Earlier this month, the San Francisco StoryBooth marked its one year anniversary with a small gathering at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. It was a chance for staff, former participants, and newcomers to come together to celebrate a great first year and look forward to the new one.

We listened to a variety of conversations that have taken place inside the StoryBooth: George DiVincenzi’s account of his first day as a guard at Alcatraz and Ken Hopper’s description of what it’s like to work at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge – just to name two. Spanning a wide spectrum of emotion, from fall-on-floor-hilarity to contemplative sadness, the conversations showcased the most basic pillar of StoryCorps’ mission: everybody matters.

Listen to the amazing excerpts from San Francisco interviews that were played at the event here.

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It was a great opportunity to hear how the participants themselves felt about their own stories, and for them to tell the stories that didn’t make it to the final tape. Most of all, it was a chance for people to come together and share a few memories and a few laughs with one another.

(Eloise Melzer and George DiVincenzi)

As you may know, our San Francisco StoryBooth will be open until November of next year.  Make your reservations now.

Here’s to an amazing 2010!

A guest post by Margaret Crandall, one of our amazing San Francisco StoryBooth volunteers. Good luck, Margaret, and thank you! Thursday afternoons just won’t be the same without you.

Margaret, center, in listening mode

From Margaret:

Last December I was laid off from my dot-com job. It was a blessing, really. A kick in the pants to do something more rewarding. I found that something in StoryCorps. I went to a wine-and-cheese StoryCorps event at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, and was so impressed by the project that at the end of the evening I cornered Sarah Geis and demanded to volunteer. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my new-found free time.

Luckily Sarah needed someone to meet and greet StoryCorps visitors on Thursday afternoons to explain the project, answer questions, and chat with people waiting to use the booth. Some people already knew about StoryCorps from NPR. Others had never heard of StoryCorps, and approached my end of the hall with looks of interest or confusion. Others gazed at the wall of photos next to me, snapshots of people from all walks of life who had recorded their stories in the StoryBooth (my favorite is the one of the guy with the little white dog), and asked me if StoryCorps was open to non-Jews. “Absolutely!” I told them. Others, often senior citizens, bashfully told me they didn’t have any stories to tell. I’d laugh and tell them that of course they did. Everyone has a story.

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Millions of people dream about what it would be like to fly into space, to see planet earth from thousands of miles away and touch down onto the desolate, rocky surface of the moon.

Diane Daniels is one of the few people who actually helped make this dream a reality.

Patricia Fodor and Diane Daniels

At the age of 22, when most people are wondering what to do with their lives, Diane was working for a relatively new company called IBM. One day she was offered a position as a telemetry specialist on the Apollo 11 launch. Along with 800 other young programmers Diane handled communications between ground control, the lunar landing module, and (as if her job wasn’t complicated enough) the shuttle crew itself. At any given time ground control had to keep track of 5 modules—all of which were orbiting in space hundreds of thousands of miles away. Yikes.

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Something looked unusual at the StoryBooth in the Contemporary Jewish Museum when the 4pm appointment arrived last Thursday. It may have been the boutonnieres and corsages. Mostly, it was the exuberance of the participants. Beaming with joy, Veronica and Tech Tran were capping their day of nuptials with a StoryCorps experience. Only a few hours before, the newlyweds had tied the knot in San Francisco’s City Hall Rotunda. Now they were celebrating the eventful day with a recording of their first hours of married life.

Congratulations and best wishes, Veronica and Tech!

We celebrate all kinds of things in this country; Birthdays, superbowls, mid-week happy hours and good grade-point averages. Many acknowledge and pay respect to a pivotal historical moment or sentiment, many are simply an exotic spice to dress up the bread and butter realities of everyday life. And then there are the moments when these two worlds collide; a celebration rooted in historical relevance that over time becomes…..well, whatever you want it to.

As I made my way through the sea of people to the StoryCorps booth at the gay pride celebration, I kept thinking ‘If I didn’t understand what this celebration is about, I would be mighty confused right about now’.

I didn’t realize until later that I, in fact, had no idea what the celebration is actually about.

A little backround: in 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar on Christopher Street in Manhattan. In response to this seemingly unprovoked attack, protestors rioted for several days after. This is widely considered to be the event that unified and accelerated the gay rights movement. But like so many other celebrations, it is easy to miss the historical implications of the day and focus simply on the excesses of the moment.

But in looking beyond the bright colors, far-out get ups and cheap beer lies a very real, tangible energy that has nurtured hope and provided community to so many. The gay pride celebration is no longer simply a commemoration of a single past event, it is a reminder to everyone that the future has more struggles in store on the road to equality. And it couldn’t have been a better place for StoryCorps to have been. If there were ever voices that need to be heard, they are the thousands upon thousands of people who were crammed into downtown San Francisco to celebrate the causes of justice, social equality and freedom of expression.

StoryCorps was lucky to have been a part of the gay pride festivities. Thanks to our partnership with the Contemporary Jewish Museum, we were able to reach out to a host of people in the LGBTQ community who would have never heard of StoryCorps otherwise. A big thank you goes out to all who came out in support of such a worthy cause.

StoryCorps is working to launch a new initiative, StoryCorps OutLoud (storycorps.org/outloud), in order to capture even more stories from the LGBTQ community. Be sure to make a reservation at our San Francisco StoryBooth and come tell your story!

