Logan's Website

Interviewing My Father

Categories: [Relations]
Tags: [Family], [Oral History], [Field Recording]

Charles C. Byrne.

For many reasons, I am glad to be back in touch with my parents. My father has led an interesting life so far, and it ain't over yet. At age 72, he is sharp as a razor. His faculty for recall is incredible to me. This is one of several interviews I have conducted with my father. I have over thirteen hours of recorded interviews with him. The intricacy and detail of his memory is astounding. He remembers full names, addresses, professions, and much more. Sixty-five years later in some cases. In many cases he has followed the life events of people who are not in his daily life for decades. It is a sign of a deep and abiding respect and admiration for other people. Compassion and understanding is his modus operandi.

I notice his acute attention to others, and especially those from other countries. He speaks six languages with varying degrees of fluency, English, French, Farsi, Afrikaans, Xhosi and Arabic. He makes meaningful connections with people from all parts of the world quickly. Expats and travelers especially take a keen interest in my father.

I have tried to adopt his consideration for others and diplomatic way in my own life, to limited success. Like me, his path was not straight-forward. There are many stops and starts in his story. Unlike me, he has been all over the world. He bounced around the world as a child and young man, collecting the experiences that would shape him into the great man he is today. Somehow he has remained grounded and compassionate through it all.

I had forty questions lined up for him, but I think I only got to seven of them. My father enjoys talking about his life experience, and it doesn't take much to spark a memory or anecdote from him. He goes off on tangents frequently, but he usually comes back to the main topic.

I had the idea to record his life-story, but how does one record a fractal with any fidelity? If you look closely, it just keeps going. The best I can do is a snapshot. I won't get everything, but it will give you an idea of who this man is.

I recorded him on October 9th, 2024 at their home in Richmond, California. The interview was approximately two-and-a-half hours long. For accuracy, I decided on a manual, three-pass transcription. It runs to over 12,000 words.

Part of a series of interviews I'm doing with him. I haven't interviewed him lately—we are up to 1975 in his story and I have 13 hours of audio so far. We have 51 years to get to.