Why do people tell stories? My most immediate response would be that stories connect us to each other. A good story lets a listener dive into another place and time. A good story also links a teller and a listener together by inviting that listener to imagine. The great thing about stories is that they don’t live in a vacuum. Listeners are able to imagine because they pull from their own memories and histories. This is why stories are so meaningful, because the voices of storytellers recounting a lived experience remind us all that our paths through time are the threads that weave the complex tapestry called history.

I remember my first assignment at the Colorado History Museum when I started working in the education department there many years ago. I was twenty-five years-old, recently returned from graduate school in Tucson to my hometown of Denver, and ready to get to work.