Storytellers

Thanksgiving

What’s Going On

Elizabeth Coffey at InLight

This past weekend 1708 Gallery hosted its 15th Annual InLight Exhibit. The artists in this show use light to create or illumine their works in unusual ways. It moves to different locations every year and this year was set up in Richmond’s Joseph Bryan park just a 10 minute walk from Marie’s and my house. Elizabeth Coffey, a member of Innsbrook Toastmasters Club was one of the artists featured in the curated show. Elizabeth paints on lace. Her work is a commentary on how we see women as fragile, like lace, but both are deceptively strong and resilient.

Her work was hung from trees and the lights would illuminate them individually and then move on to another. These fleeting images were intriguing and lured the observer to confirm they had seen what they thought they had seen the next time the painting was in the light.

Marie and I invited the members of the club to our house and after noshing and sipping we strolled down to the park. It took a while to find Elizabeth’s exhibit. We were thrilled to connect with her and she was happy for our support.

We’ve seen her work on the screen during Zoom meetings, but this was our first time seeing her work in the “flesh” and it was mesmerizing.

International Business Growth Radio Network

Starting Friday January 6, 2023 I will be hosting an hour long radio show on the International Business Growth Radio Network. IBGR is the number one international internet business radio station. I’m excited and a little intimidated by the idea of filling an hour show each week.

The show will be called Stories Matter. My intention is to focus on the role storytelling plays in leadership and corporate culture. Over the course of the first season January through March I’m inviting leaders I’ve worked with over the years to share a story they’ve used to initiate or sustain change; or to instill values into the leaders they were growing.

Once “aired” the segments will be distributed as podcasts.

… stories do not cloak reality but create it, triggering cascades of perception and motivation. The proof is in brain scans: When we hear a fact, a few isolated areas of our brain light up, translating words and meanings. When we hear a story, however, our brain lights up like Las Vegas, tracing the chains of cause, effect, and meaning. Stories are not just stories; they are the best invention ever created for delivering mental models that drive behavior.

– The Culture Code

Daniel Coyle

Thanksgiving

Robbie Burns wrote in To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, / Gang aft agley.”

His sentiment was although the mouse had lost her house when it was turned up by the ploughman, she was lucky, because in her limited perspective on life she only had to deal with the present, while humanity is saddled with knowledge of the past and anticipation of the future. Hence, we know the futility of our dreams and our efforts to achieve them.

My momma’s momma was of Scot’s heritage. She had been raised in the Blue Ridge mountains and had been flooded out and burned out before my PawPaw and she moved to the lowlands seeking work during the depression. She shared Robbie’s dour outlook and was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Growing up under Nanny’s influence Momma adopted a ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ perspective on life. The 47 years she and Daddy had together on this earth were filled with joy and the downs were weathered with grace.

My sense is this was due to Daddy’s having been descended from a rowdy horde of Prussian descent who saw life’s tribulations as challenges to be acknowledged, conquered, and turned into stories for their collective amusement.

Whenever the family gathered, they wound up sharing their collective travails and eventual victory. And defeats were always viewed as temporary. After all, they had all risen from poverty, why shouldn’t they expect their prosperity to continue. They reveled in a good meal and were thankful for whatever was on the table because they remembered when food had been scarce.

Momma was always a little skeptical about Daddy’s Lilies of the Field world view, but he was so optimistic and so generous that mom was won over and she, too, learned to relish the bounty of this world.

Daddy died in 1992 at the young age of 62. Momma joined him in July of 2021. That 29-year separation was agony for her. For the first ten years she tried to fill his absence with “retail therapy.” She went on a world class shopping spree. Eventually, recognizing the futility of that effort she settled down to mourn.

Regularly, she would ask me why God would take my dad, and leave her? For years, I’d reply, “I don’t know Mom.”

Mom’s memory began to decline in 2018 and I began the gradual journey of becoming her primary care giver. It started with my dropping by at lunch time to check that she’d taken her meds. It morphed into my dropping by to make lunch, and then eventually I was there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That was when I was finally able to convince her to come live with us.

