On Storytelling

I read a really interesting essay recently about storytelling. Actually, it was about the foundations of society and how to build a strong one, but the main point of the piece was that a society that is unable to pass down its stories, customs, traditions, and faith to the next generation is a society that is on very slippery ground, looking ahead a few years. This author basically asserted that you can't build a legacy and a strong country on a foundation of political correctness--you have to be able to pass down your core values as a society. I wanted to give the author credit for his ideas, and I think it was Cal Thomas, but when I checked the archives for our local paper, I got nothing.

At any rate, I don't want to talk about slippery slopes. I also read another column this week that interested me. Our county paper devotes space every week to chat with a "Living Tradition," or someone who has grown up in this area who has stories to tell. I love this column. The featured speakers are usually elderly, and it's neat to hear about how things have changed around here. The column that was featured this week had this local man telling about how, years ago, part of the Light Up LaGrange festivities included flying live turkeys off the roof of the courthouse, and whoever the turkeys flew to got to take the turkeys home for Christmas dinner. However, the tradition had to end decades ago when a couple of people fought over the turkey. I laughed out loud, as I was picturing a fight over a live turkey resembling those dramas that sometimes unfold at the baseball field when a pop fly lands between 2 empty rows. Can you imagine the turkey in this debacle??

So--the point of all this. I'm not trying to preserve our society as it is, or to shed light on traditions of years past. I don't even want to give you much to think about. :-) I just started thinking that if something were to ever happen to me, I want my children to know their Mama. I know how much Kaela & Ben enjoy my silly stories. My students love them, too! Eric & I both love hearing stories. So I'm going to try to regularly include a story in my blog. Just for fun! Here's the first.

The time the rooster chased Andrea
When I was in about 8th grade, my step-dad got this brilliant idea to get chickens so we could have our own eggs. We had 1 rooster, and about 6 hens, and they were supposed to stay in the barn but they never did.

Well, that rooster was MEAN! He would run at us, fly up in the air and point his spurs at us, and then chase us that way all around the yard. I hated it, too. Man, it was embarrassing. We had to ride the bus at that time, and already the kids on the bus thought it was funny that there were 5 kids in my family. They would tease us about that, and when that finally got old, here came this rooster. We would step off the porch and basically run in a full sprint to the bus to avoid the rooster clawing our eyes out in front of a bunch of bullies (who thought it was funny we were running from the rooster, too!). What a pain!! We begged Mom to drive us to school so she could protect us from both the rooster and the bully kids on the bus, but she jokingly told us it would develop our characters. I guess...

Anyway, after a while the old rooster got used to us, or maybe we quit chasing it. I don't know. But he left us alone enough that we were able to use our yard again. So Andrea (my step-sister) was down one weekend, and she and I decided to lie out in the sun to get a tan next to our baby pool. The rooster came out of the barn to check things out, and by this time I had learned to just avoid eye contact and keep going. Andrea hadn't learned, though. She got up and ran right at that rooster, barefoot and in her bathing suit--no defenses at all!

Oh, man. He tore her up. She was alternating between running from him and running at him. I was alternating between laughing and yelling for help. The noise woke up my step dad (who worked 3rd shift), and he came to her rescue with a broom which he promptly took to the rooster.

We thought he was dead, but I guess the broom just knocked him out for awhile. We helped Andrea into the house to nurse her wounds, and as we were walking into the house, that old rooster got up for one more fight. He went right after my step-dad, spurs extended. Jim yelled for us to go inside.

We had chicken for dinner that night. I don't even know how Jim finally defeated the biggest adversary of our youth, and I don't want to know. He did, that's all that matters. When Andrea tells that story, I can tell that she has forgiven me after all this time for laughing at her. When I tell it, I still try not to laugh. Jim talks about how tasty that mean old guy was.
I think that one day it might be wise for Eric and me to buy our own chickens. To develop our children's characters. ha!