LOMPOC, Calif. - The voices of the past, literally, can be heard in the city of Lompoc. It's part of an oral history project that the city began decades ago. And now, the project has gained new life in an effort to preserve stories of old.
This oral history project is the work of the Lompoc Museum and Lompoc Historical Society. Recorded interviews with now deceased Lompoc residents and figures were almost forgotten about. But now the project is making a comeback.
This was the state of the decades old oral history project in Lompoc until Patricia Sazani, project manager, came along last year: boxes full of old cassette tapes with recordings from the 1970s and 1980s.
Most of the recordings came from interviews with Lompoc residents who tell stories of events they experienced in the past, like William Perozzi's account of the famous Navy shipwreck off of the Vandenberg coastline back in 1923.
"We saw those ships piled up. A couple of them were close to shore," says Perozzi. "What almost got me is when they brought in one body from down there."
Before these tape cassettes were used there were some concerns over whether they were even salvageable.
Lisa Renken, Lompoc Museum Director, says, "I had read that audio cassettes last maybe 10 to 15, 20 years at the most. And these were all older than that."
Luckily the tapes were in good condition. And that gave Sazani the chance to digitize the old tapes into MP3 files. She also had to transcribe all the interviews. The work, she says, is daunting.
"Probably for an hour of interview we have to do 20 hours of work total," says Sazani.
But Sazani says the work is also rewarding. And she enjoys being able to just listen to everyday stories of how Lompoc used to be when it was in its early days.
Another recording from William Perozzi, who was born in 1909, has him saying, "well there were probably two streets in Lompoc: Ocean Avenue and H Street. Everybody knew everybody. You'd go down the street and hear 'good morning Joe!'"
And the museum and historical society want to make these recordings accessible to researchers and the public. They also want to develop a way for residents to create their own recordings to continue the tradition for future years.
To donate to the project, visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1745642955/lompoc-oral-history-project
