It
was a pleasure listening to Dennis McCarthy at last week’s meeting. He spun a great tale and captured our
attention with his story telling. His
story reminded me of a talk I had with my son over the holidays. My son is a
very caring young man and truly believes that he teaches students about his
subjects rather than teaching the subject to his students (I’ll save this
thought for another time). In our conversation he shared with me how he
was able to gain this students interest and attention through story
telling. Now of course, I remember my beginning years as a teacher and
learned early on that story telling is an effective way of reaching young minds,
but hearing him share some of his stories (both real and fiction) with his
passion made me anxious to lead the club and be able to share stories on a
weekly basis!.
Let me tell you a little bit about my son, Tony. Tony is a
product of SVUSD (11 out 13 years…he did a 2 year stint at St Rose for grade 7
& 8), athletic and intelligent (both traits from his mother) he exceled in
math and science, enjoyed ‘blowing things up’, hated reading and was ready to
disowned me when I made him take Honors English. He found a niche early
on in elementary school with bowling and by the time he was a senior he had
numerous perfect games under his belt. Recruited by Cal State Fresno to
be a college bowler, off to school he went (dad loved it….almost a free
education)! However, the bowling passion started to wane when it wasn’t
fun and it became a chore rather than a love. In his sophomore year he
stumble across Campus Crusades for Christ and decided that he wanted to come
back to Simi Valley and enroll in Eternity Bible College…although he was 20, he
still asked my permission! While at EBC he developed a love of history
and after graduating from EBC decided to go back to Fresno and complete his
degree in history. Along the way he married and he and his wife presented
us with our precious granddaughter. While living up in Central California with
his in-laws he attended and graduated from a fire academy (remember he enjoyed
blowing things up), he landed numerous sub jobs at the local high
schools. With the crash of the economy, teaching jobs were scarce and he
was able to find a job down south as a youth minister/director. But
teaching was calling him, and this past Fall he returned to Fresno to complete
his last semester of student teaching while still holding onto the job down south
at the church (talk about a weekly commute!).
So getting back to my story, over Christmas dinner, Tony shared
an experience that he had a few days before his move back down south. He was at
the local super market buying a few odds and ends and while in the check-out
line an elderly lady ahead of him struck up a conversation with him. The
lady commented how he reminded her of her grandson that she hasn’t seen in a
few years. She asked him if he would mind if she would give him a hug,
and now knowing about my son, of course you would know that he would say
yes. Tony told me that after wards he thought that she had a tear or two
in her eyes as she let him go. When Tony got to the front of the line the clerk
told him his bill was $130. Tony was surprised and surely you jest, he
said, my few items might just cost $10. The clerk replied back, “No, Your
grandmother told me that you, her grandson was going to pay for her items as
well.” Of course, this floored Tony and he tried to explain to the cashier
that she wasn’t his grandmother, but the clerk insisted and told him that she
even observed them hugging each other. She demanded that Tony pay the full
amount or she would call the police and have him arrested and why was Tony
trying to scam the store. The clerk advised him to chase down ‘his
grandmother’ and get her to pay her bill. As Tony went out the store to
find the lady, he spotted her getting into a car. As he approached her she
played dumb, and was almost screaming to the world why he was bothering her,
attracting attention from customers in the lot. Tony is not one to argue nor
get physical with anyone, but he was becoming in the ‘zone’ where his senses
where being blocked. When he tried to prevent her from getting into her car,
she started to scream, “Rape” and tried to kick Tony, at which point he grab
her leg and started pulling it…the same way I’m pulling your leg right now…..
It’s a story, and when he was telling this to his students, do
you think that he had every student listening to each and every word…now the
key is how one segue way their story to capture the listener.
What’s your story?
