Storyteller

 

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Once upon a time, story telling was my job.

I mean I actually got paid to tell stories (among other things). For over a decade, I worked for a non-profit organization as its education director. What that really meant is that I visited public and private schools and presented programs to help middle and high school students make smart, healthy life decisions.  

Since I had teacher training with my bachelor’s degree in education and a bit of an “I always wanted to be an actress” complex, I found that telling a really good story in a theatrical way was the perfect method to capture and keep students’ focus.  

I could have stood in front of the classroom spouting off facts and figures and do’s and don’ts but soon would have been looking at glassy-eyed zoned out kids who couldn’t give two figs about the subject matter.

But tell a good story – one that had me moving around the room, using different inflections in my voice, reeling them in with my words, leading up to suspense, and sometimes even startling them a bit…now that got their attention and kept it.

I’m sure they wondered just what is that crazy lady going to do next? I worked hard to keep my presentation full of surprises.

As cool as teenagers try to pretend to be, they truly do not outgrow listening to stories. One of the best kudos I ever received from my story-telling days was when a teacher informed me that a student, in her graduation speech, mentioned a tale told by me to those in her senior class back when when they were 8th graders.  The teacher said all the students laughed at the mention of it and better yet, they remembered the story.

But really, who among us, young or old, doesn’t love a good story?

It’s why authors sell thousands or perhaps even millions of books. It’s why country music song writers and those who perform their songs have number one hits. It’s why script writers, actors, directors, and producers find themselves with a big box office sensation.

Behind it all is a good story.

And the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is just another way of telling a story without words. For the visual learners and thinkers like me, it’s a bonanza.

So this week’s photo challenge just happens to be “story.”

The challenge part was choosing which photos to personify the theme, but I finally decided upon the slideshow above which I hope conveys a story.

And for the next several posts, I’m going to tell you some stories with the added bonus of accompanying photos. 

The stories are real. I hope you find them interesting enough to keep reading them.

And I also hope I’m still a good storyteller. 

“Be unpredictable, be real, be interesting. Tell a good story.” ~ James Dashner

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