Protector

There’s two. One is going. [June looks at the trees, whistles like a bird, and taps her feet on the ground as if she’s running.] Somebody is carrying a lady through the forest. The Georgia woods with average Georgia weather, warm and sunny. The forest is in the woods somewhere. She’s dead, like me. I’m going to die at 7:00 pm. [Ruth Ann starts crying.] Every day is a bad day. They won’t miss me. He’s going to get rid of her, put her in the ground in a garden.

[The other storytellers try to reassure Ruth Ann.] He is very gently carrying her, rescuing her, taking care of her. He would not walk off and leave her. He can protect her by putting her in the ground. To put someone in the ground for no reason is bad behavior. Even though he was the aggressor, he found her in a dangerous position. The people’s safety at heart. This is just one moment of kindness. She’s hurt. He’s carrying her at a distance, and her with her hands around his neck to help. Maybe she stepped on something. He is taking her home. Maybe she just likes to be carried. There’s a rock. Some people like to be carried. It must be nice to be carried. I want to be carried. I have Friday ninety.

He’s a Union soldier named Jonathan, who has found a woman lost in the woods. It’s around noon, because the light is hitting the top of the leaves on the trees, lighting their path to safety. This is a tribute to the Union troops, as much as they hated fighting with the South, he is using this occasion to represent the war between the States. The fact that it is as much or more about helping people than shooting and killing. This kind of tribute is a proof of that. Two lovers, friendly, because they are not fighting. She most likely is a person who is a victim of the fight between North and South.

I suspect it depicts Annabell Lee. George Washington is saving her. They could on the rock for safety reasons or to celebrate something. If they are there for safety, they better stay put. They are afraid of something. He has a gun on his shoulder, which signifies the battle between North and South. There are lots of rocky places in the area. It is a typical forested area, obviously a depiction of what went on. The base of it is the base of a statue. They are a statue commemorating that the northern soldiers had the safety of the southern soldiers in mind when they were fighting.

She could be scared because there are snakes in the grass. It would wrong for her health to be there, some kind of harm or danger or debris. Any kind of snake is vicious. Even grass fish are dangerous if you're not prepared to go through the weeds. They calmly move through the grass without making noise. You could step in it or on it without realizing it is there. The cowardice is in me. Someone must decide that it is safe enough to move through the grass.

This location is in a park area or something of that nature. It is a depiction of something that actually happened. Some kind of animal would hurt her. An example of being part of the Union with the same freedoms as the states in the North, freedom of speech, all of the freedoms. This is actually saying the North was not trying to hurt the South. This is a really good example of their intentions. It would be fun to see it in person and to know if this actually commemorates George Washington. I can only imagine her name is Annabelle Lee.

Mable, Ruth Ann, Alice, Jeanne, June, Patricia, Henry

Hunting for a Title

I don’t understand her. She needs to be warmer, I guess. Her name is Bo Peep. I can’t figure her out. All white except a black corset at the waste line. She’s holding a very large rifle in her hands. Look at the instrument she is carrying, it is an awful long thing. Could it be a fishing pole? The whole thing is very incongruous because she has such a fancy dress on in the forest. The lady in her furs. One leg short the other pretty good size. There’s not enough there to say what she is doing. What kind of things is she chasing? An animal? Is she capable of leaving the impression of being somebody? I just don’t know about this one.

Bo Peep travels with someone and takes lessons. She has her head turned to look at someone way back in the ancient days. She is carrying symbols of times gone past. She may be investigating the problem, that she is out of her era, her usual way of living. Bo Peep is an old timer. Whoever has taken this photograph has chosen to lose his way. There are three different colors. She has a tail hanging down there. Her hair is covering her face and making her look like an animal. She may just wander around through the woods to see what else she can find, not just wait around there until something else changes her mind about what she is doing. Bo Peep is a party girl who likes men a lot; she is looking for He-man. But she has made a bad choice of wearing apparel; she doesn’t look like a showgirl. Her hair is hanging down. I accept that now.

I am not convinced by this even though this might be a pretty good rifle. This could be for a play, a modeling pose. She couldn’t be dressed just like herself, with things to look dressed so we can’t know what kind of person she is. Holding a gun. It is very unusual. Does this have something to do with safety? Guns and people together, we haven’t learned how to put guns and people together. She could have left us a note to tell us where she was going, if she was hunting or if she is working for an advertisement. Everything you see with a gun is going to kill someone or something. You can have a lot of fun being destructive.

