A Dark and Stormy Night

A circular story from my childhood

In my memory, I spent a lot of my childhood in the car. We spent summer vacations in northern Vermont or camping around the country with our pop-up trailer. The first year we camped, we went all the way out west to Ohio (from Rhode Island). We read or tormented each other or played car games.

One game was the circular story A Dark and Stormy Night. The goal was to tell it in as many silly voices as possible.

It was a dark and stormy night. A band of robbers was sitting around the campfire. At length one got up and said, “Chief, tell us a story.” Chief got up, lit his pipe, and began, “It was a dark and stormy night…”

Maybe you know another version or a differnet circular tale? Share in the comments, please!

Before we got the pop-up camper, our large family traveled in the VW Microbus.

The station wagon, with its rear-facing back seat, wasn’t ideal for those of us who felt carsick, but story games helped.