In Repose Blog

Baba's Story Featured at the Elder Storytelling Place

My blogging idol is Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By. 

This wise and thoughtful woman has quite a following and is an important voice for elders everywhere. Her blog is described as "what it's really like to get older." She tackles current news and ageism issues and sometimes just offers interesting peeks into her life.

One terrific thing that Ronni has created within Time Goes By is the Elder Storytelling Place

Today's featured story is "The First Time I Ever Rode a Horse". Baba is thrilled and I think is finally starting to believe me that not only are her life stories important to me, and our future ancestors, but interesting for others to read as well.

When I read all the wonderful stories Ronni has collected, I hope the writers have them safely stored, (and able to be found!) for their own family's future generations. I will add the link to this story to Baba's Page.

Storytelling

It's all about the storytelling, I tell you. What is? EVERYTHING IS. Its the very meaning of life. Pick a subject, any subject, pick a passion any passion, there are either great stories about it or it is about telling stories in and of itself. Work, religion, archeology, movies, sports or philosophy, everything under the sun. Its all about the stories.

From Wikipedia, a definition of Storytelling:

The earliest forms of storytelling are thought to have been primarily oral combined with gestures and expressions. Rudimentary drawings such as can be seen in the artwork scratched onto the walls of caves may also have been early forms of storytelling. Ephemeral media such as sand, leaves, and the carved trunks of living trees have also been used to record stories in pictures or with writing. With the invention of writing and the use of stable, portable media stories were recorded, transcribed and shared over wide regions of the world. Stories have been carved, scratched, painted, printed, or inked onto wood or bamboo, ivory and other bones, pottery, clay tablets, stone, palm-leaf books, skins (parchment), bark cloth, paper, silk, canvas and other textiles, recorded on film and stored electronically in digital form. Complex forms of tattooing may also represent stories, with information about genealogy, affiliation and social status.

Traditionally, oral stories were passed from generation to generation, and survived solely by memory. With written media, this has become less important. Conversely, in modern times, storytelling is built upon a  foundation of sophisticated types of multimedia.

So what are YOU doing to record YOUR story? Your family's stories? Your first born child's first day in kindergarten? The day you and your dog got lost in the rain? How about Grandma's best war time story? Grandpa's outrageous deep sea fishing story?  How about how Uncle Mike made you laugh so hard at church you got into trouble?

InRepose has some ideas how to document, archive and safeguard these precious memories and other important items such as historical documents. Our Online Memorials  have a lot more to offer than you might expect. Stay tuned!