CRESTVIEW —Babe the Blue Ox, John Henry, Casey Jones and the one about a flock of ducks carrying over a frozen lake are just some of the many stories in the American tall tale tradition.
Tuesday, members of the Crestview Toastmasters Club invite the public to share in the tradition as club members and audience participants tell a few whoppers of their own.
Tall tales grew as a means of entertainment around pioneer wagon train campfires, on steamboats traveling the American western rivers and at rural community gatherings.
They often depict stories of actual people exaggerated to underscore acts of heroism or bravado, said Crestview Toastmasters President Kathy Morrow.
Tall tales also developed as comical ways of "explaining" natural phenomena, such as the story told by Mary Stuart Masterson's character, Idgie, around the campfire in "Fried Green Tomatoes."
In it, a flock of ducks falls asleep while floating on a rural lake. When an overnight freeze binds them to the lake, they fly off in a panic, taking the frozen lake with them and relocating the body of water.
Morrow didn't promise flying frozen lakes in Tuesday's tall tale telling at the Crestview Public Library, "but you never know what people will tell," she said.
Want to go?
WHAT: Tall Tales with the Toastmasters
WHEN: 5:30-7 p.m. Oct. 22
WHERE: Crestview Public Library, 1445 Commerce Drive
DETAILS: Kathy Morrow, Crestview Toastmasters Club, 974-3662
Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Tall tales to be told Tuesday at Crestview library