Story Telling

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?