We hope our Story Starters take you Writing Down Memory Lane™.
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I heard my favorite childhood stories when no one knew I was listening-around the quilting frame in our church basement.

Grandma was a baker's wife, so she knew what to do with flour sacks.

One of the best smells in this world is the aroma of baking bread.

The best carousel I ever rode on was at the little carnival that set up in the county seat for a week each summer.

Say cheese and you say Wisconsin.

The only place more fun for a summer swim than the pond was the swimming hole down the lane.

Our party line was shared by six of our neighbors. You knew when someone was calling by the number and length of the rings. I'll never forget our ring-two short rings followed by one long one.

I still have the chip of petrified wood I got as a souvenir of our family trip across Route 66 from Oklahoma to California.

I would give anything for a taste of my favorite soda right now-cream soda, cherry, orange, grape, birch beer, or sarsaparilla!

Cover a burn with a fresh tomato, drink pickle juice for your hiccups, put a teabag over your eye to cure a sty. My mother's home-based remedies seemed amusing, but they worked!

The Depression was a time of making do with what you had and of starting businesses you never expected you might try.

All those pretty cookies only got baked in December when strangely shaped packages came in the front door to be hidden away amongst heavy coats and scarves. There is no time like Christmas time.

There were two sections of county fair competition. In one area, homemakers and wise farmers stood around having quiet discussions and in the other kids laughed and giggled as a green 4-H ribbon was hung on every entry.

Mom and Dad took one afternoon to themselves every week by giving us each a dime to go to the matinee. Free popcorn certainly made the walk worthwhile, but I sure miss the comraderie we felt sitting in the theater.

Our winter driving was a slippery adventure. The first time I drove our Ford Fairlane in snow, I lost control of the car and plowed into a snowbank. The second time I drove, I spun out across the road and into a ditch. We were grateful when a farmer on a tractor stopped to pull us out.

The plants went into the garden before school got out, and there was plenty of weeding to keep us busy all summer long. I liked the cool mornings, but not the prickly tall weeds we had to pull then. When we were finally done weeding for the summer, we heated up the kitchen to get the canning done.

I learned how to dance the jitterbug in my friend Tom's living room after school.

What a thrill it was to get mail as a child! I saved Wheaties Cereal box tops for my Jack Armstrong decoder ring and collected Ovaltine labels for the genuine decoder ring I heard about on Captain Midnight.

"Daddy, you promised to take me to the county seat today so that I can apply for my driver's license!"

It's over! The end of World War II was a cause for celebration with VJ Day.

My mother spent hours at her sewing machine listening to Ladies Be Seated and Fibber McGee.

My first love was a tall, dark, handsome soldier.

I have never been more embarrassed than when I was on my first date when I drove away from the drive-in with the speaker still attached to my car window!

Decoration Day was our chance to transform the town cemetery into a garden.

I just found the Howdy Doody lunchbox I carried to school when I was in the third grade.

My hat was magnificent for a studio portrait, but it surely was difficult to keep on in a strong wind.

Dad was like every man in our town-he would never travel without his hat.

We were the first family on our block to get a television set.

I still wear the mackinaw that my father bought on our trip to Chicago in the 1930's.

Like most kids growing up in the 1950's, I was fascinated with rockets and spaceships.

John had one wish that spring. He wanted to be in the annual fishing derby, but he could not afford a fishing pole.

My most treasured family photo shows Dad boarding the last streetcar in Philadelphia.

Riding the streetcar when visiting my city cousins was an event for me as a girl growing up on the farm.

Can you imagine making money for your mortgage by dancing non-stop? My grandmother won a dance marathon in New York City by doing just that.

Every small town has three busy places-the library, the saloon and the corner store.

My friend Jane Hardy brought the Roaring '20's to our town when she became the first girl we knew to get her hair bobbed.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" My brother shouted himself hoarse on a daily basis when he sold The Daily Planet on the corner of Fifth and Vine Streets in the 1940's.

Some of the food we ate during the Depression still tastes darned good today.

"Machines have personalities, all of them evil," Mother used to say on a Monday morning when the ringer broke down.

Our family's cookstove provided years of cozy memories. We used it double-duty for making tasty meals and for warming baby animals on the farm.

"Assembly required" Oh what dreaded words to read on Christmas Eve!

Do you remember where you were when you heard that President Kennedy was assassinated?

I tried and tried, but I was still the last girl in my second grade class to master the Hula Hoop.

Traditions:	holidays, birthdays, regional, suburban, ethnic, dialects, etiquette
Families:	extended families, nuclear families, unusual families
Towns:	Characters, historical buildings, roads, cars, town meetings
Foods:	regional, ethnic
Regional practices:	branding, quilting, canning/preserving, mapling, hayrides, crabbing
Adventures:	hiking, camping, biking, boating, fishing, hunting, childhood or adult
Sports:	playing, attending events, watching or listening with friends
Summers:	water sports, camp/camping, cross-country, road trips or national park vacations
Church:	picnics, choir, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School
Winter:	sports, ice-fishing
Fairs:	contests, 4-H, rodeos, carnivals, festivals, parades
Jobs:	part-time, summertime, first jobs, starting jobs, unusual jobs, dreadful jobs, changing jobs, and losing jobs.
School Days:	band, sports, dances, clubs
Hobbies:	from dancing to quilting to lapidary, clubs and organizations abound
Firsts:	pet, car, electricity, TV, job, date, child, grandchild

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