Oral History Program Karl Behling Interviewed by Michael Thompson 18 March 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Karl Behling Interviewed by Michael Thompson 18 March 2021 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The WSU Storytelling Festival was implemented by the Friends of the Stewart Library in 1992. The library sponsored and managed the annual festival until 1998, when the festival was moved to the Department of Teacher Education, with the Library continuing as a sponsor. The three-day festival entails storytellers from all over the nation, including youth storytellers. The events are made up of workshops and presentations, a fund-raising banquet, and a wrap-up of wonderful stories from gifted performers. This interesting collection includes oral history interviews with visiting storytellers, discussing how they became interested in storytelling and where they receive their inspiration. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Behling, Karl, an oral history by Michael Thompson, 18 March 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Karl Behling Circa 2018 Karl Behling Circa 2018 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Karl Behling, conducted on March 18, 2021, by Michael Thompson, via Zoom. Karl discusses his life, his experiences during his storytelling career, and his memories of the Weber State University Storytelling Festival. MT: This is an oral history interview about the Weber State University Storytelling Festival being conducted with Karl Behling on March 18th, 2021. How did you become interested or involved in storytelling? KB: Well, interestingly, it goes clear back to Kindergarten. I've always loved to listen to stories. My dad and my mom would read us things in the evenings, sometimes long books. So that was just part of growing up. I was just thinking about that question. Does it go back to the festival? No, it goes far beyond that. I got interested in the Mountain Men of Utah, and there were little rendezvous around. I would go attend those, and look around to see what people were wearing, what they were doing, and what their gear was and all of that; then go home and make my own. Sometimes you buy beads and things to decorate it with. One time, out of Fort Buenaventura, there was a part of the program for that rendezvous that, after like the third day of it, they had all of the mountain men get together for a campfire on the last night. And that's when people could tell their stories. I attended one of those; I kind of just stood in the back, you know, I wasn't a participant. But it was amazing to me to watch these guys telling these far-fetched stories, mountain men stuff, and I wanted to do that. And so I borrowed some of the stories that I heard, and began to tell some 2 of those. I made my own outfit, you know, the full leathers, the full everything. One day in 2000, so that would be 21 years ago, a fourth grade teacher in our neighborhood (they study Utah History in fourth grade), invited me to come in and tell some mountain men stories because she knew about my stuff, which I agreed to do. And there were kids from our own neighborhood, in this classroom. I put on a nice program for them and that's kind of the beginning of the professional end of it. And so I did a lot of mountain men programs through schools for many, many years. That's how I got involved in storytelling. MT: Okay. KB: There's more. You want me to keep going? MT: Yes. KB: Well, the biggest way that I got involved with storytelling, finally, was about 2005 I think. The Timpanogos Festival had a conference at BYU where I was attending school. And so I walked in, I didn't know you had to pay for it. I found a place where I could sit and listen to some of the things, and got really interested in what they were doing. A lady came up to me between one of the sessions and said, "Are you interested in storytelling?" And I said, "Well yeah, this is really cool!" She said, "Well, I represent the Utah Storytelling Guild and if you'd like to join it's $18." And I thought, "Why not?" And I had a twenty dollar bill in my pocket, so I pulled that out and I gave it to her. She says, "Okay, you're a member. I'll get this turned in." And so that was fine, I started attending the chapter meetings for the guild and getting to know the people who were in the 3 storytelling community and things like that. And loved it, absolutely loved it. For a couple of years after that, I would pay my $18, and eventually they elected me president. I think I'd only been a member of the guild for about a year before they elected me to be president of the whole statewide guild. I was checking through all of the records and things like that. Turns out that this lady had never turned in my money. MT: Oh wow. KB: She had never signed me up officially as a member of the Utah Storytelling Guild and here I was the president of the guild. She said, "Oh, I was going through this book, and I found where I had stuck the "bookmark"." I thought, "Well, I'm official now, that's great." So they gave me an extra year without having to pay the dues. There's a story for you. MT: So how long have you been telling stories? You mentioned you got interested with the Mountain Men rendezvous, so how long year span has it been that you've been telling stories? KB: Well, if you ask my mother, she says it started as soon as I could speak. Most of my stories started with, "It wasn't me!" And then it evolved from there. I had quite the reputation in my family because I would lie horribly to my siblings about things. My little sister asked me one time, "How do volcanoes kill people?" You know, because she was just young. And so I told her that volcanoes had legs, and when they get really upset, they just jump up and move over on top of a village and sit on it, and that's how volcanoes kill people. And she believed that 4 for the longest time. Then there was one time that I convinced her that we could not see her, that she was invisible to us. And anyway, so the explanation for this was I said, "We can kind of see sort