Host: Jenifer Hixson
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jenifer: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jenifer Hixson. The Moth is true stories pulled from the headlines of someone's life. All these true stories are told in front of a live audience with no notes. In this hour, dreams, redemption, flamenco, Boy Scouts, party planning, speeding tickets, headless skeletons, a little darkness, and a lot of light. You'll see.
Our first story is from Auburn Sandstrom. We discovered her at a Moth StorySLAM in Michigan. Here's Auburn Sandstrom telling her story live in Northampton, Massachusetts, where we partnered with New England Public Radio.
[applause]
Auburn: [00:00:49] The year was 1992, Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm curled up in a fetal position on a filthy carpet in a very cluttered apartment. I'm in horrible withdrawal from a drug that I've been addicted to for several years now. In my hand, I have a little dilapidated piece of paper I've been folding it and unfolding it. There's a phone number on it.
And if you've ever had an anxiety attack, that's what this felt like. I'd been having a non-stop anxiety attack for the last five years, and I'd never been in a more dark or desperate place as that night. I would have just gone screaming out of there. My husband was out running the streets trying to get a hold of some of that stuff that we needed. And I knew if he succeeded, he was not going to share. If I could, I would have jumped out of my own skin and run into the streets. But right behind me in the room sleeping, was my baby boy.
Now, I wasn't going to get a Mother of the Year award in 1992. In fact, at the age of 29, I was failing at a lot of things. It had started out fairly auspiciously. I was raised in comfort and privilege. I was that girl who had the opera lessons, who spoke fluent French, who had her expensive undergraduate college paid for. I was that person who, when my checking account run out, I would say something to my parents, and $200 would magically appear. I know when the revolution comes, kill me first, right?
So, I had the year abroad. I had a master's degree. I was pedigreed. But as you get to your 20s, someone like me, I ended up in Ann Arbor and I started noticing things like poverty and injustice and racism. It was a huge revelation to me. I came to the faulty conclusion that the thing I needed to do with my privilege and all the comfort that I'd had all my life was to destroy it, rip it in half, spit on it, and set it on fire.
Every time I've made a major faulty conclusion, the man comes right after that will help me live it out. [audience laughter] This was no different. Man, he was beautiful. 40 years old and a radical, revolutionary, fine ass poet from Detroit. I'm 24, he's 40, and I was smitten in love. It was so exciting who he was, how he talked, the way he looked at the world. It was beautiful for a while until he introduced me to one of his old activist friends who introduced us to the drug I was now addicted to.
And so, I had tried to transform myself. I wanted to shed my class. If I could have, I would have shed my race. Instead of transformation, you have me in Ann Arbor in 1992, going 90 miles an hour down I-94 with my poet, with a car full of alcohol, illegal drugs, paraphernalia. The baby's in a car seat, covered-- It's probably not a regulation car seat. It's covered in candy and chocolate, because you have to keep the baby entertained while you're taking care of your business, getting yourself some relief.
This particular night, it was bad, because if we were to have been pulled over one of those many times that we were going down that highway, I was on parole, he was on probation, we would have both been locked up, and our child would have been taken from us. So, underneath my withdrawal and terrible anxiety was a sure knowledge that I was leading the life that was going to lead to me losing the most precious thing I'd ever had in my life.
I was so desperate at that moment that I became willing to punch the numbers into the phone. The phone number was something my mother had sent me. Now, mind you, I hadn't been speaking to my parents or anybody else for three, four, five years. But she'd managed to get this number to me in the mail, and she said, "Look, this is a Christian counselor. And since you can't talk to anybody else, maybe sometime you could call this person." I'm not trying to hang with any particular religion at this point, but I'm so desperate and I'm so anxious and I'm in such a desperate state. I was emaciated, covered in bruises.
I punched in the numbers. I hear the phone pick up. I hear a man say, "Hello." And I say, "Hi, I got this number from my mother. Do you think you could maybe talk to me?" I heard him shuffling around in the bed. You could tell he was pulling some sheets around and sitting up, and I heard a little radio in the background. He snapped it off, and he just became very present, and he said, "Yes, yes, yes. What's going on?"
