Day of Listening

turkey for tech pumpkin pie tech whipped cream check tape recorder i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr press that's the national day of listening it's a story corps to take sometimes the day after thanksgiving to interview and record the stories of the people you care about their website national day of listening that oh archie can walk you through the process step by step with a do it yourself instructional guide including suggestions for everything from what kind of recording equipment used to wear to conduct your interview they've even got an extensive list of suggested questions to get you started haddad you propose to my mom when you were a kid to give a nickname how did you get into your line of work the idea is that everyone has a life story and that everyone's life story is important and according to k pr commentator cheryl you can celebrate this time of year with more than just a day of watching football on television or going on a black friday shopping spree thanksgiving is a time to gather the league's

table leaves and maybe leaves of a difference my dad and my uncle laramie always perform the table stretching maneuver grandma cells when we arrive for thanksgiving dinner they retrieved the liaison the bedroom closet and pulled apart the table to make more room still everyone confessed or maybe the adults just didn't enjoy our company when we were young my brother and cousins and i said at the card table where we would spell our water and giggle over an appropriate mealtime conversations perino wait is agonizing i fidget and we can buy the savory a realm of turkey dressing in gravy like practically faint from hunger right there in front the accumulating table a bounty that we can see but not touch although we grandchildren were hollow from hunger would help set the table eventually finally the roles came out of the oven a man was the sound of the starters pistol israel was pretty much the same experience predictable from the menu to the conversation uncle herman talked about government or taxes dental corny jokes angelica

found something to tease those kids about and merle tried to convince grandma to wear pantsuits and grandma asked are you sure you're for many people eagerly anticipate holiday dinners but others face them with reluctance some families left their way through the meal telling jokes and stories and other families there's an underlying tension sometimes there's just too much of this in dna in one room anytime i met a family dinner like to observe the interactions can be instructive to watch who pushes his buttons and why family gatherings can offer more headlining than the football game on tv and if we care to think about it those dynamics explain a lot about our own selves how we became the people we are at any rate these donors are a good opportunity to learn more about family by observation and they get is a good chance to ask questions about family history i wish that i had asked more questions learn the stories of my grandfather who died when i was six i wish i'd had the forethought back and asked grandma more about her childhood days on the kansas prairie in the early nineteen hundreds

if you're curious about family history and on thanksgiving day when you notice he approved standing alone spreading pickles and olives on the relish trey take a moment and ask her were uncle jack fought during world war two or maybe should be willing to share the story of how she inject math perhaps someone can tell you more about grandpa fred who once raced motorcycles that your you need to smoke cigars in our car shark asked to hear the stories now or forever hold your peace as time goes on the keepers of the stories will disappear you're one of the older family members you could offer up your own memories and experiences and perhaps everyone at the table young and old can take a turn and posters from his or her childhood weekend a holiday to remember as we look at our family tree the branches represent those stories gather of those stories perhaps a video talking to them right

before they go away sure unruh is a writer for the emporia is that she's also the author of the new book flyover people life on the ground in a rectangular states as well the idea behind the national day of listening is that anyone can record family stories that all you need is a tape recorder a block of time and someone to talk to but there's actually a cottage industry of people who do this professionally whether it be the facilitators of story corps or people like really sink and courtney homes the two of them form the voices in time a business to help people record their life stories they're based in

johnson county really corny welcome uk and you know it strikes me that everybody has an uncle heard that has told the same story year after year after year about his service in world war two why ask him to record that for posterity there is a difference in recording it will listen to the stories that we all remember the stories that generations from now or when you're telling repeating that story to your children your grandchildren will be fuzzy on the details you won't remember the origin of the story and it's just one of those things that will miss that we didn't catch in their own voice their own rendition of the story with their embellishment says even at their ways of twisting the story a little bit that may not be exactly factual but there's something about recording at there is something about been on the receiving end listening to a recording of somebody telling her story where you get so much more out of it even than when you're in person or seeing it on video we're listening to a recording of somebody can close your eyes and really

absorb the whole story catch every detail and picture that person as you remember them if uncle nervous telling the story about you know back in the more stories you can picture him when he might've been eighteen years old instead of watching a video of him seeing him in his nineties maybe not looking at its best health a new distracted so there is something about really only listening to a store you may be tired of that story now but you will you're in for this story wants the end we think will remember that we count and we have what we call the magic age and it's around forty when people often start to become curious about their ancestors they want to know more about their parents' lives their grandparents' lives and often it's too late at that point they may have already lost them and getting those stories of uncle herbst now ensure that when uncle her scream children are of age those stories will still be there and preserved and also want to hurt still remembers those stories we do find that

