What's your story?

Odetta Johnson was one of my guests on "What's Your Story?" She told me afterwards that she hadn't meant to tell some of the stories she told me. (Don Dale 2011 photo)

What you have to do is listen.

A journalism professor in college told me that.

Listen.

Don't go into an interview with a list of prepared questions. Go in with your ears tuned to what your subject is saying. Know where you'd like to go, but let the answers lead to your next question.

"Sometimes you'll wind up learning things you never even suspected you'd learn," he told us. "You can't do that if you work from a checklist."

During a lifetime in journalism and writing, I interviewed hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of people. But until now, I've never done long-form interviews. Now I am, and my old college professor's advice is paying off.

It was about 6 months ago that I began looking for a volunteer opportunity that would keep my mind sharp now that I'm retired. A Google search led me to the Virginia Voice, a broadcast service for the print impaired. I called to ask about volunteering and talked to Becky Emmett, the program director. We had never met, but she knew who I was because of my broadcasting career, and she invited me in for an orientation session and then an audition.

The audition wasn't simple, and I bobbled a few words, but apparently I did okay.

One afternoon Becky and I were chatting about interviews. "You know," I told her, "everybody has a story. All you have to do is ask the right questions." It was an offhand remark.

About three months later, she called me to ask if I was ready to start my new series.

Huh? New series?

What she proposed, based on my casual remark about everybody having a story, was a weekly 30-minute program in which I would interview people with interesting life stories. "Think about it and let me know," she said.

It took me a week to realize that this was something I could really enjoy. And so, armed with a state-of-the-art digital recorder that fits in one hand and a couple of microphones, I started calling friends and acquaintances -- and even some perfect strangers -- and asking them to sit down with me. Becky suggested the title for the series: "What's Your Story?"

So far I've talked to a former Miller & Rhoads executive about the heyday of carriage-trade department stores, a rabbi's wife who's an award-winning bodybuilder, and a successful barber who learned his trade and turned his life around in what used to be called a "reform school."

I also interviewed a woman who collects miniature books by the thousands, a city police officer who impressed me with her dedication to doing good by doing her job well, and an SPCA volunteer who started a new program to connect seniors with older pets.

I called on old friends to talk to me, including a veterinarian who was in my high school class and has been practicing in Glen Allen since the area was almost totally rural, and a locomotive engineer who for years enjoyed the Richmond-to-Washington Amtrak run.

Keeping an audience entertained with a half hour conversation isn't as easy as I thought. And not knowing where the conversation might wind up is sort of scary.

But I'm not writing any questions down. And I'm listening.

Listening -- really paying attention -- is the key. I'm getting better at it, and it's leading me down some seriously fascinating paths.