I met with Mr. Lavinder twice for separate interviews.  On both occasions we met at the market and the interviews took place sitting in the back of his truck at his booth, where he sells apples every Saturday during the fall through the spring months and peaches in the summer.  Our first interview we talked for about 50 minutes, and the second for probably over an hour and a half.  He did most of the talking while I struggled to develop and the conversation and ask thoughtful, conversation-provoking, and appropriate questions.

This course, Life Histories / Self-Narratives, taught me a lot about this particular methodology used universally by anthropologists.  This course, and particularly my work with Mr. Lavinder, helped me not only towards applying this methodology to anthropological work, but with other areas in life as well:  becoming a better listener, asking more important questions, about being investigative, realizing that "history" is not an ultimate truth, and learning about people not only through what they do say but also what they do not.