2019 Shoals Front Porch Pop-up & Storytelling Festival

Shoals Front Porch Storytelling Festival 2019 

March 5, 2019, 11:30-1PM, 2019  Dolores Hydock Through the Back Door ~ The Music that Bridged the Bayou. Mardi Gras luncheon, Sheffield Public Library, Sheffield, AL

May 6, 2019, 2-3PM, 2019  Dolores Hydock Helen Keller Library 511 N Main St. Tuscumbia, Al 

Literary Treason the Writings of Bess Streeter Aldrich 

This program looks at the life and work of Bess Streeter Aldridge a Nebraska Writer of the 1930s who accomplished what a few others did:

While she raised her family as a single mother, she had a successful, self-supporting career as a female writer during the first half of the 20th century.

The program describes her early life and later career success and includes a telling of “Jundo Swans,” Aldrich’s funny touching short story that’s a reminder that there.

S no disaster like an elementary school play and no friend as important as your best friend when you’re ten years old.

May 16, 2019, 10-11AM Dishing the dirt Cypress Lake Golf & Tennis Club 1311 E Sixth St. Muscle Shoals, Al Sponsored by Muscle Shoals Public Library Tickets are $5 including a light brunch before the program call 256-386-9212 

Whether you’ve got the greenest thumb since Johnny Appleseed or you managed to kill a rock garden, you’ll enjoy these stories about Mother Nature, Frederic the French Yard-Man, and people who grow philosophy as well s phlox on their little piece of earth. 

May 16, 2019, 4-5PM Pop-UP Concert with Josh Goforth Florence-Lauderdale Public Library

350 N Wood Ave, Florence, AL  

 Storyteller, ballad singer, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Goforth is a native of Madison County in western North Carolina. Situated deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this area is known for its keeping of unbroken ballad and storytelling traditions brought by early Scots-Irish and English settlers in the mid-17th century. It was also fertile ground for the rise of American string band music played on fiddle, banjo, and guitar. Proud to share his Appalachian heritage with audiences near and far, Josh Goforth draws from each of these wellsprings. Join us for a FREE pop-up concert with Josh at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 16 to kick off the Shoals Storytelling Festival!  

May 17, 8:45 AM – 5 PM (with lunch break) The Shoals Storytelling Festival featuring: Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, and Josh Goforth

8:50-9:00 Welcome

9:00-9:30 Bil Lep

9:30-10:30 Josh Goforth

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:30 Dolores Hydock

11:30-12:00 Donald Davis 

12:00—2:00 Lunch

2:00-2:30 Josh Goforth

2:30-3:30 Bil Lep

3:30-3:50 Break

3:50-5:00 Donald Davis (Went home at 5pm)

5:00-7:00 Dinner 

7-9 PM–Storyteller Showcase with Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, and Josh Goforth

May 18, 9AM – 5:15 PM (with lunch break) The Shoals Storytelling Festival featuring: Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, Eric Kirkman, and Josh Goforth

9:00-9:30 Donald Davis 

9:30-10:30 Eric Kirkman

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-12:00 Dolores Hydock

12:00—2:00 Lunch

2:00-2:30 Bil Lep

2:30-3:00 Josh Goforth

3:00-3:50 Eric Kirkman 

3:50-4:15 Break

4:15-4:45 Dolores Hydock

4:45-5:15 5:00 Donald Davis (Went home at 5pm)

5:15-7:00 Dinner

7-9PM – Performance with Firekid, Dillon Hodges, and Heidi Feek

For the past two, days I have enjoyed spending time with my friends at the Shoals Theater Storytelling Festival.

Friday, we ate lunch at Legends(I think everyone ate lunch there) I enjoyed a plate of fried okra, fried shrimp, and Jack Danial's apples. 

Saturday, my friend and I shared a bowl of white cheese dip and chicken and steak feta for lunch. We topped it off with a cup of their complimentary ice cream.

On Friday and Saturday, we enjoyed listening to the following entertainers
Josh Goforth, Bill Lepp, Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, and Dr. Eric Kirkman.
Josh Goforth is a multi-talented storyteller who uses a variety of stringed instruments for his ballads and stories.
His stories included friends and relatives, many about his tobacco chewing, never taking the shortcut to hard work grand-paw.
Bill Lepp's believe it or not Paul Bunyon tall tales!
Donald Davis's school days growing up and his jokester father.
Dolores's stories included a white cat, (Huck) a black cat, a speckled cat, and a one-eyed cat and the lessons she learned from them.
Audry Williams her side of the story of fame.
Dr. Eric Kirkman sings and uses musical instruments to tell the African American influence on American music.

