Mightier Acorns

…and you can go see what I said, of course, and take a look at Kevin’s newsletter about family history and winemaking. But ever since, I’ve been thinking about an inflection point, where my interest went from being triggered to firing on all cylinders.

When I was a kid, my sister and I loved hearing stories from our grandfathers. Neither Grandma Nancy nor Grandma Bert could be considered “tellers of stories.” In their different ways, they had deep concerns about not spreading gossip, which made them reluctant to spin tales out of their childhood experiences. But Grandpa Bob and Grandpa Russ were both full of humorous tales of their youth.

I wrote about Grandpa Russ in A Fire in the Desert, but Grandpa Bob had a drastically different style. Where Russ liked to draw you in and adapt the story he was telling to teach you some moral lesson, Bob tended to get deep in the weeds and agonize over details. He loved to start with a story about WWII, then get into the mechanical differences between the aircraft he worked on, divert himself into a dissertation on railways, and then segue into a tale of the old West that just might have been the plot of the Louis L’Amour book on his reading table that day.

My dad used to wind Grandpa up with a spot-on impression of “Bob telling a story” that was part Bob Newhart, part Mister Magoo, and 100% dead accurate. And Grandpa would laugh himself silly, then start in on another wildly digressive story.

Bob and Nancy, and my aunt Vickie – even my dad, briefly – were all public school teachers, which meant they were all accustomed to commanding the attention of a room. Over the years, I realized that of the four of them, Bob was the one who would give up first and let the others have the floor. So when I would find him by himself and start asking questions, he would light up and tell me anything I wanted to know. Assuming he knew it.

I wish I could go back in time and ask better questions. And maybe take notes or record the answers. Sadly, I was not one of those 12-year-old kids who took a lot of notes, so I don’t recall most of the stories. But I do remember that feeling of curiosity that drives me today bubbling up as he talked about the far-off and exotic lands of his youth – Ohio and Florida – and his travels across the country with grandma.

I also remember that sometimes, I would reach his limits. I would ask about someone he only recalled vaguely, or I would ask for details that a normal person wouldn’t be expected to know about their most distant cousins. When that happened, he would usually shrug and point toward the room that housed that ever-growing collection of boxes and memorabilia and say, “The Callin Family History is in there somewhere!”

And then he would make a face like this one, as if to say, “Your guess is as good as mine, kid!”

At some point, of course, I started to learn enough that I became the one telling the stories. I got to share a few with Grandpa before he died in 2007. I wish he was still around so I could share a few more.

The point is, I never really outgrew asking questions. That’s all research is – you start with what you know and follow the threads at the edges. When you’ve gathered enough of them together, you might be able to weave them into a story that makes sense.

And then you hope like heck there is a curious mind around to share them with.