Telling Your Story

Your story is important.

When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.

These were the themes that threaded through my writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County last Friday.  The maples were in their full fall colorful glory.  The waters of Green Bay were slate colored and a bit angry as a stiff northwest wind sent waves crashing on the rocks.

I call these workshops “Writing From Your Life” as we searched our memories, recalling the good and bad of our lives, and then writing about them—and sharing our writing with each other.  There is laughter and tears.  And surprises, too, as participants recall memories thought lost and  now remembered.

Young and old, recently retired and those still working, all remembering, writing, discussing—getting down their stories of growing up, important people in their lives, turning points, joys, sorrows.  They came from Green Bay and Clinton, from Seymour and Tomah, from Baraboo and Milwaukee, from Fish Creek and Bailey’s Harbor.  All getting to know each other, all listening to each other’s stories, all getting ideas for their own stories.

We talked about keeping a journal, and how that can contribute to our stories.

We discussed the elements of a story and the importance of a strong beginning—even first lines that made a difference.

We practiced writing six-word stories using Ernest Hemingway’s example: “For sale:  Baby shoes.  Never Worn.”

We used my new book TELLING YOUR STORY: PRESERVE YOUR HISTORY THROUGH STORY TELLING as a reference. (For those interested you can order it by going to my website, www.jerryapps.com,)

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Never forget the power of a good story.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 3, 6:30.  Rock Springs Public Library, 6:30. Whispers and Shadows and Roshara Journal.

November 5, 10:00 a.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Roshara Journal. With both Jerry and Steve Apps

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

November 12: 9:30-11:30 a.m. Second Saturdays Plymouth Art Center, 520 East Mill Street, Plymouth.  Farm Memories From Yesterday. Sponsored by Sheboygan County Historical Research Center.

November 29.7:00 p.m. Sequoia Public Library, Madison.  Roshara Journal with both Jerry and Steve Apps

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them): 

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

Making Wood

Clear blue sky.  Bright sunshine.  Temperature in the 50s.  We are making wood at Roshara.  Steve on the chainsaw.  Natasha all around helper.  Me in charge of hauling with the ATV.

The previous day I went on a scouting mission, searching for a dead oak—of which we have several (oak wilt disease).  I found one, not too big, not too small, and close to the cabin. 

Soon the dead oak is down, and quickly sawed into chunks and loaded in the back of the ATV.  Three trips to the cabin and a substantial pile of oak chunks is now ready for splitting.  A few years ago I did the splitting (turning the blocks into smaller pieces) with a maul,  then Steve took on the splitting job, and now we have a mechanical splitter that does the work for us.

By mid-afternoon we are finished.  A pile of sweet smelling, freshly split oak is piled on the end of the woodshed—there for a year to dry before we burn it.

As we worked I remembered how we made wood when I was a kid, many times more of it  than we did today.  We heated our drafty farm house with two wood stoves, kept another stove going in the pump house to keep the pump from freezing, and still another in the potato cellar to protect the potatoes from frost.

In those days, we cut down several oaks in our 20 acre woodlot back of our house using a two-person crosscut saw—there were no chainsaws.  We hauled the long pieces of oak wood to the farmyard with our team of horses, stacking the wood as high as we could reach.

When Pa deemed the stack of wood large enough, we invited the neighbors—they also heated their homes with wood stoves—to help saw the wood into shorter pieces.  One of the neighbors had a gasoline engine powered circle saw that did the cutting.

But the work was not yet done.  We now had the task of splitting the wood into pieces—smaller pieces for the kitchen cook stove, larger pieces for the wood burning heaters.  And then we carried a goodly amount of the split wood into the woodshed, which was attached to the west side of the house.

Making wood took up a substantial amount of time in the late fall, when the other farm work was done.  Usually, in mid to late winter we ran out of wood and we repeated the process.

Today, making wood is much easier, but a necessary task at Roshara as we have two wood burning stoves in our cabin.  And I must say, the day we spend making wood each fall is one of the most fun days we have all year.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Who ever said cutting wood warms you twice, hasn’t really done it.

