Mothers, TVP, Broken Down Cars, and Storytelling

The other day, I started watching all the videos I could find of folk artists performing live--to figure out what they do to be such great performers and how I can improve my own stageshow--from TV shows etc (i.e Austin City Limits, Soundstage, etc) and stumbled across a grammy-nominated artist I knew fairly well, Ray LaMontagne, on VH1 Storytellers.

He told a bunch of stories, especially in this clip, about growing up poor and what not. The audience laughed and was really into it, which got me thinking about my own shows.





If you didn't watch the video, click the link now. You will enjoy it I promise.

As I listened to the audience's reaction, I couldn't help but think that I have absolutely no stories like his. First of all, I didn't grow up poor. While my family was never rich by any means, we always had enough money. This in part due to my mother's frugality--of that I have no doubt. However, Dad always had enough money for gas to come watch all my football games from pee wee to high school, whether they were at home or several hours away. We always had enough money for music lessons. We never starved--my 285 pounds of fat and flesh are proof of that--and we always had plenty of milk, bread, and meat around the house. I recall saying things like, "There's SO MUCH FOOD in this house and nothing to EAT!"

So what stories do I have? My friend Ben. whom I used to run a forum with for awhile, once said to me, "Clayne, all your best stories start with those words. 'So... There was this girl...' " But all those stories--not relationship or "hook-up" stories mind  you--are the kind you only share with your guy friends and laugh hysterically about for an hour ("SHE REALLY SAID THAT?!?!?!" "Yeah, man, she really did."). The kind never shared with your family, let alone with complete strangers. The kind of stories that garner gross amounts of laughter from young hormonal males, but blank stares and wide-open mouths from anyone else.

After much thought, I realized I do have some stories.

In Declo, there was never much to do. Towns of 350 people aren't exactly the cultural meccas of the world and often don't have any good hangout spots or activities that you haven't done with your friends a million and one times already. So most people turned to one of two things, hunting/fishing or video games/movies/television. Somedays even those got boring so you had to switch to the other. Often, my friend Tanner and I were so sick of tv and movies that we would just grab our .22s and drive around in the desert behind his house in the afternoon and evenings hunting for cottontail rabbits.

There were always an abundance of jack rabbits, but a severe shortage of the much smaller and actually edible cottontail on the backroads . One day in particular, I said, "Hey, I caught one at a scout camp out one time and saw a bunch of others there as well. We should head out there." The place I was referring to was well out of the way. About a forty minutes drive from town. Tanner consented and we headed out.

Well, somewhere down the line, I took a wrong turn, and about a half hour later we were lost, out of cellphone service, and stuck in slick clay-mud up to our knees. Darkness was falling, and the temperature dropped on the desert a good 30 degrees in a matter of minutes. We hiked, wrapped in the two small blankets I kept in my car, for what seemed like an eternity, through that awful mud to somewhere with cell service so we could call for help. We slipped, tripped, and crawled our way up a hill. Finally some service. We called Tanner's father. "I'm on call. I can't come out." Stupid EMT job! I thought to myself. We resorted to call his mother, who was on her way back from a shopping trip to a much larger town an hour in the opposite direction. She came as fast as she could, but it took another two hours or so. Then my car broke down.

We had to resort to towing me back to town to the closest repair shop. It took another tedious hour and a half of white-knuckled driving through the winding, slick roads to get home.