Stories Help Us Share A Part Of Ourselves
by Bill Gouveia
(This column appeared in the Sun Chronicle on Monday, February 24, 2020.)
So let me tell you a story about — well, stories.
About a decade ago, I was trying to put my first grandchild (did I mention his name is William?) to bed during a weekend trip to New Hampshire.
My wife had run out to the store, and Will was having trouble getting to sleep. So primarily out of desperation, I asked him if he wanted me to tell him a story.
He happily agreed, and at that point it occurred to me that I now needed an actual story to tell. The first one that popped into my mind was “The Three Little Pigs.”
A few minutes in, I realized I didn’t remember a lot of it. But with a rapt audience hanging on every word, I couldn’t stop. So I made it up as I went along.
That’s why in my version, the first little pig had a house made of grass, and the second a house of newspapers. When my wife returned and listened, her muffled laughter was quite a distraction.
But a few weeks later, Will asked for the story again. When the details differed somewhat, he would correct me. That taught me something important.
A story told can be more lasting and memorable than a story read.
Since then I have told stories to all my five grandkids. Some they quickly forgot, others they ask for time and time again. Granted, the now 11-year-old eldest is pretty much done with them. But most of the others still request some of their favorites.
Granddaughters Avery and Addison, along with grandson Sam, are particularly taken with the tale of “Harold The Left-Handed Dog Catcher.”
This is a story I made up one night when one of them insisted on a “new” saga. For those who missed it, this involves a man named Harold who loved dogs and worked for a small town that couldn’t afford a good truck. So he drove one with no door on the driver’s side and no brakes, having to learn to rescue dogs with his left hand and put them safely in the truck as he drove by.
Grandson Tommy, the youngest, is obsessed with the story of “Grandpa’s Giant Shoe.”
I made that one up when his impatient brother Sam had to spend some time with me in the car. That centered — surprisingly enough — around a giant shoe created by Grandpa’s Fairy Shoe Godmother when I was just a lad.
Other stories are “The Yellow Tomato,” “Stinky The Garbage Truck,” and “Bosco Bisquik” — the latter being the adventures of a talking pancake.
The look on their adorable faces when asking me to relate one of them is worth its weight in gold.
My wife says I should write them down, but to me that defeats the purpose.
They remember these stories better than I do.
And it is my fervent hope they will continue to remember them, and maybe tell them someday to their kids and grandkids.
The trick to connecting with kids is to share something of yourself with them.
I’m happy to have discovered that, even if it involves a left-handed dog catcher.
Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and longtime local official. He can be emailed at billsinsidelook@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @Billinsidelook.