I hadn't told anybody, including myself, the truth for a long, long time. I told him I wasn't feeling so good, and that I was scared, and that things had gotten pretty bad in my marriage. Before long, I started telling him other truths, like, I might have a drug problem, and I really, really love my husband, and I wouldn't want you to say anything bad about him, but he has hit me a few times. There was a time when he pushed my child and me out into the cold and slammed the door behind us, and then there was a time when we were going 60 miles an hour down the highway, and he tried to push us out of the moving vehicle. But I love him and don't say anything bad about him. I started telling those truths.
And this man didn't judge me. He just sat with me, and was present, and listened, and had such a kindness, and such a gentleness. "Tell me more. Oh, that must hurt. Oh.” I'd made that call probably 02:00 in the morning. He stayed with me the whole night until the sun rose. I was feeling calm, I was feeling okay, I was feeling-- I can splash my face with water today and I can probably do this day. [chuckles] I wouldn't have cared if the guy was like a Hare Krishna or a Buddha. It didn't matter to me what his faith was. I was very grateful to him.
And so, I said, "Hey I really, really appreciate you and what you've done for me tonight. Aren't you supposed to be telling me to read some Bible verses or something? Because that'd be cool. I'll do it. It's all right." He laughed and he said, "Well, I'm glad this was helpful to you." We talked some more, and I brought it around again, I said, "No, really, you're very, very good at this. I need to tell you how grateful I am. How long have you been a Christian counselor?" And he said, "Okay, Auburn, I've been trying to avoid this subject. I need you right now not to hang up. That number you called, wrong number." [audience chuckles]
I didn't hang up on him. I never learned his name, never talked to him again, I don't think I took any of his advice. But I need to tell you that the next day, I experienced something that I've heard called peace that passes understanding. Because I had experienced that there was random love in the universe, and that some of it was unconditional, and that some of it was for me. I can't tell you that I got my life totally together that day, but it became possible. And it also became possible for me to take that sticky chocolate covered baby boy and raise him up into a young honors scholar athlete who graduated from Princeton University in 2013 with honors. [audience applause]
This is what I know. In the deepest, blackest night of despair, and anxiety, it only takes a pinhole of light and all of grace can come in. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:11:33] That was Auburn Sandstrom. Auburn's done many great things with her life since that night. She's won awards for her writing, has a master's degree, and a school principal's license.
She told me that telling this story healed something that 22 years of distance hadn't been able to touch. It felt good to be proud of something from such a dark period in her life. About the man on the other end of the line that night, Auburn never heard from him again, so we don't know who he was. But I hope he's listening right now. Sir, if you're listening right now, if this story sounds familiar, please get in touch with us at themoth.org. And to everyone out there who does stuff like that, picks up the phone at 02:00 AM, helps strangers, is a sympathetic ear. Thank you. You're the light that comes through the cracks.
Our next story is by Rabbi Daniel Judson and involves the law. Not rabbinical law, but Boston traffic laws. Rabbi Judson told it at an open-mic Moth StorySLAM, where we partner with WBUR. Here is Daniel Judson.
[cheers and applause]
Daniel: [00:12:42] I was really, really late, and I was driving like a maniac. I was late for Bible study. Actually, it sounds a little weird to say. I'm a rabbi. I'd been a rabbi for about three weeks. This was about 15 years ago. So, I look like I'm 20 now. I look like I was 10 then. [audience laughter] I've been a rabbi for about three weeks, and this was the Sabbath of the Saturday before the most important holiday of the Jewish year. I'm driving way too fast which I got police come, they pull me over about a mile from my synagogue.