a lot of clients worry about their memory in of the stories are still there but it's so true that you remember the stories from her childhood much clearer than you may remember what happened last week so we do try to encourage our clients to art not don't worry so much about the current stories of those older stories are still there and very fresh a lot of times for a client's one of birthing suite come to learn is there is a lot of assumed knowledge within families things that we think we may have shared with loved ones but we have not true intention but just we have it and when a more gratifying things korean i often hear when we deliver edited cds to family members is how frequently we hear i never knew xyz i'd never heard that story they're so excited and that makes us very excited that that information is now she winked and shared between generations and this story that we're about to hear from a barber

gehlhausen of overland park barbara's a lovely woman in her nineties grew up in russell kansas this story of barbers is a great example i was working in the bank by then i had worked it so that the magdalena the secretary and they called a mask and worked at the bank so i was downtown tonight break a man pre often came in that day and that motion for me to come back to one the back windows and they pulled out of his pocket a marriage license and i said that's when you could only had to do was go that raises worries and i had business of the car now scientists the livestock get this and then we can use a sometime in the night when he came out the problem of diamond and i bit my children reliable crop i had never heard that story isn't that wonderful

and that often occurs when we sit down without family members in the room with this intention of drawing out the stories barbara realizes she told that story like it they never heard that story and it's such a good story to show that they can really well to my next question how do you know what to ask people have you know everybody has a repository of life experiences and how do you begin that conversation what are some good starting off point said some good questions to initiate those conversations about people's life stories i think it's really helpful to make it simple and breaking down small if you ask a really vague open ended question sometimes it can be really intimidating and where do you go with that if you can just say it tell me about the childhood i mean the word you got it started so akin to breaking it into smaller pieces did you have to resign your little did you have a paper out that you are in charge of and then that will lead into a story about learning to ride his bike and then that'll lead in the story but his neighbor tommy and they got a fight when they were

little then the story starts spilling out of that i think starting well i think helps initiating those conversations tell me how your parents to germaine and the story of your name or jerome like growing up did you share around those little things get people take them back to visually in their minds to a different time and then we noticed the stories to start bubbling up to the surface well you just hit on a really interesting point that in your questions you want to take your family back and have them visualize an earlier time as they're answering your questions and yet we're specifically talking about an audio recording of family memories as somebody who works in radio i did say i love the emphasis on the corals storytelling and yet i'm guessing that for most people when they think about recording grammars

memories or dad's stories they automatically think oh let me go get their video recorder and set up a tripod what do you lose or gain by having this in an audio format versus video format we are passionate about all audio we like to say the voice is the thing and there are so many reasons as people do sometimes come thinking this is the el and we we in most cases after we talk to them about audio they come around first of all the person being interviewed is more relaxed most of us with a camera lens pointed at us are worried how i look where do i look to many like scare actions your kind of self conscious so it's a it's easier for the person being interviewed the person listening to the stories we believe experiences them on a deeper level because there isn't the visual stimuli coming into the brain that distracts the brain and also the imagination is activated

i believe you experience the story so much more powerfully and deeply when they're just listen to them if you watch him and the third thing is the flexibility of the format people tell us believe in their car they'd be kids listen to it on long car trips they can listen to what i walk the dog or wash the dishes it's just so much more powerful as audio only voice is the thing the one thing i'd add to that is if it's a video or a dvd you have to make a point ok we're going to sit down now and watch the video and sadly it's really hard to carve out that little niche of time whereas as willy said if it's in your car it's on your ipod it's fluid they can be with you anywhere you're going to be running an errand to the grocery store or listen to a quick little story it's there it's easier to access and i think it's that important pieces if you're gonna do it use it enjoy it and it shouldn't just be a dvd that on a shelf somewhere that you'll pull out and watched the

video once a year if that you raise a really good point about being a close your eyes and take that person back in time that you're not so wedded to what they look like now when and what they're wearing and now at this allows them to go back in time and allows you to go back in time with that and his allies them in a totally different portion of their lives and at the time of recording it and you the listener can it's think of them it any point in your life as you want to think about rather than mother or a father's last years of life you can visualize them in your head anyway you want to and i mean we've got one despite separate thing that i love to close my eyes and i can recreate this in our entire scenario he's describing as he's telling yet and it comes to life in my own head when we were growing up there of sixty seven the nation wrote i guess things are really tight because we had a cow with chickens to duck we had my fear was that billie

