Wednesday, and one big story for you today. Three people sitting in a room with over 200 years of life between them tell stories never heard before.

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A few years ago, my sisters purchased a storytelling product for our parents called Storyworth.  Each week a person receives an email with a prompt or question to answer; they answer and send it back, and at the end of a year, the stories are put together and bound up in a physical book. It was interesting to see how my parents worked through the prompts; one completed the questions as soon as they came in, and the other delayed the responses until they could delay no more. Both reactions were understandable - if you spent the second half of your professional life answering emails and writing reports, the last thing you want to do once you retire is written more emails!

As a recipient of the books, I have opened them twice in I don’t know how long and read almost nothing in them. Earlier this week, I wrote about a Living Eulogy, and in that vein, I tried something new today. My dad had a procedure to insert a pacemaker to help regulate his heart rate, and I’m in town to help out during the week while he recovers from surgery. We have coffee and chat every morning before I head into a makeshift office in the basement to get through the day’s work.

Armed with both books of stories from my parents, I made them pick numbers between 1 and 150 representing pages in the books, and then I read the pages out loud to them and asked for additional details. Mom picked 79, a story about buying the grandkids matching PJs every Christmas. Cute story, but one I’ve lived through; dad, on the other, went low, 23, and the stories were brand new to me.

My dad was born in the 40s and was eligible for the draft in the 60s; he signed up for the reserves in 1966, where he served for six years. He went through basic training, was selected to specialize in the military police, and was fortunate enough never to have been called up into active duty or deployed. This was during the height of the Vietnam War, and in both the write-up and the discussion that followed, I learned about people my dad knew and grew up with that were deployed and some who made the ultimate sacrifice.

If you are a fierce independent Gen-Xer with Boomer parents, it’s possible any conversation that doesn’t revolve around; the weather, kids, or professional sports teams can get generationally bad - fast. Reading a story about a time that shaped our generations was very fulfilling, especially one I have not heard before. I am already looking forward to tomorrow’s report.

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With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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