The art of story telling

I grew up in a family of story tellers.

My Grandpa Earl Robertson was a St. Louis Police officer. Every lesson that he taught me was by a story. A man of some complication, Grandpa would tell me, in his own style, that he would have arrested me if he saw me on the street, with my shoulder length hair, and torn jeans and running t shirt. Mom told me later, that same night that my grand father, in the toughest part of Saint Louis, stopped to help a kid my age, long hair, torn jeans, and tshirt, fix a tire and told the young man to "get the hell out of the area". Grandpa told Mom it was because the young man had reminded him of me.

My Grandpa Adam Eder was a much older man. Born in the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1892, he had survived fighting for the US in the Great War, and had survived a transit ship back, during the height of the 1918 flu pandemic. In 1972, he took me to the house that his family had in Saint Louis in 1900, and showed me where his little brother froze to death. I always asked Grandpa Adam questions, and he taught me a little high German, and told me stories.

My Grandma Violet Robertson was my favorite. When she was married in 1933, she and Grandpa took a honeymoon on their motorcycle. When she started her Indian motorcycle (she and Grandpa had a delivery business), she flew over the handle bars and Grandpa caught her. From Grandma Vi (what my son Adam called her), I learned about the family, life, and loving, and how it did not always go so well.

My Grandma Helen Eder died when I was 4 years old. She had six children, her first at 16, and her last, at 40. My Mom told me that she loved to watch me, and I have some lovely pictures of my smiling on her lap. My Dad adored her, and was spoilt by her. When my twin sisters (Mary Lou and Mary Beth) were born, GrandMa thought my Dad was teasing her, she could not believe that she had twin grand daughters! That was one of the many stories Dad and Mom told me about Grandma Helen.

My Mom, Marilu, was Violet's first daughter. Mom had five children, with my Dad, Stan, and they wanted all five of us to do whatever we wanted to do. Mom told me stories about the family, good and bad, and helped me appreciate the complexity of the human condition.

My father, Stan, was a fine story teller. I learned about him fishing with his Dad every weekend, about Grandpa Eder and his tamale business, and how, during a seven year UAW strike from Ford, Grandpa Eder worked in the basement of Anheuser-Busch, carrying buckets of new beer around, to support his growing family.

I learned the importance of hard work, respecting others, an education, finding someone that I truly loved and loved me, from my parents. They were together 57 years before Mom died in September 2016, breaking my Dad's heart. Dad died in April 2020, and there had not been a day that I did not see him tear up about missing my Mom. He had proposed 4 times to her, from the age of 15 to 18, until she finally succumbed to his charms. My Dad's secret talent was that he always, always could make Mom laugh.

As a 4-6 year old, I regaled my family at Eder Christmas Eve parties with my travels to other planets. My Uncle Don, a Hershey chocolate $1 million dollar salesman, would wind me up with some chocolate and I had a dozen family members enthralled with my detailed visits to Mars, and how Martians looked. I always mentioned that Martians were quite nice, and liked to devour Earth food.

A month before my Dad passed, I reminded him of the Christmas Eve stories. He rolled his eyes and noted that my Mother and him were a bit worried about my grasp on reality. Mom would tell him that I liked to tell stories. She was right.

At the age of sixty-three, I have morphed into a professional story teller. What interests me about writing about my subjects, is what makes them human. When I wrote about Grant Holloway, after meeting his parents, and watching him race, and then, speaking with him was a man, not lacking in confidence, but someone who had experienced the encouragement of family love.

Story-telling is what I do. I can not help myself. I no longer make excuses for it. I do not tell stories about my interplanetary space travel any longer, but I do like to give you, kind reader, an appreciation for the subject that you have not experienced before.

I am a story-teller.