“Everyone has a story and it’s almost cathartic for people to tell it,” says Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Carol Guzy. I love stories and so do most people, specially if it’s about someone you know . . . or a relative. We just listen and enjoy.
Stories are all around us. I joined the Rotary Club of Tacoma #8 in 1990. I would sit at a different table at each meeting to meet people and listen to them. Erwin Kettner told about coming to America on board a luxury liner. He and a buddy would sneak up on deck where the more affluent travelers were and they would play music and entertain for money. When they landed in Canada they bought an old pickup truck and drove down the St. Lawrence filling their radiator with water and fishing for eel. Sometimes they would eat them and sometimes they would sell them. I met Dr. Kurt Blau who used to play our national anthem at each Rotary meeting. He joined Peg and I for dinner one night. He told us how he came to America from Austria just one step ahead of the Nazis. He lost his mother and other relatives who didn’t want to leave the old country. He survived during and after the war by playing piano in a little dance band. He played that evening just for fun.
While buying fresh fish in Old Tacoma I met the very dapper, piano playing Art Mineo.While buying fresh fish in Old Tacoma I met the very dapper, piano playing Art Mineo. Art was Mr. Nightclub (The New Yorker) in the Tacoma area in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It turned out he lived just a few blocks away from us. I loved his stories of growing up in New York (usually told while wearing his New York Yankees baseball cap), and Art and his wife Toni’s musical compositions, and working together. I was a pallbearer at his funeral.
I’ve shared family stories before in the Suburban Times like my grandmother’s trip in a covered wagon from Texas to New Mexico. – thesubtimes.com/2017/08/28/mary-lavinia-coker-a-covered-wagon-journey-from-texas-to-the-land-of-billy-the-kid/. Just imagine, she was born in the 1800s and here we are in 2018. I wish I had video taped her telling the story. My wife Peggy wrote down her story and asked questions for details and clarification,
I love the family story of my grandmother’s trip in a covered wagon from Texas to New Mexico.I recorded Earnest Brazill. He told of the near riot in 1967 when young African-Americans in the Hilltop area wanted to demonstrate and confront local police as in other cities during that Light My Fire summer. I can still hear Ernie say in a composed, soft voice, “No, you don’t. No, you don’t.” They listened. My wife and I recorded hundreds of interviews for our cable-TV programs in the 1980s and have used video to record stories of people as well. When I first joined Rotary I recorded the five most senior Rotarians and then for our 100th anniversary I recorded a dozen past presidents. I also recorded some of Art Mineo’s stories about movie stars and gangsters. A few years ago we brought my aunt and uncle, Jim and Natalie, down from Alaska and spent three days recording their stories. Their stories were shared on DVD with members of our family.
I did record Earnest Brazill. He told of the near riot in 1967 when young African-Americans in the Hilltop area wanted to demonstrate and confront local police as in other cities.Since 2015, NPR has encouraged a new Thanksgiving tradition: Children recording interviews with their grandparents. They even have an app for it. – storycorps.org/participate/the-great-thanksgiving-listen/ – The past is mysterious and so is the paths we take. We need to share those stories as we would a family recipe or a favorite book. My friend Jan Runbeck and I are included in StoryCorps.
If you don’t know were to start, you may download our Personal History Interview Questions. There are more questions than you need, but questions trigger and activate thoughts. You can use the ten pages of questions to help plan an interview. – pnwvideo.com/Reflections.html You can record your own videos, or have a professional handle it for you.
Personal video interviews bring up things you never thought of and possibly many things the interviewee had long forgot. Here is a previous article from the Suburban Times of Sharing and Saving Memories. – thesubtimes.com/2017/09/27/recording-sharing-and-saving-memories/
But we are not just the future, we are also history. We can’t just let it pass and be forgotten. We need to record and savor the stories of our heritage.Today’s world is moving and changing so fast, it’s difficult to think of a few years ago as being almost ancient history, but it is. The Television age and the computer age, and the cellphone age have rocketed communications well beyond regrouping and pausing to evaluate. They threw wide open the door to a confusing world of possibilities; leaving the past behind. Every day we lose moments of time, memories, and elements that make us what we are. Nothing just happens . . . every innovation, and every piece of knowledge work together to make us who we are and what we can be. But we are not just the future, we are also history. We can’t just let it pass and be forgotten. We need to record and savor the stories of our heritage.
Don,
Have enjoyed your written observation as I have your in-person ones. Keep it up. There are people out here paying attention. Bill
Bill,
Thanks for your comment. It is always nice to see response . . . specially from one’s friends. I’m looking forward to our next group . . . somewhere out on my old stomping grounds.
Thanks, again.
Don
Hope you leave the tapes for the Tacoma Historical folks. I have fewer tapes, but some were filled with the magic of real lives and real memories. Don, you are doing a public service with your brain starting comments and articles. Thank you.
