Stories shape our perceptions of the world. Whether public or private, oral traditions, narratives, extemporaneous pedagogical exchanges, and spoken word crafted for performance all matter; they all go into making us who we are. Stories are always trying to explain, teach, share the breadth and depth of the way the world works. Stories describe the world in which we live and who we are. Stories are fluid, living creations. Stories may not deliver the facts but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth of our voice.

Speaking is … more transparent than writing, therefore morally and ethnically superior to writing … because it articulates presence and explains itself through the power of the voice. The voice does not deceive; it is not empty like a cipher bereft of essence. Speech has a body behind it and therefore its ethical connection to the subject of knowledge is seen to be closer, more direct, and full (Trifonas, 2003, p. 222).

“Closer, more direct, and full,” we never tell the story in the same way twice to the same audience in the same space. It’s always a different teller, a new voice, a distinct audience, fresh listeners, a unique environment. It’s a new day, a different moment, and that affects how the story is received and how the story is delivered. Stories change in this way but the truth of the story always remains. The truth is that the stories reveal something about us. “The truth about stories is that that’s all we have.” (King, 2003, p. 92).

Stories have the power to incur an obligation on the listener, exert a kind of “call.” (Morris, 2001, p.56). The teller also carries an obligation to the listener, a responsibility to allow the narrative to stay open, trusting the listener will use their epistemological frame to find the meaning of the story. How the story is presented is a serious ethical activity that allows us to question the ways in which ‘meanings’ are created or contained in the complex social process of historical transmission (Di Paolantonio, 2008, p. 220). Di Paolantonio is making an effort to bring to our attention, not just the contextualization so we can share or devour it, but that we must strive to create an authentic space of the telling of the other. He points out the archival nature of the story, and the translator’s (teller’s) role in that process. This is something that goes beyond the contextual frame. Both the listener and the teller need to take into consideration the other’s life experience, because to “approach someone as unique to the world is to love him” (Levinas, 1995, p. 108). Words are laden with meaning and, therefore, the unanswerable question of what does it mean to enclose experience and context in words in the telling of the story must be posed. It is important that the space between the “I” and the “other” makes room for the story so it comes to life somewhere between the listener and the teller, allowing both to be included in the narrative in a meaningful way. Meeting this obligation, approaching someone as unique and making space for the story, allows us to think about how we understand our relationship and, ultimately, can help us think about Peace (Levinas, 1991, p. 113).

What is Story?

There are many definitions of what is meant by the word story and, according to Kendall Haven in his book Story Proof: The Science Behind The Startling Power of Story, “Storytelling suffers from one of the major obstacles … namely, reaching agreement among practitioners and scholars about what storytelling is and what it is not” (Haven, 2007, p. 11). Some people will tell you that everything is a story; it just has to have a beginning, middle, and an end. This is not true. Most of our daily life, even though an incident has a beginning, middle and an end, is not a story and there is nothing wrong with that. Others define story as a series of incidents, but a series of incidents does not make a story. (Haven, 2007, p. 12). Story requires crafting. According to Robert McKee, a story “expresses how and why life changes” (McKee, 1999, p. 351). Thus, “change” is the key to what makes a story. There must be some change, some friction, some obstacle to be encountered and overcome, some hardship or adversity to be endured, some solution found, some problem resolved, some character transformed by the experience. This understanding of how and why life changes bequeaths us with strength and knowledge of ourselves and each other. Story has the power to connect us and creates “a form of mutual recognition, one in which self and the other are both recognized as autonomous subjects who may be in some ways similar, in some ways different,” this is what Jessica Benjamin (1988) calls intersubjectivity. (Trifonas, 2003, p. 123). The story in spoken form is an “expanded form of communication that writing can never hope to be because it allows us to recognize and see the face of the other that we were oblivious to before” (Wright, 2009, Lecture). It allows us to really see and appreciate difference, inside and outside of ourselves.

