Host: Alex Román Peters
Alex: [00:00:02] Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Alex Román Peters, associate producer at The Moth and your host for this episode.
There's something special about the moment right before somebody tells a story. They step on stage, take a breath and the audience is on the edge of their seat waiting for the tale to begin. In that moment, the story could be anything. It's all possibility. The only thing more magical is when the story actually starts and it knocks the audience's socks off.
These remarkable moments happen at our live shows all over the world, from Miami to Melbourne, from London to Louisville. This episode will be visiting Louisville, host to so many magical Moth moments, and playing two stories from that city's StorySLAM.
I was lucky enough to visit Louisville a few weeks back. My fresh off of an early flight, admittedly somewhat grumpy self immediately fell in love with the people that I met in Louisville.
One storyteller, Alan, goofed around a bit during our soundcheck. He had fun at the mic and helped shake off some of that pre-show energy. Alan later found me before the show to apologize for his biting sense of humor and hoped that I didn't take it personally. I immediately thought of Alan's playful, benign jokes at the mic and thought, “Alan, I think you're the nicest person I know.”
It wasn't just Alan. I could see and feel this entire group rooting for each other, joyful, truly delighting in one another's success throughout the evening. And there were successes aplenty. This group, this audience, was connected through each other's stories.
Our first Louisville story is from Ethan Sweetland-May, who told us at an open-mic StorySLAM, where theme of the night was Happy. Here's Ethan, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Ethan: [00:01:47] Just a little bit. Just a little. So, the only reason why eight-year-old me would be in the cereal aisle at 05:00 PM on a Friday night and jazzed out of my mind, because I'm about to have a weekend with grandma and grandpa.
Now, you understand, being the fourth born of 11 kids, getting to pick your own cereal-- and not only your own cereal, but a sugar cereal. When your mom is like a granola and natural peanut butter in the five-gallon bucket that you have to mix with like a drill-- [audience laughter]
Every time I did a sleepover at grandma and grandpa's, I got to pick my own cereal. It could be anything, and we didn't have to tell mom. And so, I was in the checkout with grandma and I had my Frosted Flakes. That would have been enough. The fact that I was going to wake up in the morning on the couch in their den, and I was going to turn on the TV and I could watch--
I had TV, and I was going to watch cartoons and I could watch cartoons. All that was great. That was expected. But that Saturday, my grandfather, my grandfather was going to teach me how to shoot. My grandfather was a Golden Gloves boxer. He was a race car driver, a professional race car driver. In his garage, he had one of the old no-roll cage everyone died, but the guy that won like race cars. [audience laughter]. He was a hunter. He had three deer heads in his house mounted on the walls. They lived on a lake. He was a fisherman. He could do everything. And he was going to teach me how to shoot. And I was pumped.
I woke up early. I ate the whole box of cereal. [audience laughter] I was ready when he came down the stairs and I watched him drink coffee out of the percolator. We went to one of his friend's house. My grandpa's friends are all people like him. They're all like 40-year retirees of plumbers and steamfitters. They drive trucks, but not douchey ones. They are like the salt of the earth. We farmed and worked and we have hemorrhoids and we don't brag. [audience laughter] I was the only kid there. I was eight years old, and I'm jazzed on sugar and I am so nervous as he puts the actual shotgun into my hands.
I watched Red Dawn. I've got the basic idea. I saw Patrick Swayze do it. And so, I think I'm doing it right as I kneel down, and I hold it about an inch in front of my shoulder and I'm looking down-- When I shoot, it knocks me all the way over onto my back. The gun goes across the gravel. His friends all duck. [audience laughter] And I burst into tears and run to his truck.
After about 20 minutes, he comes and gets in without saying a word and he was like, “That's okay. It's like that sometimes.” [audience laughter] e drove back to his house. I was devastated. I was so let down. It was like a moment to shine with grandpa. And so, I did, what, the only thing left to do in the afternoon, I went down to the lake on the little dock and I was fishing. I was okay at fishing for bluegill. I've got a cane pole and I'm fishing for bluegill and grandpa's mowing the grass and I'm just sad and I'm just like, “I blew this moment with my grandpa.”
Out of nowhere, I hear the lawnmower stop. He comes down onto the deck, and he says, “Hey, catch me one of those bluegill.” And I'm like, chuckles] Here's the dough ball. I put it on the hook. And five seconds flat, I can catch a bluegill. I'm eight years old. I'm good at this. He pulls out this case, and he sets it down, and he unzips it and he pulls out a knife, this big, long knife with a heavy black handle. I'm standing there holding the bluegill, not totally sure what's about to happen. He takes the bluegill from me, and he sets it down and I'm like, “I catch a bluegill. Bluegill is back in the water. I'll probably catch him later.” We're basically playing tag. [audience laughter]
He puts the bluegill on the deck and he goes wham. There's just blood. It's a dead bluegill. I didn't scream, but I almost screamed. He starts cutting it into strips, just cuts it into strips like a crazy person. He cuts it into cubes. He puts a big cube of it on my cane pole, and he makes it way deeper than I ever do, and he drops it into the water and he says, “Come get me.”
And so, I'm sitting there holding this like, “No bluegill are coming for their buddy,” and I'm just watching it, not totally sure what's about to happen. After about 15 minutes, I see these big, dark shadows coming down the inlet. These blue cats, these blue catfish know what's up. They know what's up, because they've been doing this with my grandpa for decades, probably. [audience laughter] They comes right up to the dock, and like one eye floats out of the water, I swear to God, and it looks at me and he's like, “Huh” and goes back down.
