The first story I listened to was “He Was There in the Way He Could Be”: A Father Comes to Terms With His Own Dad, which was an interview of a man named Tom Badgett that was conducted by his daughter Jordan Perelle. Tom Badgett discusses in this audio his relationship with his distant father and the ways in which he came to a new found understanding of their relationship dynamic. When the audio begins we hear no sort of intro music but instead are first met with a comment made by Jordan regarding Tom’s father, to which Tom then shares a response and laughs. Jordan then starts with the question, “tell me about him”, in reference to Tom’s father Jim. She asks other open ended questions similar to this throughout the interview. These open ended questions allow Tom to really dive deep into the story of his father without borders. She asks one question during their dialogue that required him to think of a specific moment regarding his father. Tom’s response to this question was almost instant which leads me to believe that there was preparation done before the interview between the two parties. Since the questions were most likely discussed beforehand the interviewee had time to think about his answers. This sort of preparation seemed to make the conversation more fluid and allowed for less distracting pauses in between dialogue. Towards the end of the interview the questions asked by the interviewer get to be a little more intimate in regards to Tom and his fathers relationship. After Tom shared some heartfelt words discussing what his father had taught him about life, slow sentimental piano music begins to fade in. As he continues to discuss how his father showed up in his life as well as in other’s lives the music begins to grow louder. He ends the story with the quote “we are the sum of all of our parts”, and then the music reaches a certain level and then continues for the next twenty seconds or so. The way that the music acted as a soft fade out of the dialogue in the end seemed to me the best place to have put the music since the story got more emotional towards the end. I also think the amount of time they let the music play after the dialogue ended was intentionally meant to give the listeners this sort of time for thought after receiving the ending statement made by Tom.
The second story I watched was about a couple named Joan and Tom Peters titled “I Never Questioned our Decision.” Their story started with soft intro music and the narration of a woman who seemed to be unaffiliated with them. Her first comment was the statement that “sometimes people use story corps to share things they’ve never shared before”. This was then followed by Tom’s voice saying that they were going to discuss a secret they had and Joan jumping in with a reaffirming “yeah”. The narrator continues to give some background info on Joan and Peter’s relationship, which continues to be followed by reaffirming yet more personal statements from Joan and Peter. Joan and Peter continued to tell the story of their first pregnancy, their abortion, and their surprise baby throughout the audio. The narration stops after about a minute in and we are left with just Joan and Peter’s dialogue. Their story is presented less as a conversation and more of a joint effort to get their story across. This is done through reaffirming acoustic cues such as an “mhm” or a “yes” coming from either one of the spouses when the other is talking. They piggybacked off of each other’s comments much in contrast to the style of question answer seen in some of the other storycorps. There are no long pauses in between dialogue exchanges which just further showcases the closeness of the couple and how this story is truly theirs, and not just one or the others. Joan finishes with a statement directed at her daughter and her husband saying “You’re everything I wanted and she is too”. This statement is followed by soft yet upbeat piano which ties in well with the positive note she leaves the audience on.
A Community Audio Journal