CHOOSE: STORYTELLING!

Storytelling. An oral tradition that binds families together with shared memories.

Donald Davis is the master of such a tradition. He leaves his audiences "limp from laughter and with a lump in their throats" reports the New York Times.

Our kids and now our grands have grown up with his tales. Caleb (11) was privy to hearing him in person last year in Texas. This past weekend Owen (10) attended a storytelling festival at Balmoral Presbyterian in Memphis. 

A few years ago, hubby and I shared his Grand Canyon CD with family on our Westward Ho trip. We laughed "all the way to the bottom of the canyon" with him.

Davis says, " Storytelling is not what I do for a living---it is how I do all that I do while I am living."

I first met Donald Davis at the Methodist camp at Lake Junaluska, NC as a 17 year old. He worked in the bookstore and I was a camper. As a librarian, many years later, I heard him at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN.

As a Methodist minister, Davis understands the importance of passing on stories, both Biblical and personal to the next generation. (Joel 1:3 & Psalm 78:4) We should all do the same.

That's why hubby and I both choose storytelling and the importance of passing on that oral tradition.

Noc-TEA-urnal Happenings

He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. (Psalm 104:19-21, NIV)

I seem to be belaboring the point but....another "upside" of darkness is nocturnal bloomers. Some plants seem to thrive in darkness, blooming only at night and providing much pleasure, both visual and olfactory. 

Larry's grandmother, Anna Douglas Liles, aka Mom, had planted one such flower sometime in the 50s at the old Liles/Lanigan hunting cabin at Pickwick. Mom's moonflower has been on the property since the cove was first dubbed "Liles Cove" by the old-timers and before the property even had a Liles Lane road name. 

Moonflowers, nocturnal bloomers, seem to bloom and glow from sunset to sunrise with much fragrance. It's in the dark of night that they put on their best show. Mom told our kids that the moonflower bloomed once at night before dying at sunrise. Then, the next evening---voilà, the plant would resurrect itself and produce another bloom.....or so the story goes. I have no idea of the validity of this but it's Mom's story, so I'll stick with it. Another positive aspect of darkness to go with a cuppa noc-TEA-urnal recollections.