joe does every time my sister would bend okla to cooperate he lasted until my dad bought a brand new model it look out for one they could use over lunch and the goat was standing on top of the iran were watching out the window to rope wrestling soup through in the back and mr laity there was a place over here after that the animation were overruns and southwest boulevard that we call goat he'll be a lot of notes on there and they had trouble or they're cut cut the rope often through the god over the fence back that guy ever did figure that without i love that pointing out the geographic preferences and that i live near mission right now and see a picture where he's describing its audition parkway and herself less traffic way mission road that was filled with goats it's they get her brings you back in time really quick and i like thinking about you coming home for lunch with his brand new car out of right way and letting out of it to see his

face when he sees the goat standing on the roof of his brand new car you know but oral quality of that i have just really unfortunate kind of surprising that your such an advocate of the oral histories and you'll come professionally from a television background and our television is a great storytelling media i say that's a bit of a surprise can you tell me how you how you came to this and how did your background help or hinder what you're doing now well we can credit story corps for a lot of our increased awareness about the value of oral storytelling cause courtney and i are both big fans of story corps as are so many people and i think that's brought oral storytelling into the public conscience this in a wonderful way and i just think the audio is so much more powerful it surprises a lot of people as you say that term that we would be audio instead of

the album we are asked occasionally would you do a video for a sort of family really thinks that's what they want we say no we continue names of wonderful people who do but we are really clear on what we want but coming from the tv it was interesting because people say oh you're training as a television journalist interviewing people every day for twenty five years just what perfect training what they don't know is i had that i learned most everything i had learned in twenty five years of keeping it switches in tv news you're looking for the fifteen second soundbite we don't want a fifteen second soundbites we want a fifteen minute story so i had to retrain my brain that it's not about me probing and digging what i'm interested and it's why it's about giving the person the space and the comfort level to share what they're interested in and i may very occasionally dip my or in the water to steer it left or right but thats about it it's not what i'm interested and it's

really about helping them pull out what they want to share or so i mean i'm still learning to do that it's amazing what comes out of the silent pauses and it is that the recording process it's very different than a conversation or we feel compelled to fill those empty moments and not to sit quietly it's awkward but we go in and we will point out to the guests this is not really a conversation we're gonna sit quietly let you get lost in your thoughts lead you take your time to form new memories for new thoughts in it together organize what you wanna talk about next and it is amazing what comes out of those silent causes win our instinct would be to jump in and say something or ask another question lead him into the next topic that if i sit there quietly and just watch them what a beautiful story always comes out and it's wonderful and it was hard to let silence is i mean you never let silence as light radio or tv silence is not a good thing it's a very good thing in what we

do i'm speaking with billy sank and courtney holmes of voices in time were talking about recording your family stories and how you can participate in the national day of listening the day after thanksgiving lily courtney i have to tell you i am really wishing i had taken the time to do this with my parents while they were still alive i lost both my mom and dad a cancer in the past four years and although i had the time and i certainly had access to that tape recorder i was felt like it would be awkward to bring up the subject of recording their stories especially once they'd been diagnosed with the cancer that would take their lives how do you get past that awkwardness are feeling like this is a really morbid thing to do it's a very common a lot of us have that in our own heads that weren't afraid to bring that up with a loved one we don't want it to sound like we were expecting their imminent demise and we need to capture that story well we

can that i'll tell you i think a lot of that fear and apprehension as in our own heads i think that we need to try to get past that so that we don't lose that opportunity it's much more important to get past your fears or whatever you to petitions maybe can get those stories use whatever path whatever angle you possibly can to relate to your loved one that i just want to capture your story it's important to me i wanna hear it at one here actually i won a salvage this and preserve this for my kids and my grandkids please do this for me to do this with me and they know that it's an honor to them and they feel like they're doing something helpful to you we all do pro bono sessions for the psychic satisfaction today to give back to the community there are certain people who can afford we're this process and this is a colleague of mine in the association of personal historians of professional organization we belong to and she were had traveled through the deep south and she'd worked all day for her recording your client that she'd agreed to sit down with this woman is just a gift to this

