Peter Ferry

I would go to parties and say I was an editor, and people, especially women _ and that was important to me back then _ would say, __h, really?_ and raise their eyebrows and look at me a little more carefully. I remember the first party I went to after I became a teacher, someone asked me what I did for a living, and I said, __ell, I teach high school._ He looked over my shoulder, nodded his head, said, __ went to high school,_ and walked away.Once I repeated this anecdote around a big table full of Mexican food in the garden at a place called La Choza in Chicago, and Becky Mueller, another teacher at the school, said that I was a __toryteller._ I liked that. I was looking for something to be other than __ust_ a teacher, and __toryteller_ felt about right. I am a teacher and a storyteller in that order. I have made my living and my real contribution to my community as a teacher, and I have been very lucky to have found that calling, but all through the years I have entertained myself and occasionally other people by telling stories.