Wednesday, July 15, 2015

stories



Listening to stories, reading stories, some of my favorite things.

For many years we enjoyed watching Charles Kuralt on CBS Sunday Morning. He set the standard for a wonderful program, and now we enjoy watching his successor, Charles Osgood, carry on the tradition. Charles Kuralt traveled all over the country to get the good stories, first for his feature On the Road for the nightly news, and then for the Sunday Morning show. He would travel the backroads, talking to the local folks, listening to and sharing their stories. Over the many years at CBS, he wrote several books about his travels.

Charles Kuralt could write like an angel. Better than any of the rest of us. With a few well-chosen words spoken with more than a touch of North Carolina in that friendly, distinctive voice, Charles could make you laugh, make you cry; he could make you feel proud to be an American. ~Charles Osgood

Recently on Sunday Morning there was a story about one of Mr. Kuralt's many fans, Lou Schell from Alabama, who decided to recreate the journey he wrote about in Charles Kuralt's America. She took a year and visited all the places in the book, it made a great story, in fact she too wrote a book about her travels, Revisiting America.



Many years ago we had listened to the audio version of Charles Kuralt's America, read by the author with that distinctive voice of his. I love a good story, and I love to read, so after watching the recent feature on television, I mentioned to Buddy that I would like to read or listen to that book again, knowing that he had some credits built up at Audible. He told me to check the library...

Surprise! For my birthday from Buddy I got a great card along with several pages of pictures of my presents which were 'on the way'.


And today the package arrived, big, heavy, old-school, real books :) 

There is nothing quite like the heft of a book in your hands, feeling the pages. These books have short stories and lots of pictures, akin to blog posts, and an e-reader would not do them justice.


Great summer reading - travel books! Now if I was just in a beach chair with a cool ocean breeze...


side note: these stories remind me of those told by Buddy about his adventures in an earlier life - the family is still hoping to have those tales put to paper and one day to have that book of stories to share and pass down, bringing smiles to generations to come. Sounds like a retirement project :)


~above bronze art in nearby Edmond, OK - Story Time by Blair Muhlestein

spring