Deborah Shepard Books
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact

Writers' Stories

A collection of life stories by writers who have attended Deborah's classes

True Blue and Dippity Do by Doris Riegel

5/11/2020

 
Doris Riegel was born and raised on Long Island, New York. She completed her MS in Education at Indiana University where she met her husband. They lived and worked in a variety of cities around the United States before moving, with their two daughters, to New Zealand in 2006. After volunteering and working in non-profit music and theatre education for almost twenty years, she is now exploring new activities and challenges.   
 
With a rattle, the gate to the elevator slammed shut.  To a ten-year-old in the 1970s the elevator in my grandmother’s Brooklyn, NY apartment building was thrilling. The castle-like foyer with dark stone floors, concrete walls, and dim lighting was in contrast to her apartment with its tall windows and stark white walls.  The kitchen was small but adequate and the living room, always tidy, held a sofa, chair, and coffee table displaying knickknacks. The bedroom was dark, but warm with walnut furniture and heavy drapes.
 
My grandmother’s name was Lillian Mioducki, but we called her Lulu — she refused to be known as ‘grandma’.  As the oldest grandchild, I had the privilege of sometimes staying with Lulu. She would take me out in the city where we’d visit stores she called ‘shit shops’-because of the vast array of varied and cheap items they stocked, then enjoy lunch at a soda fountain followed by a  stroll down to the water to watch the boats pass under the Verrazano Bridge. Lulu would often send me, on my own, to the corner deli to purchase milk and a pack of ‘True Blue’ cigarettes.  
 
Lulu’s visits were always great fun. She had a wicked sense of humour and loved to play games. When she smoked, she sat outside the back door on an aluminium strap chair, similar to one she had in her living room, which she preferred over the soft upholstered furniture. She was a tall slim woman who wore her grey hair short. My mother would set Lulu’s hair in pink plastic curlers using a sticky green gel called ‘Dippity Do’ which had a sweet chemical odour. In the morning, the curlers were unrolled, and her hair moulded into position for the next week. Sometimes I would sneak a little gel and try to style my own hair.
 
When Lulu began suffering from dementia, I was stunned to discover that her relationship with my mother had always been strained. To hear the hurtful words, they shouted at each other as the dementia took over, was heart-breaking. I may never fully understand the difficulty of their relationship, but I will always treasure the memories of my funny, spirited, and generous grandmother.

​
Picture

    Your Stories

    Please submit your story via the Contact page and it will receive a gentle edit from Deborah.
    WRITING GUIDELINES
    Tips on writing and posting a story
    writing on a theme
    COVID-19 STORIES

    Authors

    All
    Adele Ellis
    Alan Knox
    Alison Mayson
    Alison Quesnel
    Amanda Aitken
    Angela Eastwood
    Anissa Ljanta
    Anna Caselberg
    Anna Groenestein
    Anne Cavanagh
    Anne Morris
    Barbara Myers
    Bernice Raos
    Beth Jewell
    Betty Chamberlain
    Beverley Morris
    Bren Lawrey
    Bronwyn Lewis
    Carmel Byrne
    Carmel Ni Bhroin
    Carol Clayton
    Carol Jack
    Catherine Groenestein
    Catherine Moorhead
    Cathie Hutchinson
    Cathy Gray
    Cherie Buchanan
    Cheryl McCrow-Young
    Cheryl Nicol
    Cheryl Price
    Colin Radford
    Colleen Paisley
    David Arrowsmith
    David Phuah
    Dawn Webster
    Debbie Corder
    Diane Taylor
    Dianne Moffatt
    Dianne Speed
    Don Cowan
    Doris Riegel
    Elisabeth Sutorius
    Elizabeth Buchanan
    Elizabeth Goldsworthy
    Erica Munro
    Evan Mayson
    Evita Fromter
    Fern Paulussen
    Francie Craig
    Gabrielle Reekie
    Gillian Mayo
    Gill Sanson
    Glenys McGee
    Gloria Neale
    Graham McGregor
    Graham Woolford
    Gretel Jack
    Helen Gillespie
    Inge Rudolph
    Isabella Mcdermott
    Jackie Halliday
    Jackie Hawkeswood
    Jane Bissell
    Jane Ouseley
    Janet Bovett
    Janet De Witt
    Janet Pates
    Jane Wilkins
    Janine Peters
    Jeanette Baalbergen
    Jeanette De Heer
    Jean Rockel
    Jennifer McGarry
    Jenny Healey
    Jenny Riviere
    Jessie Jellick
    Jicca Smith
    Jim Barnett
    Jim Cooke
    Jim O'Donovan
    Jim Peters
    Joan Hugo Burley
    Jocelyn Goodman
    Jo Frew
    John Goodman
    Judy Hardie
    Judy Johannessen
    Judy O'Brien
    Julia Blick
    Julie Star
    Juliet Jackson
    Justine Sachs
    Kacie Stetson
    Kate Lewis
    Katherine Kelly
    Kathryn Kearns
    Katrina Cole
    Leona Fay
    Lexie Candy
    Liz Lees
    Liz March
    Liz Marks
    Liz Thomas
    Liz Wilson
    Lorene Verheijden
    Lydia Smith
    Lynley Stone
    Maire Vieth
    Mandy Robinson
    Margaret Farrell
    Margaret Merton
    Margaret Russell
    Margo Knightbridge
    Marg Slater
    Maria Kazmierow
    Maria Zivkovich
    Marie Cameron
    Marie Coyle
    Marie Lynne Mitchell
    Marijke Batenburg
    Marilyn Eales
    Maris O'Rourke
    Maryan Dawson
    Mary Barker
    Mary Betz
    Mary Bogan
    Mary Borok
    Mary Elsmore-Neilson
    Mary Nicholas
    Mary Weal
    Mattie Wall
    Maureen Sudlow
    Max Adams
    Meg Johnson
    Meret Berger
    Michelanne Forster
    Mike Kilpatrick
    Miriam Frank
    Moyra Cooke
    Myrtle Easton
    Nanci Campion
    Natalie Mullender
    Ngawini Hall
    Nicky Won
    Nicola Brewer Fanefjord
    Nitin Sahare
    Patricia Gross
    Pat Scriven
    Pauline Lumsden
    Pauline Sneddon
    Penny Slack
    Philomena Pinto
    Rachael Breckon
    Rae Abraham
    Raewynne Lory
    Rob Creagh
    Robyn Turner
    Robyn White
    Rosemary Auld
    Rosemary Barrett
    Roslind O'Neill
    Roz Nicol
    Ruth Bonita
    Ruth Busch
    Sally Monks
    Samantha Scott
    Sandra Plummer
    Sandy Plummer
    Sarah Ashmore
    Sarah Gumbley
    Sarah Hardman
    Sara Kimsey
    Sharyn Elliffe
    Shirley Glendinning
    Shona Barker
    Sofia Mella
    Steve Charters
    Sue
    Sue Alexander
    Sue Mercer
    Sue Radford
    Susan Grimsdell
    Susan Mcleod
    Susan Schuler
    Susie Johnston
    Sylvia Dean
    Sylvia Nagl
    Terry Levenberg
    Tim Chamberlain
    Tim Paul
    Trevor Bayly
    Val Cotty
    Verna Cook-Jackson
    Vonne Learmonth
    Wyn Hoadley

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    May 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    November 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010

    RSS Feed

Writing Memoir
Defining Memoir
The Participatory Model
Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
​From Writing Course to Book Publication
Your Writing Space
​Writing on a Theme
Reviews of Memoir
Writers Stories
​
Events
​About
Testimonials
What People Say

Media
​Contact
Copyright © 2017 Deborah Shepard
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact