I have many memories of the upstairs apartment in the two-story house at 2119 30th Street in San Diego where I grew up (from age 4 to 24).
Did my house "watch" and "hear" and "feel" and "remember" my time living there?
I wrote a description of the layout of the 30th Street house as I recalled it. I described each inhabitant (my father, my mother, me, my two brothers) and some of the daily events that happened in each room over my 20 years residing there, plus some memories of specific events. I created a PDF of that document and attached it to the AI tool to use.
1) The first AI prompt that I used for the free AI tool Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 was for story ideas, along with a short description of each idea. Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 provided twenty wonderful story ideas - here is one of them (lightly edited for accuracy, consistency, and detail).
2) My next prompt asked "What did the walls of the house 'hear' over the years?"
(AI NotebookLM image -
Here is the Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 story (lightly edited):
The
Walls That Heard Everything
A story from the house at
2119 30th Street
If my walls could speak -- but
of course, they already do, just not in ways that humans typically
hear -- they would tell you that the most profound moments of family
life aren't always the ones that get photographed or celebrated.
They're the whispered conversations after lights out, the arguments
that teach conflict resolution, the dreams shared in darkness, and
the gradual transformation of boys' voices from high and clear to
deep and uncertain as they crossed the bridge into manhood.
I absorbed it all. Every word,
every silence, every tone of voice carried meaning that seeped into
my plaster and wood, becoming part of the permanent record that only
a house can keep.
In the beginning, when Randy
was four and Stan was barely walking, the sounds were simple.
Childhood laughter that could erupt without warning over the smallest
discoveries. The frustrated tears when toys wouldn't cooperate or
brothers wouldn't share. Betty's patient explanations delivered in
the kind of repetitive loops that only mothers can sustain without
losing their minds. Fred's deeper voice setting boundaries and
occasionally enforcing consequences that left one boy or another
sulking in a corner.
But as the years accumulated
and the boys grew, the conversations I absorbed became more complex,
more revealing of the personalities forming within my walls.
Randy's voice changed first,
dropping from boyish treble to adolescent uncertainty somewhere
around 1960. I remember the awkward phase when he couldn't predict
what would emerge when he opened his mouth—sometimes the old
familiar tone, sometimes this strange new instrument that seemed to
belong to someone else. Stan would tease him mercilessly about the
voice cracks, until his own transformation began a year later and
Randy could return the favor with interest.
The sun room, after it became
Randy and Stan's shared bedroom, became my greatest repository of
brotherly secrets. Late at night, when they thought everyone else was
asleep, they would have the conversations that shaped their
understanding of the world and each other.
"Do you think Dad's
happy?" Randy asked one night when he was about seventeen, his
voice carrying the philosophical weight that teenagers discover when
they first realize their parents are people with inner lives.
Stan was quiet for a moment.
"I think so. He works hard. He likes coaching. He has time in
the garage workshop. Mom seems happy."
"But does he ever wish
he'd done something different? Something bigger than insurance?"
I felt Stan shift in his bed.
"Maybe everybody wonders that. But we eat good, we've got this
house, he built the patio. That's pretty big."
These conversations revealed
boys becoming young men, wrestling with questions about purpose and
success, using their father's life as both template and cautionary
tale. They would never have these discussions at the dinner table or
in front of Fred, but in the darkness of the sun room, they could
safely explore the adult world they were approaching.
The arguments I witnessed
taught me as much as the loving moments. Brothers fight with a
particular intensity because they know each other's vulnerabilities
with surgical precision. Randy and Stan had their territories, their
competitions, their ongoing negotiations about fairness and respect
that could explode into shouting matches over seemingly trivial
provocations.
"That's MY spot on the
desk!"
"You weren't using it!"
"I was saving my project
there!"
"Well, you should have
said something!"
These skirmishes would
escalate until Fred's voice would boom from the office: "Boys!
Settle it or I'll settle it for you!" And somehow they would
find compromise, learning the essential skill of resolving conflicts
with people you couldn't escape from because they shared your bedroom
and your life.
When Scott arrived in 1955,
the acoustic landscape of my walls expanded to include a new voice
and a new set of dynamics. Randy and Stan were old enough to feel
protective of their baby brother, but also occasionally resentful of
the attention he commanded. I heard whispered complaints about Scott
getting away with things that would have earned them consequences,
about the disruption he caused to their established routines, about
having to be quiet when he was napping.
But I also heard tenderness.
Randy reading bedtime stories to Scott with genuine affection. Stan
teaching Scott to throw a ball on the patio, patient and encouraging.
The older brothers forming a protective alliance around their
youngest sibling that would last their entire lives. At times, they
treated their younger brother as a student and they were the
coaches, especially with sports.