Difference is produced through dominant culture meanings, and it is also produced significantly in the relationship of self and other – in short, through the social relations that constitute the lived and everyday experience of culture. Without a doubt, a critical inquiry into hegemony needs to examine closely how individuals internalize dominant meanings and reproduce these both in the dynamic of relationships, but also within one’s self. As Trianh Minh-Ha writes, “differences also work within the outsider herself, within the  insider herself ” (371). (Trifonas, 2003, p. 123).

Story helps us “on our search for reality, to make sense out of the anarchy of existence” (McKee, 1999, p. 12). This leads us to an insight about conflict resolution through story: by identifying with the characters, intent, and emotions evoked in the story, people typically attribute competence and noble motives to the character with whom they identify, especially when the character faces significant conflicts and obstacles. (Haven, 2007, p. 41). Imagine the effect that story could have on a conflict if people who perceived each other as ‘other’ could recognize themselves in that ‘other,’ and even attribute competence and noble motive to their action. Imagine.

McKee points out that “story is about the realities, not the mysteries” (McKee, 1999, p. 5). It is this play between reality and fiction that can give us the courage to seek the truth through story, to question the norms, to understand whom we might become in relation to ourselves and in communion with the other. Joanna Scott writes about the fictive truths behind a storyteller’s many masks, focusing on the tales of Isak Dinesen:

The moral thrust of Dinesen’s tales leads here, to a representation of life as performance – a necessary fiction. In her pliable and accommodating theater, the truth is found in the design of the stories we tell in order to understand whom we might become. Throughout her career, with both the fiction and nonfiction, Dinesen is urging us to recognize the reality of the artificial. And when we really start searching for the truth in stories, we can find it everywhere, not just in sincere confessions but in the deliberate lies and imagined possibilities, the magic and fantasy and all the other unreal elements that go into the concoction of identity (Scott, 2009).

Searching for the truth in stories is directly linked to pedagogical storytelling in the learning environment in what O’Leary and Trifonas refer to as nurturing a “community of question.” This means looking through the lens of alterity and not being afraid. After all, isn’t the foundational responsibility of the relationship between teacher and student (classic other and I) a relationship that is formed by a foundation of trust, an alliance that permeates an opening within the traditional, an avenue to question, to ask, to explore? In this exploration, the “creation of a chance for the future occurs by keeping the memory of the past alive … It is at the interspaces of old and new knowledge constructions beyond the grasp of ‘meaning’ or ‘reason’ that risks are taken to move beyond what we already know by endeavoring to put the systematicity of what may appear to be grounded or static into motion, play, kinesis.” (O’Leary & Trifonas, 2008. pp. 257-258). It is that risk that allows everyone their own space within the moment, a place where we can all begin to play and create the story together.

Peacemaking

Story matters; it goes into making us who we are and, with it comes an accountability, a responsibility. Thomas King tells us that “we are responsible not only for the stories we tell and the stories we listen to, but also for the stories we choose to believe” (King Interview, Massey Lectures 2003). Language is an essential element in fulfilling this obligation. In King’s book, he explains the importance of language, its use, origins and meanings by citing Okanoganstoryteller Jeannette Armstrong:

Through … language I understand that I am the one being spoken to, I am not the one speaking. The words are coming from the many tongues and mouths of the people and the land around them. I am a listener to the language’s stories, and when my words form I am merely retelling the same stories in different patterns (King,  2003, p. 2).

The storyteller interweaves the innate human race consciousness, the history of their people, and the environment in which they live in the process of telling and listening. This intention of the storyteller could be considered what Trifonas refers to as a chaining of signs but not simply a layering of sign functions; no, “reconstituted through différance as the ground of grammatology … communication (that) is open to interpretation” (Trifonas, 2008, p.225). The obligation of the teller is to be mindful of the stories that she tells. Any story can be reframed to diminish the other and contribute to chaos and confusion, or the story can embrace différance and, joined with the power of the voice, summon forth meaning. It is in the meaning that peace can be found. Levinas simply says, “I call love peace … Peace is to attend to the other.” (Levinas, 1995, p. 113). This story, The Farmer and The Angel, captures Levinas’ philosophy beautifully:

There was once a very kind and content old farmer. He was very, very old and, though his bones were a wee bit weary, his eyes still sparkled with laughter. He knew just what it took to make you laugh, and was always ready to give you a good laugh. When you needed to weep, he would sit by your side and let you weep. He noticed the dew sparkling on a spider’s web, and appreciated the taste of a juicy red strawberry. He worked hard every day but if you needed a helping hand, his sleeves were rolled ready to go.

