Stories, stories, stories...  We are a family of stories.  I'm always amazed; each person in the world is a separate set of often unbelievable stories.  And when the stories of two or more people intersect, they are never the same. 

Great Grandfather started all of his kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids off.  He read us stories every night when we visited.  We would sit on the arm of his special chair in the living room.  For a little while there was nothing but his warmth, his flannel shirt, soft light, his voice, and Uncle Wiggley.  If he skipped anything we would know it and he would have to go back.  I still have quite a number of the books that we read then.  And I treasure the first Uncle Wiggley book that he gave me for Christmas.

I continued the tradition reading to the girls every night before bad.  Each would choose a book and then we had our chapter book that we read last; The Neverending Story, Wizard of Oz (they're silver slippers not ruby), The Hobbit.  I don't remember them all.  Three girls, one dad.  How do you fit them all together?  At first there were fights over who sat where.  Finally we set up a rotation that changed each week.  Then there were problems if we didn't hit enough nights that week.  “Dad, we didn't read enough last week.  Why do we have to change place now?!”.  It was never as nice for the girl who had to sit on the outside.

 Finally, Brandon always seemed to generate lots of stories; it was her nature.  Most of the time she loved it, sometimes she hated it.  Brandon always had tons of boyfriends.  They followed her, hoping for whatever crumbs she would give them.  When she was old enough she would occasionally invite them over for supper.  Bravely they would come, more crumbs from Brandon.  At supper we would always regale them with Brandon stories.  Brandon was embarrassed, the boy was mortified, and the family laughed and had a great time.  Maybe this limited the number of boyfriends that Brandon invited to supper.

 One evening Meghan  brought a boyfriend home for supper.  Brandon was on her game.  She had been excited for days.  She had made lists of all the stories that she wanted to tell on Meghan.  The boy arrives.  Meghan and he read together on the couch in the living room (yes, I could see that they were reading).  And then it is supper time.  Brandon quickly launches into how we are always telling stories on her and that now it is Meghan's turn.  We all laughed, agreeing.  Then we promptly spent the rest of supper telling Meghan's boyfriend Brandon stories.