Snippits – Introduction

30 Mar 2011

Snippits Intro: Vignettes from life

The idea for this post comes from interacting with my kids. When they were young they loved to hear stories. Unfortunately for them my imagination wasn’t all that great. Then I came upon an idea: how about telling them stories about ‘the good old days’ by ‘changing the names’ to ‘protect the innocent’? I started off with stories about ‘Motorcycle Man’. It was a blast, and they loved it. I think they always knew there was some kind of connection but couldn’t quite figure it out, until years later. When they did put it together it made the experience of telling and hearing all the more precious.

The idea of my stories has morphed a bit over the years. Some of the change came from family historians looking for details to add to the family tree. At one point I was asked by an aunt for some thoughts about my grandfather. Another influencing factor was reading a book published by one of my Great Uncles kids about the hardships of growing up in difficult times with a really messed up family. It caused me to realize how little I really knew about my own parents. I decided that I wanted something different for my kids and started to scribble some things down. Here you get a glimpse of that process.

As I write this introduction and first ‘snippit’ I am reminded that those original Motorcycle Man stories have not been captured yet, but I do have some others. I don’t think I will putting everything on the web but perhaps enough that it will encourage you to get your creative juices flowing so that you can share stories with your kids/grand kids – or anyone else who might listen for that mater. We all have a story to tell…

Snippit #1: How do you say “Ice Cream”?

While stationed in Germany we would often visit an Italian Ice shop after a walk in the nearby park. On one of these visits our friend asked the server: “How do you say ‘ice cream’?”. All of the nuances threaded through the context made this question so rich. Italian ice, American GI, German shop keeper. And more; the look of anticipation on my friends face as he expected to gain favor for taking an interest in the local culture, along with the hope of adding to his German vocabulary. A missing prepositional phrase, ‘in German’, and a sharp witted young man behind the counter yielded this priceless answer: ‘ice cream’.

Originally Published Mar 2011 on Squidoo, later moved to HubPages now here… The events recounted are from about 1985