I: Uncle Itch (WR)

Uncle Itch

I was invited by a school district to do a storytelling performance with the theme being family history/memories. At first, I was going to decline the opportunity, since I didn’t have any stories about either. But I changed my mind. I had a very unique person in my family that I could talk about, that I was well versed in, and I could use to share any stories and songs I wanted to. That person was me. I decided to share about myself from my nieces’ and nephews’ point of view. My nieces and nephews used to, and sometimes still do, call me Uncle Itch. (Probably a mishearing of the name Uncle H when they were young). So instead of being their Uncle Itch, I told my stories in performance about my Uncle Itch.

In writing and in telling you have to have a believable character for the audience to be involved. In order to tell my stories I had to create the Uncle Itch persona. That was pretty easy to do since I knew the character very well. I just had to presuppose what my nieces and nephews thought of me. You can read about Uncle Itch in my blog entries http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=173 and http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=176. He’s quite a character.

At least one of my nieces reacted to reading my blog by saying “This story is a bit schizophrenic.” I guess I got it right.

When it came time for the performance. I talked about the character in my family called, “Uncle Itch”, described him a little and then put on my hat and became Uncle Itch. I got to share some of my strange instruments with the audience and even told them some  favorite stories and songs that I loved to share (actually the songs/stories that I had planned for that group). It’s real easy to pretend to be someone when you are being yourself.