Policeman comes out and I say, thinking that this might be of some help and maybe I can slide my way out of this, I say, "I'm the rabbi of the synagogue about a mile up the road, and I'm going to Bible study." [audience chuckles] Policeman says, "Looks like rabbis can speed, can't they? [audience laughter] License and registration, please." I actually don't carry my wallet on Saturday. It's a long story. We can skip it. But I say, "I don't carry my wallet. I don't have my license. Sorry about-- so religious, sorry. " And he says, "Oh, looks like rabbis can speed and think they don't have to carry wallets on Saturdays." [audience laughter]
Goes back to his car. He does that thing that policemen do. He comes back, he says, "Sir, get out of the car, I'm going to have to impound this vehicle." I said, "Excuse me?" He said, "You have to get out of the car. I'm going to impound this vehicle." Something about I hadn't changed over plates. So, I said what I think any man of the cloth would say at that particular moment, "What the fuck?" [audience laughter] And he says to me, "And you're a rabbi." [audience laughter]
There's actually another. The good cop says, "Look, you pay $100 or something-- Pay $100, and you can drop the car off at your synagogue." And I said, "I don't have any money." He says, "Well, look, we'll take you to-- So, they take me to this synagogue that I'm the rabbi of, and I'm in the backseat of a police car, having been there for three weeks. [audience laughter] And someone told me later that [unintelligible 00:15:03] William Goldberg, 85 years old, who would come to my Bible study every day for 10 years, she'd come, she looked out the window, she said, "Oh, look, there's that nice new rabbi coming in the back of a police car. [audience laughter] I hope it's not drugs or sex." [audience laughter] I collect the money, I pay, my car--
Next day, I'm in my office, knock on the door, synagogue lawyer comes in. "Fight it, rabbi, fight it. Just say you didn't know what you were doing, say the policeman didn't know it. Just fight it. They won't press charges." "No, I was speeding. I really was." He walks away. [unintelligible 00:15:43] Goldberg walks into my office. "Rabbi, here's what I'm saying to you. You were wearing a collar. This town, that wouldn't have happened. You know what I'm saying, rabbi?" [audience laughter] I said, "Really? No, I was speeding. It's okay. I was speeding."
Phone call, Father Jacobs, the Episcopal priest. "Dan, I'm upset about this. This should not have happened." "So, really, I was speeding." So, wow. I'm on the phone three days later with my mother, actually, who says, "Honey, the holidays are coming. I just want to make sure you're going somewhere for that." I said, "Mom, I became a rabbi. You're calling me to see if I'm going to synagogue on my holidays." I said, "No. We had this conversation. I'm going to be a rabbi." You said, "Lawyer." I said, "Rabbi." You said, "Lawyer." I said, "Rabbi." You said, "What will the weekly bridge club think?" I said, "I could care less what the weekly bridge club thinks." And she said, "Of course. Well, at least the weekly bridge club calls me every week." [audience laughter] [audience applause]
Phone call waiting. I said, "Mom, hold on. “Rabbi Judson, this is Sergeant Berkowitz of the Canton Police Department." He says, "We need to talk to you." So, I put him on call waiting and I go back to my mother and I say to her what every Jewish mother wants to hear. "Mom, I got to go. It's the police. They're calling me in to talk about something." [audience laughter] Sergeant Berkowitz.
Now, I'm imagining the lineup, the police roll call that morning at the Canton Police Department, which is an Irish town, imagining them running through the roll call of who's going to call the rabbi this morning. Sergeant Callahan says, "I'm not doing it." O'Brien says, "I'm not doing it." "Berkowitz. Berkowitz, probably, maybe Berkowitz." [audience laughter] So, I go down to the police station. Sergeant Berkowitz is there, says, "Let's get rid of this ticket." I say, "No, I was really speeding." He says, "Father Jacobs called me. This woman who's a nut called me. [audience laughter] Some lawyer called me. Just rip it. It's okay. It's okay."
Seven years later, I'm on the same strip. I'm late again. [audience chuckles] Policeman pulls me over, rolls down the window, asks me for my license and registration. I start to say, "I don't have it again." And he says, "Aren't you that rabbi?" [audience laughter] He says, "My buddy pulled you over that day. He was being a jerk. You just go ahead and have a good night." [audience laughter] I said, "Really?" He said, "God works in strange ways." [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:18:56] That was rabbi traffic outlaw Daniel Judson. He's also a professor at Hebrew College Rabbinical School in Newton, Massachusetts. He'd like you to know that this story took place a long time ago. And these days, he follows all the traffic laws. He always wears his seatbelt. While he doesn't carry his wallet on Saturdays to remind him not to spend any money, he does carry his driver's license, just in case.
When we come back, rookie reporters, Boy Scout camp, and a 40th birthday party.
Jay: [00:19:24] The Moth is supported by Organic Valley, a co-op of family farms committed to the craft of sustainable organic farming. Organic Valley believes in producing food in a way that respects the earth, animals, and future generations. Learn more at organicvalley.com.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Jenifer: [00:20:29] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jenifer Hixson. This next story is from Tere Figueras Negrete. She told it in Miami, where we partner with public radio station WLRN. The theme was Balance. Here's Tere, live in Miami.
