27th Annual Azalea Storytelling Festival

Since librarian and storyteller Pat Gay, LaGrange College education professor Evelyn Jordan, and the assistant superintendent of Troup County schools Joyce Morgan got together (with advice from Donald Davis) in 1997 to organize the Azalea Storytelling Festival, it has grown from very modest beginnings to what may be the premier storytelling festival in Georgia. Sheila and I have enjoyed it many times in the last couple of decades. 

What a great line-up graced the stage this weekend. We had obligations on Friday and Sunday, so we set our clocks early and rose in time yesterday to drive the two hours from Rome to LaGrange and arrive at the Callaway Auditorium at LaGrange College in plenty of time for the morning session at 9:30.

 

Rev. Robert Jones opened up with "Good Morning Blues", inviting us to some call and response. This is his first time to the Azalea, but I'll bet he'll be back. He kept us laughing and reminiscing with him about present day travels and Cracker Barrel restaurants -- the CB wait staff wears stars to indicate their experience levels from "rising star" through four star experts. His story recounted a heart-warming experience with a "rising star" who was less than perfect in her attention to Robert and his wife, but for good reason. His monologue included several excellent musical impressions of musicians including Johnny Cash, George Jones, and others.

Next up was the Dean of American Storytelling who tells at Azalea most years -- Donald Davis. This time around he told about his 1953 "chemistry set". When his Mom would not allow him a chemistry set, he discovered hat their house had multiple chemistry sets. One was his mother's make-up collection. Uh-oh. 

One of the world's great emcees is -- when she isn't a featured teller herself -- Carol Cain. She sent us to a short break before the other two tellers took their turns.

After the break Alabama's spitfire Delores Hydock was first up. Delores grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania learning Roman Catholic catechism under the tutelage of Catholic nuns. But recently she says she has been learning a different "cat"-echism. Hers were the stories of a white cat (Finn), then a black cat (Jack), and finally a pair of striped cats (Ripple and Wink) who adopted her and changed her life. 

Adam Booth is about the age of my eldest daughter and one of the younger tellers on the national storytelling circuit. This is his first year at Azalea. He reminisced about his childhood in Huntington, West Virginia when he loved to watch Knight Rider on TV. 

David Hasselhoff and Knight Rider

Adam's older brother, "a bit of a rebel" bought a car that really did talk: "A door is A jar" or "Fasten. your. seat. belt". The brother decorated the car with "firebird trim" and Adam called it the "Fauxbird". Seven year-old Adam eventually was treated to a rocket launching misadventure in the "Fauxbird".

We had a nice long break for lunch and Sheila I did what we have often done for Saturday lunch at this festival. We drone up to Bellevue the gorgeous restored antebellum mansion of Georgia's Senator Ben Hill and had a delicious soup lunch with the storytellers and lots of Azalea audience members. Always a delicious assortment of soups and cornbreads prepared by volunteers and a special treat is the variety of homemade cookies at each table. We were pleased to discover that one of our table mates was a lady who had eaten with us at the very same table once before, Mrs. Enid Tate. (See the picture below.)

Mrs. Enid Tate is the widow of Methodist pastor Rev. Sidney Tate. Sidney was the son of another well-known Georgia pastor, Rev. John Tate. Enid knew my Mother and Daddy and knows my sister Joan and her husband Jim Turrentine. 

The afternoon session started with Delores. She talked about discoing a Polish festival in Lawrenceville, Georgia of all places which gave her an opportunity to remember her Polish immigrant grandmother and her delicious pierogis...

A photo of pierogis from the internet.

... and their experiences as immigrants through Ellis Island...

Another photo from the internet.

Next up was Rev. Robert Jones and his marvelous guitar again. The guitar is actually built from wood recycled from a demolished Detroit home on "Trumbull Street". He played a song he wrote about it. Then he talked about how he got his first guitar. 

Adam told a couple of spooky stories in this set.

Donald David ended the afternoon session. Donald says you don't join the category of "dead" until no one is telling stories about you any longer. Donald decided to consider some folks from his experience who were in danger of joining that category if he didn't tell about them. Today he told us about the "town drunk" Kyper (sp) Moody -- but "town drunk" was far from the whole story of Kyper.

For our late afternoon break we decided to eat simple and leave time for a walk. So we ate waffles at a nearby Waffle House then drove back to the auditorium and parked there to walk LaGrange's "Thread".

Here we are near the west end of "The Thread".

The path is nicely landscaped with occasional benches and good signage.

The path meanders along Panther Way at the base of a hill  and below another street lined with what seem to have originally been identical craftsman cottages. Of course, humans are prone to individualizing their living spaces to their own preferences so these homes have been altered in many ways over the years. A picturesque neighborhood of lovely small homes.

Looking down from those houses you see more of the LaGrange College campus including the tennis cenyter, Callaway Auditorium, and athletic fields.

 The evening performances were top notch.  

Adam Booth opened with a story in tribute to Jay O'Callahan called "Smoke". It was a story that grew out of the glass factory that dominated the town where Adam grew up. One of the things I admire about Adam's storytelling is his use of sound effects. Whether the story involved percussion instruments or speeding emergency vehicles, or a working chimney sweep, or most anything else, he has worked at creating sound effects that add to without overpowering the stories. I liked the way the different parts of this story interweaved characters and images -- relatives, glass, smoke, the chimney sweep.

Donald Davis's Daddy treated Donald's childhood felonies and misdemeanors differently. Misdemeanors resulted in quick and relatively harmless paddling. But felonies elicited stories. Donald would much prefer a beating. One occasion that brought forth a story was the time Donald stole and smoked a cigarette in the family's barn. 

Delores recited a little piece of rhyme:

The circle of life goes round and round, 
Live long enough you'll find it's true
The student will teach; the teacher will learn
You become your mother 
And you mother becomes you.

The parallel phrasing in the tale of her own first day of first grade, and many years later, her mother's first day of retirement activities, illustrated the last two lines of the rhyme.

That brought her to a story I'd heard from Delores before -- but I still enjoyed. She told of driving the eight hundred miles from Birmingham to Reading, Pennsylvania to attend a "significant number" high school reunion.

Robert Jones capped the evening with a tribute to "Lead Belly" (Hudie Ledbetter) from his CD "An Evening With Lead Belly". Wow. The very last number was "Goodnight Irene". I sang it, off and on, for the two hour drive home.

The cover of Jone's Lead Belly album.