Coffee Clutch Chatter

Boy I think if there is something that everyone can relishes is listening to a good story. There's such a knack for being able to deliver a story well and knowing when to embellish. My brother was amongst the best storytellers. I used to beg him to tell me stories.

Amongst my favorites was a story he would tell about fishing with my grandpa and my grandma's brother, Richard. My very strong willed grandpa was in the navy and has no fear of water or at least none that he would admit to. In fact he always says, "Anyone can survive in the water, it's fear that kills you." And Richard although having spent his entire life in Northern Wisconsin, a landscape dotted with lakes, as a defense against drowning, he was taught to be fearful of water. Even though he grew up fishing on the lakes in all seasons and I have driven out with him on a frozen lake with only the thinnest of ice, he would never dream of jumping out of the boat and going swimming. Richard is also a very serious fisherman, he has always seen it as a way of providing food for the table. My brother, of course it was never critical that he catch enough food that he would not go hungry, was still a very serious fisherman. My grandpa on the other hand, although he liked fishing and would pay huge amounts of money to go on extravagant fishing trips was not as serious about fishing.

One hot summer day, my brother, grandpa, and Richard were in the boat at North Lake and apparently bored with fishing, my grandpa proposed that he could jump out of the boat with all of his clothes on and swim the length of the lake. Wanting to enjoy the good fishing, my brother and Richard tried to ignore my grandpa. My grandpa has always had a "By GOD I'll show you attitude" and kept trying to spark interest in his swimming across North Lake idea. North Lake is not large by any standard but not pond size either; certainly enough water that one could drown. Richard can't swim a stroke and is also a perpetual worrier was very upset that my grandpa was considering jumping ship and also probably annoyed that he had ruin the fishing with the interruption. "Now Chuck, why would you do that?" Richard's fretting only caused my grandpa to become more and more animated about his prowess swimming abilities, even wagering money, that he could swim the entire length of the lake. For much of my grandpa's adult life, he has always had lots of money and generous by nature, he has always had the luxury of buying forgiveness. So my grandpa kept winding up, making my brother and Richard more and more nervous that he was going to jump in with his shoes on. At this point, when my brother would tell the story, imitating my grandpa, he would puff out his chest, broaden his shoulders and straighten out to his full six foot three inches bellering, "I'm buoyant, buoyant as duck." We would all be roaring with laughter, knowing Richard would be sick with worry and Grandpa would have been determined to show them and Hansel was just thinking, "Here we go again." You got to hand it to my grandpa though for having such faith in his 70 year old body. I don't even think at 33 that I would wager money on my swimming abilities in all of my clothes.

Now that he's gone, when I hear other people telling stories and they almost always seem inadequate, I find myself wondering what the qualities of a good storyteller are. I have determined that being a good word smith does not hurt. He was a word smith and one my fav terms that he coined was "Chronic Slug Bug." Being able to make good noises also helps. I've never been able to make good sound effects except for imitating the sound of bison in rut and only my good friend Jessie really seems to appreciate this talent of mine. My brother and my grandpa had a habit of rubbing their ear in the middle of a story. Some good storytellers still remain though. When visiting my parents, I really enjoy listening to my dad and uncle and friends talk over coffee. Even if the talk is just talk, the sounds are melodic. I wonder if they are better at oral communication because that is what the entertainment for their generation has usually been? They seem to always remember details for things 30 years ago much better than I can remember something from the day before. I wonder if this is because today we are so bombarded with information that our brain just doesn't remember the details. Also there are more ways of recording life events (videos and pictures). Being male and since eating is a recreational activity in the Midwest, it also happens to be one of their top ten topics for coffee chatter. Of course none of them are incredible cooks (my dad does fix a mean breakfast) but they all seem to posses the ability to critique restaurants as if they were being paid by Savour magazine. One morning the conversation swung to a supper club that is nearby and the quality of food has fluctuated over the years. They described the bread with sound effects: "as if they took an air hose and filled up the bread." Of course in the Midwest light foods are not looked up as delectable and they were not being complimentary.

Later on my dad took me for a tour of his new logging job. Where I learned, and for the record, IKEA does not buy tropical lumber. My dad, an ol' logger, who has no idea how trendy fabulous etc, IKEA is, casually pointed to a log pile and told me those logs he sold to a mill in Stanley that sold them to IKEA. For all of you who I've walked through an Ikea store with suspiciously looking at the wood, I'm sorry, little did I know that they really do buy wood from our country. I admit, I probably would not have believed anyone but my dad but he does not lie. As my dad continued the tour through the woods, we came across my Uncle Bobby coming to the job for load of logs. He's amongst the very best storytellers and always can make a person laugh. At the logging job he jokingly asked my dad if he was giving me the scenery tour. Then told my dad that my great uncles were coming at noon to see the job. I really wanted to just hang out and wait for them to show up. All three of them have this strong Swedish Brogue that reminds me of my grandpa, who was a pillar of kindness but also had wonderful stories. So my uncle told my dad that the other sawyer, Larry, was not limbing the trees well but "Joe [skidder operator that my brother referred to as loader joe] is always pinching Larry's butt." So if you've ever been to a logging job you will realize it's hard for the cutters to limb trees well if the skidder is right there waiting for you.