October 12, 2015--John's Turtle Story

"Our grandkids can't get enough stories."

"Those you tell them or read to them?"

"Both," John said, "But more the ones we read since after a few readings they can follow along as if they're reading."

"I've seen that with little ones," Rona said, "They memorize the text and seem to be following along as you read."

"They even know when to turn the page," John said.

"Amazing," I said. "What do you think is the story?"

"You mean their favorite stories?"

"Not so much that. The story as to why stories seem so important, even essential to kids. From my experience they can never seem to get enough."

"Maybe it coincides with their learning to talk," Rona said. "It's a great way to build vocabulary and help with syntax."

"I think it's more than that," John said, among the three of us the only one with children and now grandchildren. "One really interesting thing is that when I finish reading one, they say, 'Again, grandpa, again. Over and over again. That suggests there's something very important going on."

"I'm suddenly remembering that I couldn't get enough of The Little Engine that Could. I had my mother read it as often as she was willing."

"You're dating yourself," John and Rona said simultaneously, as if they had rehearsed.

"I know. I'm old and . . ."

"Not that old," Rona said. "And for the most part you still have your memory."

Ignoring that, I said, "Isn't it the one about the little locomotive that is able to pull a very long train of cars over a steep mountain after bigger engines refused to even try?"

"That's the one," John said, generously joining me in revealing that he too is old enough to remember it. "While struggling with the train, the little engine, which speaks as if it's human, says, 'I think I can. I think I can.' That's the line we all remember."

"And succeeds," I said. "So, like many children's stories it has a not-so-hidden message. In this case, perseverance, optimism, and the value of hard work."

"And an eager willingness to take on hard tasks. Seemingly daunting challenges. Good solid American values. At least they were back then."

"Why do you guys always seem to want to find subliminal messages in things like this? Isn't it enough to just say it's a good story, well written, with language and rhythmics that appeal to young children?"

Again ignoring that, I said, "In my day, this story was pitched to boys, I'm not sure it was all that popular among girls. I even wonder if mothers read it to their daughters?"

"There a lot of sexism there," Rona said, "I  think my mother did. But there I go also being over analytical."

We all laughed.

"While we're being over analytical," John said, winking, "there seems to be an adult need as well for stories. Look how popular novels are and so many TV shows from Masterpiece Theater to Homeland to Mad Men. You name it, there are lots of adult stories available in different forms--in movies of course --that there must be a story gene in our DNA."

We looked at him skeptically. "Give me one example of a society, a klan, a tribe, ancient or modern, that doesn't value stories. In some cases cherishing them. So much that even before there were written languages, people passed them along orally from generation to generation."

"I can't think of any," I said. "Among other things, for seemingly all the time there have been humans, us very much included, everyone has had their own creation myths. Or, if you prefer, stories."

"True," Rona said, "Especially about how their tribe or society or civilization came into being. Including how humans came into being."

"From Romulus and Remus," John said "Who were pre-Romans raised by wolves. Do I have that right? From them the ultimate Roman Empire emerged?"

"Yes. And how so many in the West pass along their, our creation story through the Old Testament."

"Getting everyone on board about their particular origin myth is a way to connect people to each other in very deep and profound ways. It's so frequent that it must be essential to their survival as a tribe or society or nation."

"Native Americans have really fascinating ones," John said. "The Navajo  creation story, for example, is about how at first there were four spiritual worlds and only insects existed. But it was from the fourth world, after trying the other three and being thwarted, through a hollow reed, that the first humans emerged, males and females, who came from insects and were sustained by ears of white and yellow corn."

"I've heard versions of that one," I said.

"Isn't there another one about a turtle?" John said. "How a prehistoric turtle emerged from a muddy pond with the first tribal member on its back and . . ."

"I think you're making that one up," I said.

"Could be," John said, winking again.

"Go on," Rona said, "I want to hear the rest. How things worked out for the turtle people."

"But he's making that one up," I said.

"I don't care," Rona said. "I want to hear the rest of it. It sounds like a great story."

February 11, 2014--Again Mommy, Again

Some years ago I listened in as my New Jersey sister-in-law read a story to her four-year-old daughter.