Long white hair, one arm half way showing, a very unusual costume, this is quite a deal. She’s posing for an ad in a magazine, and she is advertising the rifle. She seems to be in the woods, advertising a rifle for hunters to buy. You have to feel that she’s posing to advertise their wares. Anyone looking at the ad will look at her instead of the rifle. They have chosen the wrong way to advertise. The rifle looks too common; you need something to stand out in the program, to interpret what you are doing. Hunt or build fence? I don’t know.

She’s looking at the man that owns the rifle. She is uncomfortable, because she is unaccustomed to holding a rifle. To be in the woods holding a rifle is a strange situation. No man is looking at the rifle. Whoever is advertising the rifle is handling it the wrong way. He may not necessarily get fired, but he won’t accomplish his mission. He is not bad; he is just not that bright. If he is advertising a girl, that will not happen, because the person looking is torn between looking at the gun or looking at the pretty model. If he is advertising a woman, he has failed in that as well, because her clothing is incongruent. His boss will fuss a lot and give him a hard time. They need a time and place when the two of them agree on what they are going to do, instead of looking at what they’ve already done. Move on past the mistakes. The end is one shot from the gun; she is out on the run. She goes back to the office and collects her paycheck, and she leaves that problem up to whoever hired her. She did the job they asked her to do. It is now their problem.

Gretchen, Mabel, Jeanne, Patricia, Alice (artwork by Jeanne)

The Painted Lady

Each person is entitled to think and to make themselves beautiful and lovable. She is obviously a paper-mache person, a stand in for a real person. Her face is made of newspaper print, the story of her life is imprinted all over her face. Whatever she cares for in life, to make the best of it to help other people establish friendship. Be as good to each other as you can. They try to tell her something or help to improve her. Not with all the make-up. She doesn’t have to put a whole lot on. See the eyelids weighed down.

No one has seen a person who looks like that. Her name is June. It is a hideous picture. Oh so beautiful. Are we sewing? She is beautiful! Someone did an awful lot of work on this one. I’ve never seen a more beautiful one. Her smile, her eyes, that’s about all I know about her. I don’t know her that well. She is a beautiful woman all the way through, a friendly open person who tries to understand the position of those who speak to her. She is making some noise, “Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu.”

There’s not a natural thing there. Her eyes are overemphasized with black circles, her cheeks are outlined in the stupid red, a stupid picture someone made who does not know what a human being looks like. Anyone who would make her look like that should be sad. That is not beautiful. It is ugly to me the way they have her all outlined. They don’t have anything on hair or smiles. I wouldn’t give two cents for that. I’m sure it cost you more than that.

Whoever did the art work knows exactly what they are doing. Someone who reads her story will have the opinion that she hides her own identity in lots of stories about other people. She is a kind, thoughtful person who is very insecure about her own intelligence. That is one reason she has her story all over her face. I don’t like anything on a piece of paper. I don’t like it period. You keep putting in and putting in making it up so you can print it out and throw it all over everyone. It’s because you like it. I would throw a saucer at it. Crack a saucer over your head. [This storyteller stands up and leaves the workshop, very bothered about the way the story is turning out.]

We should avoid conflict to keep peace and be healthy and not continually disrupted. We don’t need fear in our lives, to be more and more afraid of things. We need to wait to be sure what people’s intentions are. They are curious to find out more about other people.

One cheek looks rounded and one looks straight and flat across. I don’t agree with all that. She has beautiful eyes. She has little lights in her eyes because a photographer with a flash that left light spots in her eyes has taken her photograph.

Which one do you like the best? It depends on the mood the person is in, what they are looking for, but I’m not an artist. You can’t tell from looking at it what she is thinking or what she is afraid of or what they are thinking. We’ll just let her be who she wants to be and we will live with it. She is looking at us, because we are looking at her. Nobody can get through the expression of self. She is interested in the person she is addressing. She is taking in all the information the person is giving her and doesn’t have a preset opinion of what that person is like. She takes as fact, whatever they say.

Bad people look differently at the eyes. We should help and accept help. I don’t know that you should consider them bad people. Consider them false, the people who project their opinion on her. She is not affected by their opinion because she doesn’t know them. She is being polite, nodding, listening, but the words of the bad ones are not sinking in.

