Whenever I’m in the house, I usually have the public radio station (WUOT) turned on. When Fridays roll around, I try to be near the radio to listen to StoryCorps, a six-minute impactful conversation between two people.
As I listen, I learn something or gain a new perspective, or feel the love between the participants. These people are not famous, can or cannot know each other or are people from different backgrounds and beliefs. There are several categories of stories, one of which is called One Small Step — Bridging the Political Divide. One Small Step is a 50-minute recorded conversation between two people with different political views. Listening to the program confirms my long-held belief that stories are important and are meant to be shared.
If you’ve never heard of Story Corps, it is a non-profit organization founded by Dave Isay, a man who won the $1 million TED prize, six Peabody Awards and the MacArthur “Genius” Award. Dave founded Story Corps because he believes that meaningful conversations between people help us believe in each other, form connections, gain knowledge and ultimately create a more just and compassionate world.
We all have stories, conversations, something funny, something about family members or friends, sometimes a parable, stories designed with a purpose. Whatever the story is, if it is important to you, then it is important to share.
Some of my important stories include my great-grandmother, a far-sighted, mother of 10 who in 1883, insisted her five daughters attend college so they could be self-sufficient. A favorite family story concerns one of my husband’s great-aunts, a much-loved member of the family who was asked to serve the punch at an elaborate wedding and who, inadvertently or not, sampled too much of the brew, became, in the words of a family member, “drunk as a lord,” and was bundled, mink coat and all, into the back of a car and sent home!
Then there’s one of my father’s many parables, this one telling our son that whenever he opened the tool shed, to be sure to lock it because there was a mean little boy in the neighborhood who would steal tools. Once a friend came to help and when he heard this story said, “Seth, let’s find that mean little boy and teach him a lesson!” Seth replied, “There is no mean little boy, it’s granddaddy’s way of telling us to lock the door.”
In James Baldwin’s 1985 book, Here be Dragons, he says “…. each of us helplessly and forever contains the other …” I plan to share my conversations, stories and parables with friends, and with others hoping that, while we are all connected, we see that connection not as hopeless, but as a strength we can use to live in a better world. We all have these stories; they are very worth sharing.
WUOT says StoryCorps is coming to Knoxville
Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.