She wasn't trying to publish a book. She wasn't trying to change anyone's life. All Betty Walter wanted to do, in the beginning, was start a writers group.

Three years ago, Walter put up a notice at the Bibelot bookstore in Timonium, seeking people interested in writing about their lives. A retired high school English teacher who'd taught a continuing education class on writing "memory pictures" at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Walter was committed to the idea that every person has a story worth telling.

At first, not everyone who joined the "Wednesday Writers" group was so sure. There were only a few of them at first, then a dozen, and eventually a dozen more; a few were in their 30s, but many were grandparents and retirees, people with the time to meet on weekday mornings and the desire to record their memories for themselves and their families. Many had never written before and weren't sure where to start or what to say.

"Write about your best friend in elementary school," Walter suggested. "Write about a time when you appreciated your parents. Write about a turning point in your life. Write about what you were like at 19."

So they did. They wrote about first dances and lost loves, about marriage and war, about eccentric relatives and childhood secrets and family traditions. They wrote about moments that had shaped their lives: Losing a house in the Depression, becoming blinded in an automobile accident, reading The Feminine Mystique for the first time. They filled page after page with vivid characters from their pasts: An uncle who shot and killed a hummingbird, a grade-school classmate who rejected a Valentine, a mother who helped her daughter sneak out of the house for a forbidden date, a father who snuck his sick daughter's kitten to the hospital.

They wrote, and they read their writing aloud, during the group's Wednesday morning meetings in the back of the bookstore -- and later, after the bookstore closed, in a room at the athletic club across the street. The more they wrote, the more they remembered. The more they read aloud, the more they wanted to read.

"When you look back, you realize, 'This was my life, and it was interesting,' " says Mary Plunkett, 73.

Such a simple act, putting memories to paper, and yet for many of the Wednesday Writers, the act was transforming, validating the importance of their own experiences while opening their eyes to those of others. The more they shared, the closer the group became. One writer, retired engineer Charlie O'Donnell, was so moved by the process that last year he wrote a thank-you note to Betty Walter. The note was inspired by something O'Donnell had heard a priest say at a funeral: That the most important part of a tombstone isn't the date of birth or death, but the dash in between them.

"The dash represents life -- hopes, dreams, good times, bad times, successes, failures, loves, joys, sorrows and all those things that measure the man and his life," O'Donnell wrote.

"Thank you, Wednesday Writers, for helping me to fill in the dash in my life."

In the beginning, all Walter wanted to do was start a writing group. Three years later, she's done much more. A few weeks ago, after months of anticipation, the long-awaited delivery truck finally arrived, carrying 500 copies of the group's first, self-published collection of stories and poems.

"This was something that needed to get out there, so people knew it was possible," said Walter, 70, who put up several thousand dollars of her own money, with donations from a few group members, to pay for the project. "I truly believe that anyone can write when they're writing about their own life. They don't have to write breathtaking sentences. But they have to get their life down."

As memoirs go, this one is low-profile. There won't be a publicity tour or a movie deal or a review in The New York Times. The authors will be thrilled to sell all 500 copies, which will cover the printing costs plus a year of rent on the room where they meet. For many of the writers, seeing their work in print is as exciting as having a best seller.

"I was very flattered when they told me I had two articles in there," said O'Donnell, 70, who bought 10 copies of the book to give friends and family. "I said, golly, engineers can't write. What am I doing?"

But, of course, he'd already answered his own question. It's right there, on the cover of the book, above the black-and-white collage of the writers' old photographs, in the white lettering of the title: Filling in the Dash.

The roads are icy and the schools are closed, but the Wednesday Writers are meeting as scheduled this morning, around a table in a conference room at the Maryland Athletic Club in Timonium. About a dozen people are listening to Sue Walker read a piece called "Learning to Smoke," about how Walker and two friends prepared to become sophisticated college women by inhaling lit soft drink straws in a friend's mother's Buick. When that didn't work, they tried the real thing.

The pack of Lucky Strikes fit neatly in my Kodak camera box, under the camera itself, a place my mother would never look. The rest of that summer, whichever of us had access to a car on the smoking days would pick up the other two and off we'd go, more often than not to the road by Cox's Creek. There we would light up, and the critiquing would begin. We observed each other carefully. Were we holding the cigarette the right way? Did we look as though we were inhaling? Did we have tobacco on our lips? Did the cig shake when someone else lit it for us?

