It took only five words…

If my dad spoke those five words at the beginning of a sentence, they worked wonders! They grabbed my attention and snatched me back from wherever my little-boy mind had wandered. They riveted my attention on Dad.      I was ready.

“Did I ever tell you….” That  phrase was the preamble to adventure. Television was a thing of the future and our family had no radio. But soon we might be in the jungles of the Philippines cowering in fear with Dad and other young recruits listening, dry-mouthed, to rhythmic war-beat of tom-toms getting closer and closer—tom-toms, the drums of savage cannibals, according to the old sergeant. Or we might be enjoying breakfast at a street cafe in Paris. Or awed by smoke and smell and sound of colorful life-size parade-dragons weaving their way through the streets of Tokyo. Or we might be frantically scrambling through underbrush in Borneo with fierce headhunters closing in. Or setting dangerous explosives deep underground in the vein of Number 9 coal in Muhlenberg County, KY; “That’s how Jeb Matheney lost the thumb and forefinger on his right hand, you know.”

“Did I ever tell you…” and its counterpart, “Once upon a time…”: are signals that it’s story time, a time of remembering. The “mem” in “remember” and the “mem” in “memorial” carry the suggestion of something or someone who made a difference—who contributed parts of the mosaic or tapestry of our lives.

When Alex Haley wrote Roots, he struck a responsive chord that continues to reverberate. We all yearn to know our story: who we are, who they, our ancestors, were, and what we’ll find when we follow our roots. Stories reveal the tale—the tales, I should say.

Memorial Day is a time for remembering…a time of stories. We’ve almost forgotten that. I’ll remember, in particular, my brother, Reg, (the “Jackie” of our novels): His service in WW II, his being missing in action (He was in a German prison camp), his Purple Heart, his three years in the hospital after the war. And the good times afterward.

I’ll remember Dad (the “Smith Delaney” of our novels): his time as a teen soldier in the occupation forces in the Philippines after the Spanish American War; his time in Europe in WWI, the rascal he was and the gentleman he became after he met my mother (to-be).

I’ll recall my children’s great-great grandfathers’ service during the Civil War—at least one for the Confederacy and two for the Union. And I’ll remember the mothers (my Mom, of course) and wives and the sweethearts (Reg’s Jo) who stayed behind.

But our memories aren’t just of the military actions of our forebears. Let’s remember those ancestors’ trips over the mountains or down the rivers. Let’s remember their hard times and good. Let’s remember how they laid the foundations our lives are built on.

Visit their graves, if you can. Those memorial stones mark the final resting place of real people who once felt the joys and heartaches of life much as we do. Be thankful for each bit of good they bequeathed and forgive their failures.

Learn their stories. Write them down. Share them with the children who will be your bridge to generations to come. The stories help us know who we are, and may well give insights into why we are what we are. For example, it’s easy to trace my love of nature, of people, of my faith, and of stories. No doubt it’s easy to follow paths that suggest why you are who you are, too. And how I love it when I get a peek into a secret closet of the past and see a garment that I now wear.

I’ll write more about stories and storytelling in future posts on my blog, http://theFamilyMinute.com Be sure to visit there regularly.

– Philip Dale Smith (GrandpaDale)

PS We’ll discuss how you can make the most of storytelling to enrich family life and bond family members.

]]> http://thefamilyminute.com/it-only-took-five-words/feed/ 0 http://thefamilyminute.com/want-to-be-adored-he-was/ http://thefamilyminute.com/want-to-be-adored-he-was/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:58:44 +0000 smithdale2 http://thefamilyminute.com/?p=41 By Dale Smith  (GrandpaDale) © 2009 Philip Dale Smith

“Daddy, did Pa really shoot up the poolroom at Beech Creek?”

Lisa asked me that when she was perhaps 13 years old. 

“Yep. Sure did,” was my reply.

A few years later: “Daddy, did Pa really shoot the Muhlenberg County Sheriff off a ladder?”

My response: “Yep, he sure did!”

I told the truth.

A couple of decades passed and Lisa, by then a published and recorded song writer, wrote a song about her Pa: “Gentle Heart, Gentle Soul, Gentle Man.” You’ll see it soon.

Hard to believe, but what she wrote in that song was true. He was a gentle heart, gentle soul, and gentle man!

In the decade after the song came out, “Pa” became the inspiration basis for the male protagonist in Lisa’s historical fiction novel, Turn Back Time, which won the national Benjamin Franklin Award for fiction and became a featured Doubleday book club offering. (BTW, I coauthored it). In it, and its sequel, Sunshine & Shadow, he was a good guy–mostly.

Debby, another of Pa’s granddaughters, a school teacher, wrote the essay, “Pa.” In it she tells of the delightful relationship she and another granddaughter had with him. She describes what he was and what he did that made those little girls adoring fans.

They couldn’t have imagined that he was the man who shot up the pool room and shot the sheriff off the ladder. Knowing how he honored “Ma,” his wife, they couldn’t have conceived that there was a time when his best friends hoped no woman would be so foolish as to marry this “fast-fisted, short-fused, bad-news bachelor.”

But let’s go back and glimpse the story behind the story.

“A man can change, cain’t he?” John Orville Smith asked his cousin, Maude. He was back from carousing around the country and wanted to get to know her friend, the “young widow Rhoads.” His question was a plea in response to Maude’s unwillingness to cooperate.

“Yes, Orville,” Maude replied, “a man can change. But you ain’t likely to.”  She refused to introduce him to the genteel and highly respected young widow with two small children.

But she relented.

The man who became my dad spent the next half-century proving that, yes, a man can change. And can become the adored patriarch of a passel of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and their spouses.

So the premise of this blog is that  a man (woman, and child) can change, can improve, can make a difference. Fortunately we won’t likely have make changes of the magnitude that “Pa” did. We can make little differences as we adjust, tweak, and upgrade our attitudes, skills and behavior. As we do, marvelous benefits will accrue in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones. Perhaps for generations to come. 

Now, I’m honored to include his nickname in mine. He was my dad and was “Pa” to following generations. Now I’m “GrandpaDale.” If only I could be as “Grand.”

I’ll try. 

–GPD