When you were a child, how many times did you beg your mom or dad “Please give me another list of rules and regulations.”

Right. I thought so. Never.

But how often did you try to put off bedtime by begging to hear “Just one more story. Please!?”

What do we do at family reunions and holiday celebrations? We trot out the same old stories, initiating each new generation in the stories of the ancestors. In their telling and re-telling, we make them living history, not just dead facts.

Stories are how we learn who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we are going. A mature human being lives a well-storied life.

There are stories that teach us about our identity as Americans — George Washington stories, covered wagon pioneer stories, North and South stories, Great Depression stories, De…