One day, because of his amazing goodness, he was visited by an angel who granted him a wish. The angel said to the old man that anything he wanted would be his.

Now if you had one wish, what would it be? Riches beyond imagining? True love? Fame?

The farmer could have wished for any of these things, but instead he said to the angel, “I am happy with my life and the love that surrounds me, but before I die I should like just once to see heaven and hell.”  The angel told him to take hold of her cloak and in an instant they arrived at the gates of hell.

To the surprise of the farmer, when he passed through the gates of hell he found himself on the edge of a beautiful open green surrounded by tall graceful pine trees. As he walked toward the middle of the green he saw many people seated around a great long table that was heaped high with the most magnificent and delicious foods a man has ever seen. Yet as he drew near he saw that the people looked sickly and thin, as if they were wasting away from starvation. How could this be? Then he noticed that the people’s arms were locked straight so that they could not bend them. It was impossible for these people to feed themselves. “Ahh,” the man sighed, “this is truly hell.”

Hastily he returned to the angel and took hold of her cloak. In another instant they arrived at the gates of heaven. Here too the farmer found himself on the edge of a beautiful open green surrounded by tall majestic pine trees. He walked toward the middle of the green and saw many people seated around a great long table that was heaped high with the most wonderful and delicious foods. As he drew near the man saw that the people’s arms were locked straight so they could not be bent. Yet these people were smiling and laughing. Their eyes danced with a merry delight and their stomachs seemed joyfully content. How was this possible? The farmer looked closer and he saw: the people of heaven were feeding each other! “Ah yes,” smiled the good man with a knowing nod of his head, “this, this is truly heaven.” (International Storytelling Center, 2009).

Peacemaking is a responsibility that every human on the planet must take up and carry. Story can help us meet this responsibility and contribute to peacemaking by giving people opportunity and “space to express to and with one another the trauma of loss and their grief…anger, pain, memory of injustice” (International Storytelling Center, 2009). As trust builds, the joy, the happiness… laughter, well-being, memory of better times can be shared too. Listening and sharing stories creates tolerance, and moves us closer towards peace.

References

Di Paolantonio, Mario. (2008). Worlds of Difference, Rethinking The Ethics of Global Education for The 21^st Century. Peter Pericles Trifonas (Ed.), Chapter 10, Being Caught Otherwise (pp. 217-236).Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Haven, Kendall. (2007). Story Proof: The Science Behind The Startling Power of Story.Westport: Libraries Unlimited, A Member of the Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

InternationalStorytellingCenter. (n.d.). Storytelling for Peace. Retrieved from http://www.storytellingcenter.com

King, Thomas. (2003) The Truth About Stories, A Native Narrative.Toronto: Dead Dog Café Productions, Inc. and Canadian Broadcasting.

Levinas, Emmanuel. (1995). Ethics as First Philosophy. Translated by Jill Robbins. Adriaan T. Peperzak. (Ed.), The Vocation of the Other (pp. 105-164).New York: Routledge.

Massey Lectures. (2001). Hosted by Paul Kennedy interviewing Thomas King. Audio retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey/massey2003.html

Morris, David B. (2001). Narrative, Ethics, and Pain: Thinking With Stories. Narrative, Vol. 9, No. 1 (pp.55-77).

McKey, Robert. (1999). Story.London: Methun.

O’Leary, George and Trifonas, Peter Pericles. (2008). Worlds of Difference, Rethinking The Ethics of Global Education for The 21^st Century. Peter Pericles Trifonas (Ed.), Chapter 11, Moving Beyond the Modernist/Postmodernist (pp. 237-261).Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1964). Nausea. Translated by Lloyd Alexander. (p. 56).New York: New Directions Publishing.