We built a mother-in-law suite onto the house. An experience that summoned my Scot’s grandmother and every bit of Robbie Burn’s pessimism. Between Covid and its incipient supply chain disruptions the addition wasn’t ready for her until January of 2021. But thank heavens, because her decline was precipitous once she moved in.

When she would ask her question of why God had left her, I began to answer, “I guess I still need you.”

Taking care of Mom taught me a lesson I don’t think I could have learned any other way. It taught me compassion. How to sit with someone and suffer with them knowing you couldn’t fix it, you just had to endure with them.

I was there rubbing her back and telling her, “It’s OK Honey. You can let go. Buddy’s waiting for you” when 20 days after her 91st birthday she shuffled off her mortal coil and was reunited with the love of her life.

Three days later we interred her ashes along with those of my daddy, which had sat on her dressing room table all those 29 years awaiting their reunion.

Thanksgiving was my daddy’s favorite holiday. As it is mine. And in the true tradition of my father’s belief that there’s always room at the table for one more, we will be joined by a young woman who has just moved to Richmond from San Antonio, TX.

I give thanks that my mom and my dad are together again. And that once again I shall sit down with my family and friends and have the opportunity to share in their joy of overcoming life’s adventures together.

My plans may be destined to fail, but I make them still. For I come from a people who persevere. Tell your stories this holiday of how your people have survived and thrived to be here today. For you will be giving each other the gift of resilience. You will be filling their wells and your own with the strength to overcome whatever comes your way. Because, they will know that they come from hearty stock. People who lived so they could be here.

Enjoy the fruits of their and your labor and know that I am thankful for those of you who read my stories.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I’d Love to Hear from You

I reprieved the story quote because I think it’s brilliant. And encourage people to read The Culture Code.

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and looking forward to hearing stories of the travails you have overcome.

Til next time,

Gayle Turner
Executive Producer

What Will People Think

I VOTED, I hope you did as well.

What Will People Think

I have a friend from India named Gopa. We were talking about the Sandwich Generation. Those people who are caught in the squeeze of taking care of their children AND their aging parents. Our conversation revolved around the toll these responsibilities were taking.

Gopa’s been in the U.S. for a while. He said when he was back home there were no day care centers or old folks’ homes. He said,” Extended families were expected to take care of their children and their elders.”

That didn’t stop the bickering among relatives about who was giving more time, and more money to the activities. But no one would have abandoned a relative for fear of what others would say.

I don’t think it ever crossed my parents’ minds what people would say. They had seen how their parents had handled the responsibilities of raising children and caring for the elderly at the same time and they had just followed the model.

My parents moved my widowed grandmothers into the apartment next door and installed a “baby monitor” so they could assure themselves all was well.

Years before, they had become foster parents to a 15-year-old girl named Rowena. There was a huge Broo-haw-haw at the time, but they had decided it was the right thing to do and they went to court, and she became their ward. Later my mother asked what I would think if she adopted Rowena. I said, “I thought we did that 40 years ago.” So, I took my mother and daughter to California, and we adopted her. I don’t think any of us gave any consideration to what “people” thought of our decision.

Social mores are fascinating. In my family’s case, our choices have been applauded and contested. But I don’t ever think my parents waivered in their commitment to their decisions to care for those they felt needed their help.

When Marie and I built an addition on our house, so we could care for my mom, we questioned how we would/could do it, but we never questioned whether it was the right thing to do. Not because we’re good or noble people, but because this behavior that was modeled for us when we were growing up.

Those behaviors are markers of my family’s culture – the way we do things.
I’m not sure how intentional my parents were in building our family’s culture, but I do know that culture eats strategy for lunch. And that people ape the behavior.

So, if you’re a leader, in your family, your community or in business, recognize the value of talking the talk, walking the walk, AND sharing stories of those who walk the talk.
You’ll find reinforcing your values this way will generate not just compliance, but consistent commitment to the way you want things done.

