StoryCorps

While cleaning the grit from our house on a Saturday afternoon, further cultivating my handyman hands, I switch on KUNC. They are discussing StoryCorps, an exciting project resurrected from the days of the Works Progress Administration. Greeley is one of a handful of towns on StoryCorps’ American route. The idea: get real people to tell real stories, and house those stories at the Library of Congress, creating a populist record of US history.

I’ve been angling to interview my Mom. Born in Brooklyn in the 1940s, she’s a shoe-in for a good interview. But Bad Daughter dropped the ball and the interview slots filled as fast as a Yosemite campground in Summer.

Did I hear the radio correctly? One space open tomorrow? I hop on the internet and grab the last available slot. Question list in hand, we drive to Greeley on Sunday and park near the StoryCorps Airstream. Soon enough we are sitting across from one another in the soundproof booth of the Airstream (Casey is outside giving the twinkie trailer the once over). We examine the black fuzzy microphones sitting before us, when Carolyn, our cool, self-possessed facilitator, gives us the universal “go” sign. The A/C is on the fritz but Mom is well-adapted to the heat. She lives in Bullhead City where temps reach into the 120s and the nearby town of Oatman hosts an annual egg frying contest on asphalt.

Question by question, we follow down the rabbit trails of family history. I time-travel back 40 years, 50 years, to the golden days of Brooklyn, watching my Mom swim with her father in Coney Island. She is a finalist in the Miss Subway contest. She holds Sue in her arms for the first time. She admits that I was always her favorite child.

Carolyn hands us our newly minted CD, and we drive home listening smugly to the sounds of our own voices. Fifteen minutes of fame? Try 40, baby! Thank you, StoryCorps.

PS – Mom made it onto the StoryCorp West Coast blog.