woman to record her story for her stories her descendants and she was so tired and she came very close to just postponing at delaying it could she said i just don't know from up to this at the end of this long day but she went and when she sat down with this sudden a woman in a very limited means to lead a very very simple life and the woman was mostly recited her life story in a beautiful fashion and like he said to her afterwards she was that she said that was so beautiful how did you do that and she said i go to bed every night rehearsing my story just in case someone asks someone had finally asked one story though only when i brought from a family member of mine this is my husband's uncle

bill shank sharing a story about his grandfather that captures a real time and place as iran rapprochement he really was very rough on the heart note i thought and probably are saying this because when i was little we want schumer's new year you may be checks and i got the baby chicken farmer the rooster that chickens and he said that he would think it raises for me and another name for that the referral and now about that within the eighteen and octavia juan sandoval and a lot better that will restore the confiding in so we add of talk of can have reform original chicken he gave my chicken what a

great story and what we came back and at easter time which is when you would get your new parishes was any star at the little baby check the shoe store worked with with your shoes we've heard that story from other people ok i have to wonder what the connection was between buying shoes in getting a baby chick who was an east or promotion wonderful and that is you or my husband's uncle in springfield missouri so that was a case where we we we generate like to do people one on one week we'd the last thing we want to let anyone do is a husband wife team together because it's a fairly universal dynamic one talks a whole lot more than the other one correct the other main and so we say please let us do your parents separately if you really want to get the two have been interacting with three third session with them together but this was a case where the two brothers together and interviewed them about growing up an outlet can work as one can feed on the other and that sparked a memory in the other end

and some interesting things come out the other thing that comes out that's fairly universal is no two siblings remember the family growing up the same way you know you look at your siblings sometimes and say did we grew up in the same family that's not the way i remember it that is very universal even from the parents to the children we had one guest who did i believe six sessions as a gift to his children send copies out all across united states to his six children who then started calling me one by one we'd like a rebuttal so all the kids flu in town sat around the dining table and he propped up a microphone and they all got their turn to describe what life was like growing up in that family and it was a wide range of these children get bored over a couple decades and said they even have the differences in the different perspectives and different stories but that was a very a full process to work with the father and then all the children said it's really as a collaborative family project once he really get started for speaking of a collaborative family after it most of the time we

think about recording family stories about the older members of the family but due to younger members of the family have something that as well do you ever record kids it is not a huge part of our business and that there is definitely a niche market in what we do to record children and their voices and their stories i love this part of it personally i have a ten year old in a year a little boy who i recorded all the time they are my little guinea pigs that live at home with me and i had found an old tape of me when i was little recording kids that i was babysitting and i am to this day friends with that mother and she gave it to me as a guest visit voices in time the early years and i ask the same questions that i did when i was fifteen or so i did i hear my voice i was fifteen i hear these little kids as babysitting who i'm still friends with this day and so i've been recording my children all the

time and i'll tell you what that is the best gift that i've ever been able to give the rest of my family is there thirty minute recording of different person talking about their great grandmother the lullabies in the bedtime stories that my grandparents taught me that i've not taught my kids theyre telling them on this recording and we gave it back to the great grandmother i am so apologetic to make your grandmother's neighbor isn't her nursing home because she listens to that playing multiple times a day at full blast over and over and over and it is there is something just precious about the funny darnedest things that they'll say and in those voices that are changing so quickly and their perspective they're talking about their girlfriends and their sports and what they're afraid of but their favorite things are at school and that's going to go away so fast so i do think there is an importance for responsibility for parents to try to capture that they can wow i'm just kicking myself about doing this with my own children who are now in twenty eighteen and fifteen actually others those

precious years ago and like do you ever get the sense that it's already too late like oh i should've done this i wish i'd talk to my grandmother was attacked my father i wish i had typed uncle herb and these people are already gone it is something that's on everybody's perpetual someday list and thinking about doing this and then you fill it maybe you've missed your moment but there's never the right moment just do it and that there is a hurdle for us we all have the capabilities to do this summer quarter own families but for some reason there's some barriers and that's a big part of well and i are trying to do with voices and times to spread the message about the importance of stopping taking the time listen record it if you can and if you need that extra help we consider ourselves the personal trainers to help you get it done what will walk you through the process we help coach you through how to they could ask how to get them in the room and then how to really capture those stories and packaged them into chapters that you're getting into details getting the stories

