Preserving Generational Memories: A Conversation with Jon Camp, Ever Living Memories

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is The Mesh. This is a 3-9-8-0 to talk with the representative that can discuss with you the PACE-It-Home All-In-Clusive Medical Approach. PACE-It-Home is the champion for seniors wishing to remain in their community.

[00:00:54] Welcome to The Caregiver Community. This is a place where we talk about the joys and the challenges of caring for our aging parents and loved ones as well as caring for ourselves. I'm Karen Summy, Project Manager for A-CAP

[00:01:07] Community, also known as Adult Children of Aging Parents. In this podcast we're talking about Methy importance and the logistics of how to preserve generational memories and moments for future generations to learn from and love. I'm delighted to be joined by Jon Camp

[00:01:25] and any wedding news reporter and former TV anchor. After 20 years on air, Jon left the news to start his own company, Ever Living Memories, where he tells purpose driven stories for non-profits and families. Jon taught writing as an adjunct professor at UNC Chapel Hill, offer selectors on

[00:01:44] communications and has written a book on media strategy called Communications Breakdown. Welcome Jon. Thanks so much for being with us. I hope you're doing well today. Yeah, doing quite well. Thanks for having me excited to be talking today.

[00:01:59] Great. Okay. Let's set the stage for our conversation today. You've made a distinction among three things. Storytelling, Story Remembrance and Story Keeping. Why don't we start there? How do you sort out those three terms and what do they mean to you?

[00:02:17] Yeah, those are the big three buckets that you want to talk about when you're talking about trying to preserve our generational memories. Now we all know what storytelling is obviously and that's just the act of narrating some kind of events, right? But Story Remembrance is a little harder

[00:02:34] and we can all remember things but remembering things accurately is not always the easiest thing. It can be a job and itself. Our memories of course are notoriously flawed unless something's just earned into our brain through the hippocampus or something to really get it in there right.

[00:02:52] Our memories almost certainly going to be colored over time and it does take work together right so I think we'll talk about that today but it also Story Keeping which is probably the

[00:03:02] hardest part of all of it. So whether you get the memory right or wrong, whether it's accurate or not, it doesn't really matter if it's going to be forgotten soon holding onto the memories

[00:03:12] and the stories and then passing them along once you're gone so that they're seen by people for generations that's the tough stuff but hopefully we're going to talk about all this today.

[00:03:24] Absolutely, we will. Let me back it up just a little bit. You spent 20 years in the new business. How did that inform your understanding of storytelling and how does that help the work you do today?

[00:03:39] Well, thanks for the question. I will say 20 years in the news is a great training ground for the kind of work that I do do today. Logistically, the act of getting it old trudes or new ones

[00:03:53] but putting those into narrative form is a skill that like any skill can be built and so 20 years are doing that helped get me in the mindset for the current task I've got which is helping

[00:04:06] people tell their stories. Conceptually what the news helped me learn a few things. One that everyone's got a story no matter who they are, where they come from right, what makes them tick, what they've

[00:04:20] lived through in their time, whether it's the great to predict. Just think about this. This is something that has always kind of burrowed into my brain. Pick your era, great depression, great wars, beaten a carad. My favorite my favorite is Old West. If what if you're great great

[00:04:39] whoever pick your person could tell you, tell you, written notes, tell you what that was like. Well that idea has always fascinated me and again the news helped me prepare for a career that

[00:04:55] would explore this idea. Well in the news I did learn that some people are better natural storytellers than others and so there are sometimes hurdles that can be mounted hurdles that can be overcome with regard to whether you're a natural story,

[00:05:15] teller or not. Also learn that not everyone values their stories in the same way. Some people think their stories are very important. Other people think their stories are not at all important and finding the balance in that can be challenging. Also over 20 years in news I was able

[00:05:34] to watch technology evolve to the point where when I started in the year 1999 I was carrying a 50 pound camera. Now today in the news they do still use similar cameras but you can achieve

