After the turkey, join the Great Thanksgiving Listen

This Thanksgiving weekend, between the turkey, football, board games and shopping trips, make some time for meaningful conversation.

StoryCorps, a nonprofit group whose mission is to record and preserve the stories of Americans from various backgrounds, is calling on people to interview a grandparent or other elder in an effort to broaden our oral history.

It’s called the Great Thanksgiving Listen.

StoryCorps should be familiar to listeners of National Public Radio, which plays the group’s recordings on Fridays. Or maybe you’ve seen StoryCorps founder Dave Isay’s Ted Talk from earlier this year, in which he talked about the power of storytelling and his vision to archive the collective wisdom of humanity. (If you haven’t watched it, you should. Just be sure to have tissues handy.)

Now the group wants students and others to record conversations with older relatives. And what better time than Thanksgiving, when we gather together to feast and – if we can avoid political arguments – share family stories?

Years ago, shortly before my father’s 75th birthday, I sat down with my parents to record some of the stories I’d heard in bits and pieces all my life. I was planning to make a scrapbook of Dad’s life, so we sifted through stacks of photos while he described his childhood in Cuba, his journey to the United States, his years in the Army and the night he met my mother in Germany.

The stories were funny and poignant, familiar and surprising. Dad talked about the time he stole mangoes from a neighbor’s tree in Havana and cut his leg on barbed wire during the escape. He recalled his years as an Army drill sergeant, toughening up young recruits. He talked about his two tours in Vietnam.

I remember being thankful I had taken the time to ask questions and get the full story. The scrapbook was more complete and my understanding of my personal history much deeper.

This Thanksgiving, you can do the same. All you need to participate is a smartphone and the free StoryCorps mobile app, which allows you to send recorded stories to the Library of Congress.

The app, like the StoryCorps website, suggests a range of open-ended, conversation-starting questions designed to elicit revealing answers. Some examples:

▪ Who has been the most important person in your life? Tell me about him or her.

▪ What are you proudest of?

▪ When in life have you felt most alone?

▪ If you could hold on to one memory from your life forever, what would it be?

▪ Do you have any regrets?

▪ What does your future hold?

▪ How has your life been different than what you’d imagined?

And my personal favorite:

▪ If this was to be our very last conversation, is there anything you’d want to say to me?

On Thanksgiving, too many of us launch headlong into the frantic holiday season and forget to just relax and spend time with those we love. This year, take a little extra time to record some of those conversations.

Grab your phone. Pour a glass of wine. Press a button and ask some questions. You might be surprised at what you hear.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 5:16 PM with the headline "After the turkey, join the Great Thanksgiving Listen."