A Personal Encounter With the Power of Storytelling

By Jim Woodard

It was my first week on the job as a counselor at Boys Town, Neb.--the famous "city of little men" just west of Omaha, founded by Father Flanagan. After a few encounters with particularly tough and rebellious boys, I thought that first week might be my last. But storytelling came to my rescue.

I had been seeking that job for a couple of years. Ever since my father took my brother and me to Boys Town for a tour, I was really fascinated with this unique community and wanted to work there. Since I wasn't Catholic, it took the administrators quite a while to check me out to their satisfaction. It wasn't just a matter of obtaining a reference from my parish priest. I didn't have one. But finally the call came. I had been accepted for the job and was to report in at the Boys Town administration building in two weeks.

So, at age 23, I was a working counselor at Boys Town. But I quickly discovered that certain particularly "difficult" boys (there's no such thing as a bad boy) were not about to accept authority from this young, new counselor. Most of my charges, ages 9 to 15, were great kids. But considering that about half of them were referred to Boys Town from juvenile courts around the country, it's not surprising that a number of them...