All gather 'round for a true story about a mountain man by the
name of Jim Gregory.
This story isn't about Gregory's
daytime job as a history teacher at North Miami Beach Senior
High, or his coronation as Miami-Dade County's Debate Coach
of the Year a few years back. Rather, this story is about
the stories he tells professionally, as a yarn-spinner
for hire, narrating and improvising at parties, workshops,
churches ... wherever ears and imaginations are found.
Gregory, now 62, has been fascinated
by storytelling since he was a young un' in Monteagle,
Tenn. listening to ''drummers'' (salesmen drumming up business)
and mountainfolk swap lies around the cracker barrel at
the general store. He now has about 40 stories in his regular
repertoire, and knows a couple hundred in all. ''You collect
'em and make 'em your own,'' he says.
Like any stage performer, Gregory
has learned how to work a crowd. ''You see what the audience
is reacting to,'' he says. Though Gregory creates an outline
-- main points and punchlines -- he allows for improvisation.
''Every time I tell a story, it refines itself,'' he says.
Most of Gregory's stories run
seven to 10 minutes, but he'll mix in some shorties to
keep audiences -- mostly adults -- engaged. ''The misconception
is that all storytelling is for kids, and it's not,'' says
Gregory, past president and current VP of the Florida Storytellers
Guild. ``You can tell more complicated stories to adults.''
As a storyteller, the history
teacher isn't bound by a text. He's constantly tweaking
history, or simply inventing it. Some of his tales are
embellishments of old jokes spun some fresh way. Some are
mountain fables loosely based on his upbringing, with characters
imagined or exaggerated. Some are biker stories sparked
by his road adventures. Some are sentimental: a friend
once sent him the fake word ''SHMILY'' and Gregory turned
it into an acronym for ''See How Much I Love You'' and
a sweet story about his grandparents. Some are first-person,
with Gregory the observer (or the ''butt of the joke,''
he notes). None are too off-color, especially those he
tells at church gigs.
He advises aspiring storytellers
to tell what they know, and he knows the South. ''When
I want to talk Southern, I talk S-u-t-h-h-h-e-r-n,'' he
says with a drawl. ``I'm not making fun of them, they're
my people. In most of my stories they turn out to be heroes.''
In nine years of storytelling
as a professional sidelight, Gregory has used his earnings
-- between $60 and $200 plus accommodations for the average
performance -- to defray the costs of wife Patricia's missionary
trips to South and Central America. (''I'm just a storyteller,''
he notes. ``What she does is really important. I tell a
few stories about her missionary work, but those are under
the heading of miracles.'')
Sometimes the storytelling experience
itself is priceless. For instance, a recent appearance
at a camp for cancer patients in Lantana. ''They were so
full of life, so receptive,'' Gregory says. He was on stage
two hours, which is three times longer than his customary
set, and then he stayed late to share scary stories by
the bonfire.
Though he's got a self-released
CD (Life at the Palace: The Fast Bull Stories, available
through www.jimgregory storyteller.com), Gregory
is still getting his name out, and figures to be better
known and compensated after making storytelling his life.
In a few years, he and Patricia (a math teacher at Miami
Beach High) will set down their chalk, buy a Suburban,
and tour the country's national parks. The National Storytellers
Association has a promotional deal with the National Parks
Service, so ''if I tell stories, I can park,'' he says.
Soon, Gregory might not fly solo
on stage anymore. Buttons, his African Gray parrot, has
begun repeating what he says, and Gregory is training the
bird to join the act, perching on his shoulder and performing
lines on cue ... hopefully without nipping his ear.
''The idea is to teach you something
or entertain you,'' says of storytelling. ``The best is
to do both at the same time.''