of where you are because there is disturbance around your contour, but we can't really see you because you're invisible. Because you’re black, entirely dark, you absorb all light and so nothing reflects off of you and so we can't see you." And that upset her terribly. She went to my mother, crying, "Mommy, am I black?" I got in trouble for that one. So apparently, it has some deep roots. As far as telling stories, I just recently retired from teaching elementary school for 36 years, and I used storytelling every day in my classrooms in some fashion or another. In the kids' writing or in just the five minutes that you need to wait in the hall before the assembly lets you in or whatever. I was telling stories and I was reading books to the children as well. So I've been telling stories in one form or another for a very long time. MT: What part of storytelling brings you the most joy? KB: The audience, because it doesn't seem to matter really what kind of story you are telling or how long it is or sometimes how passionate you are about it. The audience loves it and I just get the biggest charge. You look at this audience and they are leaning forward in their chairs going, [makes a face of excitement] watching you. And you know that their brains are completely with you. I mean, they are climbing that beanstalk with Jack. The outside world has gone away. They just look so happy, and afterwards they sit back and they just look 5 like they're at peace with the world now because they've had a wonderful story. I just love audience reactions. That's what keeps me going. MT: Do you like telling stories mostly to children or adults? Is there a particular audience you prefer? KB: Oh, all of these extremes have their own rewards. I'll tell you what, with kids, you can tell frolicking fairytales, the tall tales, the outright bald-faced lies. And they don't care, they just take it. With the adults, they're a little more sophisticated in their humor and they'll catch you, if you're trying to play fast and loose with the facts of a story. But they like historical things, like Zachary Taylor. Do you know who Zachary Taylor was? MT: Yes. KB: Okay, he was President of the United States for like three months. And so, adults like those kinds of things, and reliving history. As a storyteller, you can make those experiences live in their minds, and they can be there and experience it again. So, there's satisfaction on both ends. MT: In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good storyteller? KB: The qualities of a good storyteller...you have to have a fairly decent memory so you can remember where you are in the story and the things that you've practiced. A lot of what you don't say in a story is actually non-verbal communication. So before you tell a story, you plan, I'm not kidding you, you plan where you are going to raise your hand or where you are going to go [makes a gesture of cutting neck], you know, some of these things and where 6 you place them in the story. So you have to remember what you are doing. A memory is good to remember those things. And you have to have good rapport building skills with an audience, you need to be able to open up immediately and talk with these people. I teach storytelling a lot, and I teach storytellers about, "You've got to be able to open yourself up on stage. You have to absolutely put yourself out there and not worry about whether they are going to like you or not." Whether they are going to accept your story or not. I mean, you have to just be open, and that's hard to do. Lots of people guard themselves very carefully so they don't like to open up to strangers. A good storyteller needs to be willing to be open right from the get go. Create a connection with your audience. Good memory, create a connection right away, have a lot of stories. I use this analogy all of the time. People say, "What do you do for a living?" I say, "Well, I tell stories", and immediately they say, "Oh you're a storyteller? Tell us a story." And I say, "Well, it's what I do for a living. You know, if you were walking down the street and you asked a guy what he did for a living and he said, 'Well, I'm a lawyer' and you said, 'Oh really? Do some law! Let me see, let me watch you do some law here.'" Or they're a plumber, same thing. "Oh you're a plumber, go ahead, do some plumbing, let me see. I want to see." Storytellers have a product, and you should have a bunch of them in your pocket. Because sometimes people do say, "Oh tell us a story." And it's appropriate to do so. So, you know, I keep maybe three, four, or five short little stories in my back pocket at all times. People can say, "Tell us a story", and I just start immediately, "well, 7 once upon a time there was a..." It always amazes people that you just jump right in. MT: So what elements are required for a good story? KB: A good story? Well, first of all, you need a storyteller and you need an audience. Without either one of those two, you don't have a storytelling. And it doesn't matter what size the audience is. If it's one person you're telling to or if it's 5,000 people at Carnegie Hall, it's the same. You bring your 'A' game to every performance. Essential elements, well according to some very highly respected researchers, they've identified like eight essential elements of a story. I don't think there's that many, but that's what they say. For a good story, something has to happen. If you think that a story is, "Well, I got up on Saturday morning and got dressed, brushed my teeth, went down to the supermarket, bought some vegetables, came home put them in the fridge and that's it." Is that a story? It's certainly narrative, but it's not a story. MT: Okay. KB: Something has to happen, and so a good story will introduce characters, just like in writing. You introduce your characters and your setting, and you set up the problem or whatever conflict it is. Then you work through it in various ways, and then you get some help and you solve the problem and you come out at the end, different than when you began. Somebody has to learn