There is an African proverb that goes, "When an old person dies, a library burns to the ground." I was thinking about that because my mom has several friends who will turn 90 this fall, and they are still lucid and active, and filled with wisdom and insights. If I live to be 90 that's how I want to be -- still vital and engaged in life, despite slowing down physically.
My 84 year old mom knows a lot of things I don't know. I know things millennials don't know. I watched a funny video of a bunch of young teenagers trying to figure out how to use a rotary dial phone. They had never used one before.
To be fair, if you handed me the type of phone used in the 1930's I wouldn't know how to use it. My mother has laughed recalling the old "party line" days where several people shared a phone line and you had to wait your turn to make a call. Phone numbers were things like "Madison 3467." You talked to an operator, a live human being, to get your call through. I know that much just from watching old movies. Calling was much more of a big deal then, actually. My grandparents had a little table/chair combination thing that looked somewhat like a school desk, where you could sit while you talked on the one telephone in the house.
My son calls his friends multiple times a day, on a phone he carries in his pocket. He sends them photos. He doesn't worry about the expense of a long distance call.
I mention all this simply to illustrate how much making a phone call has changed. Also, I want to show how different generations understand different things.
above, my grandmother and some of her sisters, on a picnic, 1950's
To me, hearing about history is always a lot more interesting when a live human being is telling me about their experiences. I have microcassette tapes I made years ago of my mother recalling what it was like to live through World War II, and The Cuban Missile Crisis. Mom has also written a lot about her life experiences on her blog. If you read about The Cuban Missile Crisis by doing a Google search you will turn up a lot of facts about what happened. However, if you talk to my mother about it, you will hear a very human story, about a young family with an infant (me) and a toddler (my brother) living just a few miles from a nuclear power plant (The Savannah River Plant) and terrified about getting out of town and trying to survive a nuclear war. Mom had only a limited supply of milk for me, and didn't know where she would be able to find enough formula, if they left town, as so many were doing.
The closest memory I have to that is my memory of 911. I was sent home from work around lunchtime and called my mother before leaving. She told me -- in very forceful tones -- to go to the bank and withdraw as much cash as I could, then to get a full tank of gas, and then hightail it back to my condo. We were wondering if the US was about to be invaded. She was very nervous and upset -- much more so than I was, but then I had not lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, or World War II.
Most people think of history as dry and boring but to me it's fascinating.
I used to be a voracious reader. (I still read, just don't have as much time, since I am taking care of Mother, a big house, and a dog.) I loved to read novels set during interesting periods of history. My aunt recommended a novel called The Nightingale -- wonderful book, about how French civilians coped during the World War II German occupation. I highly recommend the book.
If you want to interest a child in history, don't recite a bunch of facts to them. Tell them stories of real people and how they fared during the crisis. Do what my dad did and take them to civil war battlefields, and explain what happened. Take them to visit aircraft carriers and let them run around and experience the size of those things, and see the living conditions of the sailors. Show them the sword that was carried by great great granddaddy a hundred years ago in the war. Show them the butter churn Granny used. Let them touch history. I treasure a handkerchief my Thompson grandfather sent to his mother when he was in France during World War I.
Visit places like The Atlanta History Center, and show the kids what history looks and sounds like.
Likewise, value older people who understand and appreciate history. Talk to them about their experiences. Audio or video record them. Don't let their libraries of memories die with them.
I love the story of Rishi Sharma, a California teenager who has made it his mission to interview and record as many World War II veterans as possible (link). He understands the importance of capturing those memories for future generations to appreciate. What an incredible young man.
We need to encourage kids to video their grandparents and great grandparents. We need to record stories from long before we were born. We live in an age when recording devices are literally in our pockets and we record everything, all the time, so why not record memories?
Dad's family picnic/reunion, mid 1950's
