I spent Thanksgiving in Omaha, Nebraska. While gathered at the feast, my only sibling and my father asked me “so what’s new with you?”
There are scores of things I could have told them, but I chose to tell them about my Personal Storytelling class. Perhaps I was secretly hoping–or anticipating–that they would ask me to share one of the stories I told in class. Well, they took the bait, and the next thing you know I’m launching into a 10-minute story I had told in class about my first entrepreneurial venture, selling naked lady playing cards the summer following the 6th Grade.
For the 12 or so people at the table who had never heard this story, their reactions were similar to when I told it in class. Some laughter, a little tension as they wondered if the story was going to have a “politically correct” ending, and a general feeling of having been entertained by a good story when the conclusion affirmed a respect for women and an important lesson about not starting a business you would be ashamed to explain to your mother or your wife.
Upon finishing the story, my father, a man who still chooses his words quite carefully, looked at me and said “that’s an interesting take on that particular episode.”
I like how he referred to my story as an episode, as though my life had been a television sitcom or drama that played for several seasons in the 70s.
My brother remembered the “episode” vaguely but was surprised to learn all these years later how successful I had been in this short-lived business venture.
“If dad hadn’t shut it down,” he said, “who knows where you’d be today? You might be some kind of porno king living the life in Malibu.”
“Well thank God your father shut that little operation down,” my brother’s wife noted.
This gave me the opportunity to ask my dad if he thought the story I told was “authentic.” Did it accurately capture the facts and feelings of that moment in time?
My dad paused for a moment to reflect.
“Yeah, I think you’ve got the basic facts right,” he said. “But I would have told the story differently.”
Everyone at the table was eager to hear his version of the story. So with a little prompting, he told his version of my story about the naked lady playing cards.
I won’t recount his version of the story here, but I would like to note that hearing him tell his version underscored, once again, the nature of personal stories. His version included most of the same basic facts as mine, but there were peripheral things that I was not aware of, things that were personal to him – his truths.
His version of the story also reflected the worldview of a concerned father and police detective, not that of a misdirected 6th Grade entrepreneur. I thought his story was excellent. It was funny at times, poignant at others. I think people gathered at the feast enjoyed his story as much as mine, maybe more.
That Thanksgiving table once again showed me that people who witness the same event and live through the same experiences will have different stories to tell. I’ve also been thinking about how those stories can change over time, how an oral tradition can continue to convey a meaning and message, but how the facts can change.
I wonder how the story I told, and my dad’s version, might sound different 20 years from now, told by somebody who heard about these stories from someone at that 2018 Thanksgiving dinner. Or told by someone who heard from someone about those naked lady playing card stories. It’s entirely possible that 20 years from now those stories will be told by family members and others who are four or five degrees of separation from the stories themselves.
And this makes me realize the importance of capturing those stories now. Won’t it be better to hear a podcast of me telling the story to my Personal Storytelling class?
Then again, even if the next generation doesn’t listen to the podcast, how wonderful to think that the stories will still be told, that the basic meaning and message will survive, even if some of the details are lost or transformed by other people telling the story.
(The image at the top is of a deck of "naked lady" playing cards from the 1950s)
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