The discipline conversations
were revealing. Fred's approach was measured but firm—he would
explain what had been done wrong, why it mattered, and what the
consequence would be. His voice never rose to a shout, but it carried
an authority that made shouting unnecessary. The boys learned that
disappointment could be more powerful than anger.
Betty's discipline was
different—more immediate, more emotional, delivered in the moment
of infraction with exasperation that could turn to forgiveness almost
as quickly as it had ignited. She was the daily enforcer of household
order, dealing with dozens of small infractions that Fred never even
heard about.
But it was the conversations
between Fred and Betty, late at night after the boys were supposedly
asleep, that gave me the deepest understanding of what held the
family together. They would sit at the dining room table, voices low,
discussing the challenges of raising three active boys on an
insurance agent's salary.
"Randy's going to need
new shoes again. His feet won't stop growing," Betty would say,
the worry evident in her tone.
"We'll manage. We always
do," Fred would reply, and I could hear him mentally calculating
budgets, shifting money between categories, finding ways to make it
work.
They discussed the boys'
progress in school, their social challenges, their triumphs and
setbacks. These conversations revealed parents who paid attention,
who worried, who celebrated small victories and puzzled over how to
handle difficulties. The boys might have thought their parents didn't
understand them, but my walls knew differently -- Fred and Betty
understood plenty, they just had the wisdom to let the boys figure
some things out for themselves.
As Randy entered high school,
I began hearing different kinds of conversations. Phone calls with
friends that would stretch for an hour or more, his voice animated
with teenage enthusiasm about music, sports, or whatever topic
currently obsessed him. The frustration when he couldn't quite
explain to his parents why something mattered so much to him, the gap
between adolescent passion and adult practicality creating friction
that both sides struggled to navigate.
Stan's teenage years brought
different challenges. His interest in sports, his
methodical approach to everything, his group of friends -- each
created their own soundtrack in my walls. I heard him practicing
speeches for school, working through math problems aloud, and having
philosophical discussions with Randy about the nature of courage and
duty.
The voices and music that filled my walls
changed with the boys' ages. Early years meant children's songs and
radio programs like Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger. The 1950s
brought rock and roll that made Fred shake his head but Betty
secretly enjoyed. Randy's DXing introduced sounds from around the
world in the 1960s -- foreign languages, unfamiliar music genres, the peculiar
audio signatures of distant stations that became as familiar to me as
they were to Randy. Then there was the television with serial western
programs, family comedies, and game shows that everyone enjoyed, even
me!
The homework battles were
legendary. "I don't understand this!"
"Then read it again."
"I've read it five
times!"
"Then read it six times.
You'll get it."
Betty's patience with homework
help seemed infinite, though I could sense her own frustration when
concepts that seemed obvious to her remained opaque to whichever boy
was struggling. But she would persist, finding different ways to
explain until something clicked and understanding bloomed.
The celebrations I witnessed
ranged from elaborate to intimate. Birthday parties that filled every
corner of my structure with children's voices and cake-fueled chaos.
Christmas mornings when three boys would explode from their bedrooms
at dawn, racing to the living room to see what Santa had delivered.
Quiet victories celebrated with just the family—good report cards,
successful baseball games, and more.
But my walls also absorbed
grief and worry. The night Fred came home shaken by a car accident
he'd witnessed. The days when Betty was ill and tried to hide her
discomfort from the boys. The deaths of Betty's parents in 1976 and1977. The anxious conversations about money when
unexpected expenses threatened the family budget. The tears when
beloved pets died or friendships ended or disappointments crushed
young hearts.
I heard the boys' dreams and
nightmares spoken aloud in sleep. Randy muttering about radio
frequencies. Stan calling out plays from baseball games. Scott crying
for his mother from some childhood terror that lived only in his
sleeping mind. These unconscious revelations told truths that waking
hours concealed.
As the 1960s progressed, the
conversations in my walls began to change in fundamental ways. Randy,
now in college, started talking about work opportunities, about
leaving home for an apartment, about futures that existed beyond San
Diego. His voice carried excitement mixed with apprehension, and I
could sense Betty and Fred's own complicated feelings about their
oldest son's approaching departure.
"Do you think I'm ready?"
Randy asked Fred one evening, the vulnerability in his question
revealing how much he still needed his father's validation even as he
prepared to leave.
"I think you're as ready
as any of us ever are," Fred replied. "You'll figure it
out. You always do."
Stan's conversations turned
increasingly toward military service, inspired by his reading and his
sense of adventure. I heard the
discussions between Stan and Fred about whether joining the military was
the right choice, Fred supporting but questioning, wanting to make
sure Stan understood what he was choosing.
The day Stan announced he'd
enlisted in the Air Force in 1966, I felt the shift in my walls'
acoustic signature. Pride mixed with worry, support mixed with fear,
celebration mixed with the beginning of grief over his departure.