"Cig!" Betty Walter says when Walker has finished. "That's a word I haven't heard in decades."

There is murmured agreement from the group, and then Walter, her voice throaty and theatrical, recounts the day she bought her first pack of Tareytons from a machine at Western Maryland College, and then Richard Decker, a retired physicist, recalls his former four-pack-a-day habit started while hanging out with his friends in a hamburger joint in Strongsville, Ohio.

This is the Wednesday routine: A story is read, approval is voiced, memories are triggered. Walter offers gentle guidance and direction -- "less is more" is her motto -- but no judgment or criticism of the work. More often she joins in the chorus of copious, heartfelt praise that follows each reading.

"I love that," she says after Tommi Staples reads aloud from "Ash Odyssey," an essay about Staples' journey to scatter her husband's ashes in the couple's favorite spots after he died seven years ago. "It's such a tribute to a marriage. And family. And trust."

Then Walter herself reads a story called "Lake Placid Christmas," about holiday journeys to visit her mother in a tuberculosis sanitorium. Mary Plunkett reads about her decision, at 19, not to become a nun. Nancy Harting reads about a fight she had with her husband at age 18, after he got angry at her for spending money on a package of photos for their son. Decker, the retired physicist, chokes up a bit as he reads about Janet Benson, a childhood playmate who moved away.

The day came and the Bensons got in their car and waved to all the neighbors and drove off following a big moving van. I remember the neighbors standing on the side talking long after they were out of sight.

"I loved that," Walter says when he finishes. "You captured something, and you were so lucky to have it."

"Sixty-nine years ago was the last time I saw her," Decker said.

Walter hopes that Filling in the Dash will inspire others to start similar writing groups, to record the experiences of everyday life that are too often lost. While publishing a book is gratifying for the authors, the greater gift is the legacy of memories left for children and grandchildren.

Barbara Kines, a retired elementary school teacher, joined the Wednesday Writers soon after it formed; her husband, Rodger Kines, followed later. Though a private man, Rodger opened up in his writing.

He wrote about weekends spent with his grandparents in Baltimore, about his exploits as a Navy pilot, about his rehabilitation after losing his eyesight in an accident.

"We got more memories from him than I had ever heard, and we were married for 45 years," Barbara said.

Filling in the Dash is dedicated to the memory of two members who died last year. One is B.J. McDonald; the other is Rodger Kines.

"Right after he died, one of my boys said, 'I don't know much about Dad at all when he was younger. Did he write anything?' " Barbara recalled.

She mailed her son the answer.

Filling in the Dash can be purchased for $15.75 a copy at The Book Rack, 55 E. Padonia Road in Timonium.

Excerpt

Mary Frantz, 80, joined the Wednesday Writers about a year ago. A retired high school history teacher, Frantz often writes about growing up in Portage, Pa., during the Depression.

Here is an excerpt from a story called "Slice of Pickle," from Filling in the Dash :

The train brought another dimension to our world. The screeching of the brakes was often accompanied by the sound of boxcars being opened, and several men would jump from the cars to the siding. These were the rail riders who were hitching a ride in hopes that they might find work. These were not vagrants who traveled across the country looking for fun and adventure. These were the desperate men who were not used to being unemployed. They were doctors, merchants, skilled craftsmen, laborers, all brought together by one goal -- the need to work. Riding the boxcars was against the law, and the engineer was expected to force the men off the trains when he found them. Most of the time our engineer just smiled and waved to them. Occasionally he would scold them, but he always ended his lecture with a warning to be careful. He knew he was fortunate in having a job and sympathized with those who did not.

"Why do they stop at our town?" I asked when I was watching my father prepare sandwiches. "Ours is such a small town, wouldn't it be better to stop at one of the larger cities?"

"No," he explained, "that is just what they do not want to do. We are fortunate to have public baths. For ten cents the men can have a hot shower, a sliver of soap and a towel. For an extra nickel they can have shaving cream and a razor. However, most of the men carry their own razor and shave while their face is still wet from the shower."

"Perhaps we should give them some extra soap when they stop at our house," I suggested.

"No," father protested, "you must not interfere with their pride. It is difficult enough for them to endure what they must consider charity. We must make them feel like guests."

One thing father has always insisted upon was that whatever food was given to the men had to be served on a china plate and coffee had to be in a china cup. And, there always had to be included a slice of pickle. Father said, "There is something about a slice of pickle that makes a person seem more like an invited guest. It is more like home."