StoryCorps Reflection

Evan Johnson

            I start off by saying that with every with reflection or essay, I want to tell a story. This one, of course, is no different. When I look back at the stories shared during our interview, I am reminded of the questions page of a YouTube musician named Bill Wurtz. On the page, fans of his music and videos ask a wide variety of questions. However, each answer is very similar. They are only a few words, but they show so much personality. Bill Wurtz’s hundreds of answers are similar to the interviews conducted on StoryCorps. Each is sweet and simple, sharing a story that have probably never been told. Some interviews share a story in which an emotion went unexplained, where one person realized how beautiful a past experience had been, similar to “With Love, From Georgia,” about a slice from home in the middle of a war zone. Yet, the storytellers can’t explain why they find their stories so beautiful, as they are driven purely by passion and memories. I think those stories are the reason StoryCorps exists.

            These types of stories driven by emotions are often shared in images. These animations serve as eye candy for a visual learner and they wonderfully portray the feelings presented in each story. I guess there can be so much emotion behind a story, and someone has to reveal it in images. That is one thing that StoryCorps gets right. They know how to reveal a story so anyone can enjoy, especially with each summary providing context in a concise, understandable manner. If someone were new to this way of storytelling, I would tell them just jump in and trust the way each story is set up.

            The way StoryCorps tells a story also reminds me of how one’s grandmother tells a story. Like a mentioned before, nice and straightforward. However, they mean so much. When my grandmother, or Gmommy, tells a story about her travels in Europe and with my mom, I cherish the ability to imagine all the details and find her experience meaningful. If there is one person that I would do an interview with, that person would be Gmommy. She has so much to say. This past winter break gave me an insight into the life she and other lived before my mom was… well, my mom. Each slide in the projector gave a story about the places that my grandmother went to with her mother. I remember one particular picture in the Netherlands. It was a crowded street, full of people with many different types of hats and clothes. There was a yellow car in the middle ground and a red car in the foreground. I think now about how each one of those people in the picture had a story to tell. How each car along the canals of a quaint Dutch town had an owner. How each store on the side of the road had customers. How each houseboat stored the possessions of hard working person. StoryCorps tells the stories of these people. Each one filled with emotion and different experiences. Therefore, the project is valuable. The organization offers a perspective different from the history that we learn in our high school history class. That perspective is important and can make history, and other people, more relatable and down to earth.

            Now, I think about the person behind the camera. The person who set up the picture and chose what details the eyes of a nineteen year old in North Carolina will focus on forty years later. The photographer comes up with the questions. For most of this essay, I have been talking about answers, the stories, instead of questions. Questions serve as the initiator of all the stories that I have talked about. This means questions from the fans of Bill Wurtz to the questions presented in the guidelines for this assignment, the ones that prompted me talk about quaint Dutch towns as they were presented in the mid-nineteenth century. Needless to say, questions are important for telling stories. Our personal StoryCorps interview had one question that stuck out to me. It was the question with the shortest answer: “What is the best advice you have every been given?” I mentioned the advice my grandmother told me after I delivered groceries to her house, in which I have many memories. She told me to never give up. I know that sounds cliché. Yet, it was something that reminded me of how much she loves me. A love that I may never comprehend, a love that may have to be shared in slides on a projector or in a StoryCorps animation, just for me to even to have an attempt at understanding.