Tell Me a Story

Growing up, the record player allowed the sounds of music to permeate our home, as I sat in the rocking chair for hours, singing along at the top of my lungs. A favorite was “Tell Me a Story,” recorded by Jimmy Boyd, whose claim to fame was “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” a song banned in Boston by the Catholic Church because it mixed sex and Christmas.  Since the Santa Claus record sold 60,000,000 copies, apparently the ban worked – in favor of the song! But I digress.

On the “story” record, Jimmy and Frankie Laine sang of the eternal cry of children who will use any excuse to delay bedtime. “Tell me a story.” The song tells of one unfortunate particular night that the dad arrived home quite late, attempting to sneak up the stairs, shoes in hand and “my darling wife in bed,” when he heard these compelling words: “Hi there, daddy – remember what you said?  Tell me a story.”

Story captures us.  Whether it’s the lovely Madelyn Simone “reading” Ten Little Piggies for the 15^th time, or her doting grandmother being engrossed in a best-selling novel or the film Les Miserables, story speaks to us in ways that a non-fiction account cannot.    

Yet it’s not just the classic novels or the huge film productions that tell a story of value – we each have a life story that longs to be told. As William Carolos Williams expressed it, “Their story, yours and mine -- it’s what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them.” Unfortunately, all too often we learn this lesson too late, and the story of generations of our ancestors goes to the grave with them.

At age 90, my mother is the only one of her generation left in her family circle (happy birthday, Mom!). Her sisters and brother have been gone for many years now, and it’s been more than seven years since my dad’s death. The only storyteller we have left is my mom, and my siblings and I find ourselves hungry for one more snippet, one more story as to who our ancestors were and what life was like in the good old days.

A recent anecdote involved my dad, the most steady, patient, and unflappable man I’ve ever known. Yet once upon a time, he was working on a job as a carpenter foreman, charged with protecting the welfare of his workers. As at least one version of the story relates, the site superintendent wanted the men to do something that would put them in danger, and my dad stood up to him. Legend has it that my dad chased the superintendent down Morgan Street for more than a block – with a hammer in either his hand or his pocket, depending on which version of the story you believe.    

True story? Embellished? Not sure. But the nugget of authenticity that it brings is precious to me – that for a moment in time, my dad stepped out of character to do what needed to be done.

The preservation of story is a life-sustaining task. One way that nearly 90,000 Americans have done this is through StoryCorps, a project of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, as often heard on NPR. Others have committed their stories to paper, in spiral notebooks, in handwritten journals, and on pages and pages of manuscript. Some dream of holding their story in their hands one day on the pages of a book, and now, with the advent of a new generation of self-publishing options, that dream is becoming a reality for many. That’s why I’m facilitating some self-publishing workshops over the next few months at the Kroc Center, providing one more way that the story can live on long into the future.

Barry Lopez challenges us: “If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.” “So tell me a story, Nana.” “Once upon a time, when your great-great grandmother was your age . . .”