– The Culture Code

Daniel Coyle

I‘d Love to Hear from You

Stories inform and transform us.

I’d love to hear some of y’all’s stories about societal pressures and how they impact you.

Til next time,

Gayle Turner
Executive Producer

My Great Home Depot Experience

VOTE

Here in the U.S., the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is Election Day. If you are registered to vote, and if you haven’t already, I beseech you to vote today. If you have voted already, please accept my deepest, most sincere thanks.
If you’re 18 or older and an American citizen and you aren’t registered to vote, please do so, as soon as you possibly can, and then, vote in the next election.

I hear people complain that their vote doesn’t count, or that the system is flawed, or that there’s no one they want to vote for.

I’ve only voted FOR one candidate in a Presidential election since 1972 when I first started casting my vote. The rest of the time I’ve been voting to keep the least desirable candidate out of office.

Our world isn’t perfect, but I believe it gets worse when we don’t participate. I’m not going to proselytize for any candidate. I trust you to do your homework and to vote your conscience. And if that reflection prompts you to vote for the candidate I’m voting against, we can talk about it another day.

What I care most about is that we ALL vote.

Then, if my candidate loses, I can swallow the loss with the comfort that the will of the nation has been heard.

But, when anything less than 90% of the electorate votes, I am saddened regardless of who wins, because people died for our right to vote, including members of my family. All over the world people are killed trying to vote and when we fail to vote we essentially demean their struggles and contributions to a better world.

I have high expectations for our nation, and I believe we can achieve them. But only if we work together. And a crucial part of that collaboration is when we vote.

So, again, please, vote!

You’ll be proud of yourself.

As soon as I hit send to publish today’s newsletter, I’m headed to the poll.

My Great Home Depot Experience

It began as a screw-up. They way of many an adventure. I serve on my church’s vestry. This is the lay governing body. We’re responsible for the mundane, day-to-day business of the congregation. My responsibility is overseeing the maintenance of the property: the buildings and the grounds.

The Church of The Holy Comforter (Episcopal) is located at the intersection of Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue and Staples Mill Road. The Parish Hall was built in 1954 and the Sanctuary in 1958. They are both gorgeous red brick edifices that bring joy to a bricklayer’s son’s heart. In the last nine months, since I accepted the stewardship of property, I’ve been faced with one challenge after another. Leaky stained-glass windows and slate roofs. Electric lights that magically come on and off at odd times. We’re replacing the HVAC systems, and the never-ending chore of keeping the grass cut, raked and the shrubbery contained.

Earlier in the fall I looked at my calendar and scheduled a service day. The problem is I forgot what day I announced. Sunday a week ago, October 30, I realized it was to be this past weekend, November 5 and I was scheduled to be out of town. Nobody likes a leader who schedules a volunteer workday and doesn’t show up themselves.
The big deal was we were to cut down 80 running feet of Azaleas that had gone ‘native.” In other words, they’d not been properly pruned. They were over 12 foot high and if we’d pruned them, they have just been sticks.

We have three Master Gardeners in the congregation. Fortunately, I called the one who had originally bought and planted the bushes. His response was, “Cut them down, dig up the roots, and we’ll plant new next spring.” I confirmed the decision with the other two Master Gardeners, and I had my marching orders.

So, last Monday, Halloween, I recruited a foreperson for the workday, and I started scrambling. I arranged for a 30 square yard dumpster to be delivered and I checked my calendar for the week. Marie and I would be leaving for the first ever Allegheny Highlands Storytelling Festival on Friday afternoon, so I had Thursday afternoon and Friday morning to cut the bushes down.

I thought, ‘I can handle this.’

Thursday afternoon, I rented an electric chainsaw from Home Depot. I have never used a chainsaw before, but how hard could it be? The guys behind the counter, Mike and Everette, discovered I had managed Flood Zone, an 800-capacity performing arts venue in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom, back in the 80s and while they arranged the rental we spoke of those Happy Days.

