Dave:
        One of my first forrays into history was interviewing an 87 year old
farmer who grew hops like his father and grandfather before him.  It was a
big industry in mid to late 19th century eastern central New York and old
Stan Cody had lived it.  He was in his late 80s when I talked with him and
I learned so much more than anyone ever could have from books.  He relished
my asking how the hop barn was built, where he got the brimstone, how the
hired hands and migrant workers picked the crops and ran the kiln, how the
buyer graded the hops, how they pressed it into bales, and all the other
minutia that doesn't ever end up in history books.  As I look back at it
now, that is the stuff that doesn't necessarily end up in the
archaeological record either.
        His stories of how his father raised the foundations of barns, moved older
barns around, altered the house, and farmed the land have had immense
influence on how I interpret history.  He gave me a view into a world that
few today can experience.  There are certain biases in his telling me and
my interpretations of what he said, but I have insights that fellow
historians can never grasp - unless they have had an older informant
influence them in their youth.
        As  teen I also talked at length with the farmer who was born in the 1880s
and had lived next door all his life (it was his "ancestral home" that had
burned in 1925 while he was away on his honey moon and the hired hands were
able to remove everything from the house including sash, doors, and stuff
in the cellar and attic - a newspaper account backed up hs every word).  I
also listened intently to the 90 year old miller over the hill who ran his
massive grist mill until after WWII, afterwards maintained it for
electrical power to his farm, and then sent the machinery off to a museum.
I had played in the shell of the building as a kid.
        What was unfortunately mssing from these great experiences was the voices
of their wives, all equally experienced, but who sat to the side and smiled
and kept the kitchen stove stoked (this is not Appalachia - this is upstate
NY in the 1970s.)

Dan W.