Thursday Pop-up Shows 

Cypress Lake Golf & Tennis Club Dolores Hydock told stories about Dishing the Dirt from the Garden and we were served ham, sausage biscuits, fruit, pastries, muffins, orange juice, coffee, and water. There were door prizes.

Florence Library Josh Goforth played the guitar, a banjo, and fiddle, sang ballads, & told stories about life in Madison Couty North Carolina.

The storytelling festival has come to a bittersweet end and cannot wait until next year.

2018 Shoals Front Porch Storytelling Festival

I spent the last three days attending different functions of the Storytelling Festival.
May 17,18,19, 2018

Thursday I attended the free concert at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame by Kate Campbell. 

Kate played guitar sang and told stories. (3:00-4:30PM)

One of the stories/songs was about Tomatoes and Jesus Coming Soon. 

The special guest was Spooner Oldham. Kate has made many recordings with Spooner. 

Later that day at Florence Library,  I enjoyed listening to Josh Goforth tell stories about his tobacco-chewing PawPaw. 

Josh played a banjo, fiddle, and guitar. He can play as many as ten instruments. Very talented young man. (5-6PM)

Josh Goforth playing the banjo 

Friday I was joined by three friends at the storytelling festival held at the Shoals Theater from 9-5PM. 

Movie Projector at Shoals Theater displayed in the lobby

We enjoyed lunch at Legends which is located across the street from the theater.
We listened to Bil Lepp tell funny stories. 

Josh Goforth sings, tells stories, and plays the banjo, guitar, and Fiddle. 

Tim Lowry's long program he was dressed as a southern gentleman of South Carolina. 

After lunch, we listened to Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bill Lepp, and Josh Goforth. 

There was a dinner break and we all went home. 

Saturday I was joined by one friend and we listened to Tim Lowry tell a story about attending an AME church in a Confederate Soldier Uniform. 

We listened to Donald Davis, Kate Campbell, & Josh Goforth.

Delores Hydock's long program was about a woman who worked for Loveman's Department Store "In her own fashion." 

Bobby Horton played guitar while Dolores told the story of Ninette Griffith & Loveman's Department store. 

My friend and I enjoyed a meal at City Hardware. I ordered a red, white, and blue salad with chicken. 

Red, White, and Blue Chicken Salad 

At 5PM the storytelling telling stopped for a dinner break.
My friend and I both went home. I would love to have stayed until 9PM for the rest of the show but I was just too tired.

Me in between Dolores Hydock and Tim Lowery at intermission 

2016 Friday, May 20, UNA Front Porch Storytelling Festival

Nick Foster and his grandmother performing Doug’s Tune

Friday, May 20, 2016 

9:00-9:30 

The introduction was a performance by Doctor Foster's grandson, Nick Foster, who played the banjo. He played a tune familiar to everyone that was played on the Andy Griffen Show, by the Darlings, called Doug’s Tune,” and he was joined by his grandmother.

Next, we watched a video about Katheryn Tucker Windham, she talked about going to the funeral home to make her final plans. She was now in her 90s. The funeral director asks for whom was the coffin and she replied for me. He showed her several coffins starting with the most expensive. That was more than she wanted to pay so she kept asking for a cheaper coffin. Katheryn thanked the undertaker and left. She decided that she was going to ask her friend, John, to make her a coffin. John said Kathryn I have never made a coffin. Katheryn said I want a solid pine box, the old fashion kind, with six sides. John measured Katheryn before the built the box to make sure she would fit. 

When John finished the coffin, Katheryn had him bring it to her house and put it on top of about twenty boxes full of insulators she had collected over the years. She said I don’t know why I collected the insulators but when I saw one, I got it and took it home. 

She also told me about collecting insulators. She said when I die to wrap me up in a quilt, put me in my coffin, and bury me, I do not want a funeral or anybody fussing over me. Then she read a poem by Jan Strutters 

“She was twice blessed: she was happy: she knew it. “

Kathryn Tucker Windham died June 12, 2011, and she is buried at New Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Dallas County Alabama. 

9:30-10:00 Donald Davis from Waynesville, North Carolina

Donald said I was the eighth of thirteen children from Haywood County.

He said the worst month of the year was February by April the family was out of food, with only half-year of the growing season. 

His family had two large gardens where they grew four rows of corn and four rows of beans. He said the family grew every vegetable in the alphabet from A to Z. He said his mother’s sisters would come for a visit and they would always get the best can vegetables. His mom would order her chickens from Sears Catalog. 

His side mom would not watch the chickens being killed but would listen. 