[cheers and applause]
Tere: [00:20:45] My first real job at the Miami Herald was covering the graveyard shift on the police beat. I was this chubby, overprotected Cuban girl from Kendall. Any Cuban girls from Kendall? Yeah. All right. [audience cheers]
[audience laughter] Pretty much everyone. So, who had managed to Forrest Gump her way into this really cool job. I spent the whole first year feeling like I was on just shaky ground. So, they sat me next to the two most veteran crime reporters of the newspaper. On one side was Elaine Del Valle. Just brash and bold and whose default method of reporting was just like screaming into her phone in Spanish, like if she was being burned at the stake by Fidel Castro, just like passion. [audience laughter]
And then, on the other side was Arnold Markowitz. Arnie or Witz, if he really, really liked you. He was wild with like a shock of white hair, and this white beard that he would claw in frustration if someone is being especially dumb or stupid. I was frequently both. Because Arnie was hard of hearing, he had rigged up his desk phone to this bright white light, like the kind of thing a tugboat would need to navigate foggy conditions. It was fucking ridiculous.
So, every time the phone would ring, the light would flash in my face, and Arnie would pick up the phone and scream, "Markowitz, whatcha got?" It was terrifying. [audience chuckles] But he was a legend. Unstoppable, unscoopable. Every criminal and cop knew him. I was determined to impress him. So, that first summer, Arnie gets a call, a tip that there was a break in a cold case he had covered years ago, decades. There was a guy who had disappeared on the way to an Indian casino at the edge of the Everglades. Arnie gets a tip that they found his car at the bottom of a canal off of chrome. So, he sends me out to go to the crime scene and see if they pulled any remains from this submerged car.
So, I'm driving out to Homestead in the middle of the night, in the middle of a thunderstorm, somehow managed to talk my way into the crime scene. I'm standing there ankle deep in mud, and they're winching up this old sedan, and one of the cops opens the car door, and sure enough, it's a tangle of bones and muck and weeds. Did I mention the bones? Yeah.
So, I scribble in my notebook and I get the hell out of there. Because by now, it's 10 minutes to deadline, and I have to call Arnie to file my feed. Only my phone is dead, of course. So, I am driving in a blind panic in the rain, just completely unhinged, praying for a payphone. You guys remember payphones? [audience chuckles] And then, I see, in the distance, a Denny's, like Valhalla in the distance, Denny's with a payphone in front of it. So, I screech up like a maniac, jump out of the car, and I run for the payphone. I notice out of the corner of my eye, this group of potheads just hanging outside the Denny's potheads do. But I don't even pay attention to them. I throw my coins in the phone and I call Arnie.
He picks up, "Markowitz, whatcha got?" I tell him everything. The car, the canal, the bones. But because Arnie's hard of hearing, I have to yell all of this at the top of my lungs. [audience laughter] So, if you were happen to be one of those potheads at that Denny's on that dark and stormy night, this is what you would have seen. A chubby Cuban girl from Kendall, her legs caked in mud, her eyes streaked with rain and tears and mascara, wailing into a payphone like a banshee. "They found his bones, but not a skull. His bones, God damn it, in the car, they found the bones." [audience chuckles]
So, I like to think that years later, they still talk about me, like those guys, [audience chuckles] like, "Bro, remember that girl at the Denny's?" [audience laughter] "Yeah, bro, she totally murdered someone, right?" [audience laughter] So, the next day at work, I get to my desk, and there's a note on my keyboard that says just simply, "Figueras, welcome to the craft. Signed Witz." It was the best love letter a man has ever written me. [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:25:02] That was Tere Figueras Negrete. Tere and Arnie, or Witz, as we all know him now, have both since left the Miami Herald. Arnie retired and Tere left after 15 years when she had kids, but they stay in touch on Facebook. As for the headless skeleton in that car, I'm not sure, but sounds not good.
Next up, Todd Shaffer, who comes to us through our Pittsburgh StorySLAM, where we partner with public radio station WESA. Here's Todd Shaffer.
[cheers and applause]
Todd: [00:25:32] All right. So, I did something awful to my wife on her 40th birthday. [audience laughter] The only thing she told me for her 40th birthday was that she didn't want to party. I decided that was a perfect time to inaugurate my party planning skills and invite 85 people to our house for a surprise birthday party. [audience reaction] I've never, ever planned anything like that before, anything of that scale, any party planning. It's really stressful, when you're trying to get everything together. I was at the end of my rope, because a surprise party is basically like a long format lie that you have to sustain up until you spring the surprise and see how it goes.
