Area seniors stimulate their memory one word at a time

Published 11:50 pm Sunday, August 13, 2006

What memories does the word “orange” bring to mind?

Howard Burnett, founder of the “Writing Your Memories” class at the Dalton-Whitfield Senior center, says “orange” means different things to different people.

“One person’s memory was picking oranges out in California,” he said. “Another person immediately thought of a Tennessee game. And sometimes, one person’s memories will trigger memories in somebody else. … It’s amazing how varied peoples’ memories of those words are.”

Burnett leads the class once a week at the Senior Center. He gives participants three words each week to think about.

“I tell them the three words at the beginning of the class, and then they have a week to write about those memories,” he said. “We spend the rest of the class sharing memories from words from the week before.”

“All of my stories go to my kids,” said Neil Spruell, a member of the class. “I also used to send them to my mother. She always wanted to know what I was doing at the Senior Center every week.”

Burnett got the idea for the class from a Senior Center in Annapolis, Md., where he used to live.

“I just recently moved back to Murray County to be with my family,” he said. “In Maryland, I took a similar memories class at the Senior Center for five years. I left with several hundred pages of memories that I had written.”

A retired forest ranger, Burnett decided to start writing memories after a conversation with his grandson.

“We were driving in the car, and we were talking about how I used to work with Smokey the Bear,” he said. “One of my grandsons said, ‘I didn’t know grandpa ever worked!’ I decided that I needed to write down my memories for future generations.”

Edna Dillingham, another class member, had a similar experience.

“I started writing down memories when I was working on genealogy for my kids,” she said. “Eventually, my granddaughters wanted journals too, so they could have all of my stories in writing. I thought this class would help me.”

Burnett says writing down memories is not just for entertainment and educating children. He says that it helps improve the mind.

“Research has shown that stimulating the mind helps prevent Alzheimer’s. I certainly think that what we’re doing is actually improving our memories.”

Burnett says the group in Dalton is only concerned with relaying memories, not the way in which they are told.

“We don’t worry about grammar or correct sentence structure,” he says. “We just use the time to stimulate our minds and enjoy each other’s company.”

“When I first started coming, my kids would read my stories and type them up,” said Dillingham. “It’s something that stays in the family.”

The group also frequently meets beyond the scheduled class time.

“Sometimes we stay for lunch at the Senior Center,” Burnett said. “Sometimes we go out to eat. We are almost like a family, because we are learning so much about one another through emotional and entertaining memories.”

Burnett invites residents of Whitfield and Murray counties to attend class sessions.

“We have a small group, but we’d like to get larger,” he said.