One Saturday night four of us were chatting , and I noticed just how often conversation included little stories . The little stories that we tell when we are with others have social benefits , of course . Interest perks up when the conversation includes some incident or yarn .

As well as social benefits , many stories have educational benefits . The big events of history preserve important knowledge ; but the ordinary people who live through a major event preserve a different kind of history , one that works through felt insights . If people want to know about the Great Depression , for example , they would need both kinds of history . Sadly , personal history does not often get the respect it deserves .

My father-in-law , Bill , was unable to get a job during the Depression so he and three other young men filled freighter canoes with supplies and headed north from Fort McMurray on the rivers toward Great Bear Lake , intending to sell supplies to prospectors and miners , and do some prospecting on their own . As we see today , gold is particularly valued in tough times .

It must be a good story , but Bill is dead , and I know only the bare bones of Bill ’ s story . Oral history all too often perishes with the teller .

Lori Lansens in Rush Home Road writes : “ She wanted to tell this man her tale too , for lately she ’ d been thinking if she didn ’ t tell someone , she would die and her story be lost on the worms and on the Lord , who already knew .”

There are good reasons to preserve memories , and telling your story is certainly a way of doing just that . Some memories are essential to

ALBERTA RETIRED TEACHERS ’ ASSOCIATION News & Views Volume 19 21 , No . 32