Dad: The Great Storyteller
Dad was the best storyteller I ever knew. I don’t know if it was the fact that he was great at spinning a yarn or the fact that there weren’t that many adults telling stories to kids. Not in our neighborhood, anyway.
The only other storyteller I knew was Dad’s nephew Dale Strickland. Dale is my cousin, but since this book is about Dad, I thought I’d describe him from my Dad’s perspective. Just bright as I can be.Dale told a lot of good stories, don’t get me wrong. But, Dale was actually IN most of his stories, and the vast majority of ‘em were lies. As far as I know, they were all lies. You just never knew when to believe Dale Strickland.
I was about 30 before I found out that he did not train the Arabian horses for the Ben Hur chariot race. That he, in fact, did not hit one over the head with a Coke bottle just to get its attention. Nor was Dale best buds with cowboy actor Ben Johnson. He never lived on a ranch with him and helped train his horses.
What Dale did do -- and I have this on good authority – was lie like a bad dog. Could do it with a straight face, too. All the adults went along with him, so that really added credence to his lies. To this day, I don’t know why grownups feel it funny to trick kids into believing stuff. Sure, I told my nephew Clint that a water-holding cavity in the trunk of an oak tree in my backyard was in fact a place where leprechauns peed, but that was different. I never told him that I trained a leprechaun’s horse. That’s what Dale would’ve done.
Other than Dale and Dad that was it. Teachers weren’t even telling stories when I was a kid. They just made us read redundant books about dogs and cats. “See Tip run. Run, Tip. Run.” How lame is that? Occasionally Tip would do something wrong and the author would write “No” about a million times. “No, Tip! No. No, no Tip!” Give me a break. And parents wondered why we didn’t like to talk about what we did at school that day.
No, there were no stories at school worth repeating. Home was where you heard the good stuff. The non-lying-for-the-purpose-of-tricking-kids stuff. I imagine that all Dads told their kids stories. Unfortunately, they only told stories to their own kids… who told their friends, who told their friends… When a kid tells a story that he heard from his dad, it gets all turned around. By the time I told Mom and Dad what Dinky’s dad had said, the story was unrecognizable to the originator. Nowadays, kids repeat stories so much better. I might’ve read that somewhere.
I was the best listener in our family. Probably the best listener on the whole block. And I think you can forget about the “probably.” I just loved to hear stuff, and I particularly loved story-night. What made it extra special was the fact that we never knew when it would be. We’d be watching TV. Dad would be in his chair and Mom, Larry and Susan would be on the couch. The rest of us were laid out on the oak floor, our heads TV-ward. Something sappy like Laurence Welk or Arthur Godfrey would be on. Fortunately there were no loaded guns in the house.
Out of the blue, Dad would say, “Hey, y’all wanna hear a story?” Is Tip hard of hearing? Of course, we want hear a story! Story-night always meant that Dad was in a good mood. He never shared stories in a bad mood. If he had, I’m pretty sure they would’ve been stories that, for the most part, ended with “… or else you’ll be walking at a tilt for the rest of your unnatural life.”
Story-night always generated popcorn. I don’t know how that worked. It was magical. Mom would put some Crisco in the big scorched pot and shake it till her bra strap snapped. (I just made that part up. I knew nothing about bras in The Day.) Jolly Pop was the only kind of popcorn I knew about… other than movie popcorn, which was popped in Heaven. Jolly Pop was popped on our old gas stove. A third of the kernels never popped. And, it wasn’t because Mom didn’t shake the pot hard enough. Did I mention what happened when she shook it? I’m pretty sure the popcorn didn’t pop good because this was before glow-in-the-dark hybrid popcorn. It was accidentally discovered in Russia. Another story that Dale would’ve likely told.
During story-night we’d all gather around Dad’s chair. I don’t remember much about Mom, Susan and Larry gathering. Lynda, my oldest sister, didn’t gather, ‘cause she married and moved out when I still played outside in my underwear. I don’t know if mmy other older siblings had heard all the stories before, or just thought they were too old to gather around Dad’s chair. The rest of us loved to gather ‘cause that’s where the popcorn was. Right in the middle of us. We became one with the bowl. To this day I can’t eat popcorn slowly. I sit in the theatre and put fistfuls in my mouth. A grown man competing with himself for all the popcorn. I’m not proud of that, but I can’t seem to stop it.