They handed me a bottle of oil and reminded me to fill the reservoir regularly. I arrived at the church, and let the secretary know I’d be working outside. I hooked up my extension cord and began hacking my way through the leaves trying to get past the branches to the “trunk.”

The plant was fighting for its life. It was smacking me in the face; eventually I fought my way through to the trunk. I succeeded in cutting the first bush down. I looked at my watch. It had taken over an hour. At this rate I was going to have to work through the night. After a moment’s thought, I decided I needed someone to hold the branches back while I attacked the trunk and to drag away the cuttings, so I could proceed to the next trunk.

I called Jerry Scholder, and he and I went at it.

I was hustling, and I should have been taking more time. The chain would heat up, expand and come off. I would have to sit down, disassemble the mechanism, and reseat the chain. Ven with these periodic enforced rests we were making great time. And then, the saw wouldn’t start.

I drove back to Home Depot and explained that I thought I had broken the saw. Mike was patient and explained that I’d flipped the safety. I appreciated his not making me feel anymore foolish than I already felt. Everette took the saw in the back, cleaned it up, reseated the chain and told me the oil had almost run dry. He encouraged me to closely monitor the oil and I was on my way again.

Jerry and I worked until dark and decided to finish in the morning.

I dropped by Home Depot on my way home. It was about seven o’clock and I told the rental manager that I thought I had “dulled” the chain. He said, “Leave and Mike would have a new one installed in the morning.

At six Friday morning I was there when they opened the door. I told Mike what the manager had said and twenty minutes later I was on my way with a new chain.

I apologized for bringing the saw back with the dulled chain. He told me it was no problem and commended me for having replenished the oil. By 6:30 I was standing at Chick Fil-A picking up sausage biscuits and coffee Jerry and me.

By seven we were back at it. Jerry had to pull at 10:30 to clean up. He was flying out to Florida to see his daughter and I finished up by 11:00.

I cleaned up and took the saw back to Home Depot. I noticed an automated snake that looked damaged sitting in the waiting area. I’d seen an older woman renting it ahead of me in line on Thursday. Apparently, she’d broken it and when she returned it, she had gotten huffy when it became clear that it was broken. Mike said Everette was going to see if he could repair it.

Mike was checking me out and he said, “I’m going to give you a 25% discount.”

I said, “Thank you, the church will appreciate that.”

And he asked, “This is for a church?”

I said, “Yeah, The Church of The Holy Comforter up at Monument and Staples Mill.”

And this was when I was completely surprised.

He said, “We’ll donate this.”

Now, it was only going to have been fifty bucks or so, but what a gracious gesture. Particularly, after I’d had to come back twice for them to straighten out my snafus. Maybe it was my manner in contrast to the lady who had been unpleasant when she’d returned her damaged tool. Or maybe there’s a policy for supporting non-profit organizations or I’m sure there could be a myriad of explanations.

All I know is the experience was a positive one from beginning to end.

Volunteers worked Saturday and Sunday dragging the branches around the church and putting them in the dumpster. In a couple of weeks, we’ll start digging up the roots in preparation for planting new shrubbery in the spring.

But in the meantime, I’m telling everybody I know about my great experience at Home Depot.

The Ancestor Effect: Thinking About Our Genetic Origin Enhances Intellectual Performance.

European Journal of Social Psychology 41 (2010), 11-16

P. Fischer, A. Sauer, C. Vogrincic and S. Weisweiler

Featured Storyteller

Rebecca Taylor

Becky is a two-dimensional artist who dwells on the edges of the surreal. She uses shifts in colors to take obvious subject matter to another place and time. She creates congested compositions to pull the viewer into an intimate space, forcing engagement. Her vibrantly colored work conveys an unpretentious, folksy look.

She has just finished designing the marketing communication graphics for our upcoming show, Speaking Truth to Power: Stories of Moses.

Click to see Becky’s story.

I’d Love to Hear from You

Stories inform and transform us.

I’d love to hear some of y’all’s stories about your experience voting.

