I've interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of people in my journalism career, and my most memorable one was during StoryCorps' visit here in 2008.
I interviewed my dad.
I prepped for that interview like I was going to be talking to David Letterman, Bob Newhart, George Clooney or Dave Brubeck.
I wanted to make sure that all those stories from his childhood I loved to hear would be preserved forever on the CD we made that day – which I copied for my sons, my sisters and my brother – and archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. My dad was 92. He died four years later. But any time I want, I can hear his voice and those wonderful stories about growing up in Middletown, Ohio, in the 1920s.
Now it's your turn to have a "conversation of a lifetime" with someone special.
The silver StoryCorps mobile recording studio returns to Cincinnati for the first time in nine years from Thursday, April 20, through Friday, May 19. It will be parked at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
Starting at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 6, the StoryCorps toll-free phone line and reservation website opens to reserve studio time here. The number is 1-800-850-4406. Or you can make a reservation Thursday here online.
The mobile studio, inside a customized Airstream trailer, fits two people. A trained StoryCorps assistant will be there to give you advice and get you set up. To learn more about StoryCorps' visit, here's a link to Mark Heyne's "Cincinnati Edition" interview April 3 with Jordan Bullard, StoryCorps' mobile tour associate director.
I made a memory that I cherish for a lifetime. Now it's your turn.
