Everyone over 60 years old has stories to tell and lived adventures to relate. I admit that some people are not very good storytellers but the memories are there. Maybe documents, scrapbooks and family pictures can help put the story together. One friend urged another to roust out stories and ideas from his packed, well-educated, experienced mind. Many of my friends are senior citizens and qualify as experienced.
It is easy to see how a professor of literature tends to think of literary and classroom experiences as her history and specialization. However there is more to each of us than our occupational history. It is more or less the same story for someone who has been a train conductor for 40 years. Sure, the books, the students and the train trips created memories and experiences, many quite fascinating. However, there are always other sides to a person. What about the time the professor was the victim of a carjacking? What about the book the conductor found left behind on the train that he got into and still remembers? Come to think of it, that book led to other books and he eventually joined the town's library board. It was his forward thinking that made the difference for the library expansion, the installation of meeting rooms and computer kiosks. He is not just a conductor, you know.
They did get the professor's car back and she recalls having to go to court to relate the whole experience.
As people age, they drop some ideas, forget some and take some up. They may be more sympathetic to ideas they once thought outlandish and become less supportive of positions and convictions that once seemed important and valuable.
I realize that dementia, fatigue and boredom can interfere with recall and recording ideas but it does seem to be an unnecessary loss to let old memories and long experience go to waste.
