degree in a box.

Every syllabus, assignment (save the one left to turn in), draft, rejection letter, release form, ounce of suffering and individual sin (the latter two chronicled in the journal inside) that it took to get a Masters degree, all in one tidy box. Call me vain and self-important, but someday when I donate my papers to a library they are going to really appreciate all this organization.

What makes me vain and self-important is half wishing there would be a fight for my papers, like when Stanford got all pissed that Wallace Stegner left his papers to Utah. I know, I know, dream big...

attack of the listicle.

I am posting because that random Ahmadinejad bit is kind of lame to leave at the top of my blog for days at a time. I haven't been posting because I've been:

1. Conquering Word in the Great Thesis Reformat of 2009. It was just complicated enough for me to put it off for a month, and easy enough to finish in about an hour. But it's been submitted and I can now focus on the other stuff I need to write before the semester's up (focus here means "passively pick at." give me a week and it will mean "intensely author").

2. Riding my bike in 75 degree weather.

3. Eating popsicles to recover from said rides.

4. Trying to figure out how to live without a microwave. I'm already tired of sandwiches, chicken nuggets and cooking on the stove. Current solutions to this problem (which comes with the added hitch of moving in 2 weeks and not wanting to buy anything) include going to the store to buy some crackers and Hostess cupcakes or consuming only things I've got that don't require cooking. I am pretty sure I have enough calories in my liquor box to sustain me for two weeks.

5. Packing. Yep, I've starting packing. So what if it's non-essentials like coats and church clothes (what church?) and sweaters (god help me if it snows again) (first parenthetical comment negates possibility of the second?).

6. Watching good movies. Serpico last night, Doubt tonight. Tomorrow I'm watching Step Brothers because everything I've been watching is way too dark, emotional, and high quality. Total Netflix binge.

7. Feeling jealous of Big Brother's new Madsen. Don't tell ODT (though really, I don't have a kid, let alone many kids, to necessitate an entire bucket bike). Don't forget to make a donation while you're at his page. I've upped my donation-- up yours.

I've done other stuff too, but I just realized that it's finally not Earth Day anymore so I can drive my car to the store. You didn't really expect me to live on tonic water, Maker's Mark and tins of tuna, did you?

100% funk.

Yah, yah, yah, the Mac is here, with its freakishly large screen and ridonkulously fast processing. See? I can do this now:


It's been a little overwhelming because I am pretty demanding of my machine and have little patience for learning the ins and outs of a new operating systems. One of the hitches has been the file transfer since I happen to have a Windows formatted external hard drive (that was a fun 40 minutes on the phone, Apple support!). I'm taking care of it tomorrow since moving my computer over GIG by GIG on a flash drive turned me into a homicidal little monkey. Anyways, the unexpected outcome of all this was that I wound up with only the early part of the alphabet on my iTunes, putting the album "100% Funk" right at the top of my playlist.

I don't know how I overlooked The Gap Band, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the most badass songs I've ever heard. It might just be that I'm fried from churning out twenty pages and a hefty edit as of late, that my mind goes crazy when I come in contact with anything not related to parents rights, the gay agenda, or, god forbid, having to wait until you are SIXTEEN to get married (really Gayle? REALLY?!)-- but really, methinks that this song is just awesometown no matter what one's immersed in. The Mac is bumpin' and really, who doesn't want to start looking for a new lover AS SOON AS THEY GET UP?!

The Gap Band - Early In The Morning @ Yahoo! Video

so you can put it in your pocket if you need to.

This is still funny to me. Sadly, what happens around 4:03 is what I've been doing to my thesis for the past three days... five days... I don't know...

so depressingly true to life.

oh snap.

Dang. Today was one of those interview experiences that really transformed what it means to me to be an oral historian. I spent two hours with her in a drafty library basement and came away with an interview released only to me, rather than the library for public use, and the release was further edited to limit the interview's use to the topic for which I contacted her. That's fine, I go with what works for the narrator.

But it's funny, in the midst of all that I have to do, two hours is a lot of time to come away with only ten minutes of actual usable material. What do I make of that, a second instance in which few of my questions were answered? I concluded that really the whole of the two hours, regardless of content, was so much more than just doing oral history research-- it was sharing in this profound, intangible human experience that I don't even think I can start to describe. I love that my research puts me in touch with people that I would never otherwise meet.

