Available at the Middletown Library Service Center
Annotations from the BiFolkal Productions, Inc.
Remembering AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES
"The lessons of the past can help to create a more promising future."
Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, The Substance of Things Hoped For
That's why we created this Bi-Folkal program kit to prompt memories and discussion. This complete program package is stuffed
with everything you need to do a program-or a whole series of programs-with almost any group in your community. Each kit piece
has been chosen to highlight the contributions of African Americans so that these accomplishments will be honored by people
of all ages and cultures.*
Kit contents
Remembering 1924
Here are the sights and sounds, the moods and music of the twenties. For those too young to remember, they offer the feel
of the times. For those old enough to remember, they bring back memories of everyday life. Whatever your age, you wont want
to miss this kit about the Jazz Age, the Era of Wonderful Nonsense. Its the bees knees!*
Kit contents
Remembering AUTOMOBILES
They stay with us forever, the cars of our youth. Who can't name their family's first car? Who can ever forget the car in
which he or she learned to drive - its color, its bulk, its very odor?
Rev up for a fast-paced discussion of cross-country trips in other decades, first cars, favorite cars, perhaps even a fender-bender.
Help each person write an auto-biography! Talk about women drivers and teen-age drivers and mature drivers. You oughta have
an auto program with your group!*
Kit contents
Remembering BIRTHDAYS
Another birthday? Celebrate! Each candle represents a year, with all of the work and play, sadness and joy, laughter and tears
that it took to live it. Each birthday offers an opportunity to reflect on those years, and to make plans for the candle to
come. So, many happy returns!
This kit offers a wide variety of ideas for discussion, celebration, and fun. Use this kit with intergenerational groups and
families to promote understanding of what aging is all about. Help stamp out those tired old over the hill jokes!*
Kit contents
Remembering COUNTY FAIRS
There was a time in a more rural America when the fair offered the opportunity for days off from work to show off a year's
work raising animals, sewing, crafting, preserving, baking. A time to learn about new things, to play games, to see friends
and neighbors. Recapture that time. Consider working on a project for next year's fair. Plan a field trip. With this kit,
everyone can go to the fair!*
Kit contents
Remembering THE DEPRESSION
Voices from the Depression nears its conclusion with these words:
"And Franklin D. Roosevelt would be back again in 1940. But not before the Depression made a hero out of every sufferer who
made it through. Your history needs to be shared. At the least, younger people will feel proud to be your children. At the
most, your insights can provide a survival handbook for tomorrow."
"This kit is unique because it fosters a sense of importance for the plight of the individual living in the Depression, it
encourages the viewer to be a living historian, and it does not compromise on quality of depth by trying for a simplistic
presentation. I have shown the program to the young and the old and combinations thereof. It always meets with enthusiasm
and a visible deepening of historical understanding..."
Dr. Ronald Manheimer, Directo, Center for Creative Retirement, UNCAsheville*
Kit contents
Remembering FALL
"Remembering Fall Frost you say? You ask me whether I had any frost to my place this mornin'?"
So begins an irresistible invitation to remember autumns past; the sights and sounds and smells, the textures, and the taste
treats. The first part of the media is an entertaining nine-minute monologue. After this narrator tells his story, you group
members will want to tell theirs. Who can help but notice how getting ready for winter has changed over the years? It's a
cool and refreshing program topic for a hot summer afternoon.*
Kit contents
Remembering FARM DAYS
It has been said that nothing in the American scene has changed so much in the last half-century as country life. This kit
offers the opportunity to explore the sights, sounds, aromas, sweat, tears, work and laughter that have gone into the farms
where today's adults were children. This kit is for those who remember another pace of life, and for those who wish they did.
Kit contents
Remembering FASHIONS
This is a topic of perpetual interest, because fashion is, after all, an endless replay. What is in fashion now has been in
before and will be out and then in again. Each generation chooses its own fashions and rejects an others. Hair, swimwear,
shoes, that one unforgettable outfit they are all great topics for women and men to remember and talk about.
Kit contents
Remembering THE FIFTIES
The decade that brought us babies and the Korean War and TV dinners and babies and civil rights and Tupperware and babies
and Joe McCarthy and McDonald's and babies and Scrabble and Elvis and teen-agers…(and babies).
We were rockin' and rollin' at Bi-Folkal as we put together these pictures, music, news events and family stories to bring
back memories of the fifties for everyone who was there. They are the same things that will help those who weren't there to
understand what the Ike Age was like.
Kit contents
Remembering FUN AND GAMES
Remembering Fun and Games. The games of life. Any number can play. Everyone can win. All you have to do is join in. You have
to be willing to forget all your cares and troubles for awhile and let the most important thing be the game itself. Board
games. Cards. Recess. Backyard fun. Remember?
Kit contents
Remembering HOME
This kit can take people to the "places where they like to be"- in their memories, in their dreams, in their imaginations.
Once there, the goal is to discover what there is about our dream homes that may be transferred to the places where we are
now. What is at the "heart of home" for each of us? A favorite item, photograph, texture, sound, scent, or taste may come
from the past to to make someone feel more at home in the present. We all need a place where we feel comfortable, where we
feel "at home." We hope that this kit will help your group members to find those places for themselves-and to find those feelings
in the places where they are.
Kit contents
Remembering THE HOME FRONT
Three generations of Americans now living have been directly affected by World War II the veterans of the war and the home
front, their parents, and their baby boom children.
Now is the time to share and compare experiences, insights, and attitudes about that war, and war in general.*
Kit contents
Remembering MUSIC
Music. The universal language. It can say for us what we can't say for ourselves. Without saying a word, music can remind
us of the occasions of our lives, the events, the celebrations, the transitions. George Sand wrote, It is extraordinary how
music sends one back into memories of the past. It is extraordinary.
Kit contents. : http://www.bifolkal.org/bf_kit14.html
Remembering PETS
Here is a warm and fuzzy reminder of the animals who have found a place in our homes and hearts. But even those who don't
love animals usually have stories about why they don't. Dog and cat owners like to debate the relative merits of their pets.
Music, skits, pictures, and readings are all designed to prompt lively conversation.
Kit contents
Remembering SCHOOL DAYS
The best way today's children can find out what life used to be like is from yesterday's children.
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Remembering SUMMERTIME
Conjure up home remedies for common summer ailments such as sunburn, poison ivy, bee stings and insect bites. Trace summer
vacation routes on a map. Get some lemons and make real old-fashioned lemonade. And sneak in some sparklers.
Kit contents
Remembering TRAIN RIDES
Not too long ago trains criss-crossed this country, whizzing passengers to their destinations. Now one songwriter worries
about the day his young son will ask him, "Daddy, what's a train?" "Ideal for intergenerational study of train rides themselves
or the myriad topics that, like trunk lines, branch out from it." Donna Barkman, in Learning from the Past.
Kit contents
Remembering WORK LIFE
Remembering Work Life Most of us have spent most of our lives working. Use this kit to gather the stories of paid jobs and
work done at home or on the farm. Individually our work experiences are an important part of each of our lives. Taken together
they provide a perspective on the work life of a nation.
Kit contents
MINI KIT - An Album of Friends
Long-ago and faraway friends are with us in our hearts and memories. This program will help bring them back and keep them
close. And it will provide a warm environment for discovering new friends. This is just the thing for your volunteer recognition
event!
Kit contents