it is just very important guests to share with her family i might suggest that dr pappert really story at this point dr brawley is ninety two years old i believe living in overland park and down the stories had to go back to prohibition and hear someone talk about being a little boy growing up in the italian neighborhood of kansas city the columbus park neighborhood down east just east of downtown and hear it from their sights and sounds in years of a little boy he's so powerful i think what a gift to his family a cake batter patter rally and i remember i was in the third grade and i was interviewed the principal mr norman as you anoint my father did my father had a saloon it was sport mission she said is that animals still alive and so i came home that

day and to my parents what the principal had said so my father bought a grocery store and from that time on when he was the grocery business although we have a salon going to everybody around the area all in the bootlegging business for us and remembers as a child hearing they kraus a logger learned over know the government is coming the government has the fed has a little guy that i grew up in that environment everybody was bin laden and you have to hide it when they get longer than i was coming from an amazing history that courtney on it you feel such a privilege to be present to someone's life or due process we learned so much it's it's really transformative work for us that we feel very honored and privileged to do so without a doubt i feel like i lived my life differently because i'm hearing these wonderful people sharing their words of wisdom their messages they want to pass on to their families and

we get to bear witness to that and i'm so grateful for what were able to do and it's something that they're for all of us to enjoy if we just take the time to sit and listen to her family and so good and get these messages that they all want to share them you know there maybe some hesitation or maybe apprehension there may have that a little money here by story again also don't like the repeat that story talked about how they want to be remembered at his messages today was your great grandchildren to know about the annual take out some wonderful advice as a wonderful mark twain quotes in fact we use on the case of our voices in time to the switch says there is no such thing as an interesting life behind the dulles exterior lies comedy drama and tragedy and we have a really fantastic teachers i'd been visiting with lily sank and forty homes a waste of time

for their personal historians based in johnson county to find out more about their visit their website our voices in time coming up an interview with the founder of story corps david isay but first this song from singer songwriter tim flannery about a piece of coal and how it helped his father for money is that race through the haze of all filers is like today it is

endeavor that's my weary sun is going down through all of these passages and who

we asked to see their children to this gift that i've been given an eye these are pieces i'm speaking with david isay founder and president of story or project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening welcome dave i just illustrate the

bigger thanks for being here so i won't get started by asking you personally it was a significant event or person in your life that inspired you to begin documenting stories and eventually create story corps that's a great question i you know i've been asked many many questions around to get that asset when there was a person in my life but there were many come things that happened in my life that led to the creation of story corps one that one was from when i was at twelve or thirteen years old and i actually had it cassette recorder around my house and interviewed my grandparents on this cassette recorder had a larger than life grandmother and she had these four sisters who she'd raised because they've been orphaned in the flu epidemic of making it seventeen and out of my grandfather and i record them all and when i was fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen a whole generation died when i was in my early twenties i went looking for that tape and couldn't find it and still all these many years later i go whenever go to my parents' house and look

for that tape and part of what i wanted to do a story corps is make sure that no one ever have that experience again of losing the tapes using that voice of a loved one so that was that was kind of a turning point moment i did i used to make radio documentaries for public radio and i did a documentary about nineteen years ago with two kids growing up in chicago were or i gave them tape recorders are rung up in a real rough housing project and in chicago there were thirteen and fourteen at the time they're now in their thirties and i asked them to document a week in their lives that was the first kind of do yourself public radio documentary where people took tape recorders and ended this site and interviewed people using these tape recorders themselves and i saw when these kids did these interviews when one kid for example tennis good in bed with his grandma and took the microphone and asked her questions that microphone gave a license to ask questions you'd never ask four and the conversation continued long after the tape recorder was turned off and then as time went on i these recordings became incredibly valuable these kids because their

grandparents in an almost everybody else in the documentary passed on so i'm seeing that was certainly a kind of one of those turning point a moment for me in the creation of story corps in them and then story corps started six years ago and it is this very simple idea that started in grand central where you bring a grandparent or a friend or your bus driver anyone he will honor by listening to them about their life youre met by a facilitator who works for story corps go into this booth close the door and you sit across from your grandmother for forty minutes a new look her in the eyes and listen and talk and ask questions and again to forty minutes to cds have been burned one goes home with you and the other stays with us and goes the library of congress so it will be available by hundreds hundreds and hundreds of years from now see your great great great grandchildren can get to know your grandmother through her voice and story and an end you have an opportunity to leave a legacy in that future generations know you know where they come from where they came from an end and meet the people who who