Workshop: Writing From Your Life:  Offered at The Clearing, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on October 28.  Call 920-854-4088 to learn more and to register. A few openings remain. TELLING YOUR STORY book used as a textbook in the workshop.

Upcoming Events:

October 26, Wednesday, 6:00 p.m, Carroll University, Community Conversation about Frac Sand Mining in Wisconsin. Shattuck Music Center, 100 N. E. Avenue, Waukesha, WI.  Readings from THE GREAT SAND FRACAS OF AMES COUNTRY. Open to the Public

October 28, 9-4.  Writing from your life—writing workshop at the Clearing in Door County (see above for details)

November 3, 6:30.  Rock Springs Public Library, 6:30.

November 5, 10:00 a.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Roshara Journal

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them): 

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

Wisconsin Writers Association

Last evening I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Writers Association Conference held in Neenah. The title of my talk was, “A few things I learned from 50 years of writing.” 

I mentioned to the group that I first received payment for my writing when I began writing weekly columns for several central Wisconsin weekly newspapers in 1966. (I joined the Wisconsin Writers Association in 1967, when it was known as the Wisconsin Rural Writers Association).  Go to https://wiwrite.org/ for more about the organization.

Here is a little of what I shared with the group—what I learned after a half-century of putting words to paper.

--Deadlines are important, keep them. 

--Tell a story.  People like stories, like to read them, like to hear them told. (See my new book, TELLING YOUR STORY—go to my website, www.jerryapps.com for more information.)

--Use all your senses when writing, not just what you see and hear.

--Rewriting and revision of what you write is essential.  I said that I spend more time rewriting and revising than I go creating first drafts.

--The importance of writing within a niche.  I write within the rural history, small town and rural community niche.

--Write what you know, but also write what you don’t know.  I knew little about the details for several of my books, especially RINGLINGVILE USA, the story of the Ringling Brothers Circus, and BREWERIES OF WISCONSIN, the history of the brewing industry in Wisconsin before I began researching and writing about them.

--Keep a journal.  I’ve kept one since the early 1960s.  In addition to keeping a more general journal, I keep a journal for each book I write, including ideas,  notes, progress made, sources of research and other such. (See my new book, ROSHARA JOURNAL as an example of what I write in my journal.—see more about the book on my website, www.jerryapps.com)

--The importance of a good editor. Every writer needs an editor. I’ve been blessed with having several  really good ones over the years. 

--As a book writer, I have responsibility for sharing the marketing and promotion of my books.  I do this through personal appearances, this blog, Facebook, my website (www.jerryapps.com), teaching creative writing workshops, television documentaries I do with Public Television, radio programs, and twice monthly columns I write for the weekly newspaper, THE COUNTRY TODAY.

I concluded my talk with these words:

Writing is something I have to do.  Writing :

--Helped me to come out from behind myself, a shy farm kid recovering from Polio.

--Gave me an added purpose to my life

--Caused me to learn things I never thought I would learn, travel to places I never thought I would visit, meet people I never thought I would meet, and pushed me to doing things I thought I would never do.

--Taught me to listen to the whispers and look in the shadows.  Listen to the quiet sounds amidst a world of shouting, look in the shadows where the bright light doesn’t shine.

-- Helped me learn how to accept rejection and move on

-- Taught me that there will always be writers that are better writers than I am.  I I try to follow my father’s advice: Do the best you can with what you’ve got.

Why do I continue to write full-time

?

--Because of the many comments I get from my readers

--Because I still can.

--Because I’m trying to learn how to do it.  When I do I’ll probably quit.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Have you written your story? Time to get started.

Workshop: Writing From Your Life:  Offered at The Clearing, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on October 28.  Call 920-854-4088 to learn more and to register. A few openings remain. TELLING YOUR STORY book used as a textbook in the workshop.

Upcoming Events:

October 18, Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. Friends of Community Library Fundraiser Dinner.  Twin Oaks Country Inn, 30807 114 Street, Wilmot, WI. Whispers and Shadows and Roshara Journal.

October 26, Wednesday, 6:00 p.m, Carroll University, Community Conversation about Frac Sand Mining in Wisconsin. Shattuck Music Center, 100 N. E. Avenue, Waukesha, WI.  Readings from THE GREAT SAND FRACAS OF AMES COUNTRY. Open to the Public.

