All Y'all

On January 31, 1996, professional sign painter Pamela Raintree pulled into Shreveport, Louisiana in a battered Datsun station wagon, with $1.20 in her pocket and a quarter tank of gasoline. One thing led to another, and Raintree has now called Shreveport "home" for 18 years.

“Tinker and the Saturday Night Car,” is a moving personal memoir and tribute to a man named Tinker from Minden, Louisiana. As you'll hear in Kirkley's unique voice, Tinker made the questionable decision to purchase a used car of unknown provenance at a roadside bar somewhere outside of Minden. The rest of the story is one of unforeseeable consequences as well as, in the end, the kind of resilience to keep moving that you find in well-built, older American cars and the well-built, older Americans that drive them.

Brad Campbell’s “The Real Dill” is an expertly told tale of just such a vacation, complete with rental car shaming, nude sunbathing, suspicious highway patrolmen and what happens when your dream trip up the California coastline just happens to take place while the California coastline is, for the most part, on fire.

Chris grew up in Springhill, Louisiana – a town whose high school mascot is was the lumberjacks with a total population teetering right above 5,000. When his parents were teenagers in 1974, nightlife was different. Young folks hopped in cars, then drove up and down the main street, honking and waving at one another. Occasionally, they pulled over into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot to drink a few beers, smoke cigarettes, hold hands and other courting rituals. Once a year, the city hosts one evening where folks can relive these glory days. We tagged along and taped over an hour of audio. Here's the highlights.

When we were organizing the first All Y'all live storytelling event, "New 'Round Here," Sara and I knew that we had to ask Jon to contribute a story. He came through in grand form with this hilarious, occasionally unsettling tale of life as a server at a Chinese buffet called Cheng's Garden and what may be the most uncomfortable job interview of all time.

Chris talks about the terrible things he did to his first-ever roommate, Tim Chuang, at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts. Tim, Chris would like to tell you he's sorry.

Being 16 years old is difficult, no matter where you are. At our March 2014 live event, a collection of stories that shared the theme "New 'Round Here," storyteller Jennifer Hill told a cinematic tale of coming of age as an all-American girl in the People's Republic of Bulgaria. When her diplomat father relocated the family to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, even the simple gesture of nodding one's head took on a new meaning.

If you've recently overheard a voice with elongated vowel sounds, and an aversion to the letter R then it's likely you've run into this sheila. Esther Kennedy is native to Australia but currently living in Shreveport. She'd like to explain why.

The All Y'all Podcast documents life in the Deep South - namely, in and around Shreveport, Louisiana - with breath smelling like Old Milwaukee and a pocket full of buffalo head nickels.

In the very first episode of the All Y'all Podcast, Chris and Sara threw a hot dog party and asked everyone who came the same question: "What do YOU look for in a hot dog?" The answers ranged from completely reasonable to insane in the membrane. This is the first episode of a fledgling podcast produced by total amateurs. Bear (bare? We mean "hang in there," not "furry but deadly forest animal") with us as we improve the style, substance, etc. Whatever it is that you look for in a hot dog...we hope you enjoy the show.