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Friday, May 06, 2005
My Mom's Small Town News Stories
continued from yesterday . . .
Sometimes after an interview with a local townsman, she would find that there was much more she wanted to know – many more questions to ask, more details to connect. And, once my mother began to uncover a story, she just couldn’t stop! In fact, on several occasions, her “featured story” ended up as our dinner guest on Sundays after church. Now our whole family could finally “see” what she had been talking about all week! As we talked around the dinner table, my mom would conduct an informal interview – asking questions and listening to our guest tell his story. Sometimes it would be near 3 O’clock before we rose from the table – often at the insistence of our guest. The story had to end when our seats could endure no longer. For a 14 year old boy (me), sitting for 3 hours while our family conversed over the life of some schoolteacher, business entrepreneur or a fourth generation cotton farmer who owned a third of the county could not have been more boring.
The local chamber of commerce often described and promoted our town as “A special place with special people.” But I often thought, “what’s really so special about them?” My mom taught me: it isn’t their achievements, heritage, or even their social refinement ( or lack thereof?). They were special because they each had a story. I didn’t see myself as fortunate at the time, but I was extremely fortunate to be drawn in to some of these stories.
More later. Next time I'll share one of my mom's "featured stories" . . .
