The definitive definition, from my father’s new autobiography:
“If somebody who was there at the time and, more important, was actually a participant in an event that involved or significantly affected you, and if you were absent, or even if present were for some reason not cognizant at the event, and if that participant-observer later repeatedly told yoThe u in detail what had transpired there, and if your narrator is now deceased and her recollection of the event is preserved only in the memories of those like you with whom she obsessively shared it, then that narrative definitely becomes your credible family lore.”