Works in Progress Volume 18:1 Winter 2005 ISSN 1075-0029
Telling stories my whole life - by Thelma Shelton Robinson

I find that truth is stranger than fiction. If you tell some of these true stories, people don't believe it. I tell about things that I remembered as a child, and about things that were important, not just to me, but to everybody. Experience doesn't matter if you haven't got stories.

I always loved stories. And I loved to listen to stories in the neighborhood. My father was a walking storybook. See, he was a hustler. He did so many things. He used to tell me back in Norfolk, he would sell fish. And he used to have a cart, and he'd say, "Miss Annie. Get your pots and pans, here I am the FISH man!" He always had something that would rhyme. He would make things up, like: "To see how sweet your home can be, go away but keep the key." He'd say things like that all the time. My father, he had charm. People loved to talk to him. And he loved talking! He had so many stories. After he came to Philadelphia, he sold vegetables. He sold papers. Then he had this little store on the corner of Twelfth and Rodman. And he named it the Veteran's Rest. And he had mainly men coming in there. You know, that corner store where they shoot the bull. They played cards and they played checkers. And they'd argue. And they'd talk about their war experiences and everything.

We lived at 506 South Sartain Street, which was right across the street from the Standard Theater on South Street. And that was the main thoroughfare. I mean - there were so many things you could see. They had people on the corner preaching, or tap-dancing, or whatnot. That was commonplace. I'd watch things - because, you know, the different things you see- the actions that people put on. What you would see happening in the neighborhood, well, the truth is stranger than fiction.

I put myself in school. Because my brother and my sisters were older than I was. I was the youngest. One morning I woke up and none of them were there. That was odd. And when I asked my mother where they were, she said, "They went to school." So at that time, people would put their children out - they could go outside and play and not worry what was going to happen too much. So I went out to play and nobody was out. And every house I went to on our side of the street, everytime I rang the bell or knocked on the door, I would ask for the child and the mother would tell me, "They're in school."

Nobody was outside but me. And I said, "School? I want to go to school, too!"

So I knew it was taboo to cross the street. But I wanted to go to school. So I looked, and I went and I crossed that street. Then I saw this old friend of the family. His name was Mr. Whitey. He was a plumber. And he called me Mommy Lump. He says to me, "Where you going, Mommy Lump?" I said, "I'm going to school. But I need a book and a pencil and piece of apple pie." (Always worried about my stomach! ) So he laughed and he took me to the corner store, Mr. Snyderman's little store, and I got the book and I got the pencils. Then we went next door. I think there was a Greek restaurant there and I got a piece of French apple pie with the ice cream on the top and the raisins in it. So I was all set! So he was laughing! It tickled him. He just walked me on. He said, "Are you really going to school?" I said, "Yes."

So we went around on Lombard Street and down to the school entrance. And he stood at the gate and he says, "OK, I'll see you." And I says, "OK." And he just stood there and he was just laughing, and this lady happened to come up and she had a little girl she was going to enroll, so I went in with them. And when I got inside, there was a nun there. And the lady was giving her the information for her daughter. And I was standing there. And finally the sister said, "Well, how about this little girl?" And the lady said, "I don't know her! She didn't come with me!" And so the sister asked me what was my name. I knew my name and I told her that my brother and my sisters went to that school, and I told her their names. So she says, "All right. But you have to have a seat." So I was elated! Because all of the kids were there, and the teacher, she was singing, and I'll never forget: "A, B, C, D, E, F, G...." And I learned my ABCs! But I wasn't old enough to be in school. And the thing about it was, when we went to recess, we came out of the school and went into the schoolyard, and I was standing there getting ready to play something. And I looked at the gate and here came my mother. She was running - she didn't know what had happened to me. But Mr. Whitey had gone and told her, said "Mommy Lump said she was going to go to school and I took her there. "So when I saw here, I knew I was headed home. And I started crying. And the nun, Sister Helen Rita, I remember her - She told my mother. She says, "Oh, don't take her." She says. "Her brother or her sisters can take her home at lunchtime." Because I was enjoying myself. And she let me stay.

And my sister Lucy brought me home at lunchtime. And evidently, after lunch I must have fell off to sleep because when I woke up my sister was coming in from school in the afternoon, and I wanted to go back. I told her, "Mom, can I go back?" And when my sister came in, she was always loud. And first thing she hollered out, "Sister wants to know when Thelma's coming back!" And that was it! I cried and I cried and I begged and I begged. So finally, she let me go the next day. So I started going to school! But they couldn't promote me because I wasn't six. And so they had me stay in first grade for an extra school term. So that's about it! That's how I put myself in school.