Til next time,

Gayle Turner
Executive Producer

Bringing Our Boys Home

Bringing Our Boys Home

I never knew my mom’s oldest brother, Oliver Terrell Wine, Jr. He died during the invasion of Sicily during World War II. A German artillery shell blew up his landing craft. His remains have yet to be identified.

Every Memorial Day, my grandmother would have a wreath delivered to the Virginia War Memorial on Belvidere Street overlooking the James River. I have a newspaper clipping of my Pawpaw and her standing with their wreath in front of the statue that dominates the space.

Momma was the baby of the family and her only memory of Oliver was when he told her not to talk with food in her mouth. I find this such an incongruous anecdote. Momma was one of the most elegant women I’ve ever known. He must have made a serious impression.

Another newspaper clipping, I found in my grandmother’s effects, was a piece about Oliver having driven a couple from Bath County, VA all the way across the country to Washington state. This would have been in the 1930s. He would have been a teenager. What an amazing adventure that must have been. I took the trip in the 21st century using the Interstate system and it was daunting. Just imagine the challenges 70 years earlier.

Momma said he worked in the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camps. Most likely in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The most heart-breaking story though was his insisting his parents sign for him to join the Army. He was underage and enlistment required a parent’s signature. Reportedly, he said if they didn’t sign he would run away, forge their signature, and never come home again.

There’s a picture somewhere in the boxes here at the house of him in his uniform, so I imagine he came home on leave after bootcamp, but I believe that was the last time they saw him. He died that summer of 1943.

Shortly before Momma died in 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reached out to her requesting she submit a DNA sample. Both she and I submitted swabs. I also gave them contact info for her nephew, Lawrence Hornbaugher Wine, Jr. who lives outside Boston, MA.

I received a letter addressed to mom the other day inviting us to attend a Family Member Update to be held in Norfolk November 19, 2022.

I was late registering, but yesterday, a fellow named Paul Axsom called me from Kentucky to tell me that while they wouldn’t be able to work up a full report for me in time for the November meeting, he would make sure they sent me a personal update within the next 90 days.

I thanked him and hung up. Immediately, I thought of questions, and I called him back. I asked if they could include in the report when and where my uncle had enlisted. Mr. Axsom paused and said, “I don’t know if that information is available.” I was wondering to myself, ‘why in the world not,’ when he went on to say, “There was a fire back in 1973 that destroyed a lot of that information.”

He said they’d do their best and I thanked him for what they were doing.

Momma is at rest now. I am thankful she learned before she died they were still working to identify and repatriate Oliver’s remains .

We as a nation do not have a good track record of taking care of our veterans. The VA has been underfunded since its inception, but it’s heartening to realize that in this case our country remains vigilant in its efforts to identify and bring home the remains of our fallen.

I hope I live to see the day when Uncle Oliver, who was just a boy when he went away to serve his country, finally comes home and rests in peace.

Today is All Saints Day and tomorrow is All Souls Day. I ask that for a moment or two, today and again tomorrow, you pause and reflect upon the sacrifices our ancestors have made, and with the knowledge that people have died for our right to vote I encourage you to vote next Tuesday. Our republic depends upon our participation.

I give thanks for my uncle’s sacrifice and to all of you who vote.

Humanity’s legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, died.’ Probably that is the template of our stories – a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.

– Doris Lessing

Featured Storyteller

Rebecca Taylor

She has just finished designing the marketing communication graphics for our upcoming show, Speaking Truth to Power: Stories of Moses.

Click to see Becky’s story.

I’d Love to Hear from You

Stories inform and transform us.

I’d love to hear some of y’all’s stories.

Join Marie and me at the Historic Masonic Theatre in Clinton Forge, VA for the Allegheny Highlands Story Festival.

Friday and Saturday November 4th and 5th, 2022.

Til next time,

Gayle Turner
Executive Producer

Salubria After Dark

Every year, in the fall, the Germanna Foundation opens the grounds of Salubria for an evening of storytelling.

