The Book of Stan

I had an interesting conversation the other evening, with Stan - my Mother's partner.

On a tangent: here is another example of a family gotten too big. I don't know what to call Stan! He and my mother are not married, but they have been living together for the past 15 years or so. I could choose to call him my stepfather, but that has too many negative connotations for my peace of mind. I typically just call him Stan.

Getting back to our conversation: we were talking about his stories and how I thought he should record them for posterity. He has lived a very interesting and full life, and when he passes away he will leave behind several children & grandchildren who would love to have something to remember him by.

My grandmother on my mother's side did this. She had a tape recorder that she used, relating any story from her past that happened to pop into her mind at the time. My cousin then typed them up, leaving her grammar & speech patterns in tact, and bound them up into booklets for everybody to have.

She passed away quite some time ago, but I have this book of hers that I can read through occasionally and remember her. It's full of stories from the depression, from living in the Dust Bowl, from raising her children. It's really fascinating stuff - even though, to her I'm sure it was just every day life.

I offered to get Stan a tape recorder and to type up the stories for him, just like my cousin did for my grandmother. He wasn't too keen on the idea at first, but after a while I think (I hope) he warmed to it. He really does have some interesting stories to tell. Perhaps I can even get Mother to tell her stories!

I think everybody should do this: what might seem like normal daily drudgery to us will be interesting and amazing to our grandchildren. It doesn't have to be an actual book with a publisher and editor and all that. It can be just random stories, in no particular order, written in your own words, and hand copied for family members.

Hmmm... I think I'll make that one of my goals for this year: to write The Book of Stan!