[00:05:51] an extraordinarily close quality through the use of a cell phone and that change and that evolution has been something I've had in front row C2 so I'm watching that be taken advantage of by the civilian population, just the general population really understanding how we can

[00:06:12] capture our story using these. It is just really quite amazing how we can pass on our past at scale these days if we want to. So that's maybe get toward your answer. Right we live in a fascinating

[00:06:27] time for people who want to hold on to some of their stories and making their stories last longer than they do. What should they now going in? Yeah this is the hard part right this is

[00:06:41] carrying it on past our point of time on the Egyptians had I think kind of cool belief and it was that you're really you only really die when people stop remembering you. In other

[00:06:59] way to say that would be your alive until people stop remembering you and if you think about it in those in that kind of framework there can be something to that why do we do why we care

[00:07:13] about any legacy with anybody ever because we care to be remembered for who we were in our time and again this Egyptian understanding, this idea that we are alive until we're forgotten. And with

[00:07:30] that as a conceit you have to know that books about you won't write themselves podcasts about you won't be just don't want materializing thin air movies won't be made by themselves. Not that anybody's looking for those specifically but none of these things will happen if

[00:07:48] you don't make them happen and the hardest part about the job that I have sometimes is convincing people that their story, their own personal narrative, all their experiences those are worth investing in. That's a hard job to convince people of that sometimes I wish it wasn't so hard.

[00:08:07] Well I have some personal experience with that for sure and let's talk a little bit more about that particular point John personally know people who are very camera shy who don't like to

[00:08:19] hear themselves on audio and so forth. Many of them don't even like to have their picture taken. So I also know a lot of people who think in their lives are the most ordinary lives of anybody

[00:08:31] in the world and I think they're often reluctant to try to capture their stories for future generations. So do you really believe everyone has a story worth investing in and can you give us some examples

[00:08:43] of why that might be stunning? I do, how I do and I can. I quickly mentioned NPR's story core effort. The stories that are shared I love the story core effort if our listeners don't know what that is

[00:09:00] National Public Radio Story Core Google it and just click away and it's a wonderful collection of some very mundane stories that are collected and shared, collected from well everybody really but I think the effort originally was the greatest generation to collect

[00:09:18] stories before they were no longer able to be shared much like what we're talking about today. NPR started this thing called the story core and actually National Library of Congress has done

[00:09:28] something very very similar and so we're all sort of talking about the same idea and that is holding on to these memories while we can but these these memories can be very very mundane and still resonate

[00:09:41] with us today and we can still learn from them today. So I do very much believe that everyone has a memory, memories and everyone's lived experience is just inherently worth sharing. I believe that they're just anecdotally interesting whether we see this for what it is that's the question.

[00:10:01] Two people can have the exact same lived experience. They can experience this thing together one can go on to tell a great story about an entertain with this thing for years. The other

[00:10:13] may never talk about it and then barely remember it years later and then he asked him what happened and it was a completely different thing and then the story, the story tellers story, the story

[00:10:21] will evolve over years of course right? And so but this one lived experience is either nothing or everything for these two same people who lived together. So we do we all have these times that

[00:10:34] we have shared with others and these are whether they're triumphs, tragedies. We have learned these life lessons along the way and we come to hold all of us. We have hold these deer philosophies

[00:10:47] that we have experienced over our life, the culmination of who we are is kind of held in these philosophies that we build around life and to think that those are not worth worthwhile. To think

[00:11:03] somebody else may not benefit from your lived experience. It's maybe not seeing it as completely as we should, maybe that if people feel that way sometimes I wonder if that's more a function

[00:11:17] not say they're wrong in their feeling but maybe at the end of it what's at the none of that feeling maybe have more to do with how somebody values themselves and the stories that they're sharing.

[00:11:30] In truth is we're losing history by the day and those of us including myself of course who have lived it can help generations to come by talking about it. It's very simple. We're not going to

[00:11:41] know the impact that our stories that are talking about them will have had years after we die. We can obviously less we can, but we're not going to know like we know it like we think we do.

