TELLING TRUTH FROM FICTION
Shipwrecked! An Entertainment. The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont, As Told by Himself is a story, not only about adventures, but also about the adventures of storytelling.
In the spirit of Louis' story, we invited local writers of all ages to share with us three adventures from their own lives - two that are true, and one that is a lie. The following is a sampling of their stories. See if you can guess which are fact and which are fiction!
We will continue to collect adventure stories throughout the run of Shipwrecked! Please check back in and send us your own story at: katie.mcgerr@longwharf.org
I have taken bows on the stages of the Metropolitan, Covent Garden, and La Scala opera houses.
I have been arrested in Syria for "drug possession."
I have traded jokes with George W. Bush in the Oval Office.
- J.D. McClatchy, poet
I hitchhiked across the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
I boarded a boat to Taiwan in a typhoon.
I was at the Eiffel Tower when Tom Cruise proposed to Katie Holmes
- Dorothy Fortenberry
Yale School of Drama MFA Candidate in Playwriting 2008
On my honeymoon I agreed to go with my bride - an experienced climber - to the top of Camel's Hump in Vermont for a 3-day backpacking trip. My mother was amazed at this plan - I hadn't slept outdoors (sober) since I was 12. I nearly died of simple heart failure carrying the pack upward (I was 45). Then we were caught in a series of hellacious lightning storms (the Montrealer train tracks were washed out that night) and after walking hours through the rain we spent the night in an open shelter clinging to each other in fear rather than love as thunder banged and lightning bounced off the rocks. But I survived.
In the mad '80s Donald Margulies induced me to go far downtown to a theater event taking place under the Brooklyn Bridge abutments on a barge. The play or thing was called "O Harp and Altar." It started at midnight. We followed the scrap of paper we'd been given with the directions on it but they seemed very confusing, and we soon were lost in a deserted warehouse district. Some men lingering in the shadows called to us, apparently offering sex. I thought of Hart Crane, naturally. Then we were sent down what turned out not to be a street at all but a yard that led down to the river. It was pitch dark. I was grabbed from behind and Donald wrestled with my attacker. He told us a ridiculous sob story before vanishing. On the water a boat pulled out full of partygoers, laughing and drinking. Should we have been aboard? We were wet to the knees. After another hour - further things happened I can't remember - we found a subway and went home. It turned out that all the incidents had been part of the play, staged for us alone.
In the 1970s I used to play backgammon. A bar around the corner from me was a major place to play. One late night I found myself in a very tight game with the owner of the place - a fine player and out of my league. A nice-looking lady watched us play, attending to every move, and a few others gathered too as the play got very tight toward the end, and the doubling cube came into use. I astonished myself by winning - an early training as an actor kept me cool, pokerfaced, and unsurprised, but my elation was great. The woman watching was very impressed - well let's face it, turned on - and took me home with her. She happened to be a coke dealer, and for several days thereafter we were either in bed or at the bar or in the bathroom with the little mirror and the silver straw.
- John Crowley
Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, Yale University
I have shaken hands with someone who has been on a Sportscenter highlight.
I have been to Europe three times.
I have Bob Dylan's autograph.
- Patrick McGerr
9th Grader visiting from Bloomington, Indiana
Ted Mack, of Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, a coast-to-coast live television show, listened to our New Orleans style jazz band, The Ramblers, and told us we were terrific. We auditioned on Wednesday and were put on the show for Sunday, something of a record since others waited many months. I played drums and realized a dream, but we lost to a young man imitating Liberace.
In 1953 I "conned" my way into Sing Sing prison and had a guided tour by one of the guards. He led me around the entire prison, culminating eventually in the execution chamber. In an act of bravado I sat for a few minutes in the electric chair, remarking that this was probably going to be my only opportunity. I didn't realize that only 20 feet away, on the other side of a door, sat Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
Three years ago, I met Senator Chris Dodd by chance at the Thomas J. Dodd research center on the campus of the University of Connecticut at Storrs - we were both looking at an exhibition of my photographs of Eastern Connecticut. After we chatted for a few minutes, I said, "Why don't you run for president?" He looked thoughtfully at me without saying a word, but when we parted, I knew I had planted the seed.
- Lee A. Jacobus
writer & audience
member
Jennifer Tucket is half British, half Australian but now lives in America.
When she was three years old and living in the bush in Australia, she had to wear an ice cream container on her head to school, as Australian magpies attack people during the nesting season.
When she was nine years old, she moved to England and had to learn that "sneakers" are called "trainers" and that "bathers" are called "swimsuits" in England. She's still learning the right words in America!
- Jennifer Tuckett
Yale School of Drama MFA Candidate in Playwriting 2008
A COLLECTION FROM 5TH GRADERS AT WALSH INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL
The first wedding I ever went to was in India. My hands were painted with
henna, and my clothes were covered with sparkles and silk. There was a
puppeteer at the resort where we stayed. He and his son did the puppetry,
and they were very hardworking. The groom's father asked them to perform
at the wedding because he knew that my family really loved puppetry.
I went on a cross country trip and saw beautiful scenery, and we went all
the way to California. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I loved
going to Disneyland and meeting Mickey. Mickey gave me a hug and signed
my autograph book. I was 6 years old.
