“Sycamore; he unraveled imaginations with story line, then reeled them in like fish on a hook.”
Wm. Reker, 6 th Grade Teacher, Allendale Middle School, Allendale, MI

My dad grew up in Vernon County, Missouri. He was raised by Sam Cole, an old civil war veteran, and his children. Sam died before I was born, but his son Forrest was my “grandfather-figure.”

When we went back to Vernon County to visit, I’d sneak out of bed late at night, out the back door and around the house to the front porch. I hid there in the dark, behind the wood box and listened to man-talk. Before they quit, the conversation always turned to the old days.

It came in disjointed bits and pieces, but over what seemed like a hundred nights, and half a dozen years, the story came together. It was an oral, family album that stretched from before the Civil War to the Great Depression. I learned how, in another time, my dad had listened to the old men talk from behind a tree, a right of passage. They knew I was there and they indulged me. It was the beginning of my formal education.

So it was no surprise when my children sat quietly in the shadows, and listened as my brothers and I recalled the stories that defined our family. Stories Sam told Forrest, the stories my dad overheard from behind a tree, and I heard from behind the wood box. They are still alive.

“Story” is our native tongue. Everything that gives us purpose is framed in Story. When an elder dies a library is lost, unless it has been trusted to some who will keep those stories alive. If you have a story, tell it to me. If not, then come sit down: I have a story to share with you.

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