Your stories will survive you -- write or record them while you still can

I was thinking about this today as I went through some tests at the local hospital.

I like the idea of a National Service Program for 18-21-year-olds. Not a military draft – that didn’t work so well – but a program that puts youth to work doing good deeds. As a college dropout, I found jobs in hospitals. I was called orderly and not nursing assistant or CAN. I was a guy wearing a white uniform that nurses and patients called on when they needed a strong body to perform various tasks: scoot a patient up in bed or turn a patient so a nurse could get at the malfunctioning part of the body, transport patients to X-rays, take temps and BP and fill water pitchers. 

This was Florida so listening to old folks was also a keen skill. Young folks aren’t so good at listening to old people. Too bad – therein those aging bodies are many great stories. So why not put youngsters to work listening to old people’s stories while they also help them get around. Welcome to the Corps of Willing Listeners! They’d get paid a decent wage to push wheelchairs and hear stories. 

If they want to write some of those stories down and turn them into novels, so much the better. Maybe some of them can be made into memoirs for the family, something to remember grandpa by when you see that old face in a photo but can’t really place him. “That was grandpa: he was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge.” “There’s grandma: she raised 10 kids in a house without running water and an outhouse out back.” “There’s Uncle Jack – he was funny when he had a few drinks.” And so on.

Young people are energetic and smart and impatient. Old people tend to be tired and smart and patient and sometimes impatient because they know they are on the downward slide to the grave. I am 72 and that’s my reality. I love a good story but I can tell when the listener isn’t listening. Today a tech in his 20s took me to X-ray and took pictures of my chest. He saw my High Plains Arboretum vest and we talked gardening while the machines hummed. We talked about the difficulties of raising plants and veggies in our climate. I could tell he's had mixed results and I suggested he drop by the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and ask some questions of the horticulturalists. 

Writing skills are a key element in storytelling. It's good to be able to tell a story on a blog or written on paper or told in a podcast or any of the myriad other ways we relate info. I have some writing skills so I can tell stories to those people in the future who see my e-photo online and wonder about me. Who is it? Why is he in the photo? What did he do for a living? Was he nice? Did he love someone and did someone love him? How did his kids turn out? I’ll leave behind some stories to inspire or bore to tears but I won’t care, will I? I will be stardust. I hope a few of my stories survive.