Today I think I finally realized how sublime it is to just listen, and how much people appreciate the small gesture of someone listening to them with an open mind. I can't even tell you what it is like to be in a completely quiet room just listening to someone interpret their life. I came away from the interview with a higher respect for the opportunity I have. I don't know that the end result of preserving people's contributions to history is number one for me anymore; I think there is something to be said for giving people the opportunity for telling their stories and embracing the value of those stories to that person. I think the process is more important than the product. I think history is less about understanding the world and more about understanding each other. I think regardless of what happens with my applications and my life long term, I can really appreciate the education I'm getting in the moment and what it does for how I think about what it means to be human and to be alive.

the oral historian confronts her own naivete.

Oral history is fickle. I should know this-- I spend enough time transcribing them to know that as far as creating a useful historical record, it's pretty hit or miss. But I hadn't really realized this applied to me until yesterday. Typically I roll into an interview, introduce myself and my project, lay out what we'll be doing, and then I ask whatever questions I want for as long as I can keep coming up with them. And then I leave. I generally expect that the hardest part will be setting up the interview, and as a payout for my troubles, I get whatever information I can tease out of the narrator in the space of an hour. It's really straight forward. I love coming up with a list of questions specifically for the person I'm interviewing. I love collaborating with people to create something that's completely about them. I love getting to meander through people's life stories. There are really few things I love more than sitting down for an interview.

So yesterday I went out to Ogden to interview Mrs. Jackpot. Due to some new medication, I was really nauseated, but I determined to soldier through. I had prepared a list of questions that was phenomenally complete, a list of questions that might just yield my most informative interview ever. I wasn't excited because I felt like shit, but I was expectant as I made my way up I-15. I met Mrs. Jackpot on her porch, where we would be conducting the interview. Before I could really explain why I was even there-- an exercise that I think really helps give the interview the direction I want it to take-- she, clad in a black housecoat and sunglasses, reclined in her lawn chair and began telling stories. And she did so for two hours. She told stories of being a young woman in New Jersey during World War II, of living abroad during her husband's Air Force Service, her shock at finding America morally depraved upon her return. She talked and talked and talked.

And I couldn't get what I wanted. I am terrified to listen to the recording, of having to hear myself, as I sat in that ancient pink metal lawn chair, asking seemingly random questions to try to pull the interview towards my topic. She couldn't remember dates. She couldn't remember names. She stopped answering my questions and started soapboxing. I was crushed, and did my best to seem engaged and to appear like I was paying attention. I have never been as relieved as I was when she suggested we have a soda, and I turned off the recorder. We went in her house and while I drank a Sprite, she told me about Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict and Mother Teresa. I'm sure I glazed over; I wanted so badly to leave and there just didn't seem to be an opportunity for an exit. After an hour it was like she snapped out of her line of thought, reentered the conversation with a previously absent tone of clarity-- as if she had just noticed I was still there-- and said, "Well I suppose you'd like to go now." I thanked her and left, trying to be gracious but probably appearing as tired as I felt.

I'm still recovering from the interview. I am not upset with her-- it is clear to me that the window of opportunity for a more typical interview with her is closed, just as I remembered it closing with my great-grandmother after tea several years ago. But the disappointment really caught me off guard. I like to argue that oral history is an optimal mode for getting information, that it offers people the opportunity to interpret their own life experiences and in that way, to have some say in what is written about them as historical figures. I get really idealistic about it because I really believe in it.

So it shook me, when I questioned the usefulness of oral history. If all she could provide were a bevy of stories that would be impossible to fact check, had I really helped her create something of benefit to other people, let alone myself? Instead of history, had I really just been doing community service, sitting with an old lady for an afternoon while she spun yarns that I struggled to make sense of? Certainly that is valuable-- I don't mean to denigrate community service or the aged-- but when it's too late, or when the process stops being collaborative, or when the narrative gives way to rambling, I just don't know. I don't know that it was worth the effort yesterday. I don't know if it is ethical to use an interview with a woman who is at the beginning of the great scrambling of memories that comes with getting older. I don't know that my project is any clearer-- I am completely clueless as to what the next step is. I don't know that I can really rely on people for the information that I can't seem to find anywhere-- is it possible that a history for this organization doesn't exist, can't exist? I just don't know.

i feel so legit now.

