Memowrite is a cool web site where you can sign up to have them send you questions every so often, you answer them and at the end of the year, they give you a hard bound book (with photos) telling your story. Storyworth is another company that does this -- Charlotte did it and I have a copy of her book, which I love (Walt is reading it now).
I have thought about doing it, but really, this journal is my autobiography. No, it's not in hardback form, but this is the 8,483rd entry I have written and surely most of my life has been covered in those entries. I looked at the sample questions that Memowrite put on its web site and decided I could answer some of them.
One is what is the pivotal moment that changed your life.
There have been several pivotal moments I can think of like deciding not to enter the convent, choosing to leave UC Berkeley and go to work in the Physics Department, getting married, having children, etc. But when I think back over my life, I think the biggest pivotal moment that changed my life significantly was when I answered a note in the Lamplighters (theater company) newsletter, asking if anyone was interested in helping to write a book about the company's 25 year history.
Walt and I had been fans of the Lamplighters, a Gilbert & Sullivan company, for many years, had ushered for many of its shows, and the idea of learning more about the actors we had seen all those years was just great.
Three of us worked on the book for a year. There were a lot of interviews, but I didn't do most of them; instead I typed them all, since I lived so far away. But I did interview a couple of people. One was Robert Wood, the lead actor at the time. His partner, Phil Dethlefsen, became my good friend for many years.
When the book was published, I was asked if I would be interested in helping to put all of the company's mailing list onto the company's newly purchased computer...my first experience with a computer. I learned the computer and in working on it, became friends with the musical director, Gilbert Russak, who, over the next several years became my best friend. I volunteered at the office once or twice week. Gilbert and I started a company newsletter, which is still going. We wrote several fund-raising shows together.
I made many friends working with the company, who today are still some of our good friends. Walt joined the tech company so he became a part of it too.
When Gilbert died suddenly in 1986, ten years after our first book was published, I wanted there to be a record of all the things he had done in the past ten years, many of which were new and exciting, since the book was published. Alison Lewis, who started the first history project, convinced the Lamplighters board of directors to let me do the second book. I wrote most of it, and she helped. I never thought I would ever have a book published (I can look myself up in the Library of Congress), but this answers another Memowrite question: "what have you done that makes you the most proud."
We don't see all the Lamplighters shows any more, and many of the good friends I made while working on the first book have died. But as I look back over my adult life, I can see that so much of what I am, what I do, and what I remember involves the Lamplighters, and especially volunteering to help with the first book.
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