My Seeing Eye dogs and I have visited dozens of elementary schools over the years that pair average kids with students who have disabilities in “buddy” programs. The school Whitney and I are visiting this Wednesday takes that idea one step further.

At Glen Grove Elementary in Glenview, Illinois. students are paired with a fellow student who has a disability, but then these fifth-graders interview family members and others who spend time outside of school with their “buddy,” too. The students use iPads to record video of those interviews, and by combining them with video of their own interactions with their buddies, they create documentaries presented at the end of the school year.

The idea is the brain child of Glen Grove fifth-grade teacher Amanda Martinsen, who was awarded a Human and Civil Rights Award from the Illinois Education Association for a project the IEA described as “life-changing for students with conditions that sometimes make it difficult for them to connect with others.” A story from the Chicago Tribune explains:

The Nora Project grew out of Martinsen’s concern that students like her cousin’s daughter who have Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and a host of other medical conditions often experience difficulty making connections and friendships with other students in school.

Martinsen said she agreed that the project has been “life-changing” for many students, but not just those with special needs.

“The change we’ve seen from students is they’re so much more aware of kids with special needs that are different from them,” she said. “They are so much more accepting.”

One student said she had heard the term Down syndrome, but didn’t know what it was, Martinsen said.

“She said she never thought she would have been friends with someone with Down syndrome, and now she is,” she said. “I see them interacting with many kids. They’re high-fiving each other, asking how their day is.”

As for me, I’ve been asked to come to Glen Grove Wednesday to share tips on using respectful language and appropriate questions during the interviews they’ll be doing with their buddy’s family members and friends. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m pretty sure I’ll learn more from these fifth graders and their buddies than they will from me.

Mrs. Martinsen’s award-winning project is named for her niece, Nora. To learn more about the Nora Project, visit thenoraproject.ngo. Documentaries produced by the students are available there under the Nora Friends tab.

Thank you, dear Safe & Sound blog readers. I received so many positive comments last week to the post I wrote about ways memoir-writing can be good for your brain and your soul that now, tonight, at 9 pm Central Time, I’m going to be on WGN Radio in Chicago to talk about the side benefits of taking memoir-writing classes to get your life stories down on paper. Writer Regan Burke will join me, and we’ll both be interviewed by Justin Kaufmann, host of The Download on WGN Radio 720.

I worked with Justin back when we were both with WBEZ, and I’m looking very much forward to being with him again, especially with Regan Burke at my side – she is one of the many writers from my memoir-writing classes whose stories intertwine with mine in my latest book, Writing Out Loud.

Regan Burke, a writer from my class, will join me on the air tonight.

It was a lucky day for me back in 2014 when Regan Burke turned up for one of my memoir-writing classes. A lifelong civil rights activist, Regan was Bill Clinton’s scheduler during his presidential campaign. She left Chicago to work in his administration for a few years before returning back home, and she just finished compiling the colorful – and moving – stories she’s written during four years of memoir-writing classes into a manuscript. I’m guessing she’ll give radio listeners tonight an idea of how she’s going about finding a publisher, but really, who knows? It all depends on the questions Justin Kaufmann asks us, and if you are a regular listener to The Download, you know he can be full of surprises.

But so can Regan. And so can I!

So listen in on WGN Radio tonight, Wednesday, January 31 at 9 pm central. If you live far away and are one of those lucky people who received an Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini for a holiday gift, Just say “Alexa” or “Hey Google” and ask them to play WGN. Or stream it on your computer or mobile device at http://wgnradio.com.

Over time, I’ve become fonder and fonder of various forms of jazz music. For many years, that would not have included traditional jazz, otherwise known as Dixieland. To me, it was sort of caricature music, the raucous stuff I heard at Shakey’s Pizza parlors as a kid.

The Fat Babies

That started to change after Beth and I got together. As a young man, Beth’s big brother Doug picked up the trombone—and got really good at it. He was playing gigs in his teens—and Beth and her sisters and mother developed an appreciation for tradjazz.

Doug eventually enlisted in the Marines and played in the Corps band. But then there were children, bills, and the whole responsibility thing, and he put down his horn. Beth and I would often go see Doug’s former band mates at places like Andy’s in Chicago, but Doug remained, like us, an audience member.

Until 1996, that is. The Finke clan planned a surprise party for their mother Flo’s 80^th birthday party. In advance, Doug dusted off his horn and worked on his embouchure and got the band back together to surprise Flo. It was a rousing success, and Doug’s been playing ever since.

And, thanks largely to him, we learned about a band called The Fat Babies. They aren’t kids, but they aren’t geezers either. They look like they might be accountants or insurance salesmen in their day jobs, but on stage, they just swing. They play around Chicago pretty often, and we’ve seen them at venues far and near.

Beth’s sister Bev was in town last night, so we headed to Honky Tonk Barbecue in the Pilsen neighborhood, where every Sunday night, some members of the Fat Babies—known as The Cellar Boys—play. For free. No cover. Last night they had a guest singer. I usually don’t like singers, but she was terrific—she dressed and acted the part.

And so did lots of the audience—dressed and acted the part, that is. It’s like that at these shows. Kids with tattoos and piercings dressed in vintage clothing. It’s kind of nerdy but overall, just a breath of fresh air. We’ve seen it in New Orleans, too—young people keeping the traditional roots alive on the street and in clubs.

Anyway, the crowd was a terrific mix of old and young, couples who knew what they were doing putting a show on the dance floor and from our perches at the bar, we could see it all. The couples included men and women, men and men, and women and women. A dashing young Hispanic man in a fedora and three-piece suit approached me and asked, “Sir, is it alright if I hang my coat on your chair—I can’t find a place to hang it.” Another man, after reaching past me to collect his drink, said, “Beg your pardon.” I had to ask him why. “Sorry for the reach,” he said. Civilized and kind. Plus, over the course of the evening, the bartender and I talked motorcycles and compared notes on bikes we’d owned.