I am back from my conference AND I have a new phone that is fully operational (and according to my Dad-- much better sound quality)! Things went well... I am feeling better about the paper I submitted and fortunately have until the end of the year to get the rest of my interviews and to clean up my draft. Fortunately the ideas were on as far as what they wanted, so once I start filling in the gaps in my research I should be good to go. Clearly everyone who told me not to sell myself short was right. Go team!

It was good to meet so many historians, archivists and folklorists who share my interest in oral history! I learned a lot and feel like I am definitely on the right track career-wise. As I had been having some doubts and considered chickening out on the PhD front, that was really affirming and I actually feel excited to apply for programs. It was nice to see the kinds of possibilities outside of the typical teaching track and to hear about so many interesting projects. It was kind of daunting to be the young buck in the room but people seemed impressed that I was so interested in the field at such an early point in my graduate work and were really supportive. Despite some quirks (no coffee! killer!), our hosts at BYU were gracious and took good care of us. I mean seriously, all those tasty free meals and a really deluxe, gigantic hotel room with an exceptionally soft comfy mattress? Thank you LDS tithepayers!


It was really cool to get to exchange ideas with so many experts and to get to brag about all the projects going on where I work. After hearing about problems at other universities, I feel happier with my own department and to have so many opportunities where I work (including getting a little private contracting job to transcribe for the University TV station!). So things are good, very good, on the oral history front... now it's back to research and trying to pony up some interviews and some cash so I can go to the Oral History Association conference in October!

Also... this magazine was in my hotel room. If you ever wanted proof that Provo is another planet, this is it:I love how they are still calling Romney a would-be first lady in their August issue... proof that Utah county is still not on board with McCain! :P

a picture says a thousand words.

st. louis research adventure, part I

Greetings from the "Gateway City"! (I had to look that up). What is it the Gateway to? Well I'm about to tell you. Getting to the airport was the easiest ever, thanks to the recently opened TRAX extension to the Central Station transit hub. I got to visit with an old friend I ran into at the airport and the flight was amazingly easy. Architecturally, I think Lambert International Airport is probably the most anticlimactic airport ever-- I really hardly even noticed I was there, and really, could've been anywhere-- it was the most anonymous place. Anyways, I got right into a cab and gave the cabbie one of my ovaries to pay the fare. My hotel sits exactly parallel to some freeway on an intersection that includes a large Shell station, a Hardee's and a shop called "Dirt Cheap Cigarettes." Lots of options for dinner, eh?

So first I try the Hardee's. There are dudes merrily leering at me from their cars in the drivethrough, so it appears open. Door one, locked. Door two, locked. After watching me struggle and quizzically looking at the hours and the people working inside, the Hardee's employee on her smoke break decided to inform me that "the inside is closed." WHY DON'T YOU PUT A SIGN UP, ASSHOLES?! Excuse me. That's not what I said to her. The absurdity of the situation elicited nothing a baffled look on my face because there are just NO WORDS to describe how absurd the situation was and this girl did not see it and I didn't want to explain it to her because the natural manner in which she told me the inside was closed suggested that it was somehow a normative occurance.

Next I decide that maybe I will be blessed by supporting a local business, and appearing as a git'n'split of sorts, I decided to give Dirt Cheap Cigarettes a shot. So I go in and I CAN'T FIND THE FOOD but let me tell you, I can find the the tobacco because this really is a fucking smoke shop! I did find something to eat in their nearly hidden food section-- and they had no tabloids, Mom, honestly-- or booze, sheesh-- but man, the intoxicating smell of the place made me consider taking up the habit! Then I realized that I probably had a contact high or something because the place was full of every kind of tobacco product ever made, and decided against it. So St. Louis-- the Gateway to Smoking! Ok that didn't come out how I thought it did, but it was all very dramatic at the time.

I emerged into the humid night thinking I might check out my options at the Shell station, but instantly wilted in the humidity. My hair was suddenly limp, my skin seemed suddenly greasy, and I had just lost my entire will to live. I returned to my hotel room to eat my tuna "lunch-to-go" and all the White Cheddar Cheez-Its I could handle, wondering tomorrow's trip to the archive might yield.

jackpot, part two.

