I interviewed a 90-year-old man recently, and although he couldn’t remember all the details of what happened nearly 70 years ago when he was an ace pilot during World War II, his recall was fascinating in many areas, nonetheless.

To me that is remarkable, because sometimes I have trouble recalling what I ate for dinner the previous night or who I wrote that check to last week.

Visiting with him made me think about how much of our history we are losing. Face it, when these veterans and other folks are gone, they will take a chunk of our past with them.

It’s time for all of us to pay more attention to those with more life experiences than we have. There are so many people who have accomplished extraordinary things under adverse circumstances, and we would be wise to learn from them.

Take the fellow who fought and lived through World War II, or the husband and wife who came through the Holocaust together, scarred but alive and, best of all, together.

As the years go by, witnesses to historic and momentous events are fewer and far between, and it would be prudent to document the paths they took while we -- and they -- still can.

There are so many pieces of living history out there, so much wisdom, and these folks can teach us so much about life and how to thrive under difficult circumstances.

Take the woman who scraped every day to provide for her family during the Great Depression, while her husband was away for weeks at a time just trying to make a dollar. Or the man who rode a horse to school as a boy because there was no other way to get there. Or how about the couple who have been married over 70 years and are as in love now as they were when they said their vows (and meant them) seven decades ago.

There are so many stories of inspirational, hard-working, real people out there, and we need to listen to what they have to say.

There are lessons we all can learn: how to get by on less; how to put family first; how not to let adversity stop you from achieving your goals.

Many folks in their 80s, 90s and even older have important stories to tell. And we would be wise to listen to them while we still can.

If we don’t, we will lose not only a sense of our past, but we may not have an accurate historical account from which to teach our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.

What will the history books say about people my age 100 years from now?

I just hope someone out there is taking notes. Because we, too, will have something important to say; we will have had a story to tell, and if no one is getting this on paper, there will be some blank pages in the books.

And that would be a terrible shame.

Lisa Carnley is managing editor of the Lampasas Dispatch Record.