Scott, Joanna. (2009). In the Theater of Isak Dinesen. This article appeared in the August 31, 2009 edition of The Nation. Retrieved online from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/scott/single

Trifonas, Peter Pericles. (2003). In Pedagogies of Difference, Rethinking Education for Social Change. Peter Pericles Trifonas (Ed.), Toward a Deconstructive Pedagogy of Différance (pp. 220-235).New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Hike at Larch Mountain, Christmas Day, 2010

Merry everything to each and every one of you! 2010 has come to a close and January is rolling by like the mighty Columbia on a rainy day. Thought you might enjoy hearing about what we’ve been up to this past year. We’ve thought about you and missed you and reminisced about our good times together. Hope you are well and that we have the opportunity to see you again, give you a good embrace, and have some real laughs together because it’s people like you that make it all worth while.

Lawrence Howard

Lawrence Howard, Armchair Adventurer

Now here’s a man that’s going places. In 2010, he created another successful Armchair Adventurer story: Mawson’s Mettle, Alone On The Wide Shores Of The World. He had sold out shows and standing ovations all around. His CD of this one will be available this month. He tried something new with this show and had some dinner theater over at Pacific Pie, Mawson being Australian and all, and Sarah and Chris of Pacific Pie being some of the best Australian savory pie makers in the world. He’s busy working on his next solo show, Polar Opposites: Amundsen, Scott, and The Race for The Pole. This show premieres January 21st in honor of his father, Marty.

In the Spring, he had a fabulous one-man show,

Huckleberry Horowitz, that we expect to be released on CD in time for Singlehandedly this coming Spring.

In the Fall, he told one of his all-time favorites, The Devil and Daniel Webster, in Devilishly Good. He had a chance to tell it again at a house party and, again, he wore the full tux.

Lawrence continues to work as a Legal Researcher for some very good people doing some very good work.

Lynne Duddy

Lynne earned her undergraduate degree.  (woo hoo!!!) It was an amazing experience and certainly one of her greatest lifetime achievements.  In the Summer, Lynne participated in the National Story Slam in Chicago and told a piece of her solo show, No Place Like Home, which had debuted at Singlehandedly in May. Later in August, she was lucky enough to perform the entire solo show at the NSN Fringe in LA. Lawrence was able to go with and they had a blast!

Raymond Howard

Ray traveled the world going to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. He learned about the Kabbalah from the mystics, spent time with the Bedouins, climbed Petra at dawn, explored the Great Pyramids and generally had the time of his life.

Scott Howard

Scott continues to be deeply involved with his passion for earth building. He traveled to Africa, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and also created some beautiful things right here in Portland, Oregon. Interested in what he’s doing? Go to Earthen Hand Natural Building to find out about all his cool projects.

This year Scott met Nikki DePriest. She’s an artist and really special.

Haley

We’ve had Haley since she was about 6 or 7 years old.

Now she’s such a good old dog and has been with us for 7 years.

She can’t hear and has lost half her teeth.

But she still loves her mosey around the neighborhood twice a day and her meals make her happy.

Good old dog.

Fun

We (Lawrence and Lynne) are deeply involved with our now non-profit corporation, Portland Story Theater. In addition to our regular Halloween show at the John Palmer House, the Armchair Adventurer series, Valentines, and Singlehandedly, we have started teaching personal narrative workshops and putting on shows called URBAN TELLERS and people love them. Lawrence has a new CD out and both of us will have new CDs pressed in time for Singlehandedly. You can find out more about all this at Portland Story Theater

We also still have our band Wood Vibrations and, now that Lynne is out of school, we plan to play out more. The band is working with a wonderful dance troupe called Deviant Dance run by our friend, Grace, and that’s been great! We had a chance to play at ZimFest in Corvallis and hope to do that again in 2011.

That’s the highlights. We hope that 2011 brings you much love, light, and laughter. Be well.

