Sunday, October 11, 1998

Speaking of stories, did you hear the one...

By Sharon Randall

This is for some fifth graders in Monterey, Calif.

Dear Boys and Girls:

I know you're enjoying fall break right now, but do you know where your teacher is?

By the way, Mrs. C. doesn't know I'm writing this to you. You can tell her about it when you're back in school and I'm safely out of her reach.

Mrs. C. and I were hanging out together long before you were born. Our husbands taught high school together. Our boys grew up as best friends.

They didn't always act like friends. Sometimes they'd beat the tar out of each other, call each other names we didn't know they knew.

I'm talking about the boys, of course, not their fathers. Far as we know, our husbands never actually came to blows. Neither did the boys after they were big enough to know better. Now they love to tell stories about when they were growing up, things they did, good or bad. Especially bad.

Do you tell stories like that? How about your mom and dad? Your grandma and grandpa? Maybe they never beat anybody up, but I bet they have lots of stories -- good or bad, funny or sad, spine-tingling scary or seat-numbing dull.

Stories tell us who we are. They remind us of where we've been and hint at where we're going. They help us understand ourselves, our families and our neighbors. They make sense of nonsense and turn strangers into friends.

But the best thing about stories is they're fun -- fun to read, to write, to hear, to tell, to share and remember.

In fact, stories are so much fun that this weekend Mrs. C. and I and 10,000 other pilgrims went to Jonesboro, Tenn., for the National Storytelling Festival.

Every year, the good people of the town set up giant tents and invite a dozen or so of the country's finest tellers to do what they do best: tell stories, morning to midnight, rain or shine, all weekend.

Folks come from far and near to listen: School groups and families, grown-ups and children, old people and teenagers and babies. Nobody seems to get bored.

They take breaks so you can buy food or stand in line at the port-a- johns. You don't know about port-a-johns? Ask Mrs. C. She knows a lot.

When children get tired, they take naps in the shade. Then they run around the tents until they fall down dizzy. Some of them even get to stay up late to hear ghost stories on a creek bank in the dark.

It's how my grandmother's house always was, minus the port-a-johns: A place overrun with people and laughter, good food and endless stories.

Mrs. C. and I heard as many storytellers as we could. Then we hobbled back to our room to go to bed. But instead of being cranky (you how she gets when she's tired?) your teacher kept me up for hours telling me more stories.

We've been friends for so long I thought I knew all her stories. But she told me some I'd never heard. And then I told a few more to her.

That's how it is when a good story is well told; it always conjures up another.

Mrs. C. will have lots of stories from the festival. Ask her to tell you the one about how she greeted Greyhound busses when she was little.

If she won't, maybe I can visit your class? I'd love to tell you that story myself.

Sharon Randall is a winner of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and the Best of the West commentary awards.

Scripps Howard News Service