The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, and, in breaking with the Ann(i)(e) theme, One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle. Brian does end with “an” though and if we went from Annie->Anne->Ann then the next logical name would be An. Anyway, that's not why I called. If I could wave a magic wand and write like someone, it would be one of those four.

In Bird by Bird Lamott provides aspiring writers, or people that post dumb things on their website named after something Opie said in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, with ideas about what to write about. As I read her book, I wrote down things I thought maybe I could write about. I thought I'd start at the beginning with my first memory…

I walked out the door. Two doors if you count the screen door. I wonder if they make screen doors like that anymore. Top half screen, bottom half white metal about as thick as a Coke can. No local Lowe's or Home Depot then. Where would you go to get a screen door in the early 80s? Sears? I can't think of Sears without thinking of Grandma saying, when talking about her grandparents house, “And we had a Sears Roebuck catalog in the outhouse!”

It was a rectangular house, barely more than a thousand square feet, with a one car garage on the right side, the front door just to the left of the garage. A decent size maple tree in the front yard. A backyard perfect for 1 on 1 baseball games. For a long time the only air conditioning was a window unit in my parent's bedroom. The door was always closed to keep the cold air in. After school I'd stand in there for a second, hair blowing in the window unit AC breeze, and think, “I bet George Steinbrenner has air conditioning in his entire house.” I didn't actually think about George Steinbrenner. When was the last time you thought about him? What about Marge Schott? It's probably been a while.

Back to the garage door for a second. It was not automatic. You had to open it the old fashioned way. My grandparents, however, had a garage door opener. My older brother and I were inside and opened the door. He successfully grabbed onto the handle and took a ride, successfully landing on his two feet after the mission. Monkey see, monkey do. I held on and then smashed my face on the ground.

So, as I was saying, I walked out the door, strode down the driveway and walked right into the road. At least I think I made it to the road. Someone, maybe my mom, stopped me and asked what I was doing. That's it. My first memory. I wanted to see what the road was all about.

Somewhere Anne Lamott is sorry for what she's done. Or she should be.