Blog # 3: Brainstorming on my Memoir

These are just random pieces from my freewriting during class which we wrote about several topics that were prompted to us. Oddly, I kept going back to a few specific places, time periods, and people. I'd like feedback on what seems to be the most interesting for an essay.



Memories of my Grandma's house, the big red house, the only red house on the block. The paint was always chipping off. The house number, 1112 (i actually cant remember, i'm making this up) was painted on a white stone in black lettering. There were flowerbeds every spring and the front porch had a wicker chair that she always sat in. The front living room was full of pictures of my aunts and uncles, mom included, and grandma and grandpa. The wall in the living room had a picture of each of my aunts and uncles on their wedding day, with my granparents wedding picture in the middle. Only two of the original couples are still together. The back room consisted of games for my sister and I to play with. Bingo, puzzles, and colorforms were our favorites. There was a small TV with no cable, so we always watched channel 13 which was PBS or any number of daytime sitcoms like empty nest or golden girls that played during the "old people hours" when everyone else was at work or in school. I could always be found digging in the piles of pictures in that room, lost in the photo albums with their psychadelic 70s prints, filled with pictures of my aunts and uncles from the "good old days". the photographs were faded and torn, and the hairstyles and clothes looked dated, but i always longed to be inside those pictures.

the kitchen looks the same in my mind as it always will. there was a long table in the center of the "dining room" and a phone with huge, i mean HUGE numbers on them and the longest cord known to man. that cord used to wrap around me and my sister. there was a fishtank in the dining room too, and after my aunt told me a story of how a fish once jumped out and fell onto her feet, i never ventured too close to that tank. my fondest memories of that kitchen were when grandma made us her famous"salad platters" which never really consisted of salad at all...just some lettuce, olives, ham, salami, cheese, and dressings, basically whatever she could find on a paper plate. and a hard boiled egg if she was so daring that day. i loved that horrible food.

I think i'm definetly going to write about my grandmother's house and my grandparents in general, I just dont know where to go from there, what to tie it in with. Maybe my family now, all of their children (my aunts and uncles) because both my grandma and grandpa have passed away.