Prep Work (Mo and Joan)

The point of Best Day is to give older buds an opportunity to write and share their life experiences without judgement. We always have lots of pens, pencils and notebooks on hand because we don’t know how many opportunities our buds have to write in their own lives. We encourage everyone to keep their stories short enough to finish in three to five minutes, but we’ll go over the ending time if it means everyone gets a chance to read their stories. Our copywriters’ policy is “never edit the stories,” or the readers won’t be able to hear the older buds’ voices. In short, Best Day is set up with the assumption that this is the one time of the week our older buds have to write. 

Our older buds do not have that same assumption. Some of them will take notebooks home with them because they’re not done writing their story yet. Some of them will rewrite the whole story from scratch because they made too many “mistakes” in the first draft. Some of them come to Best Day planning on writing their autobiography. Some of them bring in a story already finished, eager for feedback, critique, and grammatical advice. One older bud, Philip, refused to come to Best Day the past few weeks until his story was finished. Interestingly enough, once he brought his finished story to the workshop, he had enough time to complete a second story as well. Hopefully, this means we’ll be seeing him on a weekly basis; finished stories or no.

Missouri Grier

10.13.2011

Love of Horses

Every day the Bond Bread Wagon would come to my block to deliver bread to the neighbors. I would get on the wagon and take a ride with the horse. The horse would always stop at my door and I would climb in the seat and he and I would go around the block. The man said to my mother, “I can’t understand why my horse likes your little girl, Mrs. Grier, but he brings me here and stops every day.” They just laughed off. I still love horses.

Johnstown, PA

Joan Bunting

08.22.2019

Last Thursday, August the 8th, my daughter drove her youngest daughter Raven, Raven’s friend, two of her granddaughters, and myself to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. We traveled there to celebrate her daughter’s, Tauheedah, birthday on the 9th. It was a long ride, but I like riding. I love and enjoy the scenery.
We stayed at a place that Rose had arranged on her phone. I don’t know this cellphone language, but she rented a place for us to stay for the weekend. It had four bedrooms, a kitchen, toilets, one upstairs with a bathtub and shower and one downstairs in what looked like a storage place. Everything was beautiful.
We stopped at Tauheedah’s letting her know that we had arrived. The next day we went to a place called Idle-wild. There was games to be played, rides to ride on, but the biggest attraction was the different water. There were different water attractions. It took me about a half-hour to decide even to put my feet in. The water was so cold. I finally sat down. Every now and then a wave would come and I would let out a loud “Ooh.”
The next day, we went to my favorite attraction. It’s called, “The Johnstown Inclined Plane.” People get on this wooden platform. After you pay for your ticket, (As a senior citizen I got on free) and after everyone boards, we start moving upward. Of course, we were surrounded by a gate. We’re so high the cars look like toy cars. I don’t know how high it goes, but the view is so beautiful.
After you reach the top, you get off and you’re in a park with swings and things. Walking out of the park there’s a beautiful neighborhood. There is also a little shop where you can purchase safe keeps, ice cream, slurpies and lots of other things.
I enjoyed our visit to Johnstown and visiting with my granddaughter and her four children, and looking forward to visiting Johnstown, PA again.

Use your time to talk to the older buds in your life. Send us their stories through this form. And if you want to do more to end senior isolation, click here to participate in our tenth anniversary celebration, Friday November 8th, 10AM-4PM. Or if you’re looking to bring our storytelling experiences to your workplace, check out our lunch and learn.

Curated by Caitlin Cieri