something from this experience. If you think about stories that you know, you'll see that they are 8 structured that way. They go through this process, and when they get to the end of it, they are different than from when they started. MT: Okay, that makes sense. Do you think our current pandemic environment has had an impact on the importance of storytelling? KB: Absolutely. Absolutely, when you have people who can't get away from each other, you've got to spend all day in your house together, you bet the stories start coming out. Because it's entertaining. You get to know each other a little bit better. And this is something that storytellers have said over and over for years, that you can't really hate someone once you know their story. And so, this process of storytelling is actually...it's more than just sitting around and yakking. There are whole parts of the storytelling community that are into healing or counseling or business management. You can use storytelling techniques in any of these areas. Now especially in a pandemic where your entertainment choices suddenly shrank, storytellers pivoted quickly to online storytelling. Recording and putting up shows, and of course you have to pay a little bit to get the code to attend the show. And that's how they make their living of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But bringing storytelling now into more and more households over this past year, I have seen interest in the storytelling just skyrocket. I've had people calling me saying, "When this pandemic is over, can you come and do this thing for us?" And I say, "Yeah, talk to me in 2022 and we'll see where we stand." But yes, it has had a huge impact on people's relationships with each other and with the world that they live in. To hear these stories, and to say, "Yeah, this is a hard thing we're going through, 9 but guess what, your pioneer forefathers they went through hard things too. They did hard things and so can we." That's kind of the message of some of these stories. Even the fables, even the fairytales, you know, they did hard things. And so can we. And it's a hopeful thing, besides it being entertaining to everyone. MT: So as a follow-up to that, how do you see storytelling evolving in the future? KB: The same way it has evolved. I mean, storytelling as far as we can tell began with people in the caves in France drawing pictures of bison on the walls about their great hunt and the kill. Storytelling itself doesn't necessarily change its character or what it does. It hasn't for 10,000 years and I expect it won't for another 10,000. There's this continuum thing going on. That storytelling is part of culture, and it continues and goes on. You might get new stories, obviously, like the groups that didn’t start their thing until the 1830's. And so you get new stories along the way, and you pick them up and you tell them. And some of the older stories kind of drop off. I'm not sure if you know very much about The Salmon of Wisdom. Do you know The Salmon of Wisdom? It's part of the Irish cycle of creation and Fion and the Fenian. But those stories kind of drop out of our culture and we get new ones. Now we have Paul Bunyan and we have other things like that that are relevant to our culture. The storytelling menu changes perhaps, but not the way it's done and not its effects. Does that make sense? MT: It does. 10 KB: Storytelling will continue to gather new stories and leave others behind or call them up occasionally because they are interesting. And that's just a cultural thing that will continue. MT: So how long have you been involved with the Weber State University Storytelling Festival? KB: About 15 years as near as I can figure. Okay, if you go to my website I have a list on one side of places I have told stories over the years. And the earliest mention of Weber State I think is about 2004. MT: Okay. KB: So a good long time, and at that time I was just telling for them. You know, they'd pick me up and I'd participate in the festival and that was good. Until I became president of the Guild. Then they wanted me to be on stage and represent storytelling, and that was good too. And then, somehow, somebody who was on the Festival Steering Committee said, "Gee, we'd like you to join the Steering Committee and help kind of you know, steer this festival the way it should go." And I thought, "Okay, great." Which I did that for a number of years on the Storyteller Committee. We worked with the storytellers themselves as we would bring them in and make sure that they had hosts and everything that they needed. I would also coach the youth storytellers coming up through the school districts. So as the districts would propose their tellers to come to the festival, I would go in and give them additional coaching to kind of spiff up their performance and make them sparkle on stage a little bit, and that was good. So I 11 did that for a number of...I still do that every year. Eventually somebody said, "How'd you like to be on the Executive Committee?" And I thought, "Oh, that's a big responsibility to run this thing." And I said, "Yeah, sure that's fine." There's another story about the whole festival and how it got to be where it is and maybe somebody I'll tell it to you. MT: What are some of your favorite memories from the festival? KB: A couple of years ago, a storytelling friend of mine and myself got together because we were going to be presenting at the festival. And we decided we wanted to do a tandem. A tandem is when two people are telling the story and you kind of bounce back and forth on it. And we decided that nobody had told Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for a really long time. And so we worked up a tandem of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; it was about 25 minutes long. And it was really cool when we did it in costume. We each had...there must be probably 10 different characters that need to come out in that story. And so we just would bounce off each other and somebody would take this character and somebody would take that character, and