He said when his dad chopped off the head of the chicken that his body would leave its head, his body would end up under the smokehouse. He would have to crawl under the smokehouse to retrieve the chicken. He said then his mom would cut up the chicken and then fry it up in a skillet. He said we recycled everything, we did not eat, we would give it to the pig, then we would eat the pig. 

He said we had a cow named Helen, our neighbor's name was also Helen, she was a right fleshy woman. When the cow would get out papa would holler for the cow, and he would say, Helen, I am nearby! Mom would say papa why do you do that? Papa would reply I cannot help it if she knows her a cow. 

He also told a story of when he and his brother went with his mother to can soup mix and apple sauce at the Cannery.

He and his brother played outside, throwing rocks, while his mother canned the soup. She asked Donald if he wanted to label the soup, and he said yes. He said when mom went back inside that he and his brother continued throwing rocks. 

She came out a little later and ask if he had finished labeling the soup mix, and he said yes. His mom said I am ready for you to label the apple sauce. 

He and his brother went inside to label the apple sauce but to his surprise, all the cans looked the same. 

He said to his brother you label half apple sauce and the other half soup mix. They had no clue what was inside each can. 

Everything was fine until the company came for supper and his dad wanted dessert. When we went to open the apple sauce, we got a soup mix. We open at least six or more but all was soup mix. Papa never asked the preacher over to dinner. 

10:00-10:30 Tim Lowery from Summerville, South Carolina 

He loved sweet tea, loved school and he grew up in Kentucky

He said he learned to drive a stick shift in the first grade. He was the first child the bus driver picked up. The bus driver had a cast on his arm and could not shift the gears. He asks him if he knew his ABCs. He said the gear shift was like the letter H. 

He said his first-grade teacher was a woman with a mustache and she carried everything she needed, her money, spoon, makeup, and reading glasses, up there. 

He said in first grade we learned to read from Dick and Jane Books. 

See Jane, run Spot run.  

He said one of the boys in my class was tired of Spot so he said died Spot die. His teacher took out her spoon, from up there and put it in his mouth. Everyone can remember having the spoon from up there put in their mouths.

10:45-11:15 Dolores Hydock from Redding, Pennsylvania 

Dolores talked about her parents and how they loved to dance. She said when her mother was cooking, she would dance. She would take her in her arms and dance. She said every Saturday night her dad would take her mom out to dance the polka. She said I would shine my dad's shoes. My mom would wear a Cherry Red dress, and fog up the room in perfume. She said that she and David Doggett taught ACME dance for twenty years. She said that she learned three lessons. Never take up more than your space. Always wear comfortable shoes and I didn't write down the third.

She said that she was from Redding Pennsylvania. When she was in high school that they were going to use a computer to hook everyone up with their perfect match. There were to answer twenty questions about the type of person that would be their perfect match. But the computer program backfired on them giving them the least perfect match. Everyone had to dance the first dance with their perfect match but after that, they were free to dance with other people everyone was relieved. 

11:15:11:45 Bil Lipp from South Charleston, West Virginia 

Bil’s father was a Methodist preacher and their church never got excited. All the kids went to a Baptist church 

11:45-12:15 We listened to Geraldine Buckley

12:15-1:30PM we ate our sack lunch. Peggy brought three of her friends, with her to the festival. Everyone shared what they brought. We sat at one of the tables in the hallway to eat our picnic lunch. 

After lunch, Peggy and two of her friends went back to the Performance Center. 

My friend and I went to the loft.

1:30-2:00 We listened to Rev Robert B. Jones from Detroit, Michigan he performed to praise and protest songs.

2:00-2:30 We listened to Donald Davis talk about his trip down into the Grand Canyon riding a Mule.  

3:15-3:45 We listened to Bil Lepp talked about the Baptist and Methodist Churches. About visiting the Baptist church and wanting to see the baptism waters. The preacher catches them and tells them they were going to hell for disobeying him. He talked about how the girl and boys were trying to raise money. They were using tin cans that were balanced and the one who put in the heaviest money would win. He and his friend brought a large bag of pennies.

He talked about bats in the attic.

He talked about being caught in a vacuum while watching a train come through a tunnel. 

3:45-5:00 We listened to Dolores talk about a true story of friendship, feeling, foreign, and finding your way home. 

How she and a friend went to Europe thinking they could live on five dollars a day. How her friend fell in love with a German boy and did not want to continue on their journey.

How she learned several different languages and took a job as a nanny for 3 French children. 

I had to leave at 4:30PM to be at my grandson's Wedding Rehearsal.