What struck me was not so much the story--I think a weasel was prominently featured--but the rapt attention my niece paid to it. Also, though she could not as yet read, she appeared to be mouthing all the words. Clearly she had heard the story before. Certainly, many times to be able to lip-sink it so seamlessly.

And then at the end, I was fascinated to hear her say, "Again, mommy, again." At which time her mother without a shrug or sigh, read it again. And again. And then again. By which time my niece was fighting to fend off sleep.

That contributed to my lifelong interest in stories. Not just my loving to listen to them, or telling them, or attempting to write them, but by the seemingly universal interest all peoples have in stories. More fundamentally, appear to need them. Perhaps particularly those they have heard before like my niece, many, many times.

Can you name one society, one culture, one tribe--pre-historic, ancient, or contemporary--that does not depend upon stories? Not just for pleasure, not just for tribal or communal bonding, but perhaps even for survival.

Because if stories are so ubiquitous in evolutionary terms they must be "adaptive," which means they are needed for species survival. Equally as important as food, language, music, belief systems (which all have stories at their heart), rituals, mores, and social arrangements.

If true, all humans have, actually must have the same propensity, the same, may I say, biological need for stories as my four-year-old New Jersey niece.

Some claim that we shape our sense of personhood by the stories we tell and exhibit about ourselves. We shape into stories experiences for the purpose of sculpting a Self. There is no Self possible, it is thought, if one does not do this. There is no reality about ourselves except that which we create in this story-generating way.

Since post-modernists assert that reality is socially constructed--and not discoverable in any absolute way and then passed along as Truth--to me a persuasive contention--this fits the notion that we each socially construct who we are. Stories are the warp and weft of that life-long effort.

My earliest experience with this transformative, self-building process--beyond the stories my mother must have read to me that I was too young to recall--were the accounts of adventures my Cousin Chuck pursued as much for the stories he made of them as the adventures themselves.

There was one time when he and I camped overnight in a state park in the Catskills. I was a cub scout and knew about making fires and pitching a tent. He knew about neither. In fact, he was the least out-of-doors-oriented person I knew. To him, the out-of-doors was the neighborhood schoolyard. But he insisted on going camping.

So my father drive us to the site, said his goodbyes, wished us well, and said he'd be back for us in the morning.

I pitched a tent by myself, having sent Chuck out to gather firewood. He asked if he could have my cub scout knife in case he needed to defend himself.

I told him there were no bears for at least 20 miles but to indulge him and to get him out of the way so I could pitch the tent without his interference, I gave him the knife.

He returned after 15 minutes with a few twigs and branches. Barely enough for me to heat up the baked beans and grill the hot dogs my mother had packed for us.

As only beans and frankfurters cooked and eaten in the woods can taste, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, scattered the embers, slid into our sleeping bags, and proceeded to sleep like proverbial logs.

My father arrived right on time and found us packed and ready to go.

On the way home, during that 45 minutes, Chuck, in response to my father asking how we did, told a story, created a story worthy of James Fenimore Cooper. How the evening began with his struggle to subdue a grizzly bear that had penetrated out campsite and attempted to steal our food and how, after driving the bear back into the woods, we were attacked by swarms of bats and later lay awake all night listening to the howls of a nearby wolf, Chuck ever on-guard, protecting me, his younger cousin, with his 12-inch Bolo knife.

And then when we got back to the house the family was renting, my Dad had him tell the story over and over again to assorted cousins and aunts and uncles who had gathered for the weekend.

By the fifth telling, every one of which I listened to and savored, the one bear had become three, the lone wolf had become a pack, and his knife had grown to 14 inches.

This story lives on in family lore though Chuck prematurely departed this life. It not only reflects the self Chuck constructed but also has helped define our larger family. In the alchemic possibilities of America (also largely created through a national narrative more fiction than fact), we transformed ourselves from shtetl Jews into full-blooded Americans. Eager to take on whatever came our way. To become who we wanted to be. To become how we defined ourselves largely through our shape-shifting stories.

This all reminds me of Woody Allen's joke at the end of Annie Hall--

A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, "Hey doc, my bother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken!" 

Then the doc says, "Why don't you turn him in?" 

Then the guy says, "I would, but we need the eggs."

Indeed, we need the eggs.