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Everyone loves to hear a story, especially little children. So it is very important for parents, and for some reason I think especially dads, to develop the skill of telling stories. And I think the best way to develop the skill is to take the time to really tell a story. It is a tremendous way to impart ideas and inject your children and grandchildren with values and morals.

Family devotional time is a good place to tell stories, but maybe the two best places are at the table at meal time, or on an extended trip in the car.

Now, the storytelling I am talking about is not, at least not limited to, telling fairy tales and folklore stories. I am talking about stories about your childhood, or memories of experiences with your grandparents or teachers or coaches or classmates. Talk about your first day of school, or how you had no air conditioning in your home, or places you played...

I told those stories to our girls when they were little and they loved them. Now that I tell them to our granddkids, the girls groan as though they are bored at hearing those old stories again.

But one year for Christmas, my oldest gave me a loose leaf binder with blank pages. She had decorated the front cover with some keywords around the border, and titled the book "Tell Me A Story." She wanted me to write down the stories I had told so that she would be able to have them and let her kids read them. It took me two years to get the project done, but that second Christmas I gave it to my daughter for her gift.

My first grandson is now 14 and he has read and reread that volume. I believe I have helped tie him to his family history and given him a sense of who he is supposed to be.

When I see him later, I think I will tell the story of how I drove 13 hours, through the snowy night in North Texas, to get to the hosptal on the 14th of January, 1993--the morning I became a GrandDad

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