Storytellers

I come from a long line of storytellers. Telling stories and recounting experiences were how families bonded even when I was a child. Though radio was there in 1948 when I was born it wasn't until about 1954 or 1956 when most people decided to buy the then black and white TV sets usually about 17inch to 21 inch then. My grandfather and father were always telling stories of their exploits during their lives. This I think is why History is literally His Story which is almost always embellished in the favor of the storyteller.

Here is a true story told through the eyes of someone raised from 1916 to being 18 in 1934. This wouldn't be the way people would tell this story today. But then again this was my father's and his younger brother's experience as it happened:

My grandfather was born sometime in the 1880s in Kansas on a farm. He was one of 5 brothers and sisters. When he married my grandmother they also had 5 children, 3 boys and 2 girls. The three boys were the oldest. Everyone I'm writing about has already passed away, the last in 2008. My Grandfather's father was a Captain in the Northern Army of the Civil War. My grandfather didn't have too much use for war because of the stories his father told him about the civil war.

My father one day decided he was going to go with his Dad to hunt Grizzly bears. My Grandfather always had somewhere between 10 and 40 hound dogs to chase down game for him which was everything from Grizzly Bears to Elk and Deer. This was pretty common back then. Because the purpose of hunting then besides being fun for the men was to always bring home food for the family.

So, as they found the bear (or more precisely the Hound Dogs found the Grizzly) the starting whooping  and baying like hound dogs are known to do  when they get a scent of game. So, Grandad with the boys (my father 15 and his younger brother Tom 13) tried to keep up with grandpa as the Grizzly knocked down small trees trying to get away from all the hound dogs. But, Tommy being 13 was having trouble keeping up because his legs weren't as long as Grandpa and Dad. So, he made a mistake trying to go faster than he was really able to and got a bad cut from branches on one of his legs. Since Tommy was bleeding pretty bad Grandpa said, "Fred (my Dad's name was Fred too) here's a woodsman .22 pistol. If the bear doubles back start shooting at him to keep him away from you and Tommy!" Then the old man ran off after his hounds and the bear. Fred (my Dad) climbed up onto an old growth stump of about 6 feet through and about 6 feet tall to make a stand there with Tommy should the Bear double back and threaten them. Sure enough, the bear doubled back on them and Dad thought he and Tommy were dead because the bear was so huge and they were so vulnerable there and because he likely could smell the blood already on his little brother Tommy. So, Dad unloaded a whole clip of .22 long rifle rounds into the bear as it came closer to them. The bear only thought they were like bee stings unless you hit him in the eye and likely even then the most it would do would be to really piss him off and blind him in one eye. So, after firing  I believe 10 shots which is usually the capacity of an unmodified Woodsman .22 pistol into the bear it was so scared of the hound dogs that it just kept right on going past Fred and Tommy. My father had thought they both were dead. Tommy Too.

end story.

This is the kind of story my father told me when I was in my formative years from birth to 18 years of age. So, because both my father and Grandfather were storytellers it appears I have picked up the knack too.

However, though I believe I'm good at recounting things I don't believe I am also a good writer in that I hate to edit what I write both grammatically and to make things ultimately precise. I sort of like the way it rolls off my fingers or (metaphorical tongue) and often leave it that way because I usually like the way it first comes out. When I try to mess with it beyond correcting spelling or syntaxt often I'm not happy with the result. And so as an intuitive I find the most powerful and useful things I write that often have the best positive effects on both myself and others come spontaneously like an artist spontaneous with a brush or a musician spontaneously coming up with a song. I also wrote a lot of songs before I was about 30 because I began playing the piano at 8 and took classical piano lesson for 8 years and started playing the violin at age 9. However, I gave up the violin by about 14 because it was just too hard an instrument to play right. But, I learned to play on literally any kind of keyboard or pipe organ or Baldwin Organ or STeinway Grand Piano in my Church before I was 21. So, music and storytelling come naturally to me. My father was the storyteller and my mother was a coloratura Soprano with an amazing voice. We would often sing and I would play the piano or organ or synthesizer in accompaniment when she was still alive before 2008.