I Love StoryCorps

A wonderful thing happened in my life this past weekend: our TV broke. Now, Drew didn’t think that was such a wonderful thing, and I’ll admit, I was bummed to miss my guilty pleasure, “The Bachelor,” on Monday night (though I caught it on Hulu the next evening), but being without a TV was one of the best things to happen to me in awhile. Working from home, I often turn the television on just to have some mindless background noise. This was especially true when I was writing for The Frisky and would find inspiration for posts in shows like “The View.” I am happy those days are behind me.

Anyway, our TV broke and so instead of tuning in to crappy shows for background entertainment/work diversions, I turned to a couple of long-lost loves: the radio and podcasts. This week, I got reacquainted with NPR, The Moth, and a relatively new favorite: StoryCorps podcasts. For those who are unfamiliar, StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit that records and shares stories from everyday people like you and me. On its website, it says: “The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary. By helping people to connect, and to talk about the questions that matter, the StoryCorps experience is powerful and sometimes even life-changing.”

The experience is indeed powerful, as the above video illustrates. The story of Annie and Danny, which is one of a handful of stories to be animated, has been floating around the web for a while, but it’s so powerful, it worth showing again, especially in this, the month of love. Warning: if you haven’t yet seen it, you may want to wait until you have some privacy and a box of Kleenex; this one’s a tearjerker.

Oh, and we did end up replacing our broken TV on Wednesday. I still haven’t turned it on.