Beth, Bev and I had been discussing the state of the world, particularly the recently revealed horrors about the Larry Nassar abuse and the wave of such revelations.

But the music and the scene sort of took over, and at some point, Bev leaned over and said, “Most people are good, don’t you think.”

I’m still not so sure. But last night, that was absolutely true.

I laughed out loud years ago when Myrna (a writer in one of the classes I lead for The Village Chicago) told me she was taking a class to learn how to fall.

Really? Who needs lessons? I do that naturally!

Myrna’s class started making more sense in 2015, when I fell and broke bones in my left hand. Yesterday The Village Chicago offered an hour-long How to Fall class free of charge at Balance Chicago, and this very simple description of the class motivated me to finally take the plunge and sign up: “ Please join Chris Smith, stage combat instructor along with Taryn Sowa, physical therapist assistant as they teach you the safest way to fall to prevent further injuries.” Stage combat instructor? Only an hour? Free? Who could resist.

Twenty or more of us shoed up for the class yesterday. When we arrived we discovered that in addition to stage combat instructor Chris Smith, a yoga teacher and fight instructor for theater named Maureen Yasko would be helping us, too. Cool.

We’d been told to dress comfortably and be prepared to participate in demonstrations if we wanted. I was the only participant who was blind. The instructors did an excellent job describing their actions out loud as they demonstrated ways to avoid injuries during the three basic sorts of falls, but I knew I’d benefit from a bit more explanation.

I am not comfortable acting in front of an audience, but I sucked it up and volunteered to give it a try right there in front of the entire class. When I expressed concern over how Whitney would react to my fake falling — Seeing Eye dogs are trained to prevent us from falling — a dog-loving staff member named Patricia came to the rescue. She understood it was important for me to get some hands-on instruction and generously offered to take Whitney out of the room during my performance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the three basic falls: Front falls (includes tripping), side falls, and backwards falls. Each fall had its own technique to help reduce injuries, but since my falls tend to be forward ones, I focused on those techniques:

• • Give into the fall, accept you are falling and don’t try to fight it
  • Don’t hold your breath, that tightens your joints. Yell/swear/shout as you are falling, that releases tension
  • Don’t fight gravity, it will always win. Instead, try to lunge or crouch down as low to the ground as you possibly can while you are falling, give the fall less impact
  • Avoid locking your joints, and aim to land on your meaty parts (bottom, in most people, but thighs or stomach will do) rather than your elbows, knees, wrists, shoulders
  • Turn your head to the side. Cradling your head in your upper arm and shoulder will reduce the risk of hitting your nose or mouth on the ground
  • Pretend you are Wonder Woman or Superman. Rather than bend your wrists to prevent the fall, slide forward with your arms out so you land on your palms and forearms together. That will help avoid broken wrists.

The only way to remember all that while you are in the midst of falling? That’s the bad news. You have to practice falling on a mat or soft surface every day. That’s what the stage combat professionals do, and they promised us that, eventually, breathing out during a fall, getting low to the ground, turning your head, acting like Wonder Woman — that will all come naturally during a fall. So will I manage to practice at home every day? Stay tuned.

In the dozen or so years I’ve been leading memoir-writing classes, I always pretty much assumed that getting life episodes down on paper is good for your brain. Now studies are starting to prove it.

A Creativity and Aging Study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that writing memoir can result in the formation of new dendrites, the brain’s communication channels. Other studies show that the social engagement writers get by sharing their life stories in memoir classes like mine can prolong life and enhance healthy aging. Arts programs like writing classes for older adults have been linked to lowered blood pressure, reduced levels of stress hormones, and increased levels of endorphins — a “happiness hormone.”

Memoir can reunite people.

But who knew writing these little life episodes for class might serve to reunite people with family and old friends, too? Not me.

Early on in my memoir-teacher career a writer named Jean told me she had lost touch with her only brother. Nothing nasty had happened, they just didn’t feel they had much to talk about anymore. “But once I started these classes, I needed to call him every week to make sure I was remembering everything the way he did,” she laughed. “Now he calls every week to ask me what the assignment is.”

Seems any essay read in class about an old school chum or a long-lost relative is greeted with a chorus of, “Are you going to send that to them?” Most writers listen to the chorus. They send the essay. Weeks later, we hear stories of a get-together, or back-and-forth letters, or a series of phone calls exchanged with the person in the essay.

Four years ago our Safe & Sound blog published a post here about an essay a writer named Mary wrote when I assigned “Feeling Homesick” as a prompt. Mary had spent her junior year of high school on a study abroad program in Japan, and in her homesick essay she mentioned an American friend she met in Japan that year.

Mary had heard that her friend had developed Alzheimer’s disease, and on the urging from her fellow memoir-writing students, she sent a copy of her essay his way.

“He was still able to send me an email, and he told me my essay sparked a memory for him,” she told us later. Mary’s essay motivated her friend to write his own piece about an experience during his year as an exchange student in Japan.

After he finished his essay, his wife sent a letter telling Mary that her Japan memoirs had not only motivated her husband to write, but also motivated him to try using a computer again. “She said it was the first time he had used the computer in two months,” Mary told me, reaching over to pat me on the thigh. “So look what these memoirs produce!”

This week I got word about a new PBS series that debuted Tuesday, January 23, 2018. Hosted by Ann Curry, We’ll Meet Again is all about the value of reuniting with people from the past. Airing on PBS on Tuesdays from 8:00-9:00 p.m. Eastern time until the end of February, 2018, the show is described as “reuniting people with someone they crossed paths with during pivotal moments long ago.” Gee whiz. The memoir-writers in my classes could have written the script!