Monday, December 15, 2008

Stories Told in Waiting Rooms - the explanation

Like most mothers, I have spent untold hours in waiting rooms with my small children, trying desperately to entertain them. A prepared mother enters with crayons, coloring pages, toys that are saved just for this occasion, paper and pencil for tictactoe, and still she finds herself at wit's end long before their names are called.
This is when I would resort to story telling. I am actually grateful for these moments in our lives, because this is when I told the family stories passed down to me by my parents and grandparents. The one thing that I can promise you about these stories is this: If you are related to me, they may very well contain names you recognize and you may even find that you figure prominently in the story and you may find yourself wondering who the heck made up this crap because you certainly have no recollection of any of this ever happening to you, or if it does have some vague resemblance to something in your own life, you'll be positive it didn't happen anything like I'm telling it.
You're absolutely right because chances are excellent that I am repeating my own sketchy memories of a tale told to me as a child by a parent who, while an excellent story teller herself, was recounting an event that had happened to someone else many years before she heard about it and she only got the point of view of one individual (most probably my father). If you, then, are a sibling of my father's who was actually there for the "Rabid Fox Adventure," you may find that it has nothing in common with your own memories of the same story.
In this same vein, if you are my Uncle John or my mother's Cousin Joanie, you might find that you have been sadly misrepresented in the "Witch Story." Take it up with my mother. I'm telling it just the way she told it to me, or at least, just the way I remember her telling it 35 years ago.
To be continued. This was just the opening teaser.

1 comment:

Ralph said...

So help me, the rabid fox story was true. and pretty much the way it happened.