The moral of the story is be good to others. This opinion is a loving and kind opinion. Not putting your bad opinions on top of people before you know them.

Patricia, Gretchen, Jeanne, June, Barbara, Ruth Ann, Mable, Alice

Lost

A dog named Tiger was chasing a tennis ball when the tennis ball slipped and fell into the water. The tennis ball floated on down the river. These others are just friends, and they own the dog.

He was always going, always going. That was in the early stages.

My husband was oversees. It was women mostly, but it was fun. It’s a sled sliding. I’ve been on that, had a good time on the ice. If I could see on the back, then I could tell you what they are doing. But there’s nothing on the back, so I don’t know. Fun. Fun.

Jennie and Pete are on the Mississippi River. They are just friends who go to school together. There is no romance there, just friends. I thought it was overseas, but it isn’t. I was mistaken.

I got in my car and went. Sometimes it’s cold. Other times it’s very warm. We traveled around the area there. It’s cold and snowing. However, it doesn’t look cold. The puppy dog is on the bottom, almost lost. They have to drag him back.

It’s fun in Europe. They are going down there in that dog. He got himself wet. The mother is way back trying to hang on to everything. The dog is getting pulled in. It was in Europe, I know.

They are dressed in short sleeves and shorts because they didn’t know that it was going to get cold. It looks like they have no blankets or jackets, but the campground is in the distance. It is not part of this picture. They have supplies. Wherever they go, they go and the dog goes with them. I’m not sure if this is the right one. The dog doesn’t like being wet and cold. They will pull him out the water, dry him off, wrap him in a blanket, and give him something to eat. Dry him off; it is snowing in a lot of places. Dry your dog off everywhere. Snowy, snowy.

I think those are skiers. I can’t remember if they did. The other dogs are here and there. It is hard to figure them out. Off and on. You hit that snow and golly darn, you slide. See that dog is freezing his buns off. They will go to their campsite, fix a hamburger, baked potato and salad. Then they will go to bed. They are experienced campers who know what happens when you leave the campground unguarded. They brought extra supplies in case raccoons and bears come and eat their food. The best thing about camping is being together, enjoying food and friends. You need to go. Just like me. Out in the open air, independent.

It’s hard to tell you, because they start out, and then they are somewhere other than they want to be. There’s so much to see and so much to do. So busy all the time. You don’t realize it until you are in the middle of it, and then you know you are there. It is beautiful. Everything tastes better like that.

The only problem was the dog falling in, but other than that, the trip was uneventful. They stayed the night, packed their things and went home to Selma, Alabama. They thought they were lost, but they had a great time anyway. The adventure made a wonderful tale for a young son to tell in his classroom the next day.

Patricia, Barbara, Gretchen, Jeanne, Alice

Going Home

We are on the outside looking in. The weather is not too bad. They can hear children playing, people in the neighborhood laughing and speaking their language. They don’t feel quite as lost as they have been. Tomas and Hoshi got an eviction notice, and they had to move. There’s only two that you can see. That is a lot of stuff for two people, but they are moving somewhere close by. They are crumbing down.

Simply not prepared for the outside world, it was impossible for Tomas and Hoshi to find proper housing. They have packed up their belongings, and they are going back to China town where they can find a place they are familiar with and can afford. Hopefully they can eek out a living there.

That is all their household goods: beds, tables, kitchen supplies, suitcases, newspapers, bags of clothes. They have some pretty good stuff there, the makings of a house, wood planks, and other things. They are not rich, but they are not poor. These are things that are important to them, which they have had all their lives, items they do not want to part with. You can see two of them. They did all of this. They should have done something differently. It was a mistake. They gave a couple of chances.

On the way to Chinatown, their load exploded on the street. A few people came to their aid and helped them continue to a familiar waylay. Hoshi took them out of their familiar surroundings. She is the ambitious one. I don’t know where, if they are coming or going. They are leaving the big city into more familiar territory. They are going to the more familiar but get lost on the way. They don’t know where they are going so they have got to find someone to help them know which way to go.

This is interesting, slowly, but badly. I don’t know.

She is intelligent, and she knows the way. She is protecting the objects on the carriage. They aren’t exactly lost. They are going back to where they are more familiar with the customs, more people with their ethnic make-up. Far ahead is familiar territory, suburban as opposed to urban, a place more hospitable for them. They have a chance for a home and a life. They are parked there waiting for traffic to clear.

