Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Storytellers- Part 3

I need to mention my siblings and their various styles of story telling. I was born into a family of teenagers (or soon to be teenagers.)
My oldest sister, Diane, is witty and clever with words.  She brings roll on the floor laughter, but I must admit I didn't laugh at "Mr. Boo" when I was a wee girl.  That scared me so much, because my mother called boogers, boos, making me just imagine an enormous, unkind mucus plug, I suppose, with sunglasses or at least glasses, since all my pictures from that time in my life had people wearing eye glasses- everyone wore them in my family.  Diane also was always singing and I'm not sure if she made up the words for Hitchcock's TV show theme or not, but the worms and pus and green sparked a young child's inner eye!  She still takes me to the places she has been and her descriptions do not disappoint.
Gerri Lee, yes I still call her Gerri Lee, is quieter.  She gave up many evenings to read to me at night, probably  Diane's stories caused me to be afraid to go to bed by myself.  Wizard of Oz,  Shirley Temple Storybook, are two I remember.  G. Lee also introduced me to the library in the old Buhl Club, a huge cool mysterious place for me.  I think the book we got had something to do about strawberries.
Dan, I almost shouldn't write about, I'm sure.  He also was quiet.  He regaled me with stories of the Green Man(a real person, in Wikepedia) and haunted houses after his summer joy rides.  Remember when we didn't have to worry about gas prices?  He comforted me one time when my grandmother stayed with us while our parents visited their first granddaughter in NJ.  Grandma yelled at me for coming to the table singing and Dan chose to tell me some story about a king, like no other fairy tale I had heard- I was 7.
They have different styles, but more than information was transferred to me, ideas, values and some great memories are part of that legacy.

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