I love to tell the story

Storytelling runs in my family.

We sit around and tell the same tales over and over and over. Somehow they never get old. Extra emphasis, a rolled eye, a dramatic pause entertains. A little extra detail here and there educates. In the retelling, heritage and history are passed down.

My grandfather, “Baw,” and his brothers hear someone is coming to visit driving a fancy, new car. Mischievous young ‘uns, they conspire to put nails out in the dirt road in hopes that the car will get a flat, and they a closer look.

Granny’s grandparents make a journey to Colorado hoping for a better life. They tie a rope between their home and the outhouse so that they can find their way back and forth in the blinding snow. After a hard year in the mountains, they return home, wiser.

Daddy and his brothers, boys who dive down down down to the bottom of one of the pilings that holds up the railroad trestle where it crosses the river. There’s an opening and they swim up inside the piling up up up until there is an air pocket.

Mama reciting Citronelle’s family trees for generations and generations back. Who is related to whom. Where they came from. Where they went. What they did.

Five little fishes swimming in a brook. Papa caught ’em with a hook.

Mama friend ’em in a pan. Daddy ate ’em like a man.

I snuck in to get a bite, and Daddy knocked me outta sight!

Uncle Red’s sing-songy poem, complete with a roundhouse punch at the end, told to a giggling little tow-headed girl over and over and over.

All my life, these stories and so many more were told on a dark, summer front porch, around the fireplace, over the dinner table. And when I was old enough, I chimed in with my stories too. I didn’t have a lot of history to share, but I quickly learned that I could make people laugh. I knew it was a really good one if Mama laughed so hard she wheezed.

That’s why, 3 years ago today, I started a blog. As a freelance marketing professional [read: “unemployed person”], I had extra time on my hands and a head full of stories I wanted to tell.

The first one started with a blank screen, just like this one did. I wrote it out thinking Mama would read it and, I hoped, like it. That’s what Mamas are for. Maybe a few of my friends would read too. Maybe.

Mama did like it.

I kept on writing.

A few friends did read.

I kept on writing.

A few more folks read.

I kept on writing…until today, and I am proud to say that this is my 100th post!

ONE HUNDRED, y’all!

In the last 3 years, I have joined a couple of blogging groups (See Jane Write and Alabama Bloggers) through which I’ve made some new friends and learned a great deal, I’ve done a little freelance writing (all those Bourbon & Boots posts), and I’ve dreamed of that elusive book deal. I’ve had a few posts that were very popular (like this one and this one) and some that just weren’t (like this one). I’ve written so many posts, that I can’t remember them all!

Most important of all, I’ve found my voice. Whether in print or out loud, my stories sound like me. And that’s just fine.

I guess now that I’ve got 3 years and a hundred posts under my belt, I can say that I am officially a “blogger.” But before I ever had a blog, I was a storyteller. A storyteller from a long line of storytellers. And a storyteller I shall remain, for as long as there are stories to tell.

For as long as you’ll keep on reading them.