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Guest Post by Wayne E. Groner A common oath for courtroom witnesses is: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” While witnesses may still raise their right hands, the use of a Bible in taking the oath has mostly gone out of favor in deference to a variety of non-Christian religious beliefs. The word God is deleted for Atheists and Muslims. Rotary International encourages members to use its Four-Way Test in all personal and business matters: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? Which brings me to memoirs; to what extent are writers of memoirs required to tell the truth? After all, a memoir is a collection of remembrances, not an exercise in journalism. The best memoirs tell good stories with conflicts, lessons learned, issues resolved or not, and changes that bring growth. Can a memoirist accurately and fairly remember all that stuf...

It took me a second to recognize the Skype ringtone. Knowing it must be Susan calling from New Zealand,  I ran to my computer. We talked for a few minutes about the people she met whose home was destroyed in the earthquake. It’s in the Red Zone and can’t be rebuilt. She mentions that everywhere they go, Kiwis swarm around and strike up conversations. “They are so friendly, so unlike your average American! I love it down here!” The girls told me they baked chocolate chip biscuits (British word for cookies) with their babysitter last night. They told me about other new words, like riding in lifts (elevators), and pushing trolleys through the grocery store. When we hung up I had goose bumps. My girls are literally on the other side of the world, and we had just had a real-time video chat. Fifty years ago a computer-based video chat was beyond imagining. I had goose bumps. The girls take it for granted, much like I took telephones, radios, flush toilets and electric lights for gran...

Anna meets a wallaby in Sydney Trips pose a challenge when writing life stories and memoir. If they took place decades ago, unless you kept a journal and/or lots of photos, you may have trouble remembering even such broad details as where you went. Ask me about that – I’m among your numbers. After many tens of thousands of miles on the road here and abroad, I realize that I go along for the ride and enjoy the scenery, but pay little active attention to where I am at any given moment. I have impressions, but few specific memories. More than once I’ve left home with a blank journal, intent on capturing trip details. Maybe my mistake was capturing too many details. My good intentions always fell by the wayside within three or four days, but the notes I did write are terrific. Not even the pictures are much help, because we never got around to labeling them, and after twenty years, who knows which village was which? Since the advent of digital cameras and laptop computers, this has gotten ...

What else holds the fascination of fireflies? Once again they light the night with mysterious flashes. One unforgettable night a few years ago I glanced out the window and saw several dozen fireflies blinking their little hearts out. I'd never seen so many in our yard at once. and I stood transfixed. Watching this fascinating show. I soon noticed that they were flashing in cycles of six blinks in three seconds, then idling for about ten seconds before repeating the sequence. They weren’t moving around much. Once in awhile I saw one blink through the air like a plane approaching the runway, but most hovered in the same spot indefinitely. Eventually I spotted a pattern involving maybe two dozen fireflies flashing a complicated sequence of blinks. This rhythmic frenzy of flashing started in the same place every ten to twelve seconds, and though it became intuitively predictable, it was too complicated to remember. Alien code? Could be! I thought of the light show and intergalactic c...

I recently finished reading Meredith Baxter’s memoir, Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering . My initial reaction to the book was quite favorable, but upon reflection I realize that was primarily based on the fact that I personally related, though in a different context, to many of the things she was saying about her early life. I was also pleased to discover that this book is not what I consider a typical celebrity memoir that sounds like it was cranked out by a publicist, full of name-dropping and plastic humility. Behind the glamor of stage life, Meredith’s life was rather ordinary. The material is blazingly honest. She pulls no punches as she describes experiences with her stepdad, her drug abuse as an early adult, and the physical and emotional abuse heaped upon her and the children by her second husband, actor David Birnie. She berates herself as she reflects on the erratic thinking that led to her third marriage to a prescription drug addict she met at AA. Fina...