After a recent column, in which I carelessly wrote that storytelling is a lost art, I heard from Judy Baker of Cleveland, Tenn.
"Oh, Mark, I beg to differ," Baker wrote in an email. "Storytelling is not a lost art! Sure, in this world of sound bites, video outtakes and one-minute newsfeeds, the long form of communication may seem endangered, but I would like to assure you that while it may be wheezing a bit, it's long from being lost entirely."
This began a chain of email communication between us that ended with Baker and I having coffee at the Panera Bread restaurant on Gunbarrel Road.
Well. Where to begin.
We always knew we were on the same side, right?
Baker, I learned, is program chairman of the Cleveland (Tenn.) Storytellers Guild. Modern storytellers such as Baker have an almost evangelistic devotion to spreading the good news about the world's oldest oral tradition. Storytelling is indeed alive and well in small gatherings and festivals around America.
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For example, the Cleveland Storytellers Guild will host the Ocoee Story Fest this Friday at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church (433 N. Ocoee St.) in Cleveland, with noted southern storyteller Tim Lowry as the special guest.
For her part, Baker, a 59-year-old grandmother, can take a childhood story about growing up in Sand Lick, Tenn., and buying a burnt-orange Naugahyde coat at Kmart, and turn it into pure gold.
"It's the most wonderful thing in the world to take something inside you, tell it to an audience, and then look into their eyes and see they get it," she said, beaming.
Baker represents a rare breed of folks who have become the curators of the craft of storytelling. The Cleveland Storytellers Guild, as she explains it, serves as group therapy for those who find crafting and telling stories necessary for the nourishment of the soul.
At their monthly meetings, on the second Tuesday of each month at the Cleveland-Bradley County Public Library, guild members listen to emerging storytellers and offer them gentle critiques - but only if they are asked to. About two dozen folks regularly attend the meetings, Baker says.
Despite our awkward email introduction, Baker and I 100-percent agree on the value of stories for preserving personal narratives.
Baker says, "hard research shows that we are hard-wired to connect through stories." She has a stack of books to prove it, but anyone who has noticed the endurance of the Bible as a best-seller already knows the transcendent power of stories.
What's troubling is that modern forms of communication are not compatible with the story form. Folks on Twitter communicating with 140 characters or less have almost no chance to express conflict and resolution. Meanwhile, Facebook "friends" sharing cat videos are barely friends at all.
Meanwhile, our stories - the life wisdom we gain from the unfolding of everyday events - are at risk of perishing with us, she says.
"It has been said that when an old person dies, an entire library has burned down," Baker says.
Oh, Judy, you are absolutely right.
And if the stories of our lives are no more than Facebook newsfeeds; what, pray tell, is the blasted point?
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedy columnist.