StoryWorth: A Book of Your Stories, One Question at a Time

Our daughter Leslie gave me a StoryWorth subscription for Christmas. I receive an email every morning that asks me a question about my life. I usually answer each question on my iPhone while I am drinking coffee in bed, before I start my day. Most people get one question a week, but I like to write, especially when the words flow right out of my head to the keyboard. At the end of the year, all the questions that I have answered will be the content of a hard copy book. Pictures can be included at the time of my post or at any time before printing my book.

Today, the question was “Tell me about one of the best days you can remember.”

That is what I like about StoryWorth. I have written four books that were partly or fully memoir, and everything I put in the books were either facts that needed to be included or stories that I thought the reader would find interesting. This book will include the tiny moments that I don't think about often, if at all, and it will include many of the moments I have often thought about, but I have never talked about.

This was my answer to the StoryWorth question:

“In April 1993, the four of us went to London for a week during spring break. It rained every day, mostly light but sometimes pouring, until our last day when we woke up to a sunny day. We spent the entire day in Hyde Park, Regency Park, and Kensington Gardens. We enjoyed the entire week, but that last day was my favorite. It was nice being away from the tourist spots on the last day on such a beautiful day. When we left for the airport the next day, tears rolled down Leslie’s cheeks as she said, “I don’t want to leave London.” Leslie had her fifth birthday in London. We celebrated it at the Hard Rock Cafe.”

Answering the question made me think about that trip to London.

Then I began thinking about how much fun we had traveling with our kids when they were still living at home. We would not take triple the money back in exchange for the memories for any of the trips, even those that were a lot of work, and the best ones did require a good bit of work.

I read an article many years ago where the writer said, “If I haven’t suffered enough during a trip, I wonder if I had a good trip.” That makes sense to me. The more involved the trip, the more things that can go wrong— cancelled flights, missed connections, bad weather, lost luggage, and getting sick are just a few things we have experienced. We have had so many missed connections and cancelled flights, that we do not even plan on arrivals being on time; if we have to be somewhere at a certain time, we leave the day before.

In Germany, when all four of us were suffering severe jet lag, our five-year-old daughter asked us, “why in Germany are people sleeping in the day and up all night?” We were on Main Street in Heidelberg at three in the morning, looking for somewhere to eat. On that same trip both of our kids came home with chickenpox.

Then there are the unusual things that happen, like the time we were in a taxi in London, just before a transportation strike. The driver, instead of slowing down for pedestrians, speeded-up when he saw them. People were running and jumping to get out of the street. One poor man was not fast enough to get his last leg on the curb. The driver stopped, looked back at us, and said, “Get out, ride over.” He did not even ask for money.

Or the time that the seagull stole Leslie’s hotdog out of her hand at the San Francisco Zoo. A five-year old little girl does not think that is funny— it is scary.

Regardless of the complicating factors, we would not give up any of the memories for triple the money they cost, and we passed the desire to travel down to our kids. In the last several years, Leslie has been to Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and French Polynesia twice. Chris and his wife visit ball parks all over the country, and they are marking off all fifty states on their travel map. They weather the complicating factors, and they are always ready for the next trip.

That one little question from StoryWorth kept me thinking for a while about our travels. I began thinking about how rare it is to see travelers get upset, even under the most trying conditions, and the more involved the trip is, the less likely it is to see people mad because things could be better. Maybe it is the psyche of the typical traveler or maybe it’s because they have put so much planning and money into the trip, they are not going to allow negativity to enter their mind if they can help it.

We have great memories of happy people we have met on out travels, but it is the exceptions that are among the most memorable:

I had never seen the girl before and have not seen her since. I would not even recognize her if I saw her again. But the memory of her crying on the last step of the boardwalk to the beach for a Cancun hotel has been in my memory for the last twenty-five years. Maybe she has forgotten that she cried, but I have not forgotten that she cried.

A man in Cozumel was admonishing an older man because he was looking at his cellphone while walking down the street. That was four years ago. I guessed it was father and son, and I could relate to that. They were strangers that I saw for less than a minute, but I have not forgotten them.

I did not hear this one. My wife Kathy overheard a man fussing at his wife because she booked them on a Panama Canal Cruise that was not full transit. He had no desire to go halfway through a canal and turn around, and since the ship was not stopping in Panama, the entire trip was a waste for him.

When Leslie was in middle school, Kathy and I went to Italy on a school trip with her and several members of her class. A principal and two teachers from another school were in our tour group. Our tour guide was great, but the principle took offense when he tried to get her attention. Those three people took off on their own, and we only saw them when it was time to get on the bus and go to the next city on the tour. Karma kicked in on the last day of the tour when those three got on the bus that morning to go to the airport. The hotel manager boarded the bus and asked them to return the hotel key they stole. It would have made a good souvenir; it was one of those big keys on a pretty, wooden keyring that quaint European hotels were still using at that time.

The last is my favorite. Kathy and I were on a New Years cruise on a ship that at that time was one of the two largest cruise ships in the world. The first night of the cruise was New Year’s Eve. We were seated with another couple. Kathy and I always get into the moment, so I am wearing the New Years hat and she’s wearing the tiara that was on our table when we sat down. The other couple were not wearing theirs. We are in full-party mode, so I mention how much fun we are going to have after dinner. Our table companions told us they were not going to have fun because they did not like crowds. That was a six thousand-passenger ship, it was New Years Eve, and they do not like crowds! Dinner was served and the man thought his lobster was too small. He asked for another and the waiter told him they did not have another. The man’s face turned bright red and he began loudly screaming, “I’m platinum and I want a good lobster!” Then he pointed his finger at me and told the waiter “He wants one too!” We got our lobsters. They lost their dinner companions.

That’s a 1500-word story from a simple question that got me thinking about our travels. Every question I have answered has sent me down memory lane, and each one has helped Kathy and I remember some things we haven't thought about in years.

StoryWorth. Check it out here. It's easy and you will love it.