An Evening of Rich White Storiesat Lake of the Ozarks State Park Campground
My wife Alice and I showed up at the Lake of the Ozarks State Park Campground in the early afternoon to scope out the venue for the 7:00 pm storytelling performance. We found the amphitheater was small enough that the PA system we had along would not be needed. We didn’t see any notices about the storytelling, and I was a little concerned.
We returned a little before 6:00 pm to the Campground Store where we met Candy Hawk, the Park Specialist who was handling the storytelling. Candy informed me that she had walked the campground on Friday night and invited everyone she found outside to the storytelling on Saturday. She was in the process of repeating that walk-thru again this evening to contact as many campers as possible. A little after 6:00 pm, Alice and I drove down to the amphitheater and then walked around the campground talking to some campers and inviting them to the storytelling.
By 6:45, Alice and I were at the amphitheater when two men we had talked to earlier showed up, closely followed by four women who we had also talked to. When Candy showed up, I was a little worried at the size of the audience. Then at around 6:55, the people Candy had invited started strolling in. We ended up with a nice size audience of 41 (ages 6 to about 80) thanks almost exclusively to the work Candy had put into promoting the event.
I told a variety of stories including a fairy tale, a folk tale, a tall tale and a historic story. The audience was attentive and joined in to make the storytelling a pleasure. To close out the program I asked whether they would rather hear a story of “An Owl and an Eagle”, a traditional folk tale, or “Aunt Eddy”, a tall tale. “Aunt Eddy” won out and proved to be a fun
wrap up to an enjoyable evening.
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