Local group gathers 29 people’s stories

Joseph Ricks, a computer consultant at the Kelley School of Business, didn’t expect to see fraggles on his flight back from Afghanistan in spring 2002.

Ricks, who was in the Army at the time, had taken Ambien prescribed to him by a doctor who did not explain the side effects, including auditory and visual hallucinations. For Ricks, this meant the bizarre experience of seeing a band of Fraggles — characters from Jim Henson’s puppet show “Fraggle Rock.”

He shared this story last summer at a Bloomington Storytelling Project event at The Bishop.

“Telling that story and listening to the audience just get it, laugh at the right parts and respond positively was a sort of affirmation for me,” Ricks said.

This month, the Bloomington Storytelling Project is giving people a chance to tell their stories every day. The group, which is part of the local Bloomington radio station WFHB 91.3, is collecting up to 29 stories to play on “The Porch Swing,” a program that airs at 5:30 p.m. Saturdays.

The stories must be fewer than 15 minutes long, true and told without notes. The first 29 storytellers to contact BSP will be entered into a drawing to receive a red Porch Swing gift basket with more than $100 in gifts from local businesses, such as Dats restaurant, Bloomingfoods, Sweet Claire Bakery and more.

BSP created the 29 Stories Drive in honor of the leap year month. Although this is the first year the radio station announced the event, BSP has been airing peoples’ stories since summer 2009, said Laura Grover, the creator of the storytelling project.

“The project has seemed to gain more and more attention as the years go by,” Grover said. “It started out as just me, setting up events and making connections with others in the community.”

Ricks said sharing his story at the BSP event made him feel his life experiences had
a purpose.

“If that purpose is me growing as an individual or just having something funny to tell the grandkids one day, it was comforting to know that I had done something that other people were curious about and eager to hear about and ready to laugh about,” Ricks said.

WFHB Manager Chad Carrothers created the idea for the story drive with Grover as a way to “raise stories,” she said. Since its inception, BSP has sponsored more than 20 storytelling events throughout Bloomington and has aired more than 60 episodes of the “The Porch Swing.” The group also has one of the largest volunteer teams at
the station.

Barton Girdwood, a junior studying gender studies and public memory with the Individualized Major Program, first heard about the project in fall 2009 when he attended a storytelling event at the Bishop Bar.

Since then, Girdwood has been putting together two storytelling events per semester at Collins Living-Learning Center, including story circles with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.

At live events, peoples’ stories are recorded on stage and used later for “The Porch Swing.” The BSP has also set up story booths at local events and will either record the stories in the station or meet the storytellers in their homes.

Girdwood said people will sometimes reach out to him to tell their story.

“I don’t know if I can speak for other people on why they want to share a story,” he said. “I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But what I can tell you is that at a live event, the stories are given differently to the audience and the other storytellers in the room.”

At a Collins live event in spring 2011, IU student Lee Davis told a story called “There was this one time at band camp,” in which she shared the amusing account of her first summer as a high school freshman in a drum line and when she fell backward in front of the instructor she had a crush on.

During another Collins event, several people told stories about the effect of cancer on their lives, including one girl whose mother died of the disease.

“I think it’s a way for people to feel like they are important because they got to do it in front of an audience and say, ‘This is my life, this is what I’m doing, this is what happened to me,’” Girdwood said. “It also relates to other people, too, because people laugh and people cry while they’re telling the story.”

Grover said BSP will likely have the 29 Stories Drive next year.

The group has planned another February event in which people will read from their diaries on stage Feb. 25 at the Bishop.

“Anything goes, and we are not picky,” Grover said. “What’s important to us is that they are real. Real people telling real stories. That’s what we’re all about.”