Dennis,
Thank you for your comment.
Unfortunately, when our old downtown studio was destroyed by the collapse of the building next door we lost our tapes of The Spud Goodman Show, stock footage, our historical recordings and even the family films that my dad recorded from the fifties and sixties. We got a good wright off with the IRS, but that loss was devastating. This is why I like digital . . . easier to make back up copies and to use the net as storage as well. I have drawers of tapes, and shelves of DVDs.
Although the loss of recordings is bad enough, I mostly regret not sitting down with my mother and just asking the questions about the “olden days.” That regret is what pushes me to encourage others to record the history of their families.
Thanks, again for writing and commenting.
Don
Your reply to Dennis about regretting not having set down with your mother reminded me that I did exactly that over a period of some weeks with my mother. It took weeks because Rosalie was a wonderful story-teller who enjoyed doing so. It also took me years to put it all together in book-length form because I was busy with other writing. It’s done now, under the title Tooter’s Damn! Would share it with you, if you’re interested. Bill
Bill,
Yes, indeed. I would love to read it. Pick up at Bookies?
Once people start telling their stories, you never know where they will end, which always makes them fun.
Thanks for reading.
Don
I’ll drag out a typewritten copy of Tooter’s Damn for you to take with you after the next mtg. It’s somewhat over 300 pp, so be prepared. My country ham came the other day, so be prepared for that too. Bill
Hi Bill,
I want to thank you for your interesting, humorous, and enjoyable articles also.
History about our area is very interesting to me, and I appreciate being able to view photos
from earlier days.
I also agree about recording our own history for prosperity.
I have items stored (stashed) from my grandparents, and family…granted, they probably are only interesting to me, but at some point, maybe the “evidence” will be of interest to future family members. I do hope so, especially now in current times, when the kids are educated “online” vs. “old school” as we were.
(I bet if you told them about clapping the erasers during class to remove the chalk dust they would look at you as if you were speaking in Swahili, for example)
Once again, thank you for your articles, I appreciate your effort!
Sincerely,
Kim Roberts
Kim,
Thank you for your kind words. When I start writing an article I’m not always sure where it is going to end and sometimes the most comments come from articles where I expected none. For example, I wrote about Ponders Corner, where I grew up . . . just to mention Ponders Corner in conversation usually produces laughs or chuckles, but the article drew responses from people that knew all about it; had relatives who settled it; visited it.
I think we need to pass along our histories . . . even at the cost of rolling eyes and raised eyebrows. We once had three granddaughters spending the weekend with us (all about ten or eleven years old) and I told them I could predict the future. They just looked at me. I continued, “I’ve been around so long . . . and seen it all. I predicted that you would all just there and not believe me before I even spoke.” They just looked at me. I can still see their bewildered look. As Dudley Moore says in the film Arthur, “Sometimes I just amuse myself.”
Yes, keep the memories and share them even if people ask “What’s an eraser? Is that like delete?”
Thanks again, for reading and writing.
Don
Bill,
Sooooooooooo, the country ham is something to eat . . . or are you referring to yourself? I can handle a good slice of ham, and I’m used to ham actors. I’ll prepare for both. I look forward to reading the book.
Don
Don: I am always the ham. But it is food I was referring to— pig’s hind leg is the term in the biz . And, boy, do you have a new light about to break over the horizon in store for you: Smithfield country ham! Unlike any other ham, barring its brouthers, and maybe prosciutto. Holiday fare across the South— and much of China too, curiously enough. Of course you and the others may hate it and we will have to fall back on little pecan tarts and Artillery Punch— and forced politeness. We’ll see.
I broke out Tooter’s Damn! the other day, and naturally couldn’t resist a re-read. And naturally a little correction here and there— writer’s bane, they call it. Well, I may have gotten through my “little correction” before I see you, maybe not. I will in any event have something for you to take away by meeting time. Bill
Bill,
Isn’t the country ham the one that needs to be soaked to remove some of the saltiness/brine? I traveled to Missouri in the early 1950s and I remember both the ham and the sausage being really heavy hamed . . . or handed with the salt. I hope we don’t have to eat the whole thing next week . . . but I’ll do whatever has to be done . . . why heck, I’d even come back for white beans and ham broth and fallin’ off the bone ham in the soup!
Looking forward to the ham . . . and the country ham . . . and the Tooter’s Dam.
Don
A classic definition for “Forever: One ham and two people.”
Yeah, you’ve got a handle on country ham. I start soaking Sunday.
Bill,
In the musical Kiss Me Kate, the divorced leads are remembering about their early marriage. The man would boast and the wife would introduce reality into the conversation. I think he mention something about being well paid and she remarks that they were given a ham and he counters but we lived on it for six months . . . It might have been a Salzburg Country Ham.
My book finally came today, so I have a chance at conversing about the essays.
Don