Leaving Evansville, Indiana, we traveled the long road to
St. Louis, Missouri, completely impressed by the magnificent arch which seems to
define that great city. Even though we
knew that our chair, Sherril Miller’s father was a master welder who worked on the
structure during construction, Jeff Stratton, who is height-averse, regaled us
with his story about being stuck at the top. Oh, the horrors of being
deliciously afraid are so much fun. . .
Starving after our light lunch, and in need of
rest and sustenance, we decided to eat dinner prior to our evening concert. As
several of the troupe have specific dietary needs that had flown to the wind
that day, we voted for Asian cuisine. Located downtown, nice, quiet, and cozy,
the restaurant allowed the group some real downtime, a commodity we had come to
appreciate.
Making her choices and opting for a special order of sesame
chicken, Libby, our mountain teller, caught the eye of Buddy, our server, and
it went from there. We played, laughed, and enjoyed their banter as we ate as
fine a meal as one could ask for in a big new town. Leaving, two women, who
occupied a table near us approached saying, “Are you the storytellers from
Jonesborough?” As it turns out, they were storytellers, and they, too, had
stopped for dinner prior to attending our concert at the Crown
Center for Senior Living, spied us and came by to chat. I
must say the recognition so far from home felt good.
Arriving at the Center, Libby and Delanna set up their cameras for
videotaping, as we all assessed the crowd and settled into performance mode. While we
had long since discovered that special condition stayed “on” for most of the
trip, the really interesting thing was that we all felt it as one entity; we
really were a troupe with our egos parked at the curb. It was a powerful
feeling to be so attuned to our fellow storytellers, and one we’ll all savor
for a long time to come.
David Claunch secured the gig for us, through the auspices
of Bobby Norfolk. Bobby was with us last year in Jonesborough in his role as
Teller in Residence, and conducted a workshop at the International Storytelling
Center which most of us attended. At that time, he told us about his work
leading storytelling and history tours in the St. Louis Arch, all of which had come back to us when we
saw it in person. He and his talented wife, storyteller, educator and author Sherry,
welcomed us warmly to their state, as did all the other storytellers and guests
present including our new friends from the restaurant, one of whom was named Rose.
After, we talked to members of the guilds for nearly an
hour, as it seems almost everyone is interested in how the Jonesborough Storytellers
Guild works. Linda Poland interviewed a woman for her WWII story collection project,
and I exchanged ideas with the artistic director at one of the big museums in
St. Louis. When we finally left for our hotel, we were an exhausted but happy group,
having again fulfilled our mission of planting story-seeds along our path to
the national conference in Kansas City, MO.
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