Peace out,

Lynne and Lawrence

There’s something fundamental to the life experience to be able to make bread. The process is magical: a little flour, a little yeast, an embrace of the dough, warmth to give it rise, and then you bake it to golden perfection. The process is a lot like being in a marriage. I have a good marriage, considered long-term by today’s standards. We do a lot of fun things together, but cooking together is not one of them. My husband is the chef, the kitchen his domain. I never really learned to cook so I’ve been happy to give him his space, allow him to rule his kingdom. And for God’s sake, don’t put anything away in the wrong place! I don’t know where things go in the kitchen, not really. It’s like that in marriage; sometimes you just don’t know where things go. In a marriage things shift. The people change, become more themselves, comfortable in their own skin. If you’re lucky, you and your partner can mix it up and embrace each other as you both rise to the challenge of change. Sometimes in a marriage you change how you do things. One day last winter, there we were home-bound, with the snow falling like mad outside.  It was a sweet opportunity to make a change. We decided to make bread together in the kitchen, our kitchen. It’s a 1930’s style kitchen with Formica ceilings and walls and a modest gas stove. There are photo collages on the walls with our loved ones looking on as we make bread together. There are pictures of our children, our friends, trips we’ve taken and places we’ve been; there’s even a photo of my childhood home, the Dutch colonial with the giant cherry tree

…Finish

The process of becoming family is a lot like making bread. Time is your friend when you’re making bread. Families need time to become. It takes a certain amount of heat and effort to make the bread turn out. A family needs a lot of energy and effort too. The process is magical, it’s a mixture of letting go and holding on. Kneading your heart until its ready to rise. There’s something fundamental to the life experience to be able to make bread.

I commend the editors of the Oregon City News and the writer Ellen Spitaleri for her article about OC’s ‘wedge’ inspired by England (Feb 2, 2010) and the vision of this unique project community group. In follow-up conversations with Gabrielle Chavez, who drove the idea for “The Wedge,” and Gwen Goss, proprietor of Green Grocer, it became abundantly clear that “The Wedge” is founded on the principle of inclusion. Their first gathering at Green Grocer drew a diverse crowd of people from all walks of life. People who live right here in Oregon City who are motivated to work together, encourage each other, and foster community building and sustainability with one common goal: Locally Produced Food.

Gabrielle Chavez was quick to point out that, “We’re not limited to just organic. We’re open to any and all who support our simple vision of growing and enjoying a surplus of locally produced foods by 2020.” And I found that refreshing, even surprising. There are many “green” groups in the area but there are boundaries, limits, and even exclusions. Not here. This group is all about collaboration and sustainability through community garden projects, garden sharing, cultivating local private gardens, and public education.

Social networking is a trendy topic these days but it actually works. Meetup.com helped bring people together. [http://www.meetup.com/Oregon-City-Local-Harvest-2020/] Gwen Goss explained that forming a ‘Meetup’ group for “The Wedge” helped bring neighbors together, some meeting for the first time and everyone working together.

She told me that “It’s really about being a part of the community. Getting involved. Making a contribution.” This was music to my ears and exactly the kind of thing that makes Oregon City, a thriving community of people who care about each other and who take responsibility for their lives.

The group, now formally called “The Oregon City Local Harvest 2020” has a new website, created and written by Marion and Byron Olson who live next door to “The Wedge.” [http://oclh.org/] I found it easy to use and is an excellent information source for their projects and events including photos, news coverage, donor recognition and contact information. And like their counterparts in Todmorden, England, these folks share a vision of inclusion. And that’s exactly what people need right now, something good to be a part of, something good to grow.

