2001—the theme was A Return to Childhood, where Alex Blumberg went in search of his old babysitter, Susan Jordan, in “Ich... Bin... Ein... Mophead.” It was as much about how we remember and misremember than about how Alex eventually tracked down Susan using a private investigator. --That was 17 years ago. She must be about my age or a little younger. I could tell just by the sound of her voice that she was a nice person. It wasn’t said but I could tell as much: Alex had been secretly in love with his fearless babysitter. She was his champion. She would have beaten up a motorcyclist to defend her young charge, whom she felt a bit sorry for. Alex, she hesitated to mention, was a bit bookish and obsessed with stuff beyond his years. She was compelled to “play” wit...