Letter to Davey Arch

Davey Arch,
The stories you tell, and I meant tell because they are more alive than words just placed on page, in the book Living Stories of the Cherokee captivated me more so than the other authors. The way that you introduce each of your stories is so honest, in a way that simply beginning a story without introducing cannot be. Stating where you heard the story and giving a references of why you have been reminded of it, such as your intro to "The Rattle Snake in the Corn,"makes me feel more like I am being told a tale than an account. "That corn over there reminds me of a story he told me," Pulling from the landscape and relating the story back to your grandfather instills a feeling of heritage, as you grew up on these lands like the Cherokee people and these stories have been passed down here for thousands of years.
You are also honest in your recollection of the stories, never being afraid to correct yourself. The seldom corrections in your stories are subtle and act to remind me that it is a story being told, far from Western traditions of immersing yourself in a story. The reminder that you are only listening to a tale by a story teller feels more personal, one of my favorite examples of this is in your story "The Origin of Strawberries." "And she said that first man and women were living together, and they got mad at one another, and the man left. No, the women left, thats the way it was." The fearlessness by which you retract statements feels natural in a way that other story tellers could not do, and the seamless transitions make me feel as if I am a child listening to a story being told by my parents, eager the whole time for what is to come next.
The alteration of who left is in concurrence with other forms of the same tale, which would matter little if it didn't, but works to support why the retraction was made. The telling of the story is what is most important but the effort put forth to keep the tales the same adds a style of truthfulness and a personal touch that is moving.
I would like to know if you put these corrections and introductions in intentionally in order to keep the style of Cherokee story telling alive or if this is simply how you tell them. I am also wondering what it is about story telling that you find to be the most powerful, what is it that keeps you coming back? And finally I would like to know what the first story you remember from your childhood is, simply out of curiosity.
Sincerely,
Matthew Randazzo.