Interview Narrative

The Interview Narrative was away to teach us to interview others to gather research information. It helped us to learn to come up with questions that are not going to give you a yes or no answer. You want an answer that will get the interviewee talking. It also helped us to learn more about our family memebers. When we were done with the interview, we transferred the information into a narrative.

Sophia Rosemann

September 17, 2012

A Trip Back in Time

It was about 8:00pm and my dad is watching a football game on a projector. He’s sitting on the green couch eating his football snacks and drinking his soda. I quietly sneak into the room. Everything was quiet except for the noise of the TV. I tip toed over to a seat and plopped down in it. “Dad” I say.

“Huh”

“Do you mind if I interview you?”
“Will it be quick?”

“Yup”

“Ok. . . fine.”

I started out by asking him what his favorite memory was when he was growing up.

“My favorite memory was going to my very first football game in 1977. My man took me. It was so exciting. I remember the San Diego Chargers were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. . . it was a very close game. If I remember this right, I believe that the Steeler won. 10-9. Whether we won or not, I still had a lot of fun.” At that point, I was surprised. I never thought that that would be one of his favorite memory. Then I wanted to follow up with that.

“What did you want to be when you grow up?

“You know. . . I really wanted to be a football player, but I never really seemed to get the size. Most of the time we never played video games. We. . .”

“I’m sorry to interupt, but who's “we”?”

“We? OH, I mean me and my friends. We used to spend 100% of our free time playing football at the park.”

“Is football all that you guys played?”

“Oh no no! Sometimes in the summer we’d play some baseball.”

“Now the house, wasn’t nearly as fun as football, but wasn’t so boring. My mom used to spoil me, and my dad used to get mad when she did. The only food that I remember having for dinner was mashed potatoes that my mom made. We usually sat at the table. You know, nothing too spectacular. Every weekend we’d go out to the drive-in theater. You know, since nobody really had a TV back then. We’d always watch a lot of movies at the theater.”

Then, out of curiosity, I asked “How have things changed from then and now?”

“It just got a lot faster.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

‘There’s a lot more of. . .well. . .everything. Everything is bigger. Everything is faster. Cars are faster, computers are faster. Roller coaster are bigger, and faster for that matter. Everything got bigger and better.’

Larry Rosemann, my loving dad, had a lot of unique adventures that I have never heard of before. He was just full of surprises. There was just so many unexpected turns. I learned what his dream job was, what he used to do on his free time, and even what he did on the weekend. Throughout the whole interview, I was captured in his words and stories. I just wanted the interview to keep going, but the questions ran out.