Part one of a two-part series on the benefits of oral history projects.

In several conversations with residents of Baldwin County and elsewhere, I have found we all have at least one thing in common whether the person loves history or not.

Most have regrets we did not record the life stories of grandparents or relatives. In reflecting on the old Southern tradition of sitting on the front porch in the evenings and listening to parents or grandparents tell stories from their lives, we have all thought — often much too late — we should be writing this down or recording this wonderful story.

I unfortunately am the guiltiest of all. As a child and young adult, I would sit on the front porch of my grandparents' home and listen to my grandfather recount a litany of scary, funny, informative and entertaining stories from his childhood and later life. I never wrote the stories down, nor did I record them. And with his passing, the stories were gone — left only in my memory of a golden childhood.

As an adult, I have spent most of my life attempting to make up for that glaring deficiency by preserving the past on a professional level in the classroom and here in Baldwin County through the Department of Archives and History. I, among others, see the worth in understanding our past in order to better appreciate our present.

History is not just a liberal arts class. History is who we are, and our history dictates the path our futures take. The understanding of history allows us to move forward, capitalizing on our achievements and minimizing our mistakes.

And one means by which we can all take advantage of this opportunity is to listen to our elders more and record their words so we can use them to improve our present world.

In many ways, we have an obligation to record the people who have been the bearers of tradition in families and communities so those traditions are upheld and understood. There is nothing worse than to ask someone why an event is held only to hear, “This is the way we have always done it.”

It is much better to have an understanding of the tradition so it can be passed on to the next generation in its entirety. In addition, the foods, customs and skills of a past generation should be comprehended to better understand how they lived and how, through innovation, our lives have changed.

Oral history has become a more widely used tool of historians nationally in the past 30 years as a focus on social history has increased. The understanding of everyday people who are not famous has become the goal of historians who truly want to understand how societies function.

After all, the worker — the average person — makes up 90 percent of the populations of all societies. It is those people on which societies depend for their success. Recording the knowledge of these people is key to understanding the inner workings of society — the why and how society functions.

And we can all participate in recording past generations' knowledge for use in the present. Conducting oral history sessions can be done by anyone who is armed with the proper instructions.

Next week, we will look at those procedures and delve into the oral history process.