EnjoyYour Family’s Stories

Because generational memories are priceless!

Long before the written word, there were stories.

Stories told around a fire. Or around the dinner table. Stories shared among family and friends.

Stories of courage, daring, and danger. And sometimes stories that made you smile.

Countless generations later, we are still telling and listening to stories.

Yet despite the astounding advances in the printing and distribution of stories, it is the family stories — those shared orally — that are usually the ones we love best.

And remember most.

I think of my father when I think of family stories . Always told with a wry sense of self-deprecation, my father’s stories usually showed him doing something a bit silly, but with good results.

For example, he used to love to talk about his experiences with the CCC (The Civilian Conservation Corp), established in 1933 , as part of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” during the Depression.

After signing up for the CCC, my father, familiar only with the Italian immigrant neighborhood in Rhode Island where he was born and raised, found himself transported to a ranching community in Wyoming.

The way people spoke, the work they did, even the food they ate (especially the food!) seemed strange to my teenage father, so far from home. But he embraced and was excited by the change.

After doing a hard day’s work, he usually found an opportunity to meet some of the residents in the area. Back in that day, my handsome father, with his bright blue eyes and easy smile was quite comfortable chatting with any girl he was lucky enough to encounter.

Once he met a lively girl who asked him teasingly ,“Can you ride a horse?” To which my father confidently replied, “Sure!” Of course, he had never ridden a horse or come close to one, except for a few tired horses pulling produce or ice trucks in his crowded urban neighborhood.

Before he knew what was happening, he had agreed to join the girl at her family farm. Later that afternoon, he clumsily hauled himself up on a jittery mare that took off at a gallop, much to the amusement of the girl and her family. My father hung on, for dear life.

An hour or so later, he gratefully slid off the horse in a graceless heap. Limping painfully back to the farmhouse on his throbbing legs, he kept smiling and pretending he had had a great time.

At this point in the story my father would usually chuckle and say, “I guess I didn’t fool them. I could hardly walk for a week. But it was worth it. Boy, was she pretty!”

I don’t believe he meant the horse!