Last week my husband, a man who is always open to trying new things, did something worth sharing with the readers of The Latest.

Next door to the building where we live is a cultural center where people select to go when looking for something fun to do. My husband received an e-mail from them, asking whether he would be interested in a story telling venture they had planned.

There apparently is a tradition around the world where people share stories about their lives and their families, both good and bad. As he had received the communication from the center, asking if he was interested in getting involved in such a story telling venture, and that they were only looking for five people as part of their project, he decided that it might be fun for him to give it a whirl.

This sort of thing was not a surprise to him, as he has a friend who is making money telling stories to seniors who live in nursing homes in Illinois where we used to live.

A tradition with which he was familiar comes out of the nineteenth century clothing factories. It seems that in those days, as there were no radios or television sets to keep the workers occupied, the factory owners would have someone to sit up on a platform where they read from newspapers and books. This would be done in the language that was familiar to the listeners. Additionally, he had heard that in Cuba today there are cigar factories in which people are hired to do the same thing.

The story he selected to tell was one in which he spoke of loving uniforms as a boy. He came to loving uniforms when he saw a Marine at the Tunnel of Love, which was located back in Chicago where he was then living. The man was holding and kissing a girl. My husband was taken by the uniform and certainly liked the ladies.

As he comes from a working class family, and none of them had gone to college, his dream was to get a college education, and that took money. His search was a way to make money while he was in school. 

When signing up for classes, he spotted a Marine in a red, white and blue uniform, with a sign on his chest that read, "Join The Marines and pay your way through college."  Thus he decided to join. This was the way that he ended up in Vietnam where he was injured in an air plane explosion. That was the essence of the story he selected to tell, and which was well received by his listeners at the cultural center.