I thought I had everything under control pretty well. Like, three days before the party, I come home from work, I walk in the door, and I can see a tarp in the kitchen, which isn't a good thing. I walk into the kitchen, and the wallpaper that had been on the wall that morning was hanging in strips on the floor. She said, "You know, there was a piece that was loose and I was sick of the wallpaper and I decided to just take it down." [audience chuckles] The 15-year-old neighbor's daughter is standing behind her mouthing, "Oh my God.” [audience laughter] Like, that's going to help.
And just to make sure that I run upstairs and hang myself, she goes, "I ordered 15 yards of mushroom manure for the landscaping. It's going to be here any minute. I told them to put it in the driveway." [audience laughter] So, she said, "We're not doing anything this weekend. We can paint the kitchen." [audience reaction] And I said, "Well, if we're painting the kitchen this weekend, maybe we don't need the mushroom manure. How about if I try to cancel that." And of course, it's too late, so I have to run outside-- I'm still in a suit. I run outside, I'm in the lot, in the vacant lot next door with a lawnmower running over bricks and rocks, trying to make a spot, so at least the horse shit isn't in the driveway [audience chuckles] where people have to walk through and come back in.
She's got all the paint chips laid out on the counter. She decided she wanted to paint the kitchen orange, which normally I would oppose with every fiber of my being, because orange is a safety color. It's not a kitchen color. [audience laughter] So, she's got all these laid out there. She points to this hideous orange, and I go, "That's great. I'm going to go get the paint right now." [audience laughter] So, I leave. I leave, and I'm backing out of the driveway, and I look over and it's literally steaming. There's this steaming mountain of horseshit [audience laughter] that's mocking me from the lot, saying, "I'm a metaphor for the next few days of your life." [audience laughter]
So, we're working on the kitchen, and it's 11 o’ clock, and she goes, "I'm going to go to bed." I was totally strung out and exhausted, but I'm like, "You know, I have a second wind. I think I'm going to work." So, I stay up all night, and I work all night, go to work the next morning, come home, start working in the kitchen, and that night, same thing. She's like, "I'm going to bed." I said, "I'm doing all right. I'm going to stay up for a little bit." I worked the entire night.
So, the morning of the party, the kitchen's done. It's painted like this horse colon orange. [audience laughter] And so, she leaves with a couple of her friends. They go to this day spa thing. My kids knew that she'd want to party. I tell my kids, "We're having a surprise party for mommy." My eight-year-old immediately goes, "Mom doesn't want a party. Why are we having a party?" [audience laughter] I'm going to tell them the truth. I go, "Look, for a nanosecond, I thought it was a good idea, and I started inviting people, and it got completely out of control, [audience laughter] and that's how the last two world wars started, and we're just going to do it." [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
I can tell, they're thinking, "Mommy's going to kill Daddy. Mommy's going to go to jail. What are we going to do?" [audience laughter] I said, "Just stop crying, and clean. Help me out." [audience laughter] She ends up coming back directly on time. It happens to be the same time a late arriving guest is standing in the front yard holding a potted plant, like an inexplicable sight. Like, [unintelligible 00:29:35] [audience laughter] and the catering truck pulls up at the same time. She still doesn't get that there's a surprise party going on. I fly out the door [audience laughter] to the woman with the potted plant, "Hey, come on in."
I walk and I ask the girls, "What's with that truck?" Like, they're going to know. I said, "I'll find out." So, I go over to him and I said, "It's a fucking surprise party that's just being surprised. Drive away," [audience laughter] which he does and I catch up to them back at the door. We walk in, and 85 people jump out and scream, "Surprise" I could tell by the look on her face that she would have been happier if they would have yelled, "Surprise" continued past her and sporked me into little bits [audience laughter] and said, "We're leaving now. We know you don't want us here." al
The party actually went really well. My wife pretended to have a great time, [audience laughter] and everybody else did have a great time. I thought that she would see how well the party was going, and all her friends were there, and everything would be fine. But she did really manage to hold a grudge to this very day. [audience reaction] [audience laughter] I'm not kidding. [audience chuckles] Really the moral of the story, is if you're going to have a surprise party, this is really more of a public service announcement than a story. If you're going to have a surprise party, don't do it. There's more productive things you can do with your time. You can volunteer. [audience laughter] Don't let friends have surprise parties.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:31:14] That was Todd Shaffer. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, their three kids and dogs. He writes bikes, flips houses, and volunteers with animals. And he swears that he has retired from surprise party planning, but his wife remains suspicious. Todd's kitchen, no longer orange.
