Literacy Journal - Writing a Present

As I finished Bird by Bird, I was reminded of writing for people we love, and writing about people before they are no longer with us. I am sadly reminded of the missed opportunities I had to record my father, and mother’s life experiences. The details of my fathers survival at Pearl Harbor. How anxious my mother was, pregnant and in San Francisco, waiting two weeks to learn of his fate. I am reminded how as a youngster, half listening to my grandmother speak of a relative that fought during the civil war, and made his way west after to seek their fortune. How another was connected to the U.S.S. Maine that was sunk in Havana Harbor, and that gave cause for the Spanish-American War.

While these opportunities were missed by me, I was determined to leave some record of those I loved and that had important stories to share. It was too that end that I undertook the capturing of the oral history of a man I have known all my life as a second father to me. He was a veteran of not only World War II, but of Korea, and Vietnam. He rose to the rank of Command Sergeant Major of the Army, and his story was a fascinating one that kept me riveted for hours. From a young man who needed his parents permission to enter the Army because of his age, to the invasion of Europe on D-Day, and jumping as a paratrooper into France, through the Battle of the Bulge. It was important for me to capture his stories. Stories of a modest, and unassuming man, that did heroic things, through the decades. These stories that his children, and grandchildren can know, and their grandchildren can pass on.

My point is how important it is to do these things before the stories are lost. At the site of the World Trade Center, right at the point where now the subway passengers exit the station, there is a recording booth, dutiful manned to record the stories of the survivors, and anyone that had a story to tell of that fateful day. We have this semester learned about photo stories, which is another excellent method to record and publish for those we love, the stories of our lives, which ordinary or not, are important. With our often hectic lives we find it hard to make the time to do so, but yet they need to be done. I am reminded of how in the absence of a written language the Native American’s passed on their stories, and the importance of heritage, and who we are, and were.

Find your voice so we can hear the voice that is our heritage.