we practiced it. And sometimes I was a woman in the story and sometimes she was a guy and it didn't matter because you're just storytellers, you're just up there you know, presenting the story. And it was so fun. We did it for a local group somewhere up north of here in a library and my grandkids came, and we all had a jolly time with it and some people from the festival were there. And they said, "We want you to do that same thing at the festival." And we were just like [making a satisfied face], "Okay." And it was hugely successful and very much fun to do. I also like not just telling but I also 12 get to MC a lot. I introduce my friends from the storytelling world, and some of my heroes would come and attend the festival, and I get to introduce them to the audience, and sit there and watch them, and make sure that the microphone works, and that they have a bottle of water and all of that good stuff. So I got to mingle backstage with all of these really important storytellers in the storytelling community. We'd get to know each other, and they are just wonderful people, just wonderful people. I also like it when people remember me. I'm at the store and somebody will say, "We saw you at the Farmington Festival a number of years ago." And I'll say, "Well, yeah you did. Do you remember the story I told?" And they do! They'll remember the stories years and years later. Or you know, "We saw you at Weber Festival" or, "You came to our school and did this program." That's a good thing. I like that. MT: Is there anything else you want to share regarding storytelling or the festival at Weber? KB: The festival started out in the library and then quickly moved into the School of Education. And there were various chairmen who would run the festival. But it wasn't an organized thing. The School of Education promoted it and sponsored it. But it wasn't really a part of the school, you know what I mean? It was an outside thing that these people brought in. And we used Weber State's connections and venues and things like this to produce a really top rate festival. But over the years, can I mention Ann Ellis? Can I mention names? MT: Yes. 13 KB: Okay. Cool. I love Ann; I just love her to death. She would occasionally come into my classroom where I was teaching and as soon as she came into the room, I would say, "Oh we have a guest storyteller." And no kidding, she would take it and tell the kids a story, it was wonderful. But she was the chairman for many years. And she worked with the group and put together the program and contacted the storytellers and the venues and you know, got all of the stuff set up on her own. She and I would meet at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival every year. Usually it was over peaches and ice cream. That's one of my favorite things that they sell there in the food carts. And we'd talk about the festival and how things are going and what we should do about it. And I brought up the idea one year, I said, "Ann, you're not going to last forever. And we ought to look at moving the festival to be run by some kind of institution and institutionalize the festival because of their contacts and support and all of the benefits we could get having it run by one institution rather than a person." And so we kicked that around for a couple of years, and eventually about three years into that process, Ann started making contacts and got the School of Education to actually pick up the festival. And so Weber State took over the festival, the running of it, the financing of it, the everything. And that took a great burden off of a lot of people. And then the Packer Center came in and we wanted to move it from the School of Education to the Packer Center. Which they wanted us to do right away. We just love the Packer Center and all of their support and all that they have done for the festival. And it just keeps getting better and better every year. So we have a nice system now, of when we put out our announcements, of 14 when we do the auditions, who does the auditions and you know, all of this kind of stuff, and how do we train the teachers in the districts to teach their kids how to be storytellers. And then we do their coaching and we get them prepped to come up on stage at the festival. Anyway, it was a long process of getting to where we are today. But it took some foresight and some really deep thinking on the part of a lot of people to see where this festival could go and where it needed to be housed. And I think we are in the perfect position right now. MT: It's been wonderful attending it and I can't wait for it to return back in person. KB: And you’ve watched this year's festival online? MT: I wasn’t able to this year. Things got crazy. KB: You go to weber.edu/storytelling and all 25 days of the festival, that ends today by the way, are right there. They'll be there forever. You can go back everyday and listen to all of the stories. And they'll be there. I think the people in the Archives are going to have something to do with that. MT: We should definitely keep copies of all of this. KB: Good. Well it's been a real joy to be involved in the Weber Festival. It's the second largest festival in Utah. And Weber's Festival is internationally recognized for the number of youth tellers that we bring in and get up on stage. And how we work with all of the school districts. No other festival that we know of incorporates that many youth tellers. And we get some of the important names in the storytelling community... love to come to Weber because they say 15 they are treated so well. And taken such good care of. They just love coming to Weber Festival. MT: Well it's been a pleasure to speak with you and hear the history of storytelling with you and your experience with the Weber State University Storytelling Festival. KB: It’s been good. It’s been good. MT: Thank you for taking the time to let us interview you. KB: Well it's not hard to sit here in this very comfortable chair and talk. "Oh, please ask me to talk." I'm a storyteller. MT: Thank you again for being willing to do this.