It was long ago, mid 1940s. Dad was driving; I was sitting up front in the middle, between him and one of my sisters. Another sister was in the back. Don’t know where Mother was or why she wasn’t with us. It was just us kids and Dad on our way to visit our grandmother, Mamma Parker, at her farm. Dad started talking about growing up there at the “homeplace,” as he called it, and told us about something that happened -- that in just a matter of seconds -- changed his life. What he said explained that strange relationship he had with his mother, and why he acted so differently around her. Big -- with enormous forearms -- and bombastic, Dad took up a lot of space. He was forceful in manner; what he said went. He did not tolerate back talk or whining. He held every one of us accountable and I was not even in the first grade. He was not my father, my buddy, as much as he was my father, the boss.
But when he went back to his old farm home and was around his mother, he turned into a meek, almost pitiful, character. I was just a little kid, but I had noticed when he talked to Mamma Parker in that timid little boy fashion he had around her that she always seemed to ignore him.
Sitting back in the middle of the front seat, my eyes about even with the radio dial, I focused on every word he said and imagined how things had happened, how people had looked, how they had reacted.
I put the story away, though I saw my father, and my grandmother and my aunt, in an entirely new light. Later when I would recount the story Dad had told in the car that day, I was amazed at my recall of the details -- how Dad had said things, the words he had used, the pauses, how his voice had broken at times, the tear that ran down his cheek and how the story had changed me.
There was the message, but there was also the telling of the story that fascinated me.
On my father’s side were farmers and school teachers. On my mother’s side were farmers and preachers. I suppose story telling came naturally to me.
Over my peripatetic life, I have enjoyed listening to and telling stories almost above all else. Some of these stories have found their way to print and to ebooks. Some are on the way. This web site describes them.