One annoying thing about professional storytellers is their compulsive need to one-up another storyteller’s story.
Speaking of armed-to-the-teeth tactical officers in your backyard, I once covered a police standoff in a quiet residential neighbourhood.
The situation resolved after many hours, and I decided to knock on the door of a house that had a front-row view of all the action.
An elderly woman came to the door, clearly miffed that I
That's hilarious. Here's the full story that went on in my neighbourhood (sorry to one up you . . . ). It's not the happiest of stories.
Speaking of back yards, basketball and mothers gobsmacked looks at their children…. See the price of a Mr Big chocolate bar lately? 360 of them would now cost you a small fortune! 🙃
If you read the posts on this Space, you'll notice a common trend.
There is a lot of storytelling going on - I guess that's what you get when you ask a group of storytellers to manage a social media space.
Here's a bit more of my story.
I was raised by a pair of storytellers. My dad loves a good joke - whether it be a dad joke or something a bit less tame.
My mom also loves a good story - she's an avid storyteller and a close follower of the news in recent years.
As a kid, I was an avid reader of the Toronto Star, often sitting with the newspaper pages spread out on the living room floor.
I would read the sports and I loved columns - whether they were opinion pieces or funny stories about the people who worked there.
My first job was delivering a weekly newspaper - the Pickering News Advertiser, which I would eventually end up freelancing for after journalism school.
I had some early experiences with the news media when I was a teenager and tragedy struck in our neighbourhood.
A domestic incident a street away resulted in a tactical officer running through our backyard with a semi-automatic weapon to get close to where the incident occurred.
I saw the officer run through our yard and asked my mom what the heck was going on. I think our dog was even in the backyard as the man ran through and hopped our fence into the next yard.
Sadly the incident resulted in a murder, which brought the national media to our neighbourhood, with reporters knocking at our door wanting to know what we saw or heard.
A few years later, I ended up in photos that ran in the Toronto Star when I won a contest to have a shootaround with Vince Carter at Canada's Wonderland - which I of course turned into a game of one on one.
You can see Rod Black in the background of this one. In some photos you can also see my mom looking gobsmacked as I took on one of the best players who ever laced up a pair of sneakers in the NBA - and I nearly stole the ball off him too!
That contest also meant I received 360 Mr. Big chocolate bars - a full year's worth, many of which I gave to friends and family.
In case you're interested, I've included a link for some reading you can do about Pope Francis and the abilities he had as a storyteller.