I memorized poems when I was young. Just for myself. I loved Paul Laurence Dunbar. His poetry stuck with me. At school there was another girl. Phyllis. Paul Laurence Dunbar seemed to be her baby. And she'd do that. So I would do other things. I loved rhyme. That's how I would remember. One time I could flip them right off. That's what I love - it's just like songs! You hear a song and you like it, you hear it enough, you'll learn the words.

I guess I started writing in high school. But I really didn't push it.

When I was working for the city, this guy was retiring and they wanted someone to write a verse and I happened to come into the office, and this little secretary - she said, talking about me, "She could write it." I said "OK." And it wasn't that difficult to write, because this man was comical, and everybody liked it. So then, every time somebody retired, they'd get me to write a verse. I gave away so many poems. Because I didn't think it was anything special.

And so then I started thinking about the different stories that fascinated me: Corrine Sykes, Soldiers on the Trolley. So I just wrote 'em for myself. I wrote Soldiers on the Trolley because my son, we were talking one day, and he was in Drexel and he thought he knew everything. So he was telling me something, and I said, "Oh yeah, that was like soldiers on the trolley." And he said "What soldiers on the trolley?" And the same thing for Corinne Sykes. He was instrumental in my doing it because he didn't know about it. And I thought, well, if he doesn't know about it, there are a lot of people who have seen historical things, but they don't pay it any mind. They don't say anything about it. And then children come along and they're shocked! They never heard that before.

After I retired, I went to this poetry reading. And I was just surprised that the people liked what I wrote. Before that, I had a thing. I would always write. But I would never read it. I'd always give it to somebody else to read. And so this way, at the open mike, I started reading.

And when I found out I wasn't being laughed at, I went along with it. I used to just go for the open reading, and then Bob Smalls, Poets and Prophets, he asked me to be a featured reader. And that's how I started. I had no intentions. I didn't have even any plans as to what I wanted to do after I retired. But something came - and something I never even dreamed about. I said, "I've been telling stories all my life - but not this way!"

I think that after I went to that first reading, I said to myself, "I could do that," so after that, everybody had some kind of title, and I do write in rhyme, so I said, "I'm a poetic storyteller." That's how I come up with that. And then I hesitated saying that. I said to myself, I'm stepping too far.

I've had a couple of older women come to me and say, "Oh, I wish I could do that." If I can do it, you can do it, too! I don't think anybody's life is boring. If you don't write about yourself, you write about things that you see. And I do find that people like to listen to something that they can relate to.

That's what I try to do. What I write, it's not any original story. It's a story that I actually saw or heard about that stayed with me. Lasting impressions. That's what it is, that's what I tell. The things that have stuck with me.

Thelma Shelton Robinson primarily focuses her tales on her own life experiences, and shares stories that she heard coming up in Philadelphia in the 1940s-1950s in a richly oral tradition. Her father was a vivid storyteller and her mother raised her on stories about her own childhood in Virginia. A weekend roomer, Mrs. Walton, told "stories... so scary you were afraid to go to bed." Her father's corner store, Veteran's Rest, was a hangout for Ms. Robinson as a child; she'd go in and out, listening to neighbors passing time and telling tales. She valued what she heard, appreciating the different narrative styles and perspectives. She reflects, "When an elder passes, it's like a library burns down because there is so much information that is lost. And without other people who know that information - it just goes." Growing up near 12th and South Streets in Philadelphia, around the corner from the Standard Theater, Ms. Robinson watched street corner singing, dancing, and preaching, all of which left a lasting impression. She also loved the rhyming poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes, and she loved music - from the Wings Over Jordan Choir to Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5. But it wasn't until she retired from decades of secretarial work that she began to truly pursue her love of poetry and storytelling. Over the last decades, she has made her presence felt, performing in storytelling celebrations, schools, and other social, civil and educational gatherings. She has received a PCA Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts and was awarded the Oshun award in 2003, from ODUNDE, Inc., naming her the "poet laureate of South Philadelphia." Here she reflects on how she became a poet and storyteller.

Ms. Robinson will rell stories as part of the PFP "Self Knowledge" program on February 19th.