These complex emotional textures created harmonics that pure joy or
pure sorrow could never produce.
When he left for training,
suddenly one voice was missing from my daily symphony. The loss was
even more profound because it came with the knowledge that he was
going into potential danger. The conversations between Fred and Betty
after Stan left carried a weight I'd rarely felt before. They would
sit together in the evening, not always talking, just being together
in the space their son had occupied.
The sun room felt different
without his presence, even though Randy still occupied it. The
conversations between Fred and Betty changed -- more focus on the two
boys remaining, but always threads of concern about Stan, hopes for
his success, pride in his independence.
Once Randy got a car in late 1966,
he rented an apartment in North Park, not far from the bowling alley.
And then he came back in September 1967 when he was laid off from his job, and I was so
happy to hear and feel him back in my house. Then he left again
in early 1968, having found another job and rented an apartment in
Pacific Beach with his friend John. He still brought his laundry to wash in our washing machine, though.
Scott's teenage years played
out with the soundtrack of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a
different cultural moment than his brothers had experienced. The
music was harder, the conversations about war and peace more urgent,
the sense of generational change more pronounced. But the fundamental
dynamics remained -- a boy becoming a man, testing boundaries, seeking
identity, preparing to leave.
Stan returned in 1970 with his wife, Sheryl, whom he married in 1967, and they lived in the apartment house across the patio for awhile, before buying a home in Santee. They came to visit his parents regularly.
Randy married Linda in 1970 and lived in an apartment in Chula Vista, and then bought a house there, and they also visited his parents often. My house was full for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
Fred retired in 1971, and spent more time in the house, in the garage, and at the ball field.
Then the grandbabies came! My walls heard the babies as they accompanied their proud parents to visit their grandparents - oh, what a fun time that was. They never stayed overnight, but I relished the baby and toddler sounds again within my walls.
Scott married Susie in 1976 and moved to an apartment on Florida Street for awhile. When Betty and Fred moved to Point Loma in 1978, Scott and Susie moved into my upstairs apartment.
Through it all, my walls
absorbed everything. The laughter that made my boards vibrate with
joy. The arguments that made me wish I could intervene and remind
them they loved each other. The whispered secrets that I held in
confidence, never revealing to anyone else what boys had shared in
darkness. The dreams and plans and fears that shaped three young
lives as they unfolded within my shelter.
I learned that families are
built not in the big moments but in the accumulation of small ones.
The "good morning" greetings that established each day's
emotional tone. The "how was school?" questions that
sometimes opened floodgates of conversation and sometimes met with
teenage monosyllables. The "I love you" declarations that
could be casual or profound depending on context and delivery.
My walls heard Fred tell his
sons he was proud of them, usually in quiet moments rather than grand
pronouncements. They heard Betty's constant stream of care delivered
through words -- reminders to be careful, encouragements to try
harder, celebrations of small successes, comfort after
disappointments.
As the boys grew into men and
left, my walls retained the imprints of their voices at every age. I
could still hear nine-year-old Randy's excited chatter about the
buses he watched from his cubbyhole. Eleven-year-old Stan's
determined practice of multiplication tables at the dining room
table. Two-year-old Scott's delighted laughter when his brothers
included him in their games.
But I also held the deeper
voices, the more complex conversations, the mature discussions that
revealed men who had been shaped by their years within my walls. They
carried my lessons with them—the importance of family, the value of
patience and persistence, the satisfaction of mastering difficult
skills, the security of knowing there was always a place that would
welcome them home.
The walls that heard
everything became the walls that remembered everything. Long after
the voices were gone, I could still feel their resonance in my
structure. The echoes of twenty-plus years of family life didn't
fade—they became part of what I was, the acoustic signature that
made 2119 30th Street not just a house but a home filled with the
irreplaceable sound of three boys becoming men while parents provided
the steady foundation that made growth possible.
Every house has walls. But
only some walls truly listen, truly remember, truly understand that
the greatest privilege of being a home is bearing witness to the
transformation of children into adults, absorbing every word and
silence along the way, and holding those memories safe long after the
voices have moved on to other houses, other lives, other
conversations that other walls will have the honor of hearing and
preserving.
My walls heard everything, and
in hearing, they loved. Because that's what walls do when they're
part of a true home—they listen with the infinite patience that
only architecture can provide, they remember with the permanence that
only structure can offer, and they hold safe the most precious cargo
any house can carry: the sounds of a family learning to be
themselves, together.
3) The Google NotebookLM Video Overview is below:
4) These events really happened over a period of time and the names and events mentioned are real. However, some of the descriptions and all of the dialogue are historical fiction because I have no memory of the details.
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Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page. Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.
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