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For the average high school student, history is found in heavy textbooks with obscure dates and names that are difficult to remember. The average high school student is only concerned with history when he or she finds himself in a class and a test comes around.

Students often forget that everything that is happening constantly around us is instantly history. Students often forget that history matters, until they meet someone or learn something that changes their own perspective on the world.

This occurred for me when a friend who was heading off to college introduced me to an elderly man who my friend had previously mowed for. I agreed to mow for him as my friend went off to college. It started out as just a job, taking care of the lawn and the garden, but after he came down with pneumonia, I was invited to help inside. We gradually became friends, and the stories he’s told me of his life and childhood have changed my own perspective of history and life.

My elderly friend is 91 years old. His parents emigrated to Canada and then the United States from Sweden in the early 20th century, and he was born in 1917 in Minnesota. He grew up during the Great Depression and served as an engineer in India during World War II. He’s been alive during both world wars, experienced a depression, McCarthyism, the turbulent ’60s, and is still alive and well today.

He often has a story to tell me regarding his life, and I’ve found the stories to be like a history textbook, but much more personal and interesting. Through his tales of his youth, I fully realize that the things we read about in school really did happen and there are people who have experienced the times.

More importantly, the stories almost always have a moral or a lesson that can be learned. And that is what history should be about, not just memorizing dates and names, but understanding what has happened in the past and learning how to avoid mistakes others have made.

Also, at my age, the idea of getting old and perhaps (if I’m lucky) reaching the age 90, is completely abstract. I cannot imagine myself as an old man. I can’t imagine myself as anything other than a 17-year-old. Taking care of my elderly friend though, and listening to stories of his youth, makes me realize that aging really does happen and it is simply a part of life.

So it is important to keep in mind that whoever you may meet, they might have something meaningful to tell you that may change your perspective on the world. Be it the elderly man who has seen almost a century of American life, the teacher who is a Vietnam veteran or even young men and woman with unique experiences, remember that everyone has a story to tell, and the stories might just change a life. It is important to respect the elderly in the community, because who knows what kind of tales they have to tell.

Garrett Soper is a junior at Onalaska High School.