[00:11:54] There's a pretty good chance though that somebody's going to find these stories valuable down again thinking of the story core no matter how simple, no matter how pedestrian they may seem. These are the stories that will I fully I believe help future generations balance it all out

[00:12:13] kind of understand today. This while we're done we're living in and what it meant to those of us living in it this is an extraordinary time anyway. So I would leave it there for me.

[00:12:23] These are all valuable points John and I'm personally my mom has talked about the fact that she has lived through so many times of invention and changes society and how everything has

[00:12:37] happened since her birth and she's in her 90s so she has seen a lot of things. So we've explored a little bit now about why to preserve generational memories. So let's turn now to the how we can

[00:12:54] all do that. How does an individual go about prepping to capture their own stories or stories with their loved ones? What do they need to do? Yeah yeah that's that's a great question because

[00:13:06] let's say someone does want to hold on to their stories for most of us in any way who if you've lived the lifetime there's a lot of material in there. Actually last year I will just I'm

[00:13:17] made direct listeners if I could quickly to a four part online lecture I gave her a ARP a national series that covered exactly this in detail. We won't have this much time today

[00:13:27] but summing it up. Step one is start keeping notes right down as you think through your experiences. As you start dwelling on this project if you're interested in capturing some of these stories just start writing them down keep notes whether you're writing them in your phone or

[00:13:46] on a piece of paper back of an app can just make sure you know those the napkin or blow your nose into it. Just right your nose hold onto those notes and then step two will be organizing

[00:13:56] those notes. Once you think you've got a bead and maybe it's a few pages of typed up notes whatever it is when you feel like you're ready you've got enough material that you can start

[00:14:06] kind of organizing things. Then start organizing those notes and I like to think of everything in buckets you can absolutely find these buckets of your life whether it's going to be a geographically whether it's chronologically or in time buckets you'll find the buckets you'll

[00:14:24] know when you start clicking about your life where those buckets are and then once you identify a bucket other ideas are going to come creating a new your brain but keep writing those down

[00:14:36] so now you're organizing and expanding your buckets and then if you really want to dive in call some old friends call your family call whoever is involved in the bucket right

[00:14:46] now whoever is with you in the bucket if they're still around and still kicking call those people up and you can tell them what you're doing but you only have to just start having conversations with

[00:14:57] those people about the time period and then they're going to jog some memories right those on once you gone through this project and process and it is both of those things then it's time to

[00:15:11] curate you got to figure out what stays in and what gets left out and this is if you're going to be successful in passing along your life story then you do need to think about what it's going to say

[00:15:27] about you to those who are watching and listening it's worth thinking about posterity at this point of the game so you've got this now you've got pages on pages or a stack of napkins in front

[00:15:42] of you all with different life moments on them now it's important to pull out the ones you don't want in there and to put aside the ones you do want in there and then start figuring out the

[00:15:55] order in what you're going to put those so that's that's basically the overlay of how you go if you want to go about taking seriously the project of capturing story not that meet your life

[00:16:07] story but stories about your life that would be a way I would suggest going through it now let's say that someone has done this work they've got a list of memories they've got a list of

[00:16:17] stories that they want to pass on to generations to come what to do how do you do that well there are few ways to go obviously there's the pen and paper out you could you could

[00:16:29] basically transcribe your napkins or or put into some form those those typed up messages print those out that's that'd be the pen and paper version just the paper version the hard copy version

[00:16:41] there's also the voice memos you can do voice memos you you don't need to be on camera to do it and if you don't write so well or don't type so good anymore you can get your fun all of the

[00:16:55] smartphones the recording the voice recording app on smartphones all of them have it as a built-in feature it's easy to find the ARP series I did direct people to it on both kinds of phones

[00:17:10] that we would kind of have and just spend some time talking into your phone audio is a remarkably powerful tool down as far as generational understanding and generational memory I tell you a

[00:17:25] quick story I don't know if we have time if you cut this part out if you need to leave it on the pattern for but I'll say my mother passed away when I was very young my grandmother passed away

