Before the age of instant communication, storytelling was an art form that occupied what would now be called family quality time. The attention paid storytelling depending on the quality of performance as well as the pertinence of the narrative. Both my parents were masters of the art. After there passing, at infrequent reunions with my cousins I discovered so were their parents, and our meetings were filled with story swaps from earlier days. Here are a couple of quotes dished up from the table of master storytellers.
"As a sideline Abbey kept a heard of a couple dozen shoats penned back of the mill where the apple pulp was dumped. Shoats, being hogs, stuffed themselves with pulp. The pulp, loaded with sugar, fermented and turned into alcohol and the pigs into drunken swine. Their antics were fully as amusing as those of their human counterparts in a similar state."
"A lot can be said for coon hunting - it gets both hunters and huntees out in the fresh air; it is contemplative .... It is character-building (few activities offer the opportunity to associate with a wider variety of characters then coon hunting); and it is infrequently fatal to either party."
