I have been writing a short collection story in collaboration with my uncle. He has a wealth of stories. It is not about the actual writing but researching the details. While writing stories during my lifetime, I still need to study details. We once lived without cell phones, the internet, and electronic payments, and it is hard to imagine life without cell phones or the technology of writing on a laptop.
Do you have a hard time remembering not having these devices or conveniences?
I am thankful to have the internet because I can use Google to track the distance between a Greyhound bus terminal and a “training center” for a sixteen-year-old character with “learning disabilities.” Even though we don’t use the R-word today, that's a positive change. I found other words to describe a person in the 1950s, such as "feeble-minded,” but newspapers and even terminology in the educational system still used “mentally R********.”
Much to my surprise, great strides were made in providing education for “slow learners” or "feeble-minded” children then, so parents did not isolate or hide them away, fearing their child's rejection.
Access to these special schools would have been much easier for a city child to attend but very limited for a child two hours away in a small town.
Basketball Coach John Wooden said, “It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
How would a youth with disabilities take a bus every day to school? Learning the details about a story idea means I use only some specifics. However, I aim to understand my character’s experiences through time, place, sensory, and emotions. There is a lot of sensory information about a bus ride, the sound of the road, looking out an opened window, passing farms and groves, the smell of diesel, or the lady sitting in front wearing a pink hat with netting and lace gloves, smelling of orange blossom perfume.
How would my character pass the time on the bus? He could play cards, draw, look at a comic book, or think about having to leave his home every day, walk ten blocks from the terminal to the training school, and return in the evening. He kept his eyes down and would not want to talk because they would know he was different. He would take his time eating a fried potato chip sandwich on freshly baked bread his mother had packed.
When I was a preteen, my parents let me ride a Greyhound bus alone to spend a weekend with their friends. It was a three-hour ride, stopping in every little town as riders got off or on. I hoped no one would sit next to me.
Do you remember riding a Greyhound? I invite you to comment and would love to hear from you.
