Preserving Your History

It’s Father’s Day next week. What a perfect time to sit down and ask your dad….what? What are the things that you would need or would want to know if he wasn’t around? Do you know why he lives where he does? Do you know how he met your mother? Do you know what he was called when he was a kid?

There are so many different guides that give you questions to ask in an interview. But one of the best is from StoryCorps, the NPR sponsored radio show that records people talking about their lives. You can download their list of great interview questions from their website.

Take your dad to a quiet room, set up a camera or a tape recorder and start. It doesn’t even need to be all about him. My favorite question is what is your favorite memory of me? My dad told me many times about his favorite memory of me when I was 3 years old. We were in a hotel room in Florida and I was feeling sick. He was sitting with me trying to feed me chicken noodle soup. I looked at him and said “Hello cuckoo-face.” A fairly average moment, but he loved it. And he savored it enough to tell me about it years later.

Start your own conversation.

I have been boring friends and family for several years with unsolicited advice re: “record your parents”, “go see your great-aunt and here, take some questions to ask her”, “this is a momentous day for you; maybe you should write something about it for your grandkids”.  To which the response has been ‘uh huh’, ‘okay’ (translation: uh huh), ‘good idea’ (translation: okay, uh huh), and ‘I’ll get right on that’ (translation: leave me the **** alone).

So I was delighted when my friend D stopped by the house two days before she went to see her elderly parents. “I want to interview my parents.”  After being revived from my faint, I lent her my old Hi-8 camera and the book “Listening is An Act of Love” published by StoryCorps that contains, in the back, three pages of questions that will get even a reluctant mother talking.

Upon her return, I got this email, “I got my mother and father to sit for THREE interview periods.  I hope to heck it recorded and it had light and sound, I haven’t played it back yet.  My mother said she would be quite upset if it didn’t work because she wasn’t about to repeat it again!  My dad turned out to be quite a talker, go figure!”

We’ve got an edit date next week to look at the tape and duplicate it for her sister and nephew.  I am so excited that, at least for one friend, I no longer have to repeat myself.

Beg or borrow a camera and get out there!  Check out StoryCorps for suggestions.