[00:17:39] when she was very old and so I knew her very well and didn't really know my mother very much at all because I am aging and passed 50 now I don't have many pictures of myself as a kid and I think

[00:17:54] I may have two pictures of me and my mother together my grandmother on the other hand I took it under my own task to do with the very thing we're talking about today and they go live with her for three

[00:18:05] days you don't need to do it like this as detailed as I did but I'm a videographer for what I do I went down and I lived with her for three days effectively and I taped her we got

[00:18:16] her story and I boiled it all down to 30 a 30 minute video about her life so now fast forward I've got two pictures of me and my mother I've got a 30 minute video of my grandmother

[00:18:32] and my kids who didn't know either of them particularly if they ever carried a note where they come from they will my mother will just she will just she will not be part of that memory

[00:18:47] scheme for them gone never to be her go for from again once once I am passed on my grandmother on the other hand in this wonderful video of hers will could potentially go on to be seen by

[00:19:01] my kids I expect my kids kids perhaps their kids kids I don't know how long she'll be remembered and the last thing I'll say is and I started on all this big thinking about audio

[00:19:12] the remarkable thing about my mother's passing is I don't even remember what she sounded like the the amount of thought I've given this the amount of money I would give to hear what my mother

[00:19:26] sounded like again I can't even tell you and so for anyone out there who maybe a little reluctant to get on camera as they tell their stories don't think that it is that important

[00:19:42] down the road somebody may not care won't care if it were if it between hearing you maybe say you love them or talk about what's important in your life between that and nothing what do you think they're gonna take right videos even better though if you can

[00:19:59] get video that's even better in my opinion but I'm a videographer I'm down to say that did this answer the question no I'm rambling absolutely and you know you have a cautionary tale for all of us

[00:20:11] that we should be thinking about this now while the time is there and I'm very grateful that my mom's getting ready to move into a new residence and thankfully it's my brother Tom but

[00:20:27] as we're cleaning out the house and as we're going through this whole process my father was a pack rat he kept absolutely everything and so we're finding receipts and we're finding his days in the army and we're finding all sorts of things about what happened through the years

[00:20:46] and our all of our lives and we just find that fascinating so it doesn't have to be something earth shattering or something that's you know a legacy for society or whatever is just hours

[00:21:01] and those are very powerful memories to us so for folks who want to do what you're talking about who want to leave some kind of legacy or story behind the future generations can get to know

[00:21:14] if they do all of this how can people make sure it's seen years from now? Oh man that is the question jammy to a superman who I'm sorry for all right listen but I suspect

[00:21:26] most of our listeners may actually get to both my kids would not get that close that's a question too that is the question how you can make sure it's seen by people years from now honestly it is

[00:21:38] the question it's the central question because if you were to ask the question in the 80s we would have said let me record you on this beta tape and if you asked that question in the late 80s early 90s

[00:21:51] we would have said let me record you on this VHS tape but I don't want to be on that VHS tape that's okay I'll record you on this tape cassette if you showed either of those two things to my kids who are in their

[00:22:05] teens I'm pretty sure without additional context they would just look rapidly at them with no concept of what to do with these things so to your question how do you make sure it can be seen really

[00:22:21] seen and use by people years from now I'll give you one more actually I just recently had some old high eight tapes that I found in my attic I went to a company that put those high eight tapes

[00:22:35] onto into video format what is today thought of as dot mp4 if you see a file on your computer with an mp4 at the end of it that's going to be a video file almost certainly and that is the

[00:22:51] file that's a kind of file format that we're using today that's today's beta or vHS tape or yeah that's the DVD the DVD of today is the dot mp4 file and and so how do we think about that mp4 file

[00:23:09] getting what what are they going to be using in in 50 years or 100 years will they be mp4 files not a chance there's no way it's going to be an mpi I'm don't know I'm not a betting man but I can't

[00:23:22] imagine what we do know and this is the genius behind what's the air the time in which we live we do know that whatever we do today we will be putting our story in our narrative whether it's