Are any of these stories reminding you of stories of your own? That's what happens at Moth shows. You hear something, you think, "Oh yeah, that reminds me of that time." So, once you have that story in your head, think it through, make sure it has stakes, a strong beginning and ending, that it involves some sort of change. Then call our pitch line and give us a one-minute version. You can do it right on our website at themoth.org, or call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684.
[cheers and applause]
Our next storyteller is my friend Ray Christian, who told his story in Asheville, North Carolina.
[cheers and applause]
In Asheville, we partner with WCQS. This story takes place in Virginia, Circa 1971. Please be warned, this story includes an ugly racial slur. The theme of the evening was Firsts. Here's Ray Christian.
Ray: [00:32:24] I was the last boy in the troop to get his uniform. I was the last boy in the troop to pay his $10 to go to the big camp jamboree. Our troop was the last one selected out of all the troops in the whole state to go. More than 200 troops altogether. When we got there, we were the only black troop there. Now, as soon as you get there, one of the first activities that you need to participate in is the swimming test. The swimming test determines what activities you can participate in. Whether you can play with the boats, whether you can swim alone, go with the canoes, go on any kind of water activities at all. Every one of the boys in my troop failed the swim test. [audience chuckles]
I was the last kid in the last exercise, and the only black kid for the swimming test. The last test was treading water. I was treading water, and I watched the scoutmaster lifeguard point to the different boys and say, "You can get out. You can get out. You can get out." I tried to get out. He said, "No, no, no, you stay." Until another scoutmaster came up and he said to him, "How long has he been in that water?" Then he said to me, "You can get out." Well, now, I got the swimmer badge. But it didn't work out-- Well, work with me. [audience laughter] But it didn't quite work out the way I thought it would, because every time I would show up to get a boat, get a canoe, get in the swimming pool, I'd get yelled at, "Hey, stop. Let me see your swimmer tag." I would show it. They would say, "Oh." And then, I would walk away.
One time, I was swimming in the pool by myself in the deep end, and I heard one of the scoutmaster lifeguards yell out, "You, you, get out of that water. Get out of that water right now." I thought there was a crocodile, a snake, [audience chuckles] snapping turtle. And he was so frantic, he jumped in the water and he grabbed me by the arm. And I said, "Well, it must be something dangerous, because he's trying to pull me out. He's trying to save me." But I realized he wasn't trying to save me when he slapped me in my face, and he said, "Nigga, who told you could get in the pool?" I'm 11 years old, so I get out of the pool.
One of the last activities they have at the camp is the mile swim. I'm the only black Boy Scout out of thousands that's even eligible to try out for it. So, I do. I'm the last kid assigned to the last boat, because each one of us, about 10 in a group, would have to swim beside this boat. And if at any point you could give up or anything like that, you got inside the boat. 10 boats, they all move ahead, I'm the last one, we start going. You have to make three rounds around this big lake to equal up to one mile.
As soon as we start on the first lap, half the boys have already given up and gotten inside the boat. On the second lap, I was being traumatized by all the boys in the boats who were yelling at me, "Come on, man, you don't need to do this. Give up. Stop. Come on, get out of the water. Get in the boat." When I get around to the last and final lap, the third lap, I'm starting to get delirious. My arms start to feel like spaghetti. I almost can't move anymore. But I can look way in front of me about two football lengths, and I can see that other people are starting to get out of the water. I have so little energy left, and the boys are still yelling at me, "Come on, man, get up. Come on. Stop. Get out."
But I keep swimming, and I'm so exhausted, I can't even keep my eyes open because I don't have that much strength left. I close my eyes, I keep on stroking, stroking, stroking, and it seems like I'm not moving anywhere. Then, all of a sudden, I feel like a thousand hands on me at once. I'm snatched out the water, and I see all these brown arms, and everybody's yelling and screaming, and they're tossing me up in the air. I'm yelling and I'm crying, and I'm so happy. I'm the only black Boy Scout who had ever done it. [audience cheers and applause]
But in the big picture of things, what I did, it's not that important. It's not that significant. I wasn't the last Boy Scout to do it. I wasn't the fastest, I wasn't the smartest, I wasn't the prettiest. But on that day, in that place, at that time, one little black kid was first.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:36:43] Ray Christian is a retired paratrooper. He lives in Boone, North Carolina, with his wife, children, dogs, and chickens. To see a picture of Ray as an 11-year-old boy, the same age he was in this story, visit our website, where you can also find a link to his podcast. He drives a long way to get to The Moth StorySLAM in Asheville, North Carolina each month, and it pays off. At the time of this recording, he's won something like five StorySLAMs in a row. Unstoppable Ray.
