Host: Suzanne Rust
Suzanne Rust: [00:00:02] I'm Suzanne Rust, and welcome to The Moth Podcast. On this episode, high schools and sibling rivalries. First up is Suzanne Ketchum Adams, who told a story at a Boston GrandSLAM, where the theme was Never again. Here's Suzanne, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Suzanne Ketchum: [00:00:23] It's October of 1973, and I'm a freshman in high school in a small town in Pennsylvania. I'm sitting in my third required year of Home Economics class. I have just sewed two red patch pockets onto the front of a yellow dress, but they're upside down. [audience laughter]
Now, before I can do anything to correct it, Ms. McSparrin, my teacher, comes bustling over to inspect my work. And instead of making a joke about how this would make it hard to hold onto my lunch money, she starts to rip apart my work in front of the whole class, criticizing my seam allowance and my basting. And at this humiliation, I start to cry to which she responds, "I don't want your tears. I just want you to take some pride in your work."
Well, I took pride in most of the work I did, but I didn't want to learn to sew. I didn't want to be in Home Ec class. I'm still fuming about this later that morning in study hall, not just over the humiliation, but over the injustice of it. Because the boys in ninth grade did not have to take Home Economics. They didn't even have to take industrial arts anymore, as they had in seventh and eighth grade. They were all done with that. I'm thinking about this as I pull out my civics homework.
Now, that is a class that I love. I love the teacher, Mrs. Clouse, and I love what we're studying right now, which is the Constitution of the United States, and especially the First Amendment. And now, when I look at the First Amendment, I notice something I hadn't seen before. Nestled in there next to freedom of speech and freedom of religion is this phrase about having the right to petition for the redress of grievances. [audience laughter] There has just been a grievance about my dress. [audience laughter]
So, I start to scribble out a petition with my big ballpoint in my spiral notebook, and it goes like this, “We, the girls of 9th grade, do hereby protest the requirement that we take yet another year of Home Economics, while the boys in our class are free to take electives. And furthermore, boys and girls should never have to have different course requirements in the first place.” And I sign it. [chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
I sign it and I start passing it around the study hall to my classmates and almost all of them sign it right away. As the day goes on, I hand it around all of my class. And by the end of the day, I have this long list of signatures and I think, okay, time for action. I'm thinking, well, it must be the principal should be able to do something about this, right? And so, I go down to the principal's office and I'm thinking, oh, he can get this abolished by next week know. [audience chuckle]
Well, the principal is busy. So, I talk to the assistant principal. He seems amused at first. But when I start to say, and it's really not fair because boys don't have to take it, he says, "Ms. Adams, you are right about one thing. The boys don't have to take this class. But you do have to take it, unless you don't want to be promoted to 10th grade." Well, that pretty much took the wind out of my sails and I backed out of the office. But I still had the same problem, how to get through this year with this awful teacher?
Well, it turned out that it was less of a problem than I expected, because word got around about this petition. I guess it got back to Ms. McSparrin, she suddenly seemed afraid of me, [audience laughter] and she backed off in her criticism. I kept my head low. When I walked out of that classroom on the last day in June, I knew that I would never again have to take Home Ec.
Well, the summer passed and September came again. And now, I'm walking down the same hall as a sophomore when I see my teacher, Mrs. Clouse, the civics teacher from the previous year. She motions for me to come over. I think she's just going to ask about how my summer was. But instead, she tells me that the Home Ec requirement for the incoming class of 9th grade girls has been dropped. [audience cheers and applause]
Now, she doesn't say anything about my petition. But really, as I'm starting to absorb this, my first thought is, well, that's not fair. We had to take that class. [audience laughter] But then, it starts to sink in. The words I'd written in the petition, “We, the girls of ninth grade,” well, honestly, when I wrote them, I was just trying to get out of Home Ec. [chuckles] And the last thing on my mind was this class of girls coming along the next year. But it turned out it wasn't all about me, because these new ninth grade girls, well, they can still take Home Ec if they wanted to, but they didn't have to take it anymore. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Suzanne Rust: [00:06:28] That was Suzanne Ketchum Adams. Suzanne loves reading, hearing, telling and writing stories. She takes a special pride in coaching others to tell their own stories with passion. Suzanne lives in Massachusetts with her family and is currently at work on a novel. Oh, and way to go, Suzanne. Learning how to use your voice is everything.
Back when I was a teenager, I didn't have Home Ec in school, but I did have a mom at home who liked to cook. She showed me how to clean shrimp, prepare artichokes, and my favorite, how to sweat sliced eggplant or make them cry, as she called it.
Learning how to cook for yourself is an important skill. You know what else is an important skill? Knowing how to tell your story. If you're a high schooler that loves to stand up for themselves, or if you have one in your life, The Moth's education program has a ton of programs and guidance that help young people tell their own story, whether that's up on stage, in their college application essay or just with their friends. To find out more, go to themoth.org/edu.
