{"id":30,"date":"2020-01-12T19:38:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T19:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/?p=30"},"modified":"2020-01-12T19:38:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-12T19:38:54","slug":"true-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/true-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"True? Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the fall of \u201977 to about 1985, Gabi and I published a weekly newspaper called Persons<\/em> and then a statewide arts magazine called Mississippi Arts & Letters<\/em>. For the newspaper, I wrote a weekly column that consisted mostly of family stories\u2014retelling things that happened in my childhood. When we had family gatherings at my parents\u2019 house, some of my stories would inevitably come up, and inevitably someone in the family would say, \u201cThat\u2019s not the way I remember it.\u201d My twin brother was the worst. He always told the same stories, almost exactly the same, except in his version he did the funny things I did in my version. We\u2019re identical twins, and especially when we were young hardly anybody could tell us apart. Twin stories were favorites.<\/p>\n

Like the time the family went to dinner at Mike\u2019s Restaurant in Tupelo. Bill and I were about eight years old. We always finished before anybody else, and we\u2019d go out front and play, checking back every once in a while to see if everybody else was through. Bill or I (I confess I don\u2019t know which) came back to the table, and Mother said, \u201cGo get your brother and tell him it\u2019s time to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whichever of us it was headed out and stopped in front of the full-length mirror by the door and said to the mirror, \u201cCome on. Mama said it\u2019s time to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once when Gabi\u2019s mother was visiting along with some of my siblings, we were talking about some of my stories and, as usual, somebody said, \u201cThat\u2019s not the way it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

My reply was, \u201cThey\u2019re my memories. Don\u2019t mess with my memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabi\u2019s mother, Naomi, asked, \u201cAlec, when are you going to write something about me?\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cI\u2019m waiting until you die, Naomi,\u201d and I was surprised that she was quite pleased with that.<\/p>\n

Many years passed before I finally put her in one of my novels. She inspired the character Bitsey Ashton in Return to Freedom<\/em>. Bitsey was an alcoholic with a history of being wild and reckless. Naomi was no longer alive, so she couldn\u2019t complain about how I depicted the character based on her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the fall of \u201977 to about 1985, Gabi and I published a weekly newspaper called Persons and then a statewide arts magazine called Mississippi Arts & Letters. For the newspaper, I wrote a weekly column that consisted mostly of family stories\u2014retelling things that happened in my childhood. When we had family gatherings at my … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrue? Stories - Alec Clayton - Writing etc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/true-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"True? 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