preceded them and that at its core i think story corps remind people that they matter and won't be forgotten which in many ways is all any of us really wants to know only imagine how many conversations you have heard in your life and so how many have you captured and what is your favorite story does come through story corps well i am have listened and there i i have never facilitated an interview we have people who were do that job i am not qualified to facilitate interviews at this point they go through very serious training it at story corps to do that we've done about thirty thousand interviews true story corps so far which is about fifty five thousand participants cause most everyone comes in pairs or just getting started we hope to do many many more of these of of of these interviews i don't have a favorite story i don't think i mean i'm kind of amazed every week i went when we hear the story on the band on morning edition or or when i'm reading a story for a book that we're putting out at story corps than that it becomes a story that i fall in love with and that you know says one story corps starts

started it it was and remains i think very much of a social service of a chance to give people a forty minutes to leave a legacy to connect with a loved one to look a loved one in the eyes and say how much they mean to you by by listening to them and i didn't expect that we would get the stories coming out of the blue i thought that we would get stories for six months or seven monterey months amendments are repeating themselves and part of that what the facilitator's called the magic in the book is that not only have the story's not repeated themselves but each week they just seem to get better and that's that's that's and one of the most surprising pieces of story corps in and again every week jack that that the that previous week stories usually my favorite moment of the one that aired this past week out with their parents who served who came in to talk about their son who had them who had died when he was at ten years old after scoring his first run in a little league was i really

kind of an amazing story and one i will forget i agree completely i hear that now never hear that and you say that story corps helps people record their stories about that and they may be tied in with the national day of listening as well sure well we know we have boots all across the country now where people can come in and end and record stories we have facilitators who travel around with recording equipment set up in quiet rooms to record stories and those are those those are the official story corps interviews but we don't have the capacity and fortunately to meet all the need and all the desired record family stories you know every day i have people come up to me saying you know i wish i had interviewed my grandmother i wish i had interviewed my gray a father my brother my aunt but i never took the time to do it and we're trying to do with the national day of listening is encourage people on the day after thanksgiving to take it to our out and use any quit when you have around the house or if not around the house could hear local iconic store and get your neighbors together have arrived to kick in ten fifteen bucks and buy digital recorder and taken hour and honor someone who means

something to you by listening to them in and making a recording of their lives that we have this web site called national day of listing dot org which has all of the odd tools you could possibly need to do this questions to ask the simple kind of process of doing this and you know i guarantee you that not only will it be kind of a really amazing powerful experience that you're going to find out things from the person you're interviewing that you that you never knew before no matter how well you think you know that person i'm curious about the story corps first began in may be fewer people were aware of that trouble getting people to we want to tell their stories or is it doesn't see this as a chance to tell their story and sort of makes them feel like there's matters and they're more apt to do it yeah no that's a great question i meant you know i think that i weave we found that people are our er i think at the very beginning it was kind of a hard idea for people wrap their brains around but as we got going it became you know now when we open up in a city

you know our staff are slots are taken up in milliseconds at once people kind of a love of wrap their brains around people kind of understood what it is that story corps was all about you know i i i do think that that that wont what we found is that people really do want to be heard and it really does matter to people to leave a legacy you know when you participate story corps proper at the end of the interview you're you're given the option to sign a release and if you sign a release your interview goes the library of congress and we're happy if you sign a release more happy if you don't if you don't sign the release you walk away with ocd is and there's no record that ever came to story corps but you've had this experience and as you know from the broadcast you know very very intimate things are said in the booth and when story corps started i expected that we'd have our compliance rate of you know sixty or seventy percent with the truth of these releases allowing these interviews calabria congress over the last six years over thirty thousand interviews that compliance rate is well over ninety nine percent which shows how how much it means to people

out to make these recordings to leave a legacy harm and as you said to take a field trip to remember how much they matter and to know that they won't be forgotten and in it she said youre not a facilitator but even as a listener do you sometimes feel like you're a witness to a conversation for the first time where people actually come to determinations are or make yes with certain events what's interesting you sell without that word you know that the facilitators this kind of new job that was created through story corps we've had many many many facilitators today our call themselves eyewitnesses that and then they think of themselves as witnesses to these interviews and yeah i mean i think that that there are moments of recognition in every every interview i don't get to listen to a full interviews but i am but i know from talking to facilitators that you know that there's you know one of the questions on our on our website as people well participate in the national day of listening one of the questions that are kind of one of the top ten best questions or pies or something on to tell me that you've never told me