We can think of hundreds of excuses. They know what they’ve got to do. They have never been down that road. They are ridiculous to load everything on that one little tricycle-thing to move it. It is tipping already.

They hear doors closing, windows opening and shutting, people are just beginning to wake up. Go stand on a street corner first thing Sunday morning, and tell me what you hear! They have to stop a minute and wait for someone to come out and ask them, “Do you smell anything?” But that would be stupid, because they have a lot more to think about than what they smell. There are no people anywhere, everything is closed, so how can they smell anything? Do you smell something? No. There’s no skunk in the city. That is ridiculous. Skunks live in the forest. Let’s be practical. This area is not inhospitable, because they have all done this before.

They can relate. The two of them need help. Nobody has established where they end up - a campground or a hotel? You don’t know. I would assume a campground because they can’t take all this stuff in a hotel room. They have a house somewhere, which I doubt. This is a bunch of malarkey. Ask me what malarkey is. It’s bullshit.

Barbara, Patricia, Dorothy, Maxine, Jeanne, Alice

Bad Habits Versus Good Habits

It’s very strange, but there are five nuns sitting on bar stools with tin legs with high-heel shoes, which appear to be the legs of the nuns. It is an oxymoron. The drinks are above the nuns. Obviously the bar tender must have placed them up there. For some unknown reason they are meeting in a bar. Perhaps they want to see what the bar looks like. What is the great attraction?

There are fifty working people, a whole expanse - that is what I am talking about. They are having a military meeting. Each one represents ten. So there are ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. In the work military people do, there is no slowing down. They have lots of legs, which means they can really get out there.

The group is not wearing military uniforms because it is a special occasion, and they are out to have a good time. They are on a secret mission to check out the bar and find out how their soldiers behave when they come to this bar. The bar advertises, “The drinks are on us!” The habits are the nun clothing. The fact that there are ten bare legs is telling, a play on right and wrong.

I’ve been there, and I’ve been through the book. They are going to attend and say, “Lets make the most of this day.” The one on the far right has other plans, but she has not been able to express them. She can’t break in to what the others are into, all their ideas. She hasn’t been able to get a word in. They are trying to all share their ideas, but they haven’t had enough time. They only have three hours.

What does the one on the far right want to say?

She found something. She found the irony in the whole situation. Wearing “habits” to check out the “habits” of the soldiers. It is effective, but only depending on the location. This is an extremely unusual visual situation, if nothing else, almost more than anyone can accept. They are checking out an unusual situation like this. Bars are not the most proper places.

The secret mission is a failure. They were a little too obvious. Nobody is going to entice the military people that go there with their wares as long as there are nuns sitting there in their habits observing their habits. The whole thing is a play on bad habits versus good habits. They were too obvious. That is obvious. The whole thing is obvious!

Evelyn, Jean, Gretchen, Joetta, Betsy, Alice

The Arrival

Irene seems to be alone in a sea of tall buildings and concrete full of people that rush hither and yon and don’t pay attention to the things around them and don’t get to see much of nature. She is standing on a high balcony in this large city, which I assume is New York City, and she has allowed a small insect to sit on her hand. She is looking at wondrously because she sees so few of them in that environment. The plane is coming in to bring in more people who will be less attached to the real world and more attached to the mechanical world. She is wondering where this will take her in her life.

It’s an opera up high. In her hand is a clink, clink. She is an opera singer who needs a lot of clothes. She wants black heals. She is meeting someone in New York City. Yes. I think so, too. He will want to see her very, very nice. Everything is clean. You can go on it. You have to get a mirror.

Where is the man? He went away in the water? Let me explain. The plane is over the water. The man who is coming to meet her is in the plane. Who is he? He is anybody that can do it. I would tell him “Nine days.” Maybe, “Explain, explain, explain, if you have time.” It’s terrible. He has been away too long, and he needs to explain what he’s been doing. She’ll forgive him. If I knew she was in love with him, if she told me, “I’m in love with him,” then I could know. We have to listen to them.

But that might be someone else’s hand. Very bleak. Very dull. Not enough there to strike up imagination about anything. We don’t want to push it too far.

Irene is going back home to the farm. She is going to get on the plane to get out of the horrible unnatural nature of the city. She is going to go home and see how she feels about the situation before she makes up her mind. This is only a chapter of the story. We need another chapter to give us more information.

June, Jeanne, Patricia, Betty, Barbara, Margareta, Alice