When I was young: Here comes another story
Posted: Friday, November 18, 2011
by Tex Norman
“When I was young. . .” The more I consider the phrase the more reason I find for being delighted by the words. First, when I hear the phrase, “When I was young. . .” it is a signal that a story is coming, and I love stories. One of the most delightful aspects of life, comes from our stories. Obviously not every story is a great story, but if you are awed enough by life, even dull stories are still sort of great. I’m old enough to remember life without television. I also remember life without AC.
A good story reminded my grandmother of one of the family stories. The told of how my aunt Deanee waited for her bow, how she held a kerosene lantern in the window and waited all night and the next morning the sheriff stopped by to tell her, he fiancé drowned trying to cross the river on his horse. The described to me how she’d grieved over that loss, how she never married. She lived another 27 years, and one day she came down with consumption and died. My grandmother told about how, just before she died, she held her hand out and repeated a dozen times, “How sweet of you to wait. How sweet of you to wait.”
There was a story about my grandmother’s sister who had a dress with this gray and white weave to it. After she died my grandmother saw a spider with that exact same pattern. She flicked the spider into the fire and watched it shrivel like a mummy’s claw. The next day, there it was again, a gray spider with the same gray and white weave.
I was just a little kid and my people believed in that thing about children should be seen but not heard. I didn’t want to speak. I wanted to be submerged by their words. The family stories were the best because they were told and retold. Time and practice had streamlined the detail. There came to be a particular way to say something and after a line was perfected, it was said that way every time.
Summer Stories, Cameron Texas,1957
The porch was a place of stories. Heat drove
us out on the porch where we sat in the
darkness and waited. All the lights were off.
The claim was that lights invited June Bugs
and moths but the truth was this: darkness was
a necessary part of these stories.
I sat on the top wooden step. Grown-ups
sat in chairs that creaked and groaned under the
weight of their stories. You couldn’t order
these stories to perform. The best ones are
lured or coaxed. I was watching, and waiting
for the bobber to bob, for someone to
make something happen, but you had to wait.
Waiting was part of the fun. The tales that
mean the most and those tales that tell themselves.
My great regret is that those stories are gone. No one wrote them down. No one recorded them. I remember some of the stories with a 7 year old’s memory, and now that I’m 61 only a few rafters are left, the rest has crumbled into a heap. I wish the When I was young… phrase was a call to everyone to write that stuff down.
Before my mother died I found out she had written a book. I was amazed. Each chapter started the same way. “Mama, I remember...” and she went on to tell some childhood memory. This was a great gift. I actually saw my mother as a person after reading her book. I went to Lulu.com and published her book an gave each of my siblings a copy of her book.
Think about how much it would matter to you if some favorite relatives had left a collection of the stories of their life. Our stories define us. Our stories explain us. Our stories educate us about the world, and about ourselves. I know, you may not think your stories are interesting enough to put down on paper, but you are just as wrong as your great, great grandfather was wrong for not giving you a collection of the stories of his life. The value of your stories will eventually be great to your children’s children’s children..
God made man because he loves stories.
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)This warms my heart. I think writing our stories are so important. Thanks for reminding us of that.Thanks Carol (I left the O out the first time) You've been a supportive sister. 8^)
Great article for everyone, but being 62 I am immediately captured by this. I have these same sentiments and remembrances. Lovely and captivating.Thanks Christofer. Yesterday this young guy was asking me about things I've done and he was surprised by what all I've done. I told him, "live to be in our 60s and you'll have a lot of stories about things you've done. One thing is sure: when you can say "When I was young. . . " it means you didn't die young. Thanks for reading.
Tex,
That bring backs memories of a time I remember. I'm the same vintage as you and I remember the summer nights with family telling stories in the dark, often in candlelight or by a fire. Fires seem to inspire stories. When my kids were young my sister and I and her family would sit around a campfire and make up stories of local lore, bizarre stories. They were fun.
Like you I had to be seen and not heard and so I didn't speak to adults unless addressed. I didn't mind being mute, because their stories were enlightening and they gave me a sense of where I stood in the family tree. I had so much to achieve, yet unachieved. They gave me something to strive for. I wanted to have some stories too.
I'm one lucky guy. My mother wrote in her diary every day from the time she was a young girl. I have volumes of stories about her life that involve my father, my sisters, grandparents and me. I am blessed. Thank you for reminding me of how precious these stories are.
I'm so glad you discovered your your mama's book!What a great gift to have so many pages to bring your mom's life back, at least in some way. I keep a journal obsessively because I relaized how much it would me to me to have diaries and journals form my family. When you are writing these things they are practically worthless. Over time they become one of the greatest gifts a person can give to the future. Thanks for your great comment.
You're welcome Tex. God bless you. I have an Uncle Charlie Putnam that kept a diary about his young life as a 17 year old in a VT Regiment in the Civil War as a bugle player. Incredible accounts at Gettysburg and other battles. It's now in the Montpelier museum.
Goes to show how important these accounts can be. BTW, my family fought on both sides, so if your still an avid confederate sympathizer I had relative that fought in the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Lee. ; )
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