I make quite the impression

The National Storytelling Festival is going on this weekend in Jonesborough, TN, which is about eight miles to the southwest of us. It's wildly over priced and they try to sell you books or CD's every time you take a breath but it's till a neat event.

Sparky used to live in Jonesborough and when they put on the Storytelling Festival we would sit in her backyard and listen to the ghost stories for free. When we first started dating she invited her Mom and her sister over to listen along with us in her backyard. I had met her sister before then and we hit it off right away so I was not worried there, but this was the first time I was going to meet her mother in the context of being "The New Boyfriend."


Everything was going fine through most of the evening, we all sat and talked and listened. We all sat in Sparky's back yard under a walnut tree that was heavy with walnuts. They'd periodically fall and we'd laugh and go on with our business. One big walnut fell and it nearly hit Sparky's mom in the head. She laughed and said, "That nearly hit in right on top of my head." I piped up and said, "Well, maybe it would have knocked some sense into you." A deathly silence fell over everyone at the table, then her mother gave a weak laugh and Sparky quickly changed the subject.

To this day her mother reminds me of that night and my comment almost every time we get together. And they say elephants have long memories.