When we come back, a story about a little girl from Louisville, Kentucky, who falls in love with flamenco dancing.
Jay: [00:37:17] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Jenifer: [00:38:34] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jenifer Hixson.
Our final story is from Mary Furlong Coomer. Mary tells stories at The Moth StorySLAM at Headliners in Louisville, Kentucky. When I first heard Mary's voice on the recordings they sent us back in New York, I wrote her a fan letter. She was an irreverent, wise, cracking Southern lady of a certain age, which is a demographic I find particularly irresistible. When I needed a lively story for a Mainstage show, I called on Mary. Here's Mary Furlong Coomer, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Mary: [00:39:09] I grew up thinking that a life partner and a dance partner should be the same person. Thank you, Fred and Ginger. [audience chuckles] I never had that much trouble finding anybody to marry me, until I gave it up myself as something of a youthful folly. Dance partners, while not exactly plentiful, were not totally absent either. And these days, even now, if I would like to dance, I bring out my corn-pone magnolia blossom accent. "Young man, I'm wondering if I could persuade you to bring some joy to my declining years [audience laughter] by dancing with me."
Now, I'm going to talk a lot about dancing. I don't want you to think I'm really a good dancer, a great dancer, or anything. I mean, I can hear the beat usually. We can see that I am not possessed of that classic dancer's body that makes us all wonder where they keep their internal organs. [audience laughter] I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and in my generation, gently reared young ladies were treated to tap and ballet lessons by their parents. Also in that parental package was attendance at the ballet. And in our case, in Louisville, Kentucky, once a year, José Greco came through with his flamenco company.
And even then, you could see a lot of flamenco dancing on The Ed Sullivan Show. I completely fell in love with that type of dancing. The castanets, the fans, the shawls, the loud clacking of the feet and everything. Of course, you couldn't study it back then, where I was from. But I felt that somehow or other this was mine. I just wanted to do that. And so, when we had our dance recital, and there was a gypsy-esque dance in that recital, and it was given to another child who got to wear the black and red costume. Probably could tell her right from her left. She was a better dancer, I have to say. But I was just devastated. And the fact that I was 12 years old and I'm still talking about it should [audience laughter] convince you that I'm serious about this whole flamenco thing. [audience laughter]
So, life happens, 30- or 40-years pass, and normal things. I had a wonderful child. I taught school. Things just go along. And flamenco was on that distant shore. And every now and then, you see a little something on TV or in a movie and think, yeah, I remember how I used to feel about wanting to do that. Then when I was about 65, moving right along, [audience laughter] I had a really rough time. I lost a little money. I think a lot of people did around that time. [chuckles]
I retired, and it felt very sudden to me. I met somebody who just knocked me off my perch, I have to say, and I thought, what is going on? I'm becoming an old lady. I have this huge crush on this man who seems to like me, too. Oh my God, I had the rest of my life figured out and this was not in it. But I didn't have to worry because nothing ever really came of it. It ended before it started. Now, of course, now I'm heartbroken. [chuckles] I'm like, “What am I going to do? Oh, no. Oh, dear.”
And so, I was very depressed. That kind of falling is one thing, but then I fell down the stairs, too. [audience laughter] Messed up my shoulder. I opened the freezer to get a frozen bottle of water out, and it fell on my toe, and I broke my toe. And over the years, I've done a little dancing, but now, I just hurt. My shoulder hurt, my toe hurt, my heart hurt. I was just really down and really sad. Even though in my depression and my weight gain and all that, I knew exercise was the answer to everything, but I also knew I wasn't going to do it because [audience laughter] I just hurt all over. It was really a really difficult time.
I felt really old. I felt spent. It was just really difficult time. But time passes, and I crawled up out of that hole somehow. I bought a Fitbit. [audience laughter] I was always very reluctant in this area, but I just pushed myself and forced myself. So, then I heard about this dance not too far from my house at this VFW post, and it turns out I went, and I was the youngest person there. [audience laughter] It wasn't really supposed to be a senior citizen dance. It was just supposed to be a dance, and they just all got old, [audience laughter] the ones who didn't die.
