{"id":2771,"date":"2019-07-19T14:02:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T04:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colinpearce.com\/?p=2771"},"modified":"2022-10-28T12:48:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T02:18:50","slug":"destiny-of-a-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/","title":{"rendered":"A story about how I became a storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"

One winter\u2019s evening meal set my destiny as a storyteller. I was six.<\/p>\n

Embarrassing dark secret<\/H3>
\nMy big brothers didn\u2019t like me. Who could blame them? I was their embarrassing dark secret. Our mother became pregnant with me as an old lady of 39 when they were 9 and 12. The older one was horrified to think the \u2018birds and the bees\u2019 had taken place in the house where he lived, and the younger one had been replaced as the favourite.<\/p>\n

Always the same story<\/H3>
\nIn Australia we call the evening meal, tea. We always ate tea at the kitchen table and listened to Dad carping about Mrs. Barret, the harpie office manager at his work. My brothers \u2014 by then 18 and 15 \u2014 would say, \u2018Oh, not Mrs. Parrot for tea again Dad. Please.\u2019<\/p>\n

A special invitation for a new story teller<\/H3>
\nThis one magical night Mum got in before he started and said, \u2018Colly, tell us what you did today.\u2019
\nI didn\u2019t need any coaching because that very afternoon Docky (my best friend) and I had come as close to being criminals as you could get.<\/p>\n

The great dam of Hill Street<\/H3>
\n\u201cDocky and I built a dam in the gutter outside Mitchell\u2019s house, over at the corner. We got sand and gravel off the footpath and grass and mud out of the paddock and piled it up so high that the water from two streets spread halfway across the road.
\n\u201cWe just kept piling up and piling up. We couldn\u2019t walk in it because it would have come over our rubber boots. Docky said it was the best dam anyone had ever built in the whole suburb. We loved it. We hoped it would stay there all winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway, Sergeant Mick came around on his motorbike and sidecar to get some papers signed at Mr. Mitchell\u2019s. He parked out the front in his usual spot. We were frightened he would make waves and wash our dam away, but when he saw how deep our dam was he couldn\u2019t get off his bike and he just looked as mad as anything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(Police Sergeant Mick McKay was as big and fat as a cow and Irish. The look of him scared every kid in the neighbourhood. The sound of his bike coming gave the drunks and the bodgies nightmares.)<\/p>\n

I dropped into an imitation of his Irish brogue.
\n

In that moment the earth\u2019s axis tilted 1\/2 a degree<\/H3><\/p>\n

\u201cYew byes git dat mook outta dis gooter or ayl poot yewr nayem in may booook<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everyone at the table laughed and my older brother said, \u2018He\u2019s good when he takes people off isn\u2019t he?\u2019 The younger one said, \u2018He sure is. Do his accent again, Colly.\u2019<\/p>\n

Enter, brother. The head table awaits you.<\/H3>
\n65 years later I can still feel the excitement. I had found the brass ring, the knocker for the dark door. I had discovered the pot of gold. I knew where the treasure was hidden and needed no map. I, (yes me, \u2018Fly specks\u2019, \u2018Pest\u2019, \u2018Collywobbles\u2019, \u2018Pipsqueak\u2019) was good at something they weren\u2019t, and for the rest of my life, I would get paid to show off like that all over the world.<\/p>\n

They were champion football, basketball and tennis players. They were handsome with black hair and blue eyes. They had great friends. They wore blue suede shoes and white sports coats, but now my heroes were in awe of me!<\/p>\n

I was their hero<\/strong> \u2014 and I had become one of the family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One winter\u2019s evening meal set my destiny as a storyteller. I was six. Embarrassing dark secret My big brothers didn\u2019t like me. Who could blame them? I was their embarrassing dark secret. Our mother became pregnant with me as an old lady of 39 when they were 9 and 12. The older one was horrified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[460],"tags":[30,422,411,425,417,419],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/daniel-von-appen-YoR20C24c3Y-unsplash-e1563510474359.jpg","yoast_head":"\nA story about how I became a storyteller - COLIN PEARCE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Colin Pearce Master Storyteller and storytelling coach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A story about how I became a storyteller - COLIN PEARCE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Colin Pearce Master Storyteller and storytelling coach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"COLIN PEARCE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ColinPearceSpeaker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"www.facebook.com\/colinpearce\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-19T04:32:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-10-28T02:18:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/daniel-von-appen-YoR20C24c3Y-unsplash-e1563510474359.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"760\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"508\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@www.twitter.com\/colinpearce\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ColinPearce\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Colin Pearce\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/\",\"name\":\"COLIN PEARCE\",\"description\":\"Colin Pearce Master Storyteller and storytelling coach\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/daniel-von-appen-YoR20C24c3Y-unsplash-e1563510474359.jpg\",\"width\":760,\"height\":508,\"caption\":\"The brass ring\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/\",\"name\":\"A story about how I became a storyteller - COLIN PEARCE\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-19T04:32:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-28T02:18:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/#\/schema\/person\/135fa71e8c7134eb3d41ff7aa20ff52a\"},\"description\":\"Colin Pearce Master Storyteller and storytelling coach\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/\",\"name\":\"Home\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/destiny-of-a-storyteller\/\",\"name\":\"A story about how I became a storyteller\"}}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/#\/schema\/person\/135fa71e8c7134eb3d41ff7aa20ff52a\",\"name\":\"Colin Pearce\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/38464b3456183cd6f50dec7b9ed370e2?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Colin Pearce\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/colinpearce.com\",\"www.facebook.com\/colinpearce\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/www.twitter.com\/colinpearce\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6335,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions\/6335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinpearce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}