File this one under "why I love being a historian":

So I made contact with Mrs. Jackpot this afternoon. When I told her what I was doing my project on, she said in this really endearing, Queens sounding accent: "Why, I didn't know people did their studies on things like that." It was like all at once, she realized her own historicity, that what she had done really mattered to somebody. Her tone changed and she noted that she held her leadership position for twenty-three years, that my girl Phyllis spent the night at her house when she was in town, and that she even knew William Buckley and his brother and she would be so happy to tell me her story. It was like it suddenly occurred to her that she was part of the big picture.

It was the most beautiful little moment. It's so much fun to be in this position to bring to light the efforts of people that would have otherwise been forgotten-- in a way, to be their advocate with the future. Maybe that sounds like a really inflated, hyperbolic kind of a statement, but it's really awesome to feel like what I do has some long term, lasting value.

We should be interviewing by the end of the month! I am so excited.

draft-tastic.

I am sooooo happy! I forgot how good it feels to finish a paper, even if it is perhaps the most epic piece of cow chips ever written on the topic (such is the magic of writing the only thing ever written on the topic-- it doesn't matter that much). Now I can get back to the research process at a slightly less intense pace and return to doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing-- like going to work-- and all the things I'm good at-- like laying in the grass. And of course, writing terrible haikus:

My paper is done
I say "That wasn't so bad"
I am full of shit

jackpot.

Sheesh. This whole paper thing is turning out to be a little intense (or maybe it's just me?). It's like a bad stage of the Tour, up and down, up and down. I called a contact that I got from the lady I interviewed yesterday and the woman was ever so eager-- we are scheduled for tomorrow. I went to the library and what they had told me they have-- a folder of newspaper clippings on my topic-- they don't have. Which means it will take a lot longer, which is not that great as my extension is only until Monday. This did not sit well. I did find out that there are three other people making late submittals though, which made me feel a bit better, even if I know I will feel totally tense until I finish it. I talked to a lady today and we are tentatively scheduled to interview for next week, so hopefully I will have four to work with, which isn't too bad. I mailed out my first transcript. I have a phone call scheduled with a cool young professor doing work similar to mine, which I am kind of excited about because I like what she does and how she does it. But seriously, all day it was like I would get a break and then get shit on and then get another break. More breaks than shit, but it sure didn't feel that way.

But this is the crazy part. I have googled this one lady umpteen times. Nobody in the organization really knows her or knew her that well-- she was pretty much before everybody's time. She has virtually zero internet presence-- probably about as much as most people of a certain age have. I did some obituary searches because I thought she might be dead. Talking to her would certainly mean filling in a big gap-- like most of the eighties-- because I have nowhere to start with now that the newspaper thing is going to require more digging. So I google her again and bam! Where there was once one link for her name, there are now two. Somebody in her family posted a word document that was a little autobiography she had written. So I sent an email to the law firm linked on this really, really, barebones site-- all it was was a list of five links. Time passes. I try to temper my grumpyness with some time on the grass at the park (it helped big time-- and am I so lucky to be able to do this? yes). And what happens? Her son emails me back, subject title: "Jackpot". Apparently this lady is alive and kicking and he just knows she would be willing to talk. "Her memory for details frightens me on a daily basis," he wrote. It's like an oral historian's dream. I've got a phone call scheduled with him tomorrow. I almost cried tears of joy.

Sometimes all this digging and trying to make sense of it is really, really hard and I don't think I can keep on with it for six or seven more years because I take it all too personally (it occurred to me today that my advisor won't have to break my spirit because my topic already has), and then I have these Indiana Jones moments where I finally find the holy grail. Good times.

meet me in st. louis.

Well folks, it smells like my research trip to St. Louis is on. Aside from visiting the Arch, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and going to the Cards game (for the bratzel of course), I'll be checking out some restricted materials related to my girl Phyllis. Hearts of gold, those Eagle Forum ladies.

doubt.

I am starting to think that I am not meant for the solitary pursuit that is summer research. Plagued by disinterest-- not in the topic, but in the act-- I watch the looming deadline draw closer without any desire to make the necessary phone call that comprises the vital next step. It's making me wonder if I'm really on the right path, if I really want fifty more summers of digging through boxes or lying awake at night thinking about the infinite series of next steps. I can't believe I'm writing this-- last summer's me would yell at me with a completely unhinged ferocity-- but I miss the days of leaving work at work. I like where I'm at with my current job, making my own hours and mindlessly listening, but it's obviously not a pattern that can be sustained over half a century. Not that I'm sure my flagging interest in research can be, either. As professors say "Do a PhD, it'll be fun!" and my peers start to ask where I'm thinking about going in 2009 while at the same time, my stack of notecards recieves no more attention than a dismissive stare-- I have to say I'm just not sure about this. I don't like grad school without classes and I loathe more and more the sense that I have so little control over my future.

