Somehow, although he never seemed to understand me, my father had noticed that I liked stories. I was already an adult living on my own in New York, when on a visit to my parents in Virginia, he invited me to watch a new television series with him.
“You like stories, so I think you will like this show,” he said.
I was so taken aback that I don’t even remember the name of the series, only the novelty of sharing a story with my father. Up until that moment, I would have guessed that he thought my interest in stories was silly.
I was a teenager when my Grandma Bunin, Dad’s Mom, came from Brooklyn to stay with us for six weeks each summer. She always listened to her radio stories while we had lunch so “Portia Faces Life” and “Stella Dallas” became part of my days.
We would sit at the kitchen table with the black and white linoleum top, bookended by built-in benches, glued to the radio as we ate our sandwiches. I was always interested in the storylines and would write my version of the next day’s episode in my head.
When soap operas came to TV Grandma introduced me to “As the World Turns” and “Days of Our Lives.”
While I got involved with the plots, loose as they were, I was always disappointed that I could no longer imagine the characters the way I could with radio stories. I preferred creating them in my imagination so I could match them to their radio voices. I loved choosing their body types, hairstyles, outfits and facial expressions.
On TV they were spoon-fed to me.
So I began writing my own stories where I could describe the characters in just enough depth that each reader could picture them in their own minds. I was fascinated that writing could provide that personal experience.
I was sure that my father who sold uniforms to the military in our Navy town and loved sports, especially boxing – a love he shared with my brothers – had no interest in my stories. I don’t know that he ever read them. Even the one that won my high school short story contest, a fictional piece about a father.
And yet now I choose to think he did read my writing and just didn’t know how to talk to me about it.
Maybe. I hope so. At least he may have understood that his little girl was a storyteller.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on X @patriciabunin and on patriciabunin.com.
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