[00:23:38] into an audio format or a video format we'll be putting this in narrative into a sequence of ones and zeros which is how digital content is processed by the computer and we know that whether we're

[00:23:56] we have an mp4 format or what ever tomorrow's format is now that that story is in ones and zeros it is going to be very easy to get from one place to another there will always be a conversion

[00:24:12] program that somebody years from now will have on their computer whatever it looks like that we'll be able to say oh you've got an old mp4 file just click here for the free

[00:24:24] converter belt to whatever you know to this new file we're using today so you I don't think I think we have tip the scale when a remarkable way in our ability finally to hang on to our stories at a very

[00:24:43] cost effective very pedestrian level at a very street level street view level we can all hold on to stories now in a way that here to four might have been left to cryogenics I just don't

[00:24:58] know that there would have been another way earlier to hold onto these stories then we have gotten the last ten years of human history it's really a remarkable thing when you think about it one

[00:25:10] and zeroes have really changed the game and it's important for people to understand that going forward because the rest of us grew up in an analog world right our kids growing up in this digital

[00:25:21] world these ones in zeros have leveled the playing field in many many ways as far as economy and what money can buy you and all that stuff you don't need to be rich anymore for this specific

[00:25:35] project that we're talking about if you're going to tell your story on audio or video you can store the entire thing on a career who you are you could be a king and have Ken Burns

[00:25:48] your documents were maker and you can store it that entire thing on a hard drive no bigger than your thumb the cost no more than fifty dollars your entire life will fit on that thing

[00:26:01] and that thing can be passed on through a will or directly to your kids or wherever you put the things that you want the people to have when you do unfortunately move onto the next generation

[00:26:13] that the other direction right when that happens you're going to move stuff on that thing or two of them if you want to split them and make sure that two people got them or

[00:26:24] down of them you know diaspora sort of stuff that can happen now if you don't much about technology I will say this should not be a show stopper this is an excellent project that you can do

[00:26:38] with your kids your grandkids the person who is at the senior center down the road your caretaker caregiver whoever is around these are and this is not and I don't mean to say it

[00:26:52] like you should know how to do it because we all have different skills but this is not a heavy lift somebody around you will know how to access the video feed join your phone the audio feed

[00:27:06] join your phone somebody around you will know how to use the basics of the technology that you have right now probably in your hand or in the room that you're sitting in that you can do this

[00:27:19] and then you can hold on to it of course there's the last thing I'll say is it doesn't have to go on that hard drive there are there are the cloud obviously there are

[00:27:30] servers there are many ways that you can take those ones in zeros and get them to the next generation and the next generation after them there are a few ways but but but it's certainly

[00:27:43] doable and it's cost doable it's not cost prohibitive if that makes sense yes and I would say over the years you know I've become more tech savvy I think a lot of people have and I am always

[00:27:56] delighted to tell the story about my mom who can text me and add gifts and graphics and all sorts of things and it's just because she's interested in it she she found it's a great communication

[00:28:09] tool for herself and for our family and so that's what she does but surely if there are younger people in the family or just people around you that are a little bit younger then they're going to

[00:28:20] have that stuff because they grew up with it and they know how to operate it so all of this is very accessible to almost anybody John this is a great information what about other ways people can hold

[00:28:33] on to their memories if they don't have the means or the interest in doing all the things you've talked about is there anything else that we haven't talked about you know I think um there are a

[00:28:47] couple things one I mentioned earlier and would like to not let go of quite yet this idea of family videos because these are something that back in the 70s, 60s, 70s and early 80s if a family was

[00:29:06] upper and middle class there's a very strong possibility they had a fairly basic model video camera that is not something that was was only in the hands of rich people in those times if you're 40 50 60 watching this and you don't know if you have family videos like that

[00:29:33] there's very very good chance you might and maybe somebody an uncle grandpa you know grandpa would me around probably but you know I mean maybe somebody who is a little older than the new are