Sorry to be so dark.

it's hip, it's fresh, it's noah's arcade.

I never really believed that any church could come as close to the Buddy Jesus scheme from that movie Dogma (it's the only part I remember from that movie; it really, really stuck) that I can hardly believe that this ad from the Catholic Church is true. I mean sure, it's theologically sound... kinda... but just not something one expects to see. It's an advertisement for Catholic World Youth day... see link here.


Also, the mega-interview went well. Too bad I'm too tired to write about it.

we had that couch for twenty years. shoulda left the plastic on it.

I am in a "fuck this shit" kind of mood. I think I will drop out of school and become a wino. As of tomorrow you will be able to find me in Pioneer Park. :P j/k it hasn't come to that but it feels like it has. But it hasn't.

Powerful conservative lady is playing hard to get. Our interview on Thursday is now dependent ON THE WEATHER on Wednesday. Pray for sun on Wednesday people. Seriously I hardly pray anymore but I'm going to.****

The people at financial aid are UNHELPFUL DOUCHEBAGS. Pray for their souls because I damned them all to hell on the bike ride home. No, I am not praying for them. I am focusing all of my prayer on Wednesday's weather.

My research isn't yielding shit. I swear someday when I'm on my third book and tenured I will be wondering why I was so fussy, but for goodness sakes I am starting to feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

Kudos to two people who made this day suck much, much less:
1. Friend who texted me for an impromptu lunch-- you are awesome and I glad we got to hang before things hit the fan.

2. Nice, nice girl at the RivalSchool's Special Collections who went out of her way to help me out and was so, so friendly. I should be passing the Zion Curtain for research on Wednesday and perhaps a couple other days later in the week and would be happy to meet anyone in the God-forsaken city of Provo for a delectable milkshake at Sammy's. For those not in P-town, I would gladly meet you for drinks, food etc. in the People's Republic of Salt Lake because no doubt I will have to assuage my guilt over my research induced, rapidly enlarging carbon footprint.

Excuse me while I go drink the rest of the bottle I've opened* and watch Amadeus because all my Netflix movies are in the mail and I heard Cynthia Nixon is in it (she said so on this reeeally funny British show I was watching). I own it (both the bottle, contents of said bottle-- I am not a thief!-- and the movie, duh).

Also, I am feeling better now that I bought The Darjeeling Limited soundtrack off of iTunes. I will burn copies for anybody that wants one because it is magical, particularly the Kinks selections, but also the other ones are relaxing and chill, in the true fashion expected of a Wes Anderson soundtrack. Speaking of Wes Anderson-- I emailed this link to Big Brother already because he deserves to be first because he went as Richie for Halloween-- Royal Tenenbaums inspired art** and I think that's just awesome. I want one and I want to buy my brother one because he is awesome too.



*Columbia Winery 2006 Cellarmaster's Riesling... Soooo tasty... "offers fragrant honey, pear and apricot aromas that lead to delectable fruit flavors and crisp acidity" and offer relief from a case of the Mondays. I don't usually drink the whole bottle at once but this is sooooo nice. Also, I love to go to the wine store and buy Washington wines and flash my Washington driver's license. State pride you know? Is that cheesy?

**Click "shop" then "figures".

****and that has nothing to do with God, ok? He and I are down, and so are me and Jesus. Jesus is my homeboy. I've just never really been much of a pray-er. Some how this all reminds me of Snoop Dog and folks, I love Snoop Dog too.***** Not as much as God tho.

*****"Snoop Doggy Dogg, get yourself a jobby job."

That has resonated with me for years.

more feminism, more thesis. yes, that's all there is for me right now.

