We Should Tell More Stories

You must meet a lot of interesting people, Chick.

I do. It’s my favorite part about traveling. I love the weather and the beautiful places I get visit, too. But the people are what I remember most.

Do they mostly just give you advice and directions and stuff or do they tell you stories?

Some stories, some advice, some directions. A little bit of everything. I love the stories, though. I should keep a notebook with all the things people tell me. Things I never knew. Stories about the land and about their lives. The most wonderful stories about their lives. Some so sad and devastating. Like this one this old woman in Mexico told me when I stopped for food. I was asking about her life and if she had a family. She told me she and her husband had never been able to have kids so she had gotten a dog. She loved the dog with all her heart. It went everywhere with her. To the market, to the river to wash the clothes. Everywhere. One night the man came home drunk and he started yelling at the woman and hitting her. The dog jumped in to defend the woman and the man took his cane and hit the dog on the neck and it couldn’t walk any more. The man picked up the dog and took it out back and threw it down the well. She could hear it yelping and whining until it finally drowned. She was sobbing and the man told her if she didn’t stop he’d throw her in, too. The man died shortly after that and the woman burned all his clothes and stuff. The only thing she kept was a picture of him on their wedding day when he was 19.

(Silence.)

But there are happy stories, too. This one time I was in Texas and I asked this young man for directions and he took me to his home and his folks practically forced me to stay with them for three nights and the treated me like royalty. They fed me delicious food and gave me the most comfortable bed to sleep in. They had five children in their family and they all said, “Please” and “Thank you” and “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am.” One night the dad told me a story about how he had served in Vietnam and how it was very difficult but he worked hard and learned a lot and when he came home he married his childhood sweetheart. He opened a fence building business and then became the track coach at the high school. I don’t know, it doesn’t sound so significant now that I’m saying it out loud. It really made me feel…peaceful, though.

The stories mean a lot to me.

That does sound peaceful.

This one time I took a shirt and had “Tell me something I don’t know.” printed on it. I thought it’d be interesting to see how people reacted. You know, if people would really come up to me and tell me things I didn’t know?

Did it work? Did people come up and talk to you?

Yeah. A lot of people would come up to me and make wise cracks like, “You’re a jackass,” or “The sky is blue,” or “The grass is greener on the other side,” or “Your girlfriend is a great kisser.” Most people had real things to say, though. A lot of people would come up and talk about music. People would come up and say something like, “So and so is my favorite band. Now you know.” I learned about so many bands that way. Mostly little local bands. It was fantastic. People would also say things about movies and television. One guy came up to me and said, “The Empire Strikes Back is the greatest movie.” I said, “Isn’t that an opinion?” Then his face turned red and he punched me in the arm and ran away.

What? Seriously? Did it hurt?

Not at all. He was very thin. I just stood there and watched him run away. I was only upset because I was by myself. No one was there to see it happen.

That’s hilarious!

Yeah. One time a girl came up to me and said in a German accent, “On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell.” I said, “Oh, yeah, I knew that.” (Sometimes people would tell me things I did know and I tried to be polite.) And then she said, “Did you know that that night I stole my neighbor’s truck and shovels and me and my friends pulled down a section of the wall that ran near our neighborhood?” I was speechless. As she told me about it her eyes were seeing it again.

Wow, that’s a great story.

This one time I was standing at a bus stop wearing the shirt and this really old man came up to me. He looked really ragged and unkempt and he stopped right in front of me and wagged his finger at my shirt and said, “I’ve saved millions of trees.” I was floored. It was such a solemn declaration. I asked him how and he told me he used to be a Hotshot and jumped out of planes to fight forest fires. He’d help put out dozens and dozens of forest fires all over the world. He told me about this one time he got hurt when he landed and he got separated from his crew. He was close to the front line and the fire was coming towards him fast. He crawled a quarter mile to a river and then got into the river and held onto the bank and lay below the surface of the water as much as he could. The fire was moving so fast and was so powerful that it jumped right over the river. It passed right over him. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to get out anywhere near there, he let go of the bank and drifted several miles downstream and some fishermen helped him get into town to the hospital.

That’s incredible! And now the guy is homeless and just walking around?

I don’t know, I guess. The last thing he said was, “That fire was the fury of hell. It seared my soul. I am dead."

~~~~~

Moments pass in silence.

~~~~~

We should tell more stories. At the end of the day have someone tell a story.

Are you going to be around to tell any stories? Weren’t you on your way to Rio or something?

I have no destination in mind. I like it here.

I don’t have great stories.

King Sol, you don’t need to worry. You have great stories.

I'm craving a Jamba Juice.