[00:29:49] might have those might know about them I just learned that my aunt in Seattle has a whole other trove of these videos I just converted eight of these old you know the old high eight

[00:30:03] was the center of you know I just converted eight of those into these they're all 30 minutes to 45 minute reels and that's all old silent footage and on learning that I had done that my aunt said

[00:30:19] that she had another box of these things had that conversation not happened that I have no idea what would have happened to that box at this point my family is a little spread out and I don't know

[00:30:32] that that box of videos would have made it around my way or anybody's way if we had not had that conversation so it probably isn't worth investing a little effort to see if some of these

[00:30:49] old family heirlooms the things that might help tell the story of what our families look like sounded like there are these old videos with audio on them I actually found three of those as well

[00:31:00] you want to know some heartbreak I talked about my mother and wanting to hear her one of these family videos I've had some dates really faintly scrap scrambled in and on the on the label

[00:31:11] and my they were dates that were compatible because my mother died when I was very on the dates that were compatible with when she would have been around and I would have been around oh so

[00:31:22] I got this thing I transcribed I listen I the audio was there she is on one clip like this you can see her on a couch kind of in the background but they're singing happy birthday I think to my cousin

[00:31:38] and that's the only part of the clip they're all singing so you can't tell what she sounds like because there's all in the and the videographer who's my granddad he's saying so there's just no chance

[00:31:47] I hear in her anyway but but I will say this particular story is heartbreaking because I'd loved to know what she sounded like but but those opportunities and the rest of the videos

[00:31:59] it's priceless it's just I cannot recommend enough just asking around to see if you have these videos if you do investing the time and resources if you have them and I think it's not

[00:32:15] it's not terribly costly it might be on my maybe I don't know 50 bucks per real I don't know if it sounds about right that what I might have paid but but but it's it's worth doing for you

[00:32:27] and even if you don't really care somebody will care you know every but every family's got those historians and then every family has the print mines my uncle David every family has the person who

[00:32:40] really cares about where you come from where the family started what the picture of the old house looked like you know every family's got those that person or those people if you're not the person

[00:32:55] in the family that doesn't mean that your contribution to the family isn't is less important and that in 50 years or 100 years there won't still be somebody in the family who does care and then that

[00:33:09] person might really care about your part in the family and so it's not it all sort of works in in my head anyway the way this works when you step back and look at it kind of

[00:33:22] geologic time frame you look at it from a from a from a generational time frame we just don't know how our our our families are going to weave together in 100 years but somebody very likely down there

[00:33:36] on no-mind will David be interested and just about anything anybody had to say long time back and that matters that really doesn't matter I'll mention just a couple more things one you ask about how we people who don't want the project of it but still think it's important

[00:33:55] to capture these stories and you're at least to have some of these lived experiences passed on and people who think that's important but don't really don't need the project. Well then start telling your stories that people want to hear them even if you think they don't

[00:34:16] I'd pretty sure people do I'll tell you one more quicks right I went up recently to my fiance's family home and in the Pittsburgh area and spend a couple days with her parents gathering their

[00:34:32] stories just to do this again is very thing that we're talking about with her family and during my conversations with her father who was in the war he was in World War anybody was in Vietnam

[00:34:46] excuse me for father and during my conversations with him I learned things about his service and his valor that I don't think is wife new and my fiance didn't know I don't think and

[00:35:02] my just learned things about him that just through because he was ready to tell the stories time has a way of giving people space in the freedom to tell their story. He wasn't comfortable either

[00:35:14] better in the light many veterans was not comfortable telling his story for many many years now he is but no one had thought to ask him really in many many years and so there was this gap

[00:35:25] he can now tell the story but he thinks no one cares about the story but everyone cared about the story he is you shot to learn but I was like I didn't know that as I said yeah I did that and

[00:35:35] say yeah so I think these are these are the experiences that once you start telling your stories and start talking you may you may be surprised at what people think you may be surprised to learn

[00:35:49] that others have questions further that might dig a little deeper into your story than you think they would even really care about but I do I I feel strongly that we have a shared experience this

