INTRO
So, like I was sayin’. We were someplace down in a holler, with equipment, clearing the right-of-way for overhead power lines. If we’d run out of gas, not even Georgia Power would come lookin’ for us. This place wasn’t even on the map. That mornin’ I told the wife where I was headed and you’d have thought I was goin’ back to I-raq. I said Sweet Thing . . . that’s what I call her when I need to create “a diversion.” I said Sweet Thing, it’s only for a couple days.
An’ she’s like, “You’re a senior linesman. Why can’t they send somebody else into that rat hole? “
And I said, Sugar Bite, be glad they’re sendin’ someone who knows what they’re doin.’ Don’t worry.
(Quieter voice) When she’s upset, she’s got this eyebrow that jumps up and arches higher than the other one—kind of like a levitatin’ wooly worm that’s been zapped with an electric cattle prod, which is similar to a taser.
Obviously, I need more ammunition, so I say . . .
“You know that 99 percent of what people worry about never comes true.”
She says, “Who says that?”
Now she tripped me up—I didn’t think she’d challenge me on something sacred like “a statistic.”
“Come on! We’ve heard that for years! You know you have. And she turned her head around like a rattlesnake that meant business.”
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Hey! I’m your host Cave Buckner, and you’re listening to The Southern Minute.
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That intro was my recollection of the start of a C.C. Hill story. C.C. was my very own portable wind-up storyteller from Sparta, a little town in South Georgia. As a former Marine, he stood all of maybe five foot, seven inches tall. He wasn’t broad across the chest. He was one of those scrappy meat-on-the-bones-only type of guys, who fought easily above their weight with wits and grits, a keen eye for timing for his martial art maneuvers to gain an advantage over hismuch larger opponents.
He and I worked together on a landscape installation crew and when the July heat would bear down on us, showing no mercy, the only sounds to be heard were of hot iron shovel points scraping away the dirt from ever-widening holes for tree planting. C.C. would take us away on a little storytelling trip that always ended with tired grins and laughter. Yes sir. Yes ma’am. That man had a talent for tellin’ a good story. In particular, humorous storytellin’. This is what the South does best.
On any given day, every seven seconds, there is a story told on front porches, on a downtown sidewalk, in churches, at the beauty parlor or in the grocery store—anyplace there is a congregation. Storytelling is complex art form with thousands of years of iterations, exaggerations, and manifestations of succinct clarity, with a well-planned setup, and the pregnant pause, for just the right effect, for listeners to lean in a little closer, strain their ear drums and try to figure out the story’s direction.
It is woven into everyday life for information, for social acknowledgement, and for entertainment.
I grew up at a different time from one of America’s best humorous storytellers. Just 45 minutes away Mark Twain was born like me, in the folk region known as Little Dixie, Missouri, which spans eight counties from east-central Missouri to the Mississippi River at Louisiana and Hannibal.
"Storytelling in the South is something that is done naturally, within the course of anybody’s day—neighbor to neighbor, postman to homeowner, or a farm store gathering where interactions are interspersed with crop and livestock talk." PHOTO: Vecteezy
He wrote an essay in 1895, entitled “How to Tell a Humorous Story.” He says, “The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular, planting a detail here and there, which may have something to do with the story—or not.
It is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.”
He says, “You finish with a "nub," a "snapper," or whatever you want to call it. Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.
It is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it.”
So, an effective storyteller is basically a rube in disguise.
Interlude
Now, an audience likes to guess the outcome of any story, so they’re a step ahead. When the nub is delivered in an unassuming way, the audience of one, or many, are not only ready for it, they know when they hear the funny part and will respond with cathartic laughter.
There are good humorous storytellers in all parts of the country, but the South is especially rich, due to close-living racial diversity, the history, religious fundamentalism and the simple fact the slower pace of life makes for slower walking gaits and poky, unintelligible speech. Bein’ raised in Missouri, I don’t have a South Georgia accent like C.C. Hill, but I did have an Italian tell me once, when I used to work in that country, that “You eat your words.” What a unique description of a semi-Southern accent!
