My Dad was a master storyteller. Not only did we hear his own stories, but he also read to us nightly at the dinner table. We marched through valleys and dales, fought dragons, went through wardrobes, elven lands, and through small round doors. We learned the character values of different animals and learned spiritual lessons from a zoologist who cared for Barnaby the baboon. We picked at the extra peas on our plates while wading through “The Wump World” and fearing Zildy who could turn us into “The Wingdingdilly.”

Not all stories had a life lesson. Military days, filling Oreos with spray cheese, or earlier years turning the town fountain green probably don’t hold much wisdom, but they’re funny.

His best friend was Joel Penberthy. They met as 12-year-old boys, and their friendship, truly a brotherhood, lasted their lifetime. Joel’s family “adopted” my dad, and he spent many hours there as respite from his own chaotic home. One of the first stories I remember was about Joel. Joel was an athlete. A water polo player and champion swimmer in Stockton, CA. At the age of 19, during a summer job working in a warehouse, Joel was crushed by falling material, breaking his neck and his back in several places, leaving him a quadriplegic. I don’t remember ever questioning it. Joel was Joel, and we spent every Christmas evening for as long as I could remember in his parents’ (which then became his) home. He learned how to drive (a giant van) and was an accomplished artist. Honestly, one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. Once I had children, this story was passed on to them as well. While Christmas evenings were no longer spent in the Penberthy home, my kids did get to meet Joel and hear his story, which has been passed down to them through my dad and now me.

My siblings and I have the “storytelling gene.” Mine tend to be more of a rabbit trail, but I do get there eventually. Ponies that ran off with my cousin, chicks let loose in a farmhouse, a marble in a fireplace. A cat named Geronimo. (Actually, that’s the whole story.) Nightlight “diamond rings”, judge/jury, and the nativity and bat eyes. It’s-Its and the best egg rolls you ever ate. Plans to run away, tire fires, Boones and Swisher Sweets, ponds with catfish. Stocking fish, catching fish. Duck and cover drills paired with not following those directions during oversized earthquakes. Knee boarding in canals behind a truck. Getting the whole family in a car accident on the way home from church. A guy high on PCP in a wheelbarrow in our shed. “My skates used to have metal wheels,” and “I remember when cameras had flash cubes.” Using an eyebrow pencil to color in a scalp after shaving the underside of Shannon’s hair went awry. The Road. Why gambling on ponies was the only acceptable kind of gambling. Pebbles dropped over an edge into a hotel lobby and the glass elevator. A tree log in Yosemite, marmots, and astronaut ice cream. Old Lady Leary and a dead chipmunk in a bucket. Why I was grounded for 6 weeks and why I got Saturday school (no, they are not the same story.)

Clearly, I could go on and on. Those of you who are subjected to my audio messages that start with, “OK GET THIS” you’re a gift and have the patience of a saint.

Read aloud. Tell your stories. Weave them into car rides and dinner table conversations. Use them as examples of what your kids should not do. (Your kids won’t follow the advice, but they will remember the story.) Tell your friends. Gen X has some really good ones. None of it was documented online, and the legends only live in our minds.