I have been to Amsterdam. I went to many museums, and every day we ate at a different restaurant. Each day, when we woke up, we had a great breakfast. My favorite museum was the Anne Frank Museum. I also really enjoyed the Rembrandt Museum and Madam Toussauds, where everything was made out of wax. It was especially fun to see the Beatles! I also liked that singing on the singing machine - the European Idol stage.
My sister did a flip off the stairs on her birthday and on purpose. She never got hurt and my parents never saw her do it. She turned three that day.
I've been to San Francisco when I was seven and I accidentally got off early on a trolley going uphill and ran away! The person who ended up catching me was my Uncle!
My mother has been to Saudi Arabia and one day met a very rich and famous princess that she had to take care of so the princess could get better.
Once I went to New Jersey with my aunt and uncle and my three cousins and my two older cousin's friends and we always went to the beach and the amusement parks and we were riding like all the rides and we had so much fun. The next day we went into the hotel pool - we had so much fun we played and then we got out, got dressed and we were going to this place called Splash Park to go on a lot of water rides it was a lot of fun. I wish that we can go again but I can't because I'm always too busy. I liked going to New Jersey because I love to hang out with my cousin Samantha.
I have a cat named Bob and he bit me and he is very fat and he always lays down on me.
When I go to school I don't always do my homework because I don't think it is too necessary.
I went to Ireland and I went to at least 4 amusement parks. I went on 5 rides in each amusement park.
I went to Florida for a friend's birthday, but ended up staying for an extra week at the Nick hotel, and Disney world.
I was saved from a fire by a man in Branford. I thanked him and I never saw him again.
This summer I went to Mexico. I got to go on the beautiful beach and I got to swim with dolphins. I also got to go to this beautiful restaurant and I got so good food like there was good and yam lobster.
I went to Italy to go see my aunt because I wanted to see her. I went to see her also because she has blood cancer and I wanted to say goodbye because she might die. I hope my aunt would not die.
I have a cat named Sponge Bob and he is wild. But he is the fattest cat in the world. Also he is so ugly and old.
I woke up one morning and played video games for a while and then going to lunch not knowing I would eat the most hamburgers in a hour. I got a big trophy bigger than me all covered with gold and a little dust. I dust my trophy every day.
The next day after I admired my new trophies I went outside to play baseball with my friends and getting hit in the same spot twice by a baseball and getting a red mark with stitch marks on my head. When I woke up the next morning I went to the bathroom seeing my big black and blue forehead covered in black.
When I was nine I played football in school then I played in mighty mites. The next few weeks we won all our games only losing two or three games and finally went to Orlando for the state champions for the second time in two years. Now I have a nice gold trophy.
I almost went through all Florida in just a month and a half and I didn't even get to the Capital.
I went to the museum where they shot a movie that is very popular and got to see half of the object and the models they showed in the movie.
When I was little I had trouble hearing and in my life so far I had to get four sets of tubes from that.
When I was on a tiny pink snow mobile someone crashed into the back of the mobile and I went flying forward and one of my teeth went flying out. After that I went to the doctor and found out that I broke my jaw and I fractured my arm.
When I was going up a pama lift at Burke Mountain, I fell off so my dad got off with me. Since there was a race going on the trail that we were on and we couldn't walk up, we had to go in the wood which was four feet deep. My dad and I got stuck in the snow for a long time.
When I was away on vacation, there was a huge lake. My friend and I swam a hundred feet across the lake in disgusting, green gook that had lice, ticks and cockroaches in the water.
My dad was almost killed on two vacations in the Carribean. Then later on he died from the pain that he had.
I have a crooked back spine from bumping into a table with food on it. The table and food fell on me. Later on I couldn't move a muscle or I couldn't walk. My family had to carry me everywhere.
When sledding on an 80 foot mountain, me and my dad fell onto a frozen lake. Then, the ice almost couldn't hold us and we almost fell in the bone-chilling water.
I almost set my house on fire because I took a curling iron wire and plugged it into the wall and when I put it on a metal rod it sparked and it was giant and blue.
When I was five I tried to break into my neighbor's house because she got mad at me for riding on her lawn when she didn't even take care of her lawn in the first place.
I fell into the ice at Young's pond when I went ice skating there and had to go to the hospital so that they could make sure I was alright.
When my friend and I went sledding at Branford Point I almost fell off the edge. I didn't fall off the edge because a pair of footsteps were there and I put my feet in the hold then pushed off the other way.
When I went to my aunt's house I slipped then fell down the hill. I was sledding with my cousin Scott when he went inside for about five minutes to get warm then when I was getting ready to sled I slipped on my sled and tumbled down the hill.
When I was five years old, I went to Vermont with my family. One day in the afternoon I saw a bear outside my window. It was black and was across a little creek.
I was raising the flag at camp when I was six, and my foot got caught and the flag turned me upside down. Everyone was shouting and I was almost halfway up the pole trying to untie the knot and crying when they lowered me down.
When I was 3, I walked into a pool and sank like a stone. My mom had to jump in with her clothes on and everyone was screaming except my sister (because she was crying) and my dad (because if my sister knew he was scared she'd be even more scared). My mom quickly pulled me out.
When I was 4, I swallowed my sister's tooth and her favorite tooth-shaped stone. She was crying and yelling at me and it felt like I had swallowed a bag of marbles. She never got the stone back.
