Dixie and Lullabies

I had a night fit for a child; I had stories told to me and lullabies sung to me. I should sleep very well tonight.

This evening, Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story was presenting another extravaganza of righteous storytelling at Balliceaux and the theme was "Down with Dixie."

After attending their last event, I knew to expect half a dozen pre-chosen storytellers to start followed by intermission and then volunteer storytellers from the audience.

Tonight's stories ranged from the picaresque to the socially significant. One was about a southern Sunday dinner and moonshine subbbing for vinegar on collards. Another was about Union spy and Church Hill resident Elizabeth van Lew.

One told of her realization in ninth grade that her parents were racists because of their intensely negative reaction to her being asked to homecoming by a black football player.

One story told by a self-described "New York Jew" was about counter-intelligence work he did in RVA during the 1960s, infiltrating the White Citizens' Council, a group he described as "the KKK in business suits" who met in Hanover County. He remembered how he'd been lulled into thinking that the leader was just a regular guy with entirely different viewpoints.

Another told a tale of making a difference; she and her husband volunteered at the local library two nights a month. When the library board decided to ban blacks from checking out books, the couple met with an emissary from the local black community and let him know that on the nights they were there, everyone could check out books.

One of the most dramatic was by a woman who dated the nephew of the man who bombed the Birmingham church that killed four little girls in the 60s. After the bombing, his mother heard the man say incriminating things and saw the dynamite; she eventually testified against him, resulting in years of death threats. But she had spoken up because she couldn't not do so.

This month's stories were far more dramatic than November's and time and again, I was struck by how powerful it was to be hearing these strangers' stories that I would have otherwise never known.

I was so engrossed that it took me the better part of the evening to finish my glass of (another excellent) Chilean cab and a stellar chai-infused chocolate pate with blackberries and whipped cream. And that's saying something.

Seated on the couch next to me was an African-American guy and during intermission, I asked him how the stories were affecting him; he wanted to know the same from me.

He was struck by how much of the attitudes mentioned still exist and, like me, by how relatively recently things had been so very different in terms of race.

After such a compelling event, I'd have thought that not much could have held a candle to it, but I'd have been wrong.

I'd been invited to an evening of songs, carols and stories in a log cabin just across the river. The Music Tapes is a group who travels around the east coast playing at people's houses at bedtime singing soothing songs. And at this time of year, they add in a holiday element.

The hostess had e-mailed me last week saying she was considering wearing her pajamas to the show and asking my opinion on that. I told her that if it were at my house and people were coming to sing me lullabies, I'd wear my pj's. (Okay, I don't have pj's, but if I did, I would).

So she had on pajamas and her husband had on his slippers and there was mulled wine and baked goods. The two dozen of us were ready for whatever the Music Tapes were bringing us.

And it was quite the holiday lullaby show. The Tapes had three multi-talented members playing musical saw, tuba, toy piano, keyboard, trumpet and more. They'd created a mechanized organ-playing tower with wooden hands that stroked the keys.

They had a bubble machine that showered us with bubbles; I was close enough that they were breaking on my face. There was a circular bird cage holder decorated with Christmas lights with a bell hanging in it where the cage would go.

The banjos were usually played with a bow. We saw a movie of a performing elephant shown onto a pillow the hostess was holding. The plastic snowman and sheep figures sang to us.

"Let It Snow" merited a double musical saw performance. "Night and Day" was introduced as a love song to day and nighttime. There were jokes about genies and Sylvester Stallone. There were stories about Romanian circuses and the song that was used to put out fires before water was invented.

And at the end, we were all given blindfolds (mine was black and white polka dotted) and told a soothing story about the dark, what it does to us and what a friend it can be.

By the time we took the blindfolds off, I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the dark room who wished my bed was in the next room.

Wonder what I'll dream about tonight...