Assignment: This week, try your hand at writing the first page of an autobiographical novel. As you describe the circumstances of your narrator's birth, be sure to include some dialogue.
“How old were you when you were born?”
What a great conversation starter.
Bob, a close college pal used to ask that
question of both friends and strangers.
What a simple question!
Think about it.
So many did.
It wasn’t a hard question, just a tricky one
when you actually do take the time to really think about it, and I have often
done just that. I knew when I was born that I would never be a math scholar.
How did I know that? I can’t answer that.
Can anyone?
I was too busy being a super mature, premature
writer.
Born in a small Long Island hamlet just a scant
few miles east of the bustling metropolis of Manhattan came little Tommy M.
From the dawn of his existence, little Tommy hated the term, Tommy. It would not
be until his foray into finer education that the moniker, Morty would be
bestowed upon this Long Island lad. He hated that at its onset, but later grew
to accept this accolade borne upon him some 18 years after being born…
How old were you when you born?
The immediate reply that would often come to
mind would be, zero. We start fresh with nothing more than a slate that is not
so clean where the blood and umbilical and unmentionables are concerned.
Wow, now I feel woozy.
How old was I when I was born? At least nine
months, I think. I’ve never heard anything otherwise. I guess falling into that
safe nine-month zone category meant that I would never be remembered as anything
more than a typical tot. Months would have confused me, anyway, some with thirty
days and some with thirty-one. Don’t get me started on Leap Year. What is that
about anyhow?
“How old were you when you were born?”
I still hear that question today as I had heard
it so many yesterday’s ago, always delivered with Bob’s surreptitious smile.
“How old were you when you were born?”
What a great conversation starter!
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