Take Note of Note Takers -- Bruce Atchison

I blogged some years ago about how my journal helped me remember my vacation to Trinidad in 1982. It certainly did help with the details when I wrote my How I Was Razed memoir. Many of the incidents either had faded from my mind or I misremembered them.

But notebooks aren't the only way we can remember times in our lives. Looking at photos and videos show subtleties which our notes might miss.

The snapshots and home videos of my bunnies sure helped me with details which I wrote in When a Man Loves a Rabbit. Seeing them doing all their cute things helped me to add an extra layer of description to my narrative.

When I wrote Deliverance from Jericho, I had few photos and no video reminders. Instead, I listened to songs from the sixties which brought back memories of those times. Some of those recollections were quite painful but writing them down became excellent therapy for me.

Old e-mail and newsgroup posts were also a great help with my writing. I save my correspondence and that helped me with my recalling of exactly what happened. The paper letters I kept likewise remind me of what people wrote and even the style of their writing.

One thing I enjoy doing when on vacation is recording local radio stations. The cassettes I taped in Trinidad as well as when I visited Moscow in 1997 gave me the local cultural flavour of the two countries. I still treasure those recordings and I've digitized them.

I'm glad I hung on to all those letters, floppy disks, tapes, photos, and videos. And thanks to YouTube, I was able to find songs which I didn't have in my music collection. In future, I'd like to scan all of these letters so  I can preserve them. My nephews and nieces might be curious someday about what their strange uncle with the rabbits wrote.

Hearing The Word Of God - Bruce Atchison

churches really must make more of an effort to accommodate disabled congregants. Though many houses of worship now have wheelchair ramps and some buildings were designed as single-floor structures, blind and deaf Christians are often left out of the activities.

In my case, I can't read the overhead screen or hymn books easily. This puts me in an awkward position when everybody else is singing. The previous church that I attended graciously provided me large print copies of the songs. For the first time in my life, I was able to sing with the rest of the congregation. I gained a deeper appreciation of the lyrics too.

Thirty-five years ago, I attended a cultic house church. In my upcoming How I Was Razed memoir, I tell of how that congregation's elders bought something which benefitted me greatly.

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"The church just bought something wonderful," Sister E enthused one Wednesday evening before the meeting began. "You'll enjoy this - it's The Bible In Drama." She pulled a large white wooden box out from the book shelf next to the communion table and placed it on the card table. She unfastened the metal clasp on the side, revealing two compartments with two rows of red and maroon cassette boxes in each. "We bought this especially for any blind members of the church and for the children to hear. Look at this. There's the New Testament read by a Shakespearian actor and down there are stories of great Christians."

I stared myopically at where she pointed and said, "That's cool! Can I borrow some? I'm borrowing a cassette recorder from the CNIB."

"Sure. I'll ask Mother first though. They are brand new cassettes, you realize. We don't want them ruined before others can have a listen to them."

"You'll want to hear the New Testament first," Sister R explained when I asked to borrow a few tapes after the meeting.

"How come?" I frowned.

"Because you'll get wrong ideas if you listen to the Old Testament first."

"What do you mean? Can't I hear the tapes from the start?"

"Most of the Old Testament doesn't apply to us because it was written to the Jews. They were under the law but we aren't. The New Testament was written for us Christians. "If you don't hear the New Testament first, you'll be confused and learn the wrong things from the Old Testament."

Since she insisted, I grudgingly took the handful of tapes she proffered.

I fell in love with the series as soon as I arrived home and listened to the first cassette. "Wow! It's like I'm there with Jesus and the disciples," I repeated as I sat on my bed. In a matter of a few weeks, I borrowed every Bible In Drama, King James New Testament, and Lives Of Great Christians tape. The Bible stories were thrilling but the biographies of believers, mostly American, who did great things in Jesus' name seemed jingoistic to me.

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How I Was Razed is my third, and most likely final, memoir. I previously published When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies) and Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School). They are both available from the InScribe web site, along with information regarding my writing.