Writing and memory

Mike Lafferty's article "Four Steps to Happiness" in the Spring/Summer issue of the Bulletin is right on. I believe I have something to contribute in regard to the benefits of a journal.

As a Kenyon student, I was pretty second-rate, but I made it through to June 1941 lacking only twelve hours for graduation. Along with most of my class, I went off to war, survived a tour as a bomber pilot, returned unscathed, and received a gift of those twelve hours.

As I reached my early seventies, an old Army buddy and his wife visited my California home. We had fifty years of catching up to do. We talked all day and much of the night. After they left, my son said he wished I would write all that down. Much of what we had talked about had retreated into the black hole of unused memory, and I couldn't think of a thing to write. He nagged and finally practically dictated some stuff that he had heard. So I wrote it down, retrieving more details as I wrote. In fact, just writing opened closed doors in my mind. I wound up with two volumes of memoirs, which I titled Grandfather Stories and More Grandfather Stories. They are in your library.

But the point is that writing all of that has actually so improved my memory (I now have a file of some eighty unpublished stories) that I have been leading a workshop on memory for the Brain Injury Center of Ventura County. This has been a fascinating project. I have been working with some survivors of stroke. Lafferty and Dr. Laura King '86 are right on target.

-Harold Wilder Jr. '41

Cheap shuttle

There is an error in the Dennis Fiely story "Tour Talk" (Spring/Summer 2008). A round-trip shuttle to Mount Vernon does not cost $10. The shuttle does not cost anything at all for students, and even for non-students it is only a couple of dollars. Just want to make sure readers have the right info!

-Emily Kliever '08, former tour guide