SoundBlog post 1

I just hugged the man who murdered my son:

Mary Johnson's son was murdered in a gang fight by Oshea Israel when Oshea was 16. He was sent to prison until he was released at the age of 34. Mary met Oshea as he was released from prison. Now Mary and Oshea have a very good relationship. This story is about their relationship and their meeting at Stillwater Prison. This story is from storycorps, and so no questions were asked. If I had interviewed both Mary and Oshea, I would ask the following questions to get the information that would make the sound clip that is on the site:

Mary:

• How did you feel when you saw Oshea when he got out of prison?
• What happened to put you and Oshea in such a good relationship?
• Do you see Oshea as a member of your family?

Oshea:

• What happened when Mary met you at Stillwater Prison?
• Mary says she has forgiven you. How does this make you feel?
• Do you guys have conversations? Can you give me an example of one?

One thing that made this story so captivating is this bizarre concept that instead of having an eternal hatred for the man who murdered her son, Mary has a very good relationship with Oshea. It seems like every detail that helps to keep the story interesting is the details that explain how such a relationship was formed and details of the relationship itself. 

These details would be: the explanation of the story at stillwater, the hug that followed, that she treats Oshea as she would treat her son, the conversations that she and Oshea have, that she looks forward to seeing Oshea graduate and get married, just as any mother would with her own son; and finally, the most important detail (and my favorite part of the story), when Oshea says "I love you lady." and she replies with "I love you too son."

As a sidenote, I found it to be very difficult to find interesting stories that met the length requirements in StoryCorps, so I think next time I will look on another site.

There's a form we fill out and it's called 'On My Death.':

Father Mychal Judge was the first official victim of the World Trade Center incident on September 11th. On Mychal's "On My Death" form, he requested that Michael Duffy, a close friend of Mychal's, do the homily at his funeral. This story is Michael's description of various events following the incident (such as the funeral) as well as audio tape recordings of Michael speaking as the homilist. like the previous story, this one was from StoryCorps and so no questions were asked. If I were to ask 5 questions to get what was said in the interview (not the recordings), they would be:

• What is the 'On My Death' form?
• How did you feel when you learned that Mychal Judge wanted you to be the homolist? How did you react?
• What events lead to you becoming the homily?
• In the audio recordings of the funeral, you said that you felt "that the homolist at Mother Teresa's funeral had it easier" than you did. What made you feel that way?
• Many people were at Mychal Judge's funeral. Why was he so popular?

There were many things in this story that kept me interested. Most of them had to do with the tape recordings. It was in those recordings where you saw true emotion. The story starts off with an explanation of the 'On my Death' form, but right after, jumps to some comic relief as if to brace the viewer for the sadness that will follow. He says when he sees Mychal again, he is going to kill him, which is light humored joke that helps to prepare the viewer for sadness and the recording that follows talks about how the homolist form Mother Teresa had it easier than he did. One important detail that follows later is that he said he couldnt put on his glasses to read what he prepared, which means his speech came from the heart and was not pre-composed.

The next detail that I think is important is the story of Mychal Judge not wanting a thing in the world. That he was the happiest man alive. This gave off the impression to the viewers who didn't know him, that he lead a very happy life. Another important detail was when Michael talked about how Mychal Judge was liked by everyone for how kind he was. This tells the viewer that his death was one that many people took very seriously. Finally, the most important detail in my opinion is when Michael says that "We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love." That was the moment in which I cried for Mychal Judge and all the people that knew him.