Barbara J. Hamby

Covered Bridges - A Sunday Drive

We spent a pleasant Sunday on a self-guided covered bridge tour with the aid of a map obtained in Stayton, Oregon at a park there. This weekend Stayton hosted a covered bridge festival in the park where the Stayton covered bridge has been relocated and rebuilt in 1998 after it burned. We saw and photographed six covered bridges, but none was older than about 1936. The country around all the bridges was worth the sightseeing time.
In Crabtree, Oregon, near one of the bridges, the Crabtree Tavern has designated parking spots in front. These are marked by signs reading, “Harleys only,” and “Any Dave.”

After spending a blustery Saturday inside writing, the trip was a real treat.

                                      A Busy Day

A load of laundry, a load of dishes, and errands took more than half my day today. However, I did find time to work on a memoir article about a trip to North Dakota with an ex-boyfriend to visit his relatives. For me, the question of how much to tell and sorting out details slows down the telling of the tale. I need to tell enough of the funny and titillating incidents to hold the readers’ interest, but not enough to get me in trouble with surviving characters in the story.

This sort of dilemma has plagued me all through the stories I’ve put together about my life. I haven’t yet decided how they will be sewn together so that the readers’ attention will be insured. A chronological life story seems logical, but ordinary and possibly boring. I sure wasn’t bored most of my life, and I would prefer not to bore readers. It seems obvious there are many things children would prefer not to know about their parents, but exactly what and how much of that information I can omit is not clear to me. There are no doubt other relatives who might be shocked by some of my life’s stories.

I have been reading other writers’  memoirs for guidance. I will continue to read more to see if I can reach a workable middle ground?—ot too shocking, not too boring.