"Picking Up the Pieces" by Randell Jones

 – an unsolvable mystery

making sense of lives long gone

Randell Jones is an award-winning writer about the pioneer and Revolutionary War eras and North Carolina history. For 13 years, he served as an invited member of the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau of the North Carolina Humanities Council. In 2013, the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution conferred upon him its national History Award Medal. During 25 years, he has written 100+ history-based guest columns for the Winston-Salem Journal. He created the Personal Story Publishing Project and the companion podcast, “6-minute Stories” to encourage other writers. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Author’s Talk

The theme for the Personal Story Publishing Project’s sixth collection, Curious Stuff, came from the belief that probably all of us have keepsakes, memorabilia, personal treasures of people near and dear to our hearts. The stories submitted from writers around the country proved this to be true.  

Randell, Class of ‘67 with his father, Dennis, Sr., Class of ‘42 in 2017.

I did not have in mind the story I would write until very late in the process. But when I remembered the experience of walking with my father through my grandmother’s home after her funeral, I knew this was the story that characterized my research into my family’s history. We did not have keepsakes that I knew of. We did not have stories that one generation passed onto another, so I thought. But I discovered that even the most mundane piece of information can lead to a story that must be preserved, must be passed along, must be shared. I learned that storytelling is an act of love.  

And here is the story I choose to tell you now. My father is 97, nearly 98. I am blessed. In 2017, I went to my 50th High School Reunion in Memphis, Tennessee. My father graduated from a different high school in 1942, exactly 25 years before I did. So, I took him along to my 50th so he could celebrate his 75th. He and my late mother were avid ballroom dancers for over 30 years, so he went to the dance ready to trip the light fantastic. And he did, dancing with my classmates—25 years his junior—and they couldn’t keep up.

And now that’s a family story worth telling. —Randell Jones