Lynne Duddy
Portland, Oregon

My friend Maureen and I were up in the tree house watching a meteor shower. It was August, 1970, the summer of Kent State. A terrible thing had happened in a place far away from here, a place called Ohio. It was all over the news. Some university students were protesting the war in Vietnam. The National Guard suddenly broke out and shot them down. It made us mad and afraid and like we wanted to cry all at the same time. As I lay there looking up, I wondered if those students who died had become stars; maybe they were part of this meteor shower, falling stars, falling down, coming back home to earth. I didn’t say anything out loud but just lay there pondering that idea. My friend, Maureen, and I were both almost ten and dreamed of becoming astronauts and going into space. We talked about it all the time. Last summer the Apollo 11 mission had landed on the moon! It was so cool. I watched it on T.V. My heart skipped a beat when Neil Armstrong stepped off the shuttle ladder and walked on the moon. Just thinking about it made my heart race. I reached for the latest Marvel comic book. With the flashlight in hand, we silently gazed at the back cover. There was a contest: “Only $20 for a Chance to Go to Space Camp!” We could learn to be astronauts. We didn’t discuss it but we both knew that it might as well have been a million dollars. Suddenly a new flurry of meteors drew our attention back to the sky.

Parking Lot

I knew I had to get out. The girl next door watched my baby while I went to work. I called and told her I’d give her $20 if she’d meet me in the Safeway parking lot with my baby. I was scared, scared she wouldn’t come. She was black. I was white. My boyfriend was black. I had no idea where her allegiance would lie. Would it be with my boyfriend because they were both black? Or would she support me, a woman like her? After all, she’d heard the arguments through the paper thin walls, the crying, the pleading. And I’d heard her, too. I was counting on that: her understanding and support, knowing that I was finally making a break for it, getting out. I prayed to god that she would show up with my baby but I couldn’t worry about that now. I met the police up the street. They escorted me to the apartment so I could get a few things for the baby. When we drove up, my boyfriend was there. He was standing on the sidewalk, stunned, pleading, begging, crying. It was hard. The police were impatient. I had to hurry. I got the baby’s stuff and got in the police car. I didn’t care about the furniture, or the stereo, the record collection, the T.V., none of that. I just wanted out. Nothing else mattered, except my baby. After the police dropped me off at my mother’s, she drove me to Safeway. That girl was there with my baby. I can’t even remember her name, but I love that girl! Even though we didn’t really know each other, she had decided to help me  maybe she just really needed the $20.

Daydream

Being broke is tough. You have to do without, learn to let go and live in deprivation. I was talking with my friend, Brian, the other day. He knows what it’s like to be poor, to be working and still not have enough. We’re just sitting there over our buck-thirty-five coffees in a comfortable silence, the kind of silence that friends often share.

Suddenly he says, “You know, with some of the desktop publishing tools out there, counterfeiting has gone mainstream.”

“No kidding? I remember watching movies with crooks and their expensive engraving and printing equipment. Guess those days are gone.”

“Yeah, another era. But have you ever thought about it? I figure that with just a few hundred dollars and if you keep your production small.”

“No, can’t say I have actually spent any time thinking about it, but it is an intriguing idea. I bet US money is widely accepted and trusted.”

“I was reading this article, I think it was in the Smithsonian, and it said that desktop counterfeiters are much harder to catch because the systems they use are ubiquitous,  and because of that, tough to identify. But beyond the prestige of the greenback, it is also the most easily counterfeited currency.”

I think about it for a minute, and as if we are co-conspirators, I tell him, “I’m pretty talented artistically and know my way around computer graphics tools.”

“Yeah, I guess over in Europe almost 80% of the hundred-dollar-bills are counterfeit,” he says.

“Really, even with the new watermark?”

“Yeah, you don’t even need to know computer graphics. You just have to have the right scanner. There’s this company called Envisions, and they used the new counterfeit-resistant U.S. bills to advertise their color scanner. Their ad shows the scanned image of the microprinting on the new $20 bill and the ad says something like: ‘No other scanner can scan twenty bucks and capture the hidden detail as well as ours.’ But they had to pull the ad. Pressure from the U.S. Secret Service, you know.”

“God, just think about all the twenty dollar bills you could scan and what you could do with them.”

