What makes you do what you do?

There are a lot of ways to take that question, but I have one in particular I want to explore.  I'm thinking of the things you experienced as a child that influence your writing, your choice of words, the type of character you seem most comfortable with, the conflicts that cut deeper, the places you like to have your characters do their things.

And these don't have to be your own memories of the actual events, but could be second hand, your parents telling you how you behaved.  I can think of many of these, but sticking with original memories for a moment, what is the first thing you remember?  I'm not sure how important it is to distinguish the two, because, if you're like me I can't tell if I really remember the first one or I've somehow gathered bits of other memory into something that appears to be the first.  That said, my memories are in color.  I can hear sound, and my first is sitting on a table or picnic bench looking up at a pale yellow apartment building.  I think this was while we were living in Idar-Oberstein, Germany.

I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing, something I probably should have done a while ago--and maybe many of you already have.  Hell, I'm late, not much I can do now but read it.  So, King relates the story of a girl his mother heard die.  King asked his mother if she had ever seen anyone die, and she replied that she had seen one and heard another.  Heard?  A girl is swimming off Maine, gets pulled out by the currents, some men try to rescue her, but it's too dangerous, and all they can do is stand on the shore while she screams for help, struggles until she's too tired to stay above the waves, and drowns.  If that doesn't send a chill up your back. . .

This is a horrific example, but King goes through interesting stories, growing up stories, things he heard or lived through that made him the kind of person is.

Anyway, Stephen King's book started me thinking of some interesting, crazy, stupid things I've seen, heard, lived through, and, of course, done.  I'm thinking I should come back to this topic when I can't think of anything to post, because I've done a lot of. . .well, stupid things. 

Here's one of my first forays:  I'm getting this story second hand from my dad, but apparently on a trip into East Germany by train, I did something a bit silly.  Before I get to that, my first question is, what were my parents up to?  Did they wake up on a Saturday morning and say, "Hey, let's go to Berlin for the afternoon!"  You wanna?

Okay, this is 1966 or so.  Cold War, spies, people getting killed trying to get into West Germany.  Our train pulls into East Germany where the engine is unhitched and an East German engine is attached.  There are East German soldiers with guns out, lining the tracks for a few miles east of the "Russian Checkpoint."  I'm three or four, and as we roll slowly into the countryside on the east side of the Wall, I get up in front of the window, legs braced apart, and with loaded fingers, proceed to shoot every guard passing by.  I'm yelling, "bang bang!"  I'm doing a few execution style, others get two or three rounds in the stomach.  I'm making a mess.

My parents stop me when they realize what I'm doing.  Here's what's interesting:  My mother didn't care about her son stepping dangerously close to Rule G in the Important Conduct Aboard Military Trains, in which we were prohibited from "speaking to or attempting to converse with East German nationals or Soviet personnel while train is in the Soviet Zone of Germany."  (See below for more). You know what bothered her about the whole thing?  Maybe her youngest son's a psycho?  Nope.  It bothered her that none of the soldiers smiled.  (Hmmm.  Of course, why would they?  I was mowing them down like GI Joe).

Comments

[Jeff Hayes]

Curiously enough, the rules don't seem to explicitly prohibit shooting East German soldiers... so maybe you weren't all that far out of line after all?

[Chris Howard]

Yeah, shooting's okay, as long I'm not throwing unsightly articles from the train, but I'll bet it could be lumped under "conversing" with a gun, or talking to them "old Chicago style."