The first story I listened to was a Christmas story told by Dr. William Lynn Weaver. In short, when he was home for Christmas during his freshmen year of college, his younger brother’s bike was stolen by another child in the neighborhood where he lived. His father and him found out where the child lived and went to get the bike back. Upon arriving, they found that the child lived in a small shack with his old grandfather and that the only light they had was a candle in the front room. They retrieved the back and as they were leaving the child apologized and said he stole the bike so he could feel like he received something for Christmas. After getting back home William’s parents (who worked as a chauffeur and a domestic and did not have much to spare) divided up the meal they had cooked for Christmas dinner, got some coal and extra money they had saved up and went and delivered all of the to the child and his grandfather, in addition to William’s brother’s bike. William finishes the story by stating that was his favorite Christmas by far, not even remembering what he received that year.
In terms of the production of the story, there was a quick promo and setup at the beginning, but during the story, there were no interruptions either of other voices or background music, it was just Dr. Weaver telling his story. I think this was a great choice, as Dr. Weaver was a very engaging storyteller, he held my attention completely without need of prompting or added music.
The second story I listened to was from Charlie and Daniel Sampson, father and son respectively. Charlie was the main subject as he was a competitive bull rider and in 1982, became the first black man to win the Professional Bull Riding World Championship. This story mainly focused on Daniel asking his father questions about various aspects of his life and riding career. They discussed family life as a traveling cowboy, which worked well because both storytellers had different anecdotes to share. This story also had a quick setup at the beginning, and various music during and after.