Patti Abbott had an interesting blog post yesterday about aging writers and writing age-worn characters. I left a comment then continued to think about this topic for the rest of the day, wondering why I write older characters, why they interest me in ways younger characters don't. I finally came to the conclusion that it had to do with my family and the farming community where I've lived my life.
My family, with a few exceptions, have lived well into their eighties and nineties so I've spent all my life around old people. Not set-on-the-porch-and-rock-their-lives-away old people but active ones. My grandfather, my dad and all my uncles worked well into their seventies. The aunts all kept house and were active in church and community activities. They were always busy doing something.
My Uncle Don, who used two canes to get around, took his grandson out on his very first deer hunt, saw him get his first buck, went home, ate supper and went to bed. He died during the night, tired and happy but with no regrets. That's the way I'd like to exit this world. Doing the things I enjoy.
Mrs. McGurrin, a feisty old neighbor of ours told me once that she and her husband still did "it". "It just takes longer and it's not as often, but we still enjoy it," she said. Art Empet taught himself to cook and bake at the tender age of seventy-two. His doctor told him he couldn't go to the barn anymore as it was too hard on his lungs, so he took over the kitchen chores from his wife, who still went to the barn every morning and night to milk cows and feed calves. And she was three years older than him.
It's people like these that I model many of my characters after. People who have lived their lives but aren't afraid to keep living and learning. As cliché as it sounds, they wanted to live until they died. And death wasn't something they feared, just the next step in their lives. God Bless them all for teaching me how to live and for being the inspiration behind the stories I write.
Who do you model your characters after?
5 comments:
I had the same upbringing. Surrounded by older relatives. Even now I still admire and respect those who are my elders. They are also more fascinating than a twenty year old who is clueless.
My parents were in their 40s when I was born and so grew up around older relatives. Thus I was fortunate in hearing from my mother and grandmother what living during the Great Depression was like; and from my grandmother, her experiences of leaving Birmingham, England when she was 20 to come to live in Alberta with her father who had started up a ranch without knowing the first thing about agriculature.
I was not surrounded by older relatives when growing up. But I do find their past provocative. They grew up in a time where spilling your guts, as I do on my blog, was unusual. They seem full of secrets and memories that haunt them.
David, It's such a wonderful thing to be able to know about the lives of our families. We're pretty lucky that we got to listen to the stories. Where I live, most of my neighbors are retired and they don't mind sharing their stories. I loved taking my boys to the barber shop when they were little because the barber was old and many of his customer were his cronies and they tell tales of how the town was built up, about the lumbering and mining that went on. It's amazing the history that these people carry around inside of them.
Patti, they lived in a whole different world back then. You knew your neighbors and your family but outside of those boundaries was unfamiliar territory. They would be apalled at the subjects that are discussed so openly today.
Barbara, I was lucky enough to know my great grandmother who lived to be ninety-three. She had photo albums full of family pictures that showed so much of how they lived their lives in the early 1900's and knowing that her husband fought in the Spanish American war made history come alive for me in ways that reading my history book never did.
My Mom was born in 1926. That was the same year that Abe Lincoln's son died. Silent movies were still being made and the computer was still science fiction. Lots of history and I soak up as much as I can:)
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