The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization) was chartered in 1956 to preserve the heritage of the earliest organized settlements of Germans in colonial Virginia in 1714 and 1717, augmented with additional infusions of immigrants in the 1730s and 1740s.

The Foundation manages Historic Salubria, an 18th century (ca. 1757) Georgian-style manor house built by the Reverend John Thompson, rector of the Little Fork Church from 1740 to 1772, who married the widow of Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood. Virginians remember Spotswood for his Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition.

The house received the name Salubria , Latin for healthful, from a later owner, James Hansbrough, in the early 1800s and has been known by that name since that time.

Google Maps says Salubria is located in Stevensburg, VA on Route 3 between Fredericksburg and Culpeper. Even though I’ve been performing at this event for years it’s easy to miss the driveway to the property.

The annual event, Salubria After Dark, sees guests driving up a rutted rural lane with cattle pastures on the right and the caretaker’s cottage on the left. You pass the manor house on your left with candles and jack-o-lanterns lining the walkway and are directed to park on the lawn of the cottage where the storytellers stay when in residence.

Elevated, rustic, wrought iron braziers are placed around the house. Their flickering flames casting pools of light. The audiences are broken into small cohorts which are led to one of three performance areas. One group will be led by lantern light to a brazier south of the house, another to a brazier north of the house and a third group will be ushered into the manor house itself.

There is a hushed air about the place. When the breeze is blowing you hear the rustle of the desiccating leaves, but other than that the only sounds are the swish of cloth, the shuffle of shoe soles, and the guides encouraging folks to mind their step and beware of tree roots, which legend has it have risen up, and tripped inattentive visitors in the past.

This year, Shel Browder, a blacksmith from Colonial Jamestown, was decked out in this 1776 Regulation British Army kilt and held sway over the audiences at the southern brazier with a variety of Scottish tales. In the house, Darci Tucker, nationally renowned storyteller and historical character interpreter, told a true story of corruption and murder at Mosby’s Tavern in 1767.

And I held court around the northern flames recounting a Czechoslovakian variation of the Cinderella story.

When the storytellers were done the guides would shepherd the groups to the next oasis of light. The combination of the flickering flames fighting to hold back the dark, and the eerie silence of the estate coupled to direct the audience’s attention to the storytellers. In a setting like that you can’t help but imagine life during simpler times where a family gathered around a fire entertained themselves and educated the children by sharing stories.

I ended my stories admonishing my audiences to tell stories to their children. The story of the night they were born. The stories of what life was like when their parents were young. And when the audience knew them to share the stories of what life was like when their grandparents were children.

When people have a reservoir of these kinds of stories, they realize their ancestors overcame struggles and it feeds resiliency helping them see they too can overcome life’s challenges. It gives children and adults alike sources of emotional sustenance.

I acknowledged that sometimes children don’t want to listen, especially when they have screens waiting to ply them with more dynamic production values. I said, “Tell them anyway.” For the time will come when their grandparents and parents will be gone and they will have questions and there will be no one left to answer them.

Another benefit of telling the stories is you’ll be prompted to ask your parents, if they’re still with you, for more details. And if they’ve ‘passed on to their reward’ as we say down South, you’ll be able to admonish the children to listen, because you didn’t and now you can’t ask them anymore.

I’ll end today’s ‘sermon’ by reminding you –

You matter.

Your stories matter.

Tell them well.

Tell them often.

For when our stories are told,

are

Immortal!

“Stories create community, enable us to see through the eyes of other people, and open us to the claims of others.”

– Peter Forbes

Featured Storyteller

Rebecca Taylor

She has just finished designing the marketing communication graphics for our upcoming show, Speaking Truth to Power: Stories of Moses.

Click to see Becky’s story.

I’d Love to Hear from You

Stories inform and transform us.

I’d love to hear some of y’all’s stories.

Join Marie and me at the Historic Masonic Theatre in Clinton Forge, VA for the Allegheny Highlands Story Festival.

Friday and Saturday November 4th and 5th, 2022.

Til next time,

Gayle Turner
Executive Producer