The world is full of storytellers.

There are enough columnists, authors, bloggers, tweeters, and filmmakers to make your head spin, and they are all telling stories (and I am one of them). But what about true storytellers? These are the people who can stand in front of a group and spin a yarn without any props, dictionaries, thesauruses, slides, notes, drawings, scribbles, doodles, cheat sheets, or pictures (moving or otherwise).

There is something to be said for listening to a story unfold before your ears as its told by a skilled storyteller. I have to admit, it’s probably been a long time since I last heard someone tell a story that wasn’t some recounting of an event in an effort to relive the experience, or boast, or simply hear themselves talk. We all gather around the water cooler, or at the bar, or in the kitchen at someone’s house, and we tell tall tales about the one that got away (fish, girls, boys, all of the above), or the single greatest / funniest / scariest / offensive / interesting / cool thing to happen that week. But how many of us actually stand up and tell a story simply for the fun of it? For the sake of the story alone.

Well after heavily researching the history of storytelling (OK, I briefly skimmed this page on Wikipedia), I can say that storytelling is not completely gone, and there are many practicing storytellers – and even storytelling associations – today. That being said, I do have a concern that all this writing and multi-media and social media might be damaging this ancient art.

Everything today is documented, recorded for posterity, indexed, and completely searchable with a few clicks. The company that went on to become Open Text Corporation put the Oxford English Dictionary in an electronic format and at the time that was a major accomplishment. Just a few years later, all the information online surpassed that stored on paper, and a lot of that information includes transcription of previously existing text, as well as audio and video of just about everything to happen (and everything made up) since we figured out how to keep track.

Where would we be today if more than a handful of people could read and write back when Pontius Pilate was holding court? Jesus in the 21st century would have a webcam in his tomb and a billion people would be watching it 24/7 like those falcons in Alberta.

Some guy: “Did you hear about the crucifixion?“
Some other guy: “Dude, some guy tweeted the whole thing from his basement and didn’t even know what was happening!“

I guess what I’m getting at is that everything today is so traceable that it’s to the point where even someone telling a story is on YouTube. Part of me thinks that’s a little bit sad.

This kind of universal browser history allows us to track pieces of information back to their origins and then analyse the differences between versions of this and variations of that, and to compare and rank and +1 and re-tweet… and I get the sense that the phrase “word of mouth” might actually be losing its meaning.

Somewhere along the way we’ve forgotten what it’s like to just sit… and listen… and enjoy.

Thanks for reading 😉

Once again the amazing Julia Rosien points me in the right direction (it’s like she knows what she’s doing or something…) She recently tweeted a link to a blog entry by Erika Nepoletano on listening to your gut. Now, I fancy myself as someone who tries to listen to his gut as often as possible. It’s usually right. Not always, but enough that I have learned to trust it. I love my gut. I feed it steak as often as possible.


After reading Erika’s wonderful story I thought about all the times my gut has come through (even after more than a few nights of treating my gut like a test kitchen and drowning it in alcohol and jalapeno nachos):

• My first real kiss
• My first real job
• My first *ahem* time
• Picking a University
• Meeting my now wife for the first time (at University. See? I told you my gut was good)

Back in 2009 my wife and 2 children had been living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada for almost 5 years. We were a good 5 hour drive from my family in Toronto and a good 6.5 hour drive from my wife’s family in Woodstock (only 60 minutes from Waterloo – where my wife and I first met).

On March 13, 2009 (my 35th birthday), while my wife and daughter were in the Dominican for a girls getaway, my father-in-law David called to tell me that my wife’s brother Ryan had died. Tragically, accidentally, and well before anyone should have to leave this earth, he was gone.

On June 24, 2009 I received a phone call from a headhunter about a job back in Waterloo with the interview to happen on July 2nd. I was going to be at the beach with my family and my wife’s parents on July 1st for Canada Day, and the cottage was less than 3 hours from the interview, so I was seriously considering it.

There was much discussion between my wife and I over the complication and risks associated with moving our quite comfortable life from Ottawa back to Southern Ontario, but in the end it was my gut that told me what to do. Even before I went to the interview and well before I had any decision to make, my gut was telling me, “DO IT”.

On Canada Day after all the festivities had wound down, David took me aside and wished me good luck on my job interview (he’s good people). At that moment I shook his hand and gave him a hug and I promised him that I would bring his daughter and his grandchildren back home. I guaranteed it.