Up next, some sibling drama. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. Up next, we'll hear about the ways a kid tried to get out of something they couldn't stand. Jeff Rose told this at a New York City StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Temptation. [cheers and applause]
Here's Jeff, live at The Moth.
Jeff Rose: [00:07:50] I always hated, I always hated going to church. Even before I could remember, I hated going to church, because I've been told that when I was about three and a half or four years old, I stood up on the pew in the middle of the sermon and in a little small but confident voice announced, "This is taking too long. I'm leaving." [audience laughter] I was just saying what everyone was thinking, honestly. [audience laughter]
So, by the time that I was eight, I knew, I knew how much I hated going to church. And my family always went to church. We never, ever didn't go to church. So, this was unavoidable for me. What I really hated the most about this, was that they would demean me. They would dress me up in this little pinstriped suit, this little blue pinstripe suit with a little clip-on tie. And if you see little boys in Brooklyn on a Sunday dressed up in suits, they all look like kind of-- [audience chuckle] They can't wait to take it off. They cannot wait to take the suit off. I mean, it's completely a demeaning thing. Adults come by, they say, "Oh, you look so grown up and handsome." It's so ridiculous.
So, when I was eight, for Easter, I was left in the care of my grandma with my two sisters. My two sisters and me just fought all the time. Then my older sister was four years older and she was 12 and her name was Lara, and she was really over having a little brother. And our relationship was mostly sitting in the back of the car and elbowing each other and yelling. And then, my younger sister Margaret sat in the front and she was four. My grandma would yell at us for fighting with each other and go, "Shut up, kid, shut up." And then, Margaret up front would go, "I'm being good, aren't I, Grandma?" [audience laughter] which was the one thing that me and Lara were bonding over at the time. So, it was unacceptable.
So, it came on Easter Sunday. I got up, I put on my little suit and sat there and waited, because I wanted church to be over, so I could get candy. And in the meantime, my parents had sent along two little dresses for my sisters. My grandma was working on them and working on their hair. And my grandma said to me, "Jeff, why don't you go outside and water the garden, but promise me that you will not get your suit wet and muddy." [audience aww] I don't know why she did this. Maybe I just looked so grown up and handsome [audience chuckle] that she believed it.
But I went out to water the garden and I was a pretty good kid, so I was trying. I had the hose out away from me and I was playing with it, because we didn't have a nozzle. So, I was using the thumb and working it, making it spray more or less. I got into it a little bit and forgot where I was and forgot about the fact I was in a suit and not wanting to be there. And then, suddenly, off to the side on the garden path, I heard a little voice and it said, [in a squeaky voice] "Jeff, hurry. up, we're going to be late to church.”
I looked over while holding the hose. There was my four-year-old sister, Margaret. She was about three and a half foot tall at the time, and she was wearing this little pink outfit that had little frilly, just knock-kneed with the little frilly skirt coming out. And then, I looked back at my hose [audience laughter] and then I looked back at her and she had little shoes with little ribbons on them, [audience laughter] and her hair was all up and curled with the ribbons in it and her face was red. She looked like a little magnolia blossom, basically. [audience chuckle] I looked back at the hose again.
And in that, they say that professional athletes actually have this thing that they go into called the zone. [audience laughter] I don't really know. I didn't play sports or anything in high school. But you envision something that's going to happen and then you do it perfectly. [audience laughter] I wish she was here and theme was Gloating, actually. [audience laughter] I turned it on her and it was wonderful. I think she was too young to really, no guile or hatred. [audience laughter]
So, she just took it flat-footed. [audience laughter] She didn't even close her mouth. [audience laughter] I just started at the top and just used my thumb, so it sprayed a little harder and just hosed her all the way down. And her whole outfit just lost all its volume. [audience laughter] She was like a little dog that just gets-- My grandmother took a yardstick down off of the top of it and she proceeded to break it on me. And my older sister, she remembers that it actually stung me and then I was sad. But the way that I remember [audience laughter] it is that I was particularly happy to get to show up Margaret. I was also happy, because I got to get out of my suit. But mostly, I was happy about the fact that we didn't have to go to church.
[cheers and applause]
Suzanne Rust: [00:13:57] That was Jeff Rose. Jeff is a New York City-based writer, performer and web consultant. He served as digital producer of Art, Humanity & Action, a short podcast series that encourages everyday people to get involved through real stories about grassroots action.
That's it for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope you stand up for yourself in Home Ec class or beyond.
Marc: [00:14:20] Suzanne Rust is The Moth's senior curatorial producer, and one of the hosts of The Moth Radio Hour. In addition to finding new voices and fresh stories for The Moth stage, Suzanne creates playlists and helps curate special storytelling events.
This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Lee Ann Gullie and Patricia Ureña.
The Moth Podcast is presented by Audacy. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reis-Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.