I'd love to work at a history Museum... but thats a diff topic.
My first history class at Witt was African history to 1600. We focused mostly on west and northern Africa. The names were impossible to remember, and there were so few solid dates and records, that 85% of our resources were transcribed oral accounts. The professor talked at length about the oral tradiations of those people, how one person in the community would be responsible for remembering everything. They were the scholar, the bard, practically history incarnate.
A friend's recent journal entry made me realize though, so much of our lives is still oral history. While at home for christmas my grandmother was recalling stories of her youth for me. Around the dinner table my father will launch into stories of his Academy days, and the antics he'd get into. I'll tell Adam stories when I get home from work, and visa versa. I'll get e-mails from friends or family related things, which I then delete because I've read them, and then that becomes a remembered thing, a part of oral history.
Stories. A wise person once said, "I'll give you my e-mail address only if you send me stories." He didn't want to chit-chat and shoot the breeze, but get at the heart of things, what motivates us, what shapes us, the stories we tell, that with each telling we put ourselves into.
A friend's recent journal entry made me realize though, so much of our lives is still oral history. While at home for christmas my grandmother was recalling stories of her youth for me. Around the dinner table my father will launch into stories of his Academy days, and the antics he'd get into. I'll tell Adam stories when I get home from work, and visa versa. I'll get e-mails from friends or family related things, which I then delete because I've read them, and then that becomes a remembered thing, a part of oral history.
Stories. A wise person once said, "I'll give you my e-mail address only if you send me stories." He didn't want to chit-chat and shoot the breeze, but get at the heart of things, what motivates us, what shapes us, the stories we tell, that with each telling we put ourselves into.