Ask your grandparents for their stories while you still can. There’s a whole history book sitting at the dinner table.

An older relative is a primary source sitting a few feet away from you. They lived inside things that are now paragraphs in a textbook, and they know what the ordinary days of that time actually felt like, which no book records. The window is open now and it does not stay open, and most families lose the stories simply because nobody got around to asking.

Ask one specific question this month rather than a general one. What their first job paid, or how they met somebody. Record the answer on your phone.