Sometimes Mom would roast unshelled peanuts for story-night. They were the best. She’d put newspapers on the floor and a pan of nuts in the middle. It was mayhem. I can’t imagine anyone letting kids shell peanuts in a living room. It just goes against everything that’s good. By bedtime the living room floor at the Hayter house was like the floor of a barn… a peanut barn.
Eventually Dad would get around to telling us stories. You were probably wondering when that was going to happen. Dad’s stories covered a wide spectrum. A wide something. Often he would tell about some of the books he read. Just about every book Dad read was a Western. Mostly, Zane Grey Westerns. I didn’t mind that at all. Western life was the life for me. My first step was on a stickhorse.
A lot of times during the stories, Dad would get stuff mixed up. We’d hafta get him to clarify. – “Daddy, I thought Rip died during the stampede. He couldn’t have been in the shootout.” – “No, Dennis! Would you listen? Frank’s brother died in the stampede. Rip hasn’t died yet. Well he did in shootout, but--” – “Was Rip the one with the black horse?” – “Sure! Whatever. Do y’all want me to finish this or not?”
Dad also got a lot of story ideas from some of the movies he saw. Some of them were Westerns, too, but some were about gangsters and pirates and war. Exciting stuff.
Occasionally, Dad’s stories would drift over into his personal life. In fact, some of this account of my father is tied to our storytelling nights. His early life farming with Grandpa; his tales of Grandma’s escapades; his experience as a roughneck;his job at the refinery; stuff that happened on the job at Crown Refinery… Stuff like that.
The scaredest Dad ever got was when he was an oilrig one night in Oklahoma. He was just checking on something, so he was the only one there. And, it was dark. If it hadn’t been dark, it would’ve been a stupid story. Dad said he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, even through his good eye. Dad was all but blind in his right eye. No idea why… or how. Can’t believe none of us asked.
Anyway, Dad was walkin’ up the ridge to the tool shed. No flashlight. Nothing. Didn’t even have his truck lights on. Something about batteries being real bad back then. So, he’s stumbling around in the direction of the tool shed, and practically runs into it. He opened the door and fumbled around for a match in his pocket when all of a sudden – at this part, Dad got quiet for about three seconds and looked at all of us real scary like. See what I mean about him being a good storyteller? – Where was I? Oh, yeah, he’s fumbling for a match when all of a sudden somebody puts a hand on his shoulder. Dad said that if he’d had a bad heart he would’ve died on the spot.
Turns out it was just some poor hobo who picked the oilrig site to spend the night. Dad said that the guy couldn’t talk and that was why he didn’t announce his coming. I believed that at the time, but now I’m not so sure. A deaf and dumb guy sleeping on an oilrig? Just too convenient.
And, to top it off, I didn’t really like the ending of the story. Anti-climatic if you ask me. I didn’t mention that to Dad, ‘cause I didn’t know what anit-climatic was, nor did I want to hurt his feelings. I was just expecting for Dad to say that big snake or bear or an escapee from the insane asylum was in the shed. Back then there were a lot of scary people escaping from insane asylums. Don’t know why that was. Cousin Dale knew of hundreds of them. And, everyone who lived in an insane asylum was evil mean. And, strong. Must’ve been something in the water, ‘cause crazy people are not that bad today. Hey, I used to be one. What?
I don’t remember any other scary stories that Dad told. Other than noodling. Noodling scared me. Dad used to do it, too. He’d go down on the creek bank, probably the Big Deep Fork Creek near Bristow. There was a Little Deep Fork Creek, too. Tell the truth, I never tell the difference. Both of ‘em looked medium size to me.
Big Deep Fork Creek
Anyway, Dad and Uncle AB or one or two of the other less sensible kin uncles would go into the water. Sometimes take off all their clothes before getting in. When you find out what they’re gonna be doing in the water that just makes the event that much scarier.
They’d take turns stooping down next to the bank and reaching underneath some of the washed out parts of the bank and try to grab a big ol’ catfish. Put their hand right in the thing’s mouth. That’s like a million times more scary than somebody touching on the shoulder when your at a dark oilrig.
If you knew how muddy and yucky the water at the Big and Little Deep Forks is, you’d just get sick.
If Dad ever told any big lies during his stories, I don’t think it was intentional. He might’ve exaggerated a little, maybe remembered stuff a little different, but he wouldn’t have out and out lied. Evidence enough is in how he ended the oilrig-nighttime-stranger story. If he was gonna tell a whopper, that would’ve been the best time for it. Wasn’t a monster or bear or insane person. It was just a deaf guy. Hey, Dale would’ve had a couple of Martians popping out of the shed. And, he would’ve been most convincing.
