"The Moth" - Day 1163 (Year 4, Day 68)

Clarksville, IN / Louisville, KY

As I'm typing this, I realize I always pronounced the KY city as Looey-ville.  Natives here say Loo-ah-vul.

No, the title is not in any way related to "Mothra," the Japanese movie of a monster moth.  If any of my readers listen to NPR, it is a nationwide organization of storytellers (see www.themoth.org).  Basically, you start at the ground level ("StorySlam") and if you are the winner, you proceed to the next level ("GrandSlam") until you finally proceed to the national level, where, if you win there, your story will be broadcast on the radio show and performed live in the headquarters in NYC.  Stories are true & real and come from the heart.  They can be extremely funny, heart-warming, horrific.  They can make you laugh or cry. (** Dad and Linda - if you're reading this, it would have been awesome to tell our story 17 years ago.  Then again, it's never too late!)

We were fortunate to get tickets to a local performance of StorySlam.  Every month (in about 10 states), they have one such performance.  There is a given theme: this month it was "caution."  If you arrive early enough, anyone can register to come up on stage to tell their related story.  Only 10 people get to tell, so if there are more, names are picked out of a bag.  There are 3 sets of 3 judges, so the person who gets the most points gets to go to the next level of competition (against others from other states).  The next StorySlam at the end of Sept has the theme of "schooled".  Unfortunately, I can't think of any stories in my own life to tell, that can take up 5 minutes on that topic.  But if we're still here, it will be fun to attend.

Here are 2 photos:  a selfie and a photo of one of storytellers.  The board behind him is where they kept track of everyone's scores.