When Walter Kahn, 86, and his daughter, Marlita, entered our San Francisco StoryBooth, I had no idea of the tale that was to come. After the recording was completed, I joked that I wanted him to sell me the movie rights to his story!

Walter told the story of being in school in Belgium as World War II broke out. As a young Jew of 17, he knew that he needed to escape the territory that the Nazis controlled. In the south of France, after twice escaping prison camps, Walter met up with his brother and the two planned to escape to Portugal and safety. After connecting with a guide who would smuggle them through the Pyrenees, the young men made the perilous journey. Staying in caves, farms, and assorted safe houses – including a bordello in Barcelona – they narrowly escaped capture many times. As it turned out, they were the first passengers on an “underground railway” that would later spirit out downed Allied pilots, partisans, and other refugees during the course of the war.

Walter painted a vivid picture of his numerous travails and close calls on his journey to safety and freedom. It was easy to visualize his story on the silver screen.

Marlita had heard stories of her father’s adventures all her life, and was thrilled to finally record the telling of his tale so that future generations would hear them as well.

Well, whew! A lot of exciting things have happened here at the San Francisco StoryBooth since last we’ve blogged. There was the Teacher Development Workshop that we co-hosted with the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Education Department, and an Oral-history Workshop for Teens, and then there was a Community Listening Event at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

And, perhaps most exciting of all, there have been some new additions to our San Francisco team. Let me introduce Facilitators Frank Kingman, Eloise Melzer, and Lena Richardson!

Frank comes to StoryCorps following an over thirty-year long career as a locomotive engineer and conductor for the Southern Pacific Railroad and Amtrak. Originally from San Jose, California, Frank studied history, philosophy, political theory, and sociology at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He lives with his wife, Rhonda, in a designated historic district of San Francisco known as Dogpatch.

Hailing from Wisconsin with a degree in Anthropology from Middlebury College, Eloise has always been fascinated by the stories people tell and what lessons we glean from them. Eloise recently completed the radio program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, an enriching experience that introduced her to many wonderful people and reinforced the power of storytelling in everyday life.

After earning a Masters Degree in Adult Education and Community Development in Toronto, Lena moved back to her native Brooklyn to spend a year working as a New York City-based StoryCorps Facilitator. Long-time readers of this blog might recognize her from midwest adventures such as this and this, not to mention serving as an accomplice to this wild and crazy act, here. Lena now lives in Berkeley, California, where she works as an acupressure practitioner and continues to study the healing arts. We are so thrilled to have her back!

We couldn’t be happier to welcome these folks to the StoryCorps family. Come by the booth and say hello some time!

I’ve always had a soft spot for quaint, little towns. Everybody knows one another, cars actually drive the speed limit and when you take a walk the sounds of nature aren’t obscured by leafblowers or jackhammers. As we pulled into Napa for our Door-to-Door recording at Adult Day Services (A.D.S.), I was overcome with a sense of tranquility I almost never experience in the busy streets of San Francisco. And it wasn’t just me. It seemed like every person I met at A.D.S. was as calm and friendly as could be.

And who wouldn’t be? The A.D.S. building was amazing- wooden ceilings that reached to the heavens, a beautiful garden, and a cafeteria that could house an entire army- not to mention the gym and designated movie-watching area. A place to make good friends, eat good food, and have a good time. The attitudes of the A.D.S regulars reflect their experience: they came up to the StoryCorps table talkative and curious, excited about the prospect of having their stories recorded.

(Sarah checking out the equipment)

“You mean to tell me I can talk about ANYTHING for 40 minutes?!”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“What if I wanted to talk about the hot chocolate they serve here in the cafeteria?!

“If that’s what you really want to talk about, then yes.”

“….because let me tell you, it’s AMAZING…”

Apparently the hot chocolate really was amazing, because nearly half of the participants either mentioned it or were on their way to get it. Unfortunately the full schedule of interviews didn’t allow much free time.

I’m not sure if it is the programs A.D.S. has set up or just the drinking water, but to have such genuinely happy and engaging people roaming in and out of your building all day is pretty special.

(Bob and Betsy Sweet)

Many thanks go out to The Adult Day Services Center for being such a gracious host, and to all the participants who made the trip more than worthwhile.

When I meet someone new and tell them what I do for work, there’s usually a moment in the conversation where they say something along the lines of, “That sounds cool, but what’s the point?”

I explain that there are a number of points–that StoryCorps provides the time and space for loved ones to sit down together and talk about their lives, that this often can be a transformative experience, that we’re creating an archive of American life in the 21st century, that we are collecting innovative content for public radio, that we are celebrating the lives and stories of everyday people.

Then, five times out of ten, the person will ask, “So, do people ever get into really big fights in the booth?”

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It is a very interesting experience listening to two people converse in a language you cannot understand. You must rely on hand gestures, facial expressions and vocal inflections to get the tone of the conversation. Laughter, of course, always helps. Usually when a StoryCorps interview takes place, a Facilitator will be jotting down notes from the conversation and asking pointed, insightful (hopefully) questions that allow the participants to really tap into long lost memories. The San Francisco StoryBooth’s Door-to-Door at the Mabini Day Health Center was different in that none of the Storytellers spoke any English.

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