A Tale of Two Stories

When I was little, bedtime meant story time. As an only child, I didn’t have to share story time with any siblings, but because my parents had very different ideas about what should be included in bedtime stories, the subjects whipsawed.

My mom was a traditionalist. I still have the Disney collections that she loved to read from. All of the classic fairy tales, with a Disney spin, at least those that were available in the late 60s, were fair game. Snow White, Cinderella, Robin Hood, Tarzan. Those were her stock in trade.

Every other night I could count on a classic fairy tale. And I enjoyed them. I knew all of the stories by heart but loved hearing my mother’s take on them. She would do voice impressions and do everything in her power to bring them to life.

On the other nights, my father had his turn.

Rather than Disney, the books he read to me from were American Heritage.

Instead of Robin Hood, I learned about the American Revolution. Rather than Tarzan, there were stories of the Civil War. Snow White and Cinderella were given up in favor of the Spanish-American War and Prohibition. It was pretty heady stuff for a five-year-old.

My father wasn’t a historian, but he loved history. Technically, he was a paleontologist and a mathematician… or at least he taught paleontology and math… and earth sciences. He taught kids from junior high through college at various points in his career.

He didn’t like fairy tales. However, he knew how to tell a story. Maybe it was being a teacher… he knew how to tell a story and suck in the attention of a small boy. My father didn’t tell me what happened. I didn’t care. I was five. Instead, he told me what it was like. As we looked through the images in the magazine, he would make up a story. We could call it historical fiction.

Later, we moved to Virginia… a stone’s throw from Yorktown. As an eleven-year-old, I walked the ground where General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington. But to me, it wasn’t a big park… it was the place where many of my bedtime stories took place.

One of the bedtime stories revolved around a drummer boy in the Continental Army. His name was Patrick, like Patrick Henry. He was fourteen when Cornwallis surrendered in 1781. It was his birthday, and George Washington told him the surrender was his birthday present.

But one day in 1976, a hundred and ninety-five years after Cornwallis’s surrender, I relived the bedtime stories. I topped a redoubt, like Patrick in the stories. I ran the hundred yards, next to my father. I imagined the smoke and musket fire. Knowing soldiers would need to hear my drumming to know what to do or when to advance or retreat.

The stories were tales of heroism and cowardice. Yarns of luck and fate. As a five-year-old, they were enthralling. But as an eleven-year-old, walking through the places they happened, they became almost real.

Patrick wasn’t real. He was a vehicle, an assemblage of real and imagined. His purpose was to teach lessons. And as I learned while running across a hot field in Yorktown, Virginia, he did his job. I learned about bravery and duty. I learned about sacrifice and purpose.

Isn’t that the purpose of fairy tales? Weren’t they created to teach lessons?

The stories my mother told were classics. They had been told for dozens or even hundreds of years before she passed them to me. They had been told countless ways, by countless others. Of course, I loved the time I was able to spend with her, sitting on her lap, or laying in bed, the book next to me as my mother lay there reading.

The stories my father told were not nearly as polished. He often made them up on the fly, filling in details from his research. But they certainly stuck with me. I wish they’d been written down, to be passed down through the generations. But like most of the stories ever told, they are no longer known… nothing left but snippets and pieces.

I guess that is one of the reasons we write.

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