The Birth of Paul Bunyan, an American Tall Tale.

In my last post I said I wanted to try a cowboy joke. Well, American tall tales are close cousins to the cowboy joke, like them, tall tales thrive on exaggeration and how much your audience will swallow. The larger-than-life heroes of tall tales can cross the continent in a day or so, flatten forests, and save cities. Their powers are strangely close to the powers of nature, and sometimes our heroes cause earthquakes, floods, or hurricanes.

This story is the beginning of a legend, the birth of the famed American lumberjack: Paul Bunyan. Sit back and enjoy...

The Birth of Paul Bunyan, listen on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/bonita-archer/the-birth-of-paul-bunyan-an

Credits:
Audio Software: Audacity
Music: Tennessee Mine (Sam Hill) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Sound Effects: SoundBible.com
Baby Crying Mike Koenig
Small Herd Cattle BuffBill84,
Perfect Thunder Storm Mike Koenig
Tree Fall Small Daniel Simion

Exercise 2: A question.

Sphinx by gbannerman, on Flickr

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was asked a question. “Who is your worst enemy?” He spent all day looking for the answer and he became cross and short-tempered because he couldn’t find it. Finally a friend, frustrated with the boy’s moodiness, told him, and left him to think about it. “It’s you, silly!” “Everyone is their own worst enemy, and their own greatest ally.”

This was a story from an audiobook I heard a long time ago, and it always stuck with me. That’s the power of storytelling and I think, spoken words, they can sink deep when you listen.

The beginning is my main struggle. That’s what I wrote a week ago.

For me the challenge in storytelling is often the beginning. That’s what I wrote today yesterday.


bicycle by HarshPatel on flickr


Today I bought a bicycle. It is shiny and white, with sparkly gears and a sleek frame.

I haven’t owned a bicycle since I was eight years old. That bicycle was orange-red and not-so-new; it had those tall handlebars that you could seat a friend on, and the back pedal brakes. I can’t remember if it squeaked or not, it probably did squeak. It had that metallic bicycle smell mixed with rubber tire. My brother, sister, and I spent hours gliding around the asphalt driveway and I rode that red bicycle with confidence.

Today, getting up on that white bicycle, I wasn’t confident, I wasn’t astride in a second, I wasn’t making rings around the obstacles. Wobbly. That’s the word. I mounted gingerly and then it, and I on top of it, wobbled. The sophisticated oh-so-balanced bicycle tried to correct this error and that’s when my nervous hands jerked the wheel off its chosen path. Whoops. Time to start over. I ungracefully dismounted and then swung on again. Pedal, that’s right. Ah, better then, an actual lap around the parking lot, a near miss with the speed bump and a return to starting position. Even after this slight victory, I didn’t mess too much with the sparkly gears although they winked at me as if to say, “Give it a go.” In my next test run, I steered a wide berth around cars, with the occasional panicked squeeze on the brake. So eventually the ride became a bit smoother. I did take that bicycle home with me, you’d better believe it. Yup.

This storytelling learning feels like that bicycling to me. Hello, come out and Face the Awkward. Maybe everyone tells stories everyday but now I have to write it? Fiddle with the shiny, twiddly technology bits?

The task has physical aspects. I’m one of those storytellers who crave ink and paper to kindle creation – to my mind there’s too much auto correct in productivity suites. In fact, a scribe would be the best. Lacking that luxury, I scrawl and doodle and try not to get ink on my fingers. Paper feels friendlier; it’s impermanent and fragile yet it can last for centuries.

The task has mental aspects. Think: percolate, brainstorm, and organize. These days my brain is mushy and tired, an over-soaked knowledge sponge. I forget names. What happened to those days when my imagination wasn’t tired? It had something to do with giving time freely and caring less about the end product and enjoying the process. But let’s not wax nostalgic, I was ever a tiny bit anxious to have good results. Let’s go back to the bicycle. Maybe I want a scribe, however, mostly I need practice. I need to take those wheels for a spin. I love my bicycle with all my wobbly heart, so practicing will be fun. Bring out the sparkly ideas, the slow spinning words, the buttons and gadgets.

So why bother? Why did I tell stories? Why do I tell stories? It’s about the sharing. It’s often over a meal or with a picture album in my lap. It is to share history, share the things I value, to laugh at silly things. Sometimes I tell stories to create meaning from the past, find new understandings, soften grief or illustrate love. I like myths, legends, and fairytales. I’ve read my Greek anthology, Norse tales, Hans Christian Anderson, and Grimm Brothers. This means I know when the fiercest fairytale endings have been dressed as lambs.

Growing up, my older sister was frequently the storyteller for us both – at that time she had confidence and I was the shy one. We had friends in common, and with them, I heard her stories over and over until I had the stories memorized. Eventually I would tandem tell them with her, finishing sentences, picking up the narration when she left off. It was fun.

When my family went camping, which we do for a week each summer, we swapped stories around the campfire in between roasting marshmallows. I know the one story that makes my cousin cringe - it features berry-picking and a forsythia tree –that’s a tale for another day.

Sometimes I embellish stories that other people have told, like when I read aloud to children. Storytelling is an art, and I started to learn some of the tools of the trade in my youth services class last summer.

There’s one skill I’d really love to learn. I want to tell a cowboy joke like the Virginian –his frog tale was a true marvel!