before and that that's a question that's asked very frequently and as often powerful moment in the interviews and i think people look at these interviews as both a chance to leave a legacy and as a chance to tie up loose ends in their lives and have a sense of closure and very often very very often things are set in these interviews that i am that have never been spoken before and it's that microphone that the that the microphone and the safety of this interview the safety of knowing that someone who loved you who's listening to you it gives people the opportunity to get these important issues off there just yesterday i asked what is the importance of telling stories especially with someone who you love you why should people do this but you mentioned closure is that something that a lot of people actually come to oh i think it depends we've done every kind of interview so it all depends on who's talking to who sometimes its closure but and i think it's not it's it's as much about telling stories know it's less about telling stories and it is about listening and that's that's the core of what story corps about that when you have someone who is

actually listening to you and looking in the eyes and clearly cares about what you have to say that is a very powerful arm and it's something that maybe we don't experience as much as we could in in in our day to day lives an end in many ways that's the power of the project it's it's really careful listening in and respecting another human being and saying that i care about you enough to you know turn off my cell phone for an hour and you know and and stop then and ask you to tell me about what you know about your life and what you've learned and how you hope people remember you have to ask you sir how would you like to be remembered yeah you're asking tough questions well you know i had it and i think this is probably i'm something that that you hear a lot in story corps idea i had it i had my first kid that about a year and a half ago and i sure hope that remembers a great dad and that i hope you know i hope that i remember someone

who made the world a little bit better and make people's lives a little bit happier and then i was able to i was lucky enough to do the work that i was going to do for story corps and dad and you know leaves leaves a mark on on other people's lives craig thank you so much you two more than fifty organizations are participating in this year's national day of listening including libraries museums and here in kansas harmony middle school in overland park a library and media specialist ryan as think tells how harmony middle school got involved we have that in our library the last few years of our own courts have taken up the flame idea that npr doesn't their story corps and a thorough mac lab and we had ben

far interviewing we've interviewed several iraqi war veteran we've interviewed forty veterans and though this yearby care if it's the fiftieth anniversary of the korean war starting we are the five that we would interview korean war veteran so how did that turn into a product where you're sending kids home to participate in a nasa bay listing the day after thanksgiving they'll take the olympic three players belly there you can hear the library or they'll take them home with them and i often regret last year and were valid educational foundation gave our library oh my gosh i'm a few thousand dollars and we bought channel four cameras if you know what those are that you could it on videotape a rebel backpack full tripod and if you take those come to interview family members neighbors fran and we actually haven't fled little backpack the story

corps good question that they have won their fight and that we got an email i got an email about three four months ago from the national story corps people asking for people that wanted to be part of the wall with the mall and i said have who allegedly that answer i'd been communicated that way for the last several months so what kind of questions generally work really well for students are your age your working with kids in middle school dean question well really good question actually combat with part of our region for starting our own story corps it very difficult truly furlough medal for people even eighth grade she is the gamut from wind and know what to do and for that was really part of our i was part of my initial thinking doing story corps with our middle school from the very beginning with that it would have killed our kids kid really they get really learn if you're thinking of someone one

on why and what you often it then with your name or do you do you know you have a good life more and more questions like what was an experience that you had that changes you forever or when you think about your war experience or your experience during the war the civilian you know what what did you we remember most from that it's really good feeling a bad feeling being able to carry that conversation on human i mean and then they enter or afghan question of having yes or no answer to be able after question that you can carry a conversation a lot of people that will make i think story corps on npr you think he is when you hear that two three four minute they've picked the best part and it makes you have become fall over and i mean you can forget for a while they faced with you and actually left do we have the vietnam it come we played on are big screen we played several

vietnam war story corps fashion for the field inflicted here with that found a light and although not all of our interview that we had the day with a vietnam vets went that way and several of them did go that way and maybe they really were able to pull out amazing stories of family life that they hadn't talked about for a long time you know i'm just thinking back to my own days in junior high and i think how uncomfortable having administration with someone like for this dude is that they come out of that with a new sense that they have that they've developed a listening skill absolutely because in reality that's exactly what it is it is doing so might that interviewing skill or that it listening end you know and i know and i agree with you when i was in middle school high school he actually lifted from one when you're having a

