My dad and I did a trial run sort of pre-interview this evening for the Memorial Day show. It went really well. Skype and Audio Hijack worked perfectly. Which is no surprise but still, just wanted to make sure. The sound quality is so much better with Skype than with the telephone. Last time somebody called the station thinking my dad was there, because he sounded like he was right in the studio with me.
My dad had sent me detailed notes beforehand, basically a script. Tonight we talked about a few parts where we're going to elaborate & go into more depth. For instance tonight he told a great story which wasn't in the script, about meeting a homesick young GI who kept talking about his mother's home-baked cookies. And of course my dad didn't know what that meant because they don't use the word cookie in England. It was a sweet story that I definitely want to have on the show.
Also we made one minor structural change (moving one bit up to a place where it seemed to fit in better). We're going to do the interview on May 8, which coincidentally is V-E Day. It will be nice to talk about the spontaneous end-of-the-war celebrations on the anniversary of the day. And a nice parallel to Francesca's interview with her father, which they did on April 25 (Liberation Day in Italy).
I've listened to almost all the untranslated audio of Francesca's father and by stopping frequently and looking up words, I'm able to understand some of it. For instance they said Barcelona a lot, and at first I wondered why they were talking about Spain. Then I looked at a map and discovered that Barcellona is a town in Sicily. That must have been where he lived.
I found out from Francesca that I misunderstood part of her father's story. I thought he said that the fascists stole their farm animals and they had nothing but potatoes to eat. In fact he said that the fascists stole their farm animals and then forbade them from planting gardens, so there wouldn't be vegetables for the Nazis to steal. And so his family had no food at all. When I heard him say "patate" he was saying, "not even potatoes." I'm kind of at a loss for words. It's grim, but I think it's important to learn about what war is like for civilians. Especially now when our country is involved again in a protracted war on another continent.
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