[00:36:05] humanity thing is a shared experience and the more that we can tap into each other's little bit little view the better off we're going to be in the better off we're all going to be there's a great quote from Atticus Finch into Killah mockingbird he says

[00:36:23] he says I shouldn't say he says of course he's just a fictional character but he says as he's talking to his daughter scouting says you never really know a person and say a

[00:36:32] crawl into his skin and walk around or something very close to that and that's very true and and one way that we can help people get to know us and help people get to know

[00:36:46] the time in which we're living and know our communities one way we can do that is just by talking and telling my stories so that's where I would encourage people to go you know I found complete truth

[00:36:57] in what you're saying because every story I've heard from my parents passed and my grandparents passed I am just found fascinating fascinating fascinating you know we often come to know an older generation um later in life when we have a little bit of lived experience ourselves

[00:37:22] and we know how valuable the past becomes and we see our grandparents they are already somewhat elderly by the time we even know them and we don't know what their past looked like and I was fascinated to find out that my grandmother played basketball and she was a

[00:37:42] formant in a lumber company during World War II and ran like a band saw and just did all these fascinating things I would never have suspected she she wrote my grandfather's motorcycle which I think was like

[00:37:57] an Indian motorcycle and just fascinating things that you don't think about older people doing well there we are we never think that the people who are older than us had wives other than

[00:38:11] the part of their lives committed to us. Exactly. You know we just forget entirely they're never we just ignore entirely the concept that they're individuals with an entire spread of their own

[00:38:23] stories to tell and this is what we forget as storytellers we think that so often we think we get wrapped up in our lives and we define ourselves on and we and this is in many ways a good

[00:38:34] thing but you know as a parent I'd define yourself as a parent as this you if is a worker you define yourself as a worker and you kind of compartmentalize our lives in these ways and we forget

[00:38:44] all of the other interesting stuff before our lives had compartments before we knew to compartmentalize our lives and that's not to say we don't have extraordinary experiences now but but we don't allow ourselves

[00:38:56] to remember the extraordinary we just said locked on the ordinary sometimes and I think that's part of the reason people think they don't have stories to tell it's just that their brains are locked

[00:39:04] in the ordinary and they're forgetting the parts of their lives that were extraordinary. That's right well those change gears a little bit because a lot of the folks who are listening today are going

[00:39:14] to be family caregivers to aging adults and that's what our organizations all about and you know they seem like a really natural fit for this kind of preservation of generational memories so tell

[00:39:28] me what your thoughts are about that. Yeah you know that's a great point and we mentioned it's just earlier as well is the idea of having a guide for many older folks especially and I can think of my own in

[00:39:40] laws and my own family members using this thing is not as intuitive I know that to your point and you're absolutely right Karen that it's gotten a lot easier and a lot of people know what they're

[00:39:55] doing and it might surprise you who know what kind of people know they're doing these days don't fit into boxes but it is also true that a lot of people just just don't care to learn

[00:40:10] that same grandmother that I spent days with logging her life refused until her very last day in 1996 to have an information a simple and a voice and a phone the kind that you push the button

[00:40:24] the easy simple push the button and it would be great I mean she just wanted nothing to do with this thing and I just and and I don't fault her at all for that not in the slightest but of course

[00:40:40] it did create some challenges and had I asked her hey grandma just just get yourself phone out he had she been living at the time there were cell phones she wouldn't have had when I'm

[00:40:50] sure but how I said to her get yourself a phone out and just record yourself give your life story there's no way no way that would have happened it just it would never ever have happened and so

[00:41:05] so it is your point is it's a very strong one sometimes people have great stories we're telling my grandma the wonderful story tell her she's wonderful on camera but she never would have done it

[00:41:17] and so she just needed that guy she needed somebody in this case me but somebody who could have been in any of them she had somebody together you know they they sure for a narrative telling

[00:41:31] and so caregivers of all elk right whether these are children caregivers whether they are adult children caregivers whether they are professional caregivers whether they're you know in house or in in the in the in hospital you know whomever these caregivers are the people who are

