Op-Ed Columns

The bird would clutch its perch tightly as it skidded across the smooth concrete floor. An irate young boy was the cause of this creature's unwanted and unplanned flight. It seems the bird, a parrot named Dollie Madison, had the uncanny ability to imitate the mother of the boy, who was my great-uncle Robert Hugh Kirksey.

His fun and games with the neighborhood children would be interrupted by calls of “Robert Huuuuuuuugh.” He would breathlessly sprint home, only to discover that it was the bird, not his mother, my great-grandmother Bessie Kirksey, issuing the call. On his way back to playtime, my great-uncle would spy the bird on the porch outside the family home in west Alabama. Steaming mad, Robert Hugh would kick the bird's cage. And the bird would go sliding across the slick floor.

Gather a handful or more of my family members, and that tale will get told. If it's not, someone will request it. In one telling, the bird is taught profanity, which it faithfully utters at the start of each day. In another, the bird was a gift of a distant relative who lived most of her life in the 19th century.

The parrot story is just the beginning. Everybody who's anybody in the family has a story, an anecdote, usually funny, to take us back to a different place and time.

Place and time, I'm realizing, is what those stories are about. They connect us to our history. Who was born, who got sick, who said what and how they lived and laughed.

Last week's “They Call Us Storytellers” conference in Anniston called that family tale — and its import — to mind. The conference was sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists in partnership with The Star, the Knight Fellows in Community Journalism and the University of Alabama.

Gay Talese, Kathryn Tucker Windham, Rick Bragg and Hardy Jackson were among the speakers. (Those last three — Windham, Bragg and Jackson, Southerners all — were enough to leave the 65 conference attendees soaked in grits.)

All are storytellers. All are journalists in their own right. Their stories take you somewhere, which is what good journalism should.

Talese speaks of a New Jersey upbringing and how a friendly town doctor originally from Alabama helped young Gay attend college in Tuscaloosa. He tells of a succession of events that leads to The New York Times and eventually to bestselling authordom. Along the way, in Talese's telling, the characters are colorful and the descriptions vivid. Learn to listen with respect and gentleness, the renowned author reminds his audience.

Windham describes the scene inside a country store in south Alabama, telling us how when she was a young girl she would make the rounds with her father, a banker. She walks us through the farmhouse of a family too poor to afford window screens to keep the flies out. She relates how that family's sons rose up beyond their circumstances.

Jackson, as regular readers of his Anniston Star columns know, brings a passion for Southern history to his tales. The jacklegged preacher in post-Civil War Alabama comes to life as Hardy tells of his unusual exploits.

Bragg shares a story he had written about a young Florida boy living with the consequence of being falsely accused of a sex crime. Bragg, a son of Calhoun County, speaks of identifying with the poor upbringing of the boy known as “Dirty Red.” The telling illustrates the rough treatment of the defenseless from the police inside this south Florida housing project.

So what did we get out of these stories? A chuckle, yes. A lump in the throat, sometimes. But also a lesson, a memory, a fragment of times long gone, an outrage fleshed out in a way that a “just the facts, ma'am” police report never could.

Southerners, I think, do it better than most. We tell stories. We cherish them. We learn from them, even by accident.

My wife comes from stoic, West Texas stock, and her folks did not tell stories on themselves. My wife knows plenty of names and dates, thanks to her mother's 40-plus years of genealogical research, but she does not have the tales that bring the facts to life. My wife says she misses that greatly.

When I was a child and young adult, the Dollie story was pure comedy. Its fuller telling and accompanying sidebar stories remind me of where I come from.

It draws up memories of family members long gone. It connects me to my roots, about how my ancestors moved to west Alabama more than 150 years ago, about how they carved out a living, how they worshipped, how they loved, how they struggled. My children are learning the stories. I hope they'll do the same with their children, because one day they too will realize it's more than just a story about a bird and a mischievous little boy.