Story telling time comes
with the embers glowing brightly
without the flame of reality.
Cold hips from a stone seat
and a face flushed from shining coals
define an audience of ready listeners.
A time for tales
of great fish and wonderful
scenery from a long passed trip.
Hazards overcome like
an Indiana Jones script
cast the teller in a hero's role.
Believing is a reasonable
fee to sit
in the magic circle
and is gladly paid by all.
When all the tales
of this generation of heros
are told,
fruitful family trees are displayed.
John's Scottish ancestors
were the Duke and Duchess
of a noble clan
from which came a mighty king.
Of course, they had a castle
in a beautiful glen
overlooking the borderlands.
Each trip to Scotland
takes him to this
castle where the ghost of ancestors
are talking and walking still.
It was the family's responsibility
to keep the peace.
Their tartans marked
a land of great prosperity
and they were loved by peasant
and noble alike.
Bills' ancestors built a sod house
on the plains,
fought the weather
and the Indians.
They survived the winter
of the big snow by
eating all their leather harnesses.
They sent their children
to the big city to get
a better education than available
from a candle lit Bible.
One grandfather became
the senator from the state when
it came into the union.
Another once owned
all the land upon which a great
city now stands.
How heroic all their ancestors are.
I had neither a castle
nor a sod house story to tell.
My ancestors were
quiet ordinary and
sort of dull
so I couldn't match these stories.
What I told was
of parents and grandparents
who believed in the dignity of man,
worked very hard
and seemed to
really enjoy raising a son who would
also be an ordinary,
plain person in their mold.
I thought of some lies
I might have told tell
but I would have my story
just the way it is.
My audience looked at me as if
I had told the biggest lie of all.