October 28, 9-4.  Writing from your life—writing workshop at the Clearing in Door County (see above for details)

November 3, 6:30.  Rock Springs Public Library, 6:30.

November 5, 11:00 a.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Roshara Journal

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them): 

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

The Old Timer Says

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing this weekly blog for nine years.  I began doing it in the summer of 2007, when my nephew, Matt, a computer whiz said, “Uncle Jerry you should write a blog.”  At the time I hardly knew what a blog was.  Today, I send it out to several thousand people across the country.  When I ask people what they like about it, the almost unanimous response is that it’s short.  And secondly, they tell me they like what the Old Timer has to say each week.

 I thought it would be fun to devote an entire blog to some of the Old Timer sayings that I especially like.  Most of the Old Timer sayings are mine.  Some are stolen from other sources, many of them were my father’s and a fair number come from other Old Timers that I have talked with over the years.

--When you are doing nothing, how do you know when you are finished?

--Do the best you can with what you’ve got.

--Just because you’ve got a lot of education doesn’t mean you know anything.

-- No matter what direction a north wind comes from, it always blows cold.

--If bigger is better, why is a dime worth more than a nickel?

-- Life is like a river.  There are twists and turns, quiet spots and rapids, deep pools and shallow

flats.  But a river is always moving.  Always the same but always different.

--When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.

-- Some things are best left alone.

-- It’s all right to not have anything to say as long as you don’t say it.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Want to read more.  Sign up for Jerry’s Blog.  Go to www.jerryapps.com and follow instructions.

Workshop: Writing From Your Life:  Offered at The Clearing, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on October 28.  Call 920-854-4088 to learn more and to register. A few openings remain.

Upcoming Events:

October 15, 7:00 p.m. Wisconsin Writer’s Association, Riverwalk Hotel, 123 E. Wisconsin Avenue, Neenah, WI Keynote speech.

October 28, 9-4.  Writing from your life—writing workshop at the Clearing in Door County (see above for details)

November 3, 6:30.  Rock Springs Public Library, 6:30.

November 5, 11:00 a.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Roshara Journal

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them): 

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

Ringling Brothers Circus

The American Experience, a series produced by PBS and aired nationally—popular programs include “The Amish,” “JFK”,“D-Day” and “Riding the Rails” (and many more)—is developing a show featuring the American Circus.

Last week I spent an hour with the circus show’s producer talking about the Ringling Brothers and their famous circus that had its roots in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  The Ringling brothers, there were five of them who worked as partners, got their idea for a circus when the family lived in McGregor, Iowa and the boys saw a river boat circus come into town.

The family moved to Baraboo (they had lived there previously), where their father operated a harness shop.  The Ringling story is one of hard work, grit, and perseverance.  They opened their first circus in Baraboo in 1884, and spent their winters in that town until 1918.  By 1918, they had become the largest circus in the world, traveling throughout the county thrilling young and old alike.  You can still see their circus; it continues to tour the country—although it is quite different from the one that entertained people in towns large and small under the “Big Top” during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

Stop by Circus World Museum in Baraboo to see firsthand where the Ringling circus spent its winters.  And if you’d like to learn more about the Ringlings and their circus, pick up a copy of my book Ringlingville USA, or its companion for young readers, Tents, Tigers, and the Ringling Brothers (Both published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press).  Go to my website, www.jerryapps.com for more information).

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Few things are more American than the circus.

Workshop: Writing From Your Life:  Offered at The Clearing, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on October 28.  Call 920-854-4088 to learn more and to register. A few openings remain.

Upcoming Events:

October 6-7, Heartland Book Forum, Minneapolis.

October 15, 7:00 p.m. Wisconsin Writer’s Association, Riverwalk Hotel, 123 E. Wisconsin Avenue, Neenah, WI Keynote speech.

October 28, 9-4.  Writing from your life—writing workshop at the Clearing in Door County (see above for details)

November 3, 6:30.  Rock Springs Public Library, 6:30.

November 5, 11:00 a.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Roshara Journal

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them): 

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835