Stirring A Memory

I had a memory! Used to have a million. Somewhere along the way, they got lost. Not totally lost, just pushed down under the garbage of daily living. Takes a lot to stir them up. On rare occasions someone manages to make one surface. I recently had one of those occasions.

Our local paper used to carry a column written by Mark Hayter, a man that grew up in my hometown. Reading them became a way for me to access things long forgotten. He writes about memories of the old neighborhood, school, family, parents and daily living. Things most people can remember without much prodding. People other than me. Might be the old... use it or lose it phenomenon. I stay so tucked away, isolated in my home and rarely attempt to maintain contact with people. Not because I don't have a desire to be around others, it's more of a safety mechanism. Protection for them as well as myself. Depression and chemical sensitivities have a way of doing that. Never know what might set me off. Combine that with dread, fear and never ending fatigue... I can be volatile! Trust me, I'm safer at home.

Back to the reason for this post. Mark's column disappeared from the local paper. Lots of other things, too. Mostly the paper became, for lack of another description, obsolete. With a rapidly growing population, it should have increased, not the other way around. It has dwindled to a mere few pages of not very newsworthy news. I called to inquire the reasons for the decline, as well as the shoddy service and the disappearance of Mark's column. Was given nothing more than polite lip-service. But, and this is a big but... not long after, I found Mark! Oldest Son had created a MySpace page for me and I found Mark's sister Jill, on our high school alumni page. Sent her a message saying how much I missed her brother's writings. That one message started a whole new friendship, along with access to Mark's column. He is still in other papers, just not mine. Mark and his brother Al have a wonderful site called "From The Rooftop". I won't even try to explain everything those guys have going on. If you get a chance, you should visit. My friend Jill visits her brothers on the Rooftop, all the time. Close family. Plenty of room up there. I'm sure they would welcome you to join them. Tell them I sent you. Good folks I tell you and funny, too. If those guys can stir up my dormant memories, imagine what they could do for someone with active brain cells. You might feel the urge to start a blog or something. You never know!

Here's the address.
http://fromtherooftop.net/

Jilly, Mark and Big Al... Thanks for the memories!


*In case you're wondering why the print is bigger, a couple of people complained that because of the black background and small print, they were having some trouble reading my little blog. I like the black background so I compromised and made the print bigger. Don't worry little Sister! I didn't tell anyone it was you and me that complained about the small print. Our secret is safe. Nobody has to know we have crappy, old lady eyesight. Now if I could just figure out how to make text messages larger!