Per the usual, I have about eight different things on my mind at once and feel like I'm kind of drowning in all the feelings that have piled up over the course of the day. The highlight of my day was meeting with the woman who now completes my advisory committee-- finally the form that's been on my desk since January can be submitted and this whole thesis operation can assume legitimacy. But she is hardly just a name on a form-- I got to experience the rare privilege of being in the presence of someone I connected with almost immediately. I love it when you find those people-- people who share your interests, people who just seem to get what you're doing and where you're coming from-- I was really impressed. Not only did she give me some great archival leads but she gave me some helpful perspective as to how I might approach my work.

I try to divorce myself from what I do as much as possible; I try not to impose my own feminism on the ladies I study and to strive for the futile objectivity that every post-modernist is supposed to pursue and I don't really think to feel anything about it or really to even form any opinions about the subject. My new committee woman pointed out the emotiveness of the whole ERA struggle and urged me to think about, as I work, how what I read effects me. So of course when I headed down to Special Collections at the library later in the day and noticed that I was slogging through a bunch of documents from NOW and court depositions and the like with my usual air of detachment, I caught myself and really started to look at what was in front of me-- which seemed so apparently irrelevant to what I was supposed to be pursuing. It was this huge moment of clarity-- it was like I finally got a sense of what it was like to be there, on the ground, and what a crushing disappointment the whole business of the ERA must've been for women who spent years fighting for it-- it hit me like thousands of little pinpricks as all their dashed hopes seemed laid out before me. Obviously, it wasn't all done in vain, but still it still made me sad. It made me want to work harder to understand the opposition. Anyways, interesting experience for my first day in the archives.

But the more uplifting part of my day-- the meeting I was in-- had another really awesome component, which is this: being in the presence of really powerful women just sends me into a feminist euphoria. I forget how much I need face time with those kind of examples! I pity my poor co-worker who had to listen to me babble incoherently about it afterwards, so for once I'll spare you, but trust me, it was awesome.

paddling up shit creek. or not.

So a couple of weeks ago I emailed the leader of a very powerful branch of a conservative womens activist group that I just happen to be doing my thesis on. According to my adviser, I was perhaps a bit audacious in asking her, in the first line, for access to her organization's records. I never heard back. I was starting to lose sleep over it. Finally on Tuesday I dug deep into the interwebs and found her phone number in a pdf on like, the fifth google search page. Of course, I was too scared to actually call that day, and decided to wait until Wednesday. Wednesday I finished Pedestals & Podiums and was of course in no condition to do history because of the author's emphatic epilogue about how so.many.Mormon.women. have gone inactive because of the Church's policies on women and attitudes towards feminism. I just felt so sad inside. So today, finally, I bit the bullet and made the phone call. I was still really scared, because naturally the last thing I want is a negative response, but sometimes something is better than nothing, right? I mean hello I have to sleep at night.

Anyways, the woman recognized me from my email and is like, oh sorry I didn't write back, but... (and the caps are all me filtering this as I'm listening)
WE DON'T HAVE ANY RECORDS.

What?!

Yep. It turns out I am doing an organizational history on an organization that allegedly doesn't hold onto stuff. It's not a huge deal-- THIS IS WHAT ORAL HISTORY IS FOR, PEOPLE*-- and the feminists held onto a lot of the materials my people put out-- but I have to admit my whole bike ride home from work, I kept muttering to myself in disbelief-- "No records! No records!!!" in this really aghast tone-- argh! And of course I started conjuring up images in my head of these cackling old Relief Society grandmas wearing frumpy cotton dresses (the kind with doilies at the neck) and sensible shoes from Stein Mart dancing around the flames of a bonfire they conjured up somewhere outside of Provo to thwart my attempt at making them subject to the demands and interpretations and judgments of history. But now we know the truth-- these ladies are above history!-- I think as I watch hidden in the sagebrush. More cackling, followed by refreshments served after they thank Carol for doing the centerpieces...

Ok, that's taking it a bit far... they probably just didn't sense their own historocity. But still, tell me you wouldn't be caught up in that daydream if you were me! Anyways, this woman did consent to an interview, and was gracious, even if it was perhaps the longest eighty-three seconds of my life. I'm not really sure what to make of this whole "no records" thing (though now you know what I'd like to make of it) but fortunately I have enough of the requisite sense of adventure found in historians to feel kind of excited about this ultimate test of my archival sleuthy-ness and oral history prowess.



*talk about instant argument for my "why oral history is useful in the intermountain west" paper! Handed to me on a frigging platter!!!