Crabtree Falls

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The Aunt Marilyn Interview


In 2012 I sat down "Oprah style" and interviewed Marilyn Elaine (Espy) McClendon, my dad's sister and one of "the encouragers" who helped me build momentum in developing this blog.  The content and stories would be a lot less interesting without Aunt Marilyn, no doubt.  She had the seen the videos I had made after Uncle Watty had died and said she really liked them, and that he would have loved them. Of course, that made me happy. Then I started thinking about the Old Espy Home movie - and I mean the old stuff.  I got the idea from movie dvd special features that I could do a "Director's Commentary" with Aunt Marilyn, giving her a chance to explain the film as it went along. Two things happened, though:  The movie was in hi-speed and there's no way to keep up with it and talk though things coherently.  It would have been crazy!  And then Aunt Marilyn informed me that weekend at her house that her DVD player was not working. That's when we said, "Let's just set up the camcorder and do a casual Q&A." Uncle Don left for the farm to give us the space and Kade stayed with me to be the camera assistant!  The questions were unrehearsed (as you likely can tell), and at times we were getting a bit brain-dead.  Her coffee kept me going, however.  It was always good!  In all, there's close to 3 hours of footage. Starting in early April, I will edit it down to the essentials, and go from there.  Enjoy!

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