by Shirley Love

Created on: September 13, 2009   Last Updated: September 14, 2009

If there is life in the body, a spark of memory or imagination in the brain, and an urge in the soul, you will never be too old to write. In fact, like fine wine and cheese, many writers improve with age.

The experiences of a lifetime are like an immense river of words and thoughts that are available for dipping into and sharing with others, who might thirst for knowledge or pure reading pleasure. These events are a part of me. I can share them because I lived them. Hopefully others can learn from them.

As one who has lived many years, I can share information about huge dust storms that swept over the Midwest in the era of the 1930's and early 1940's. They appeared out of a blue sky like an ominous dark mountain stretching from horizon to horizon. Mother would moisten towels and instruct us to hold them over our mouths and noses. She would hang wet sheets over the windows and doors of the house in hopes of keeping some of the powdery fine dust from penetrating every nook and cranny. In spite of all, a hazy red fog would fill the rooms while we waited for the storm to pass. The clean-up afterward was a massive undertaking. Those experiences are fodder for an article that I could write even at my age and because of my age, I now have time to do it.

I could write a book about our experiences in California during WW II and the fright I felt when the air-raid whistles sounded at night and the massive searchlights pierced the jet black sky in an effort to identify any unknown planes entering the area. Luckily, they were never enemies, but our own planes with their radios malfunctioning due to damage by enemy fire. I could also write about the scrap drives, the ration books; and the families and neighbors who all pulled together for the war effort.

I have experienced an F5 tornado that ripped through our city in 1955, destroying most of the homes and business on the east side, killing and injuring dozens. One of my best friend's mother was among those lost that night. I vividly remember walking through the ruins the next day thinking that it must have looked much the same in London during the Blitzkrieg launched by Hitler. Surviving that experience and watching our city in the recovery efforts could fill a book.

I recall the day that President Kennedy was shot and I watched the television in horror and disbelief as those bleak days were broadcast to the world. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed before my eyes, and a very young John Kennedy Jr. broke the hearts of the nation

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