And so, they had this really big dance floor. This guy plays live music, not a band, but live music. He's alive. [audience laughter] I didn't really expect anybody to dance with me. And then, finally, this one lovely gentleman, he's very nice, he's 89. They're just so cute at that age. [audience laughter] He started asking me to dance and criticizing my hairdo. [audience chuckles] One night he said, "For a woman your age, you don't really have all that many wrinkles." [chuckles] Just sweet. [audience laughter]
So, that motivated me, and then you get a little momentum going. One day I'm sitting in my house on Facebook and ping, there's something on there from this girl I know. She wasn't directing it at me. She just said, "Well, is there anybody out there who wants to teach the senior citizen fitness class at the Y? We just can't find anybody to teach those people." I messaged her, I said, "Take that down right now and give me the number." [chuckles] I'm just thinking, why not? I had actually attended that class a few years before, and I thought I could probably maybe do that. Plus, it would get my sorry self out of the house two days a week, two classes on those two days.
She gave me the number, and two days later, I was hired. So, she said, "Now, we have quite a bit of training. You have to take CPR and those-- that thing I'm supposed to know the name of you know the fibrillator thing that's-- they're hanging all over the place. I had to learn how to-- please, don't-- [chuckles] please. I hope everybody's fine right now. But anyway, and then I drove up to Columbus, Ohio, to take the silver sneakers training. Silver sneakers are very strict. You're dealing with a fragile demographic here. I have to remind them three times every class to drink water, and I have to say, the chair is there if you need it and I have to do all this stuff.
So, finally, they let me teach. So, between the people on Sunday night, the dancers on Sunday night, and then my classes on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm supposed to be motivating them, but these people show up on those rolly things and all that stuff. And yes, they do die, but not in class. Yeah. [audience chuckles] But the thing is, it's not inactivity that's taking them down. It's something else, because they're dancing up to the end. They're working out up to the end. They're in their 80s and 90s. I find this very inspiring.
So, one day I was walking past Flamenco Louisville. We do have one of the finest flamenco schools in that whole area. And I thought to myself, okay, I've got the money, I've got the time, I believe I had the stamina. And look, there's the opportunity. So, I just went into Flamenco Louisville, and I said, "What's the story?" They said, "Well, we have a beginner-beginner class." And I thought, don't you dare say it's 8 o'clock in the morning, because even my love of flamenco, I don't know if I could do that. She said, "It's 1 o'clock on Saturday."
So, I showed up at 1 o'clock on Saturday for the beginner-beginner class. That was September of 2014. I'm still in the beginner-beginner class. [audience laughter] You don't get promoted until you learn a whole lot of stuff. [audience laughter] But I'm committed. "Progress, not perfection," I put that on a shirt. "Progress, not perfection." I never got worse at anything. I practiced. I didn't always get better, [audience chuckles] but I never got worse. So, every Saturday and sometimes every now and then, I have a private class. Paid for by the YMCA salary. [chuckles] And I just go. When I go to Spain in two months’ time, I will be going as a tourist. But in my heart, I will also be going as a dancer. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:50:13] That was Mary Furlong Coomer. Update on Mary's trip to Spain. She loved it. The food, the people, the scenery, the flamenco, all beautiful. And then, one night in Seville, she happened to be in a little pop-up pub during this big festival that happens in April. There was a great flamenco band playing, but nobody was dancing. Finally, she inquired, "Isn't someone going to dance?" They invited her to try.
And even though she wasn't dressed for the occasion, she was wearing crocs and an old black sweater, which is basically flamenco blasphemy, she worked up her courage and took the stage. Was she great? There's no footage, but she told me people really did go crazy with clapping at the end. So, I'm going to go with this. She was mind-blowingly incredible. All those years of yearning came together. A dream born circa 1948 finally come true. To see a picture of Mary wearing some of her proper flamenco garb, visit themoth.org. I hope you do, because she's really pretty cute.
That's it for The Moth Radio Hour. Thank you for tuning in, and hope you'll be back next week.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:51:25] Your host this hour was Jenifer Hixson. Jenifer also directed the stories in the show.
The rest of The Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Mooj Zadie. Thanks to WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Recording services by Argot Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Ben Harper, Guy Klusevcic, John Zorn, Lawless Music, Stellwagen Symphonette, and José Greco. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour is produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.
The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.