Reengaging the Past

In this oral history told by James L. Atkinson, various stories were recorded about his childhood, his school days, his jobs, and his current existence and his hopes for the future of Optimist Park. In his stories about his childhood he talks about growing up elsewhere before moving to Optimist Park and school during the desegregation times. His experiences at Garinger High School and his enlistment in the service. Mr. Atkinson’s experiences are similar in the basics underlying each, but the details and the personalized lessons he has taken from them are what make his story unique. Oral histories like Mr. Atkinson’s are important to collect and document because they give depth to the changes that occur on a daily basis, unnoticed by most. These histories put a name and a face to the ideals of an era, and they allow people to connect and relate on a deeper basis through the personalized experiences that pick out individuals and their stories from the masses that would otherwise be lost to the stream of time. The conduct and format of the oral history were simple and relatively informal. Mr. Atkinson was interviewed in a common area though was provided with casual privacy. The quality of the questions in the interview was not very high. The interviewer was very wooden with questions that did not reflect the new information gained from previous questions or answers. As I listened to the interview, I began thinking of questions that I wanted to ask, and wondered why some of them were not addressed by the interviewer. The stories that Mr. Atkinson had to tell were rich in detail for each question, but they always left me wondering about more and the interviewer did not respond to these new prompts and got bogged down in the pre-organized set of questions. Due to this, I think there is much more to learn from further inquiries into the stories Mr. Atkinson told of himself. Some things that sparked my interest are Garinger High School before and after as well as during the desegregation era, the influence that Habitat for Humanity had on the morale and worth of the neighborhood as a whole, and the architect or company that designed the houses.