[00:41:53] around of folks and hearing those stories they are well positioned not just to hold the camera to hold a pen hold the voice recorder put a little microphone on somebody also a nice little

[00:42:07] option hopefully get cheap old microphone easy and easy and fairly fairly cost effective if you really want to go try this thing clip it right on right underneath somebody then you don't have to

[00:42:17] hold something right up to their right to their mouth but you know the caregivers are well positioned not just to you know to hold the device that will capture the narrative but to ask

[00:42:30] the questions and lead the conversation because caregivers of the ones who are spending the most time with these folks in what writ large anyway they are people who are going to be almost axiomatically familiar with the story of the person who were talking you will be delivering

[00:42:47] their stories and their narratives they are well positioned and to be to be the recipients of this story because the person who's telling it will be comfortable with them oftentimes just that comfort level of sitting and getting past that initial pro you know that initial

[00:43:07] uh who is this person I don't I don't know and I want I need to be reserved with my thoughts getting past that could be very helpful if you're a caregiver right just just so now that

[00:43:21] that initial hurdle did I see yes these are great points you know almost everyone carries around a cell phone today a smart phone but so often where focus on looking outward at videos and all

[00:43:37] the content that's out there in the world that we forget to live in the moment and look inward at our own history and I'm so grateful that I've had some moments of clarity where I

[00:43:49] kind of just snapped off a selfie with my mom or my dad and now those are the greatest treasures to me my dad's not with us any longer and so now I have these great pictures of him and

[00:44:01] their pictures of him as an older person we take a ton of pictures of kids but we often forget about taking pictures when everybody gets older and so there's something about being able to see

[00:44:13] yourself in the frame with a selfie and strike a flattering pose that takes away a little bit of that intimidation for people who are camera shot and I just think is hugely valuable and John

[00:44:27] I'm sorry to interrupt that's a great point though I just wanted it just to say to get through that point as well and what my neighbor was just telling me his his mother passed away recently and

[00:44:38] he was going cleaning up her her home and cleaning out her home and stumbled across answering machine messages and this is just his mother I don't know what she's saying I guess it's

[00:44:54] so the home if you need me to leave me a message this guy whatever what he's done to across a couple of these answering machine messages she had left for others but those are now

[00:45:05] his only connection to her voice but even hearing her hearing her just on the in that very simple small way will be enough to help him remember what she sounded like when she said I love you

[00:45:20] and I mean that it's freeing her voice in that simple little tiny way will be enough to get his mind where it needs to be for the rest of his days. Great point you know we could talk about this all

[00:45:34] day long and I would love to but I see we're getting short on time let me say this has been extremely informative and thank you for your efforts to help people tell their stories and

[00:45:46] preserve their memories so they can live on for generations to come. Thank you all you know. Yes thank you. Thank you also to you our listeners we hope this information will be helpful to you and

[00:45:59] it's those who are providing care for aging adults you know doubt know how precious your care giving journey is to you and those you love and what a unique opportunity it may present as you

[00:46:10] try to preserve so many memories for the future generations. We also want to thank pace at home in Hickory North Carolina they're the sponsor for all our caregiver community podcast and we're in deep grateful for their support this program is part of the mesh network of online

[00:46:28] shows and podcasts you may find more of our caregiver community podcast on any of the platforms where you listen to podcasts you'll also find our podcast on our website at www.acatcommunity.org

[00:46:43] while your on our site we hope you'll take a few minutes to learn more about ACAP our free educational programs for caregivers and our local chapters and if there are other topics you'd like us

[00:46:55] to address as a podcast please let us know. John thanks so much again for being with us and for all you do to support caregivers if any of you our listeners have questions or would like

[00:47:06] initially information feel free to let us know at www.acatcommunity.org or contact John at www.everlivingmemories.com or by email at john and this j go in at everlivingmemories.com they well ready and it's time for fun you've been listening to the mesh and online media network

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