If your family is anything like mine, you probably have some wonderful storytellers who can make you laugh and make you cry. Such were my grandfathers, father, uncles and cousins. They could tell a yarn that would have you rolling in fits on the floor.

Invariably at the end of each story one of them would say, "You know what I learned from that?" Depending on the story being told, you might get any number of funny answers, like: someone holding up a hand with a missing finger and saying, "Never dare your sister to chop off your finger."

Those statements were a kind of roadmap that...