All I can say is, it’s perfect for character portrayals, delayed comedic timing, and liberal use of regional colloquialisms told in a funny way.
One of the South’s more famous humorous storytellers was Jerry Clower, from Yazoo City, Mississippi. I used to tune in to radio station WWL-AM New Orleans, for the Charlie Douglas, King Edward Cigar country radio show where I first heard Jerry Clower and I was an instant fan.
Monologue
Here's what I want you to remember. There is a difference between oratory storytelling and the written story, where many spoken stories would fall flat, because the voice inflections and timing are missing. In essence—the “style” of storytelling is missing.
Some talented Southern writers can come close, by using a literary device called “framing.” This is where a narrator is used to set up the story. Framing allows the storyteller to be removed from the scene, which might involve people who are well-known, socially challenged, or might be lower on the economic ladder. It sets them apart from a possible conflict or unwanted association, like when someone is the bearer of bad news and they say “Don’t shoot the messenger!”
Atlanta journalist and writer Joel Chandler Harris used this framing technique with his Uncle Remus stories. While working on Turnwold Plantation, near Eatonton, Georgia in 1862, as a printer’s devil, which is an apprentice, for the Countryman newspaper, Harris listened to the stories of African American slaves and used this structure to turn the oral stories into written ones. This way, he could use Uncle Remus as an effective narrator, who would introduce the animal characters, describe the settings and give overall context for character identification and behavior, which sets up the story, that is filled with regional dialect.
This difference between the oratorical delivery of a story versus the literary story is important, because it is imperative for the author to do the impossible—tell a story without the human voice being present. In other words, as Mark Twain asked, “How do you write books that “talk?”
Interlude
, “The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular, planting a detail here and there, which may have something to do with the story—or not. PHOTO: Atlanta Journal Constitution
It becomes particularly important when trying to capture black humorous storytellers in print, because that is one authentic challenge that would be hard to pull off, yet is so necessary to preserve the folklore history. Southern black culture is rich with folk tales, stemming from Africa to regional country cultures and religious diversity in this country. No one tells a story like a talented black humorous storyteller, according to Richard Dorson, a now-deceased American folklorist, professor, and former director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University, who was also called "The Father of American Folklore.”
Listen to his fascinating account from the 1930s, taken from his book, American Negro Folktales.
Much charm and lyric humor lie in the chants, mimicry, whiny dialogue, rhymes, and bits of song that intersperse the narratives. The storyteller continually breaks into altered tones and rhythmic sounds, to reproduce the antiphony of preacher and congregation, the cries of birds and beasts, or the weird noises emanating from haunted places. When Brother Rabbit and the other animals converse, or the little girl calls for her mama, they speak in high-pitched, almost falsetto voices, not shrill but cadenced, which is how Negroes talk to each other when greeting at a distance or calling out across the street or irately admonishing a child, a kind of second speech that falls blurred and muffled on unfamiliar ears.
So, the trick is to get these dynamics into writing, if that can be done at all.
As my friend C.C. Hill showed a hot landscape installation crew in Augusta, Georgia that day, storytelling in the South is something that is done naturally, within the course of anybody’s day—neighbor to neighbor, postman to homeowner, or a farm store gathering where interactions are interspersed with crop and livestock talk. It’s just another informal social interaction during one’s workday or home life. It’s simply social sharing to make the day a little easier to navigate. And that’s always best done with a laugh, isn’t it?
I’m your host Cave Buckner, and you’ve been listening to The Southern Minute.
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Credits and Links
Dorson M. Richard, American Negro Folktales, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, NY, 1956, 1957, Kindle edition
Jerry Clower’s Greatest Hits, “The Coon Huntin’ Monkey Live,” 1975 Picayune, Universal Music Group