We just laughed, but the thought lingered.

where it is safe

as the sun brightens the sky through the rain and clouds with the cars and buses and bikes whizzing by and the birds singing and the crows yakking and I laugh when I think of how everything is so different and still so much the same and the rain comforts me because it gives me a sense of place more than anything and I remember being out in the rain and it started to thunder with the lightning cracking and the air was filled with an energy that I could taste on my tongue as I revealed in that energy getting soaked walking these streets as I made my way home

where it is safe

and as I walk with my dog in the growing light we make our way to the park that was the place where the riots started back in ’67 and black people were mad and the white people were afraid and I wasn’t allowed to go outside because it wasn’t safe but I didn’t really understand what was happening to my neighbors and my friends and all of the people in my community but maybe it had to do with the history of this place where black people weren’t even allowed to live here when Oregon first started out or maybe it was because of Vanport and all the black people who came to live here in this place to work in the shipyards but the Ku Klux Klan didn’t like that at all but not just them because a lot of people – white people – they were afraid of sharing their space with people different from them and I know because my people were afraid and the banks and city planners were afraid so they put I-5 right through the black neighborhood and tried to push them out of their homes

where it is safe

This American Life is all about stories.  Stories about people who had some experience that changed them; stories about an incident that illustrated a big idea – fiction and non-fiction, monologues and documentaries that are surprising… unexpected… compelling.

Visit their website: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

There’s Always A Theme
This American Life shows follow the same format. There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.

Submissions
Anyone can submit a story. Even you. Here’s what This American Life is looking for:

• Work that surprises.
• Work that’s funny. Especially work that’s both funny and sad.
• Writing that works like journalism

It can even be fiction. It just needs to describe and document real things that happen to people.

If you’re considering making a submission, read this first: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/About_Submissions.aspx

Ira Glass

How It All Started
It all started with Ira Glass. He was 19 when he landed his first radio gig as an intern on NPR. He was a reporter and host on several NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation before he launched This American Life. Ira Glass has been producer and host of This American Life since its November 17, 1995 debut. It was originally called Your Radio Playhouse, and the show still calls each piece an “act”.

You can find out some more history on the This American Life website at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/About.aspx.

Wikipedia has some excellent information as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_American_Life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Glass.

Television
This American Life was on ShowTime for a couple of years (2002-2009) but everyone got really tired. It was a crazy schedule.
You can see episodes online:

http://www.sho.com/site/thisamericanlife/home.do?source=thislife

Road Shows
This American Life was has traveled around the country and done live broadcasts in different cities… kind of like Portland’s own LiveWire!

Radio, Podcasts, TV, Social Networks
There’s a lot of different ways to experience This American Life.

Web: http://www.thisamericanlife.org

Radio: OPB 91.7 and XM Radio http://www.xmradio.com/xmpublicradio

TV: Showtime http://www.sho.com

Facebook: http://www.myspace.com/thisamericanlifespace

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thisamericanlifespace

It was stormy.  It had been stormy for several days and many of the signals and streetlights were out. It was raining. It hadn’t stopped raining for a week or more. Traffic was completely backed up. I turned off my regular route to try to get out of that mess. It was completely dark. As I drove my little car up, up into the hills, the darkness seemed about to swallow me up; I could only see as far as my lights shone.

I had brought a wreath for my mother’s grave. It’s funny how we plan to do something and then it takes much longer, sometimes even years, to actually get it done. Well, I had that wreath in the back of my car for at least a week – well ok, three weeks – with every intention of taking it up to my mom.

I realized that I was on the road that goes right past the cemetery. Had something pulled me to that place? I wondered… maybe; so even though it was late, and cold, and rainy, I decided to go right then to see my mother and put that wreath on her grave. After all, it was the anniversary of her death and I had promised her that I would come.

I turned onto the cemetery roadway. The gate was closed. I pulled up close to the gate; I saw a small sign that said: Visiting Hours 9 to 4. It was well past 4. There wasn’t a fence attached to the gate. I could easily walk around. I thought, “I’m here now anyway. It couldn’t be that far. I’ve driven it many times this past year. I may as well just walk up there.”

As I got out of the car, I realized just how cold, windy and rainy it was. I hesitated but just for moment; that tug of that lifelong obligation to please my mother was pulling at me, even in her death, I felt obligated. “It is the anniversary and isn’t she expecting me to come?” I felt like I had to go now, now that I was here. I pulled my big coat closer and started up the path.

