Preserve Your Life Stories Workshop at JJC

Family Back Stories owner, Ann C. Piasecki, is offering a two-part Preserve Your Life Stories workshop from 10 a.m. till noon, Fridays, Sept. 16 and Sept. 23, at the main campus of Joliet Junior College, 1215 Houbolt St., Joliet, IL, 60431. The $39 class is scheduled to be facilitated at the LLC Building, Room 4312. Please register through the JJC Continuing Education Department.

You'll learn to identify and organize authentic memories worth preserving. We'll talk about imagery, structure, dialogue and more as they work together to reveal the wit, charm, innocence and challenges that we and our loved ones experienced. These are the stories that help our children and future generations to understand the strength and sense of humor that makes  us unique.  Below is a short of example: 

Election Day 1963

My dad, Jim Conley, was no heavy-hitter in Chicago politics in the '60s, but he was a precinct captain for the Austin District; it was a volunteer position---he worked full-time for the City of Chicago Water Department. Anyway come election day, he got the vote out for JFK and "the Mayor Daley."

It was about 6:30 p.m. on a cold, damp  November evening. My dad wasn't a big drinker, so he came home early. He stood for a moment at the coat closet next to the door that led to the second floor bedrooms: there, he took off his his deep-gray fedora hat, revealing the red-gray strands of hair that slightly covered his balding head. Carefully he hung up his overcoat, and I heard the familiar heavy footsteps move across the green-and-white-specked linoleum floor. With a handkerchief, he wiped the perspiration from his brow and smiled with the knowledge that he'd kept the political machine in place.

I understand everyone was on edge, though, waiting to for the results of the presidential campaign—JFK versus Barry Goldwater. 

Then he greeted us with a tired smile. I was sitting with a coloring book at the white Formica table. He leaned over, kissed the top of my head and said, "How ya doing sweetheart?" My mom was in her usual position, washing dishes at the kitchen sink. Drying her hands on a checkered towel that left a wet spot on the front of the neatly pressed blue and white, shirt-waist dress—I always thought it looked so pretty when her shoulder-length coal-black curly hair brushed its collar—she turned around and winked at me.

Then she said to my dad, "So, how many times did Old Man Reilly vote from the grave?"

He gave a breathy sigh, knowing full-well that the practice was as crooked as the day is long, and said, "Don't start Louise. It's our bread-n-butter and you know it."...