conversation if love it very difficult for good for their twelve thirteen fourteen years old you know i mean a one o'clock or of their generation and if a parent look at oh yeah i put it a live free deal with an adult builder loan our children maybe don't have a family member who was active in the korean word is there is there some way they can participate in this as well absolutely be caliph truly are harmony story corps mr wald the theme for this year at least the middle of the great depression could be somebody's hero within iraq war to be familiar words we have them both in three family members were in new york yeah during nine nine eleven till now which we likely will ion war because war is of course a big part of our curriculum and middle school heavily in eighth grade death the late twentieth century phil plait they focus a lot about war but now it can be anybody we have a fit and on our building right now is another key given our district and she was on in the church

in birmingham and one of one of those for growth or her friends she just didn't go to church that morning show later something i am the only those are people that we've definitely gotten on tape it's a small world and you know i mean and he says you can't have everybody in from whenever you'd be amazed you have around you and what they've experienced i'm visiting with rhonda have say she is the librarian at harmony middle school in overland park romney is there anything else that you hope that your students get out of this as they participate in the national day of listening i i did tell my three and five talk to them about that that there is a wonderful quote by one of my heroes tell you tell you know the guy who survived the holocaust a great night and he wrote wonderful that goes right bad air lead here and i think that's really

what you hear tell their story that's really important i'd been visiting with one that i think he is the library and media specialist at harmony middle school in overland park for more information about how your support can participate in the national day of listening go to their website national day of listening to oh archie we end today's keep your presents with this essay from jody johnson who admits that listening part of the national day of listening doesn't always come easy i am a storyteller and a talk or an extrovert and improviser and a bit of an entrepreneur when asked to speak or write an essay i don't hesitate to oblige i always have something to say maybe this time i should have considered my expertise before accepting and simon about listening story corps day of listening elevates to

act to a national observance it suggests that when a story flows from one human to another sacred encounter a curse i travel to think how many times my verbose snus has interrupted or squelched this transfer listening requires a commitment to patients to taking time to soak up the narrative of another now and then we might as the storyteller a question yet it's best to let the tail wonder where it may to let their memories of perspective flood over us it is true story that we embrace each other my grandmother's save bits and scraps of everything one christmas she frustrated her gift givers she put her on opened packages in a sack says she could take them home and open them carefully to preserve the wrapping paper i asked her once about her frugality and she recounted days of the great depression her family of four sisters and two brothers satan every bit of bacon grease every fabric remnant anything that might put one more meal on the table or

a quilt on a bet through listening to her story i encountered the struggles of an entire generation a real history proves that what effects one generation affects us all listening to my junior high daughter recount her day at school i come to know the lives of teachers the triumphs and was of our educational system if i keep my mouth shut long enough her reflections will wander into rich commentary everything from family in france to her model united nations research on the african nation of gabon as or stories reverberate off the windshield while we drive around town i am reminded that adults too often don't take the young seriously their youthful narratives have no real time perspective on the great depression they are often prophetic an unabashedly truthful they carry the freshness of a story told for the first time the song i know says everybody has a story

everybody has a life we don't know what they are livin could be glory could be strife working on a college campus i walk by a crowded bus stop every day as students stare pass me looking for a bus to appear on the boulevard our eyes often meet and i wonder about their stories their glory and strife there trifles and catastrophes just think i could be walking by another human being whose personal narrative has just that day at one of its most significant events every friday on national public radio i listen for story corps a sacred exchange between ordinary people who have offered their stories to the nation a grandmother talking with her granddaughter two sisters interviewing their father in just minutes over national airwaves i connect with someone someone from a different family a different city yet one who has experience my grief my celebration my fear and my whole suddenly it becomes obvious that

color stories are simply chapter and verse of one great human narrative this holiday season as the generations gathered with you to share their stories those of you like me to make yourself to silence intrigue in the experiences of others you will learn in the past again hope for the future for listening is an act that will save us all jody johnson is a writer living in lawrence to find out more about how you can participate in the national day of listening go to the national day of listening that oh archie there you can download a do it yourself instruction guide and finds the questions to get your interview started well you're there you can also share your own experience with the national day of listening and find out how to become part of story corps wallach listening special thanks to share andrew lily shank and forty homes of

voices in time right to have fake jody johnson and bobby williams jasmine belcher interview with story corps founder david isay with licensed through pr at the public radio exchange and j mcintyre k pr presents as a protection kansas public radio at the university of kansas are