It was a peculiar experience walking on a road at night that I had only driven on during the day. The path twisted and turned. Everything looked different. I didn’t remember it this way. It was very dark. It was taking longer to walk to the grave than I expected. I felt a bit turned-around, somewhat disoriented. A twinge of fear bolted through my stomach. I felt scared, not of being in a graveyard at night, no, of being lost. “That’s silly,” I told myself, “I haven’t left the path.” Glancing over my shoulder I thought that maybe if I could see my car I’d feel better… but no, I couldn’t see my car, not anymore; I’d gone too far. I thought about turning back but I’d come this far and going on seemed like the best choice. I trudged up the hill focusing on the path when suddenly I was startled by a dog barking.

Peering over into the darkness I could just make out the form of a man walking through the headstones, he was holding a dog tightly on a leash. A million fears crossed my mind, like spiders scurrying in all directions. I stopped. I was uncertain what to do. The hair on my neck was standing on end and I broke out in a sweat on my lip. “What’s this guy doing here on a night like this? Is he some kind of a nut?!! And look at that dog…”

Then he called out over the wind and rain, “Do you have a dog?”

… I called back “No. Should I have a dog?”

And then he calls back “If you did, my dog could run with your dog.”

When he said that I thought, ‘Oh well, here’s a person who simply had some hope that his dog would have a play­mate… here, among the dead, in the winter’s night, as the rain fell.”

Still feeling afraid, I started walking to my mother again, towards the man and his dog. They were nearing the pathway. The dog was still barking.

As I got closer, I could see the dog was a large Doberman. The dog was pulling, pulling on the leash. The man was old, much older than I’d thought. I could see his age in his face, in his eyes. The man was big, bigger than anyone I’d ever seen. I felt very small. The man was sturdy looking, as if he could knock a tree over with a single blow.

When I was close enough to hear him, he told me,

“Don’t be afraid.”

In the whirl of rain and darkness and barking, I answered, “Oh, I’m not.”

So, I lied. I was afraid. Not of the dog, but of the man.
Here alone in the night with only the dead as my mute witnesses.

My mother always told me not to talk to strangers. Why hadn’t I listened to her more?

He reached out …but simply to hand me a couple of dog treats, saying. “This is Ruby. Speak calmly and tell her to sit.” I obeyed, saying, “Sit, Ruby, sit.” The dog sat down and I gave her a treat. The ferocious beastie was eating right out of my hand.

“Have you come to visit someone?” he asked. There was a genuine kindness in his voice. “Yes, my mother.”

I was still nervous but as I looked at this man, every sensor in my body trying to read him. I focused on my breathing… My instincts told me that he meant me no harm. I decided to trust him. The next thing I know, the man unleashes his dog and the dog runs and runs and runs. Joyful is the only way I can describe this dog. This man and I walked together up the path.

As we walked, we gently bumped into each other, our shoulders tapping. It was just enough to let me know that there really was nothing to be afraid of; I had made the right decision.

We talked about dogs — their beauty and companionship, about the fear people feel around our beloved beasts. He told me how he comes every day to the cemetery to let his dog run with abandon.

“This is it,” I told him as we approached the grave. He watched patiently as I placed the wreath. I wired on the pine cones, and got the ribbon just so. All the while, Ruby was running and frolicking with the wind, so free, so happy. The man was asking me about my mother. What was she like? How did she die? I was so grateful for this kind old soul; someone to know my mother’s name…Lorraine, someone to share in my loss. I was happy this man and his dog were there.

When the wreath was hung, we leaned into the wind and made our way back down the path.

When we came to a fork in the path, I continued on my way and he turned and went on his, melting into the dark.

Part of me wanted to call out to him. I don’t know what I wanted to say. It seemed crazy so I didn’t.

I felt that I had experienced something remarkable, an extraordinary exchange of trust here in the dark silence of the cemetery. And I didn’t even know his name…