Proustian Potatoes

Both Mama and I have started private family history blogs to share and store our families' stories. Mama came up with the idea as she mentally, in advance of physically, prepares for her trip to Thailand this summer to see her 90+ year-old grandfather. Her mother has enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to record family memories and cultural traditions (Chinese, Thai, and American), posting two or three tidbits daily, from how the Chinese celebrate birthdays to how picky an eater Mama was as a child (lining up French fries and eating them in descending order!!). Inspired by this enthusiasm, I started one for our family. While much of the geneological data of our extended family has been collected (only my paternal grandfather's father's family is completely untraced, but mind you, that's 1/8 of my material), thanks to several avid, amateur sleuths, many of the more entertaining and interesting stories are not recorded. You know, the "dash" between a person's birth and death dates. My family blog hasn't quite taken off, but I think it will eventually.

So, I'm looking into ways to help. I stumbled across one this morning: an article in the NYTimes about how to interview your parents. In addition to general hints such as model the kind of reaction you want (i.e. be philosophical to get philosophizing), the article points to a book by Henry Alford entitled How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People, which records the advice of several famous individuals.

I had already come across Old Friend from Far Away, by Natalie Goldberg, who talks about memoir-writing from the "side" instead of in a linear progression. Her book has several writing exercises to elicit memories, including ten minutes each of fill-in-the-blank "I am looking at . . . ", "I am thinking of . . . ", and "I remember . . . . " Another was write for ten minutes on mashed potatoes. Mama and I had a good giggle over that in the bookstore as we were considering purchasing the book, but also at least ten minutes of discussing our memories and recipes for mashed potatoes, such as my mom was probably the only person not to serve mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving (who needed it when there was dressing?) But when she did make them, my favorite variation had cheese! Mmmm, wish I had some potatoes in the house . . . .