After two and half hours of driving in July with no air conditioning (and in a suit), three and a half hours of interviews with 2 Managers, 2 Team Leads, and Human Resources, and another two and a half hour drive back to the cottage, I was sipping a nice Shiraz on the beach. A little thank you to my gut, who does enjoy the grape very much as it turns out.

On July 13, 2009 – exactly 4 months after my bother-in-law died – I received a letter of offer for the job in Waterloo.

Exactly two months after that, and exactly 5 months to the day after Ryan’s death, and on my wife’s birthday! (August 13) the Government of Canada created a new agency with an office in Kitchener a mere 17 minutes from my office in Waterloo.

On August 24th, 2009 – exactly 8 weeks after that first phone call from the headhunter – I was working my first day at my new job and had moved into a house in Cambridge (27 minutes from work, and 41 minutes from my wife’s family). 

In September my wife interviewed for a job (at her level even) at that government agency in Kitchener, and on November 2nd she had her first day on the job.

We’ve been here for almost 2 years, we’re both still at our jobs and loving it, and my wife and I and our two children get to see my wife’s family practically any time we want. Everyone is smiling, and I’m presently enjoying a nice Shiraz as I edit this post.

Trust your gut. It knows. You can thank it later.

I filed this under “Random Thoughts” but it’s not really that random. I’ve been doing a post like this (or something on Facebook, or on my family website) just about every year since 2003, the day after the Stanley Cup is awarded. This year however I am posting it a little in advance, reasons for which will become apparent in a couple paragraphs.

For as long as I can remember I have watched the captain of the winning team hoist the Stanley Cup above his head and plant a giant kiss on it. This memory is burned into my brain from at least 1980 onward. Certainly for my entire adult life I know I have not missed the raising of The Cup once. Even an overtime game on the West coast couldn’t keep me from watching. 

I normally root for one particular team to win The Cup but this year I’m actually rooting for The Cup to be decided TONIGHT. You see, this is the first time in 9 years that this particular situation has arisen. I like to think of it as my own version of Halley’s comet.

Back in 2002 my wife was pregnant with our first child who was due on July 4th. I was always a bit ticked off because of all the days for a True Canadian to have a baby, I got stuck with American Independence Day as a due date. Three days earlier would have been ideal.

At any rate, there we were living in Cambridge, Ontario and as always I was watching the Stanley Cup Finals. It was mid-June. In fact to be completely precise it was June 13th. Detroit was playing Carolina in game #5 and Detroit was up in the series 3-1 after losing the first game.

As I mentioned, for as long as I can remember I have watched the Stanley Cup get hoisted by the captain of the winning team. I can go back to when I was a kid and my dad would let me watch them hand out the cup. I’m not sure what it is about it, but growing up with a dad who played hockey at a very competitive level and playing it myself for 10 years, and having been down to the old CNE grounds back in the day to see the Hockey Hall of Fame when I was just a small kid and having seen the Cup up close – and having even touched it, well it’s just something that’s hard to explain.

So, three weeks removed from our first child, my wife and I are lying in bed that Thursday night and Detroit wins the Cup. Lidstrom gets the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP (of course) and then Gary Bettman comes out and presents the cup to Steve Yzerman. Stevie Y hoists the cup over his head and plants a big kiss on it.

At that exact moment I turn to her (she was pretending not to watch the game) and pat her on the stomach and say, “OK, you can give birth now”. At 05:00 the next morning she wakes me up with, “Andrew, we’re going to have a baby”. More than half asleep I reply, “I know”. She replies with, “No. We’re going to have a baby TODAY. My water just broke”.

So we go and have a baby and at 17:17 weighing in at 7lbs 7oz our daughter Avery was born.

So fast forward a few years to the point where Avery is old enough to watch a hockey game for more than 5 seconds. I start recording the Stanley Cup presentation ceremony and the morning after they hand out The Cup each year I sit with Avery and watch the last few minutes of the game, the handshake line (because that’s just good sportsmanship), and the Conn Smythe and Stanley Cup presentations.

Tonight is June 13th and the Stanley Cup will be in the building when Vancouver meets Boston in Game 6. I’ll be watching it live, and recording the game just in case. 

OK Vancouver, you can win The Cup now.