I am shaking. The lawnmower is running and I'm like, “Just keep going, buddy. Don't stop for me.” He goes down the inlet. And for a minute, I think I'm safe. He doubles back, and I just watch him go down into the moss. For like three seconds, nothing happens. And then, vroom and he goes. And I am like-- I'm tall now. I was not that big. He's pulling me to the edge of the deck, and I am screaming for my grandfather, I'm like, “Grandpa. Grandpa.” [audience laughter]
He doesn't hear me. I am locked into a fight with Moby-Dick. He's like for revenge. My palms are sweating. This little cane pole is bent in half and sliding out of my hands. I'm just like, “If I lose this pole, I will have to run away. I will have to get in this boat, and go down the end to somebody else and find new grandparents.” [audience laughter] At last, I hear the lawnmower stop and I'm like, “Grandpa. Grandpa.” He comes down, and he takes the pull from me, and just old man strength wrenches this blue cat in, and pulls it up out of the water and he's like, “Here, take this.” And I'm like [makes gestures]
I put my hand where his hand is, and I get it on the lip and I'm holding it. He steps back and reaches the black bag. He's got a little Polaroid camera, a little back bag, he's like, “Hold that up.” I'm holding it up, got a smile for him and he takes a picture. I have this picture, this blue cat about as long as my torso and you can see just this part of my smile. That's the only thing I really have to remember that day by this little moment of smiling, my grandpa helped me get a win. Thank you. [audience cheers and applause]
Alex: [00:08:28] That was Ethan Sweetland-May. Ethan has loved telling stories ever since he was very young, even when they have to be true. He enjoys cheering for racing and Louisville City FC, running campaigns for D&D and riding motorcycles.
Whether you're a native of Louisville or someone who says it Louisville, a sincere thank you, by the way, to the person who emailed us to correct our pronunciation. We have themed open-mic StorySLAMs in cities all over the world. You can find our upcoming shows, themes and dates by visiting our website at themoth.org/events.
At the Louisville GrandSLAM, I met a storyteller who grew up in Kentucky, but spent 10-years in New York, just down the block from where my partner lives today. We would have shared the same subway stop and gone to the same local pub. But here we were, meeting some 750 miles away from that pub at a theater in Louisville.
As our next story shows, Louisville is special. This one's from one of our annual GrandSLAMs, where winners from the local open-mic StorySLAMs compete for the title of storytelling champion in their city. Here's Trevor Nourse live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Trevor: [00:09:42] Three of us went into the cave that day. Yeah. I get a little fuzzy on details, but I know Jamie was there, because he's the one who threw the rock. I know my friend. Terry, was there, because he kept going on about his watch. My friend, Terry, was a techie before that was really a thing. He had just gotten this new watch, Timex, it had come out with this Indiglo watch line. This watch had this new cool feature. You hit a button, and it lit up this fluorescent bluish green color.
A funny thing. I told some kids this story and they all wanted to know, “Did the watch have GPS, [audience laughter] or could you play games on the watch?” [audience laughter]
I said “No, it was the 1980s. The watch lit up. That's what it did.” [audience laughter] They weren't impressed, but we thought it was cool.
Since I was the only one who had been into the cave before with the older kids, I had the flashlight and I led the way. Now, the entrance to the cave was a rite of passage all on its own. It was less than 30 inches in diameter. It was a 40-foot claustrophobic crawl that not everybody could make. But for those who did, it was worth it, because it then opened up into this massive ballroom sized cavern. It had all these connecting tunnels that led to other caverns. There was a steep drop off section with a shallow ledge that forced you to hug the wall as you maneuvered across. There was even an underground river.
We had made it just about that far when we started to hear noises. We heard these squeaking, scratching, rustling noises. So, I shined my light towards the sound and the ceiling. And there were bats. There were 50 bats, a 100 bats. There could have been a 1,000 bats [audience laughter] hanging from the top of that cave. That's when Jamie threw the rock. [audience laughter]
Now, I don't know if Jamie actually hit a bat, but he might as well have, because those bats got pissed. [audience laughter] Those bats descended into that cavern like a big black bat tornado. I don't know where I got the thought. I don't know if I read it in a book or if I heard it in a movie, but my only thought was that bats attack the hair of the head. And so, I fell to the ground and I threw my hands up to protect my head. Somewhere in the midst of all of that bat frenzy attack, yelling, screaming, calamity and commotion, I dropped the flashlight. [audience laughter] It went out and it was dark. It was pitch black, jet black. It was deathly black.
Now, apart from being home to some of the most magnificent cave systems in the world, a lesser-known fact about southcentral Kentucky, is that it's also full of ghosts. [audience laughter] The ghost of a well-to-do southern debutante who in her vanity and anger cursed the sky and God above and was struck down by lightning. The ghost of a freed slave who was killed in a clearing at the end of a dirt road in the old county.
On one of my earlier forays into the cave, the older kids had told me another ghost story. They told me a story about an awkward shy boy named Lonnie who was lured into the cave by some of the older kids of his day, kids who played a prank, a prank that went tragically wrong. And according to the legend, Lonnie never made it out of that cave. [audience laughter]
It was right then, with my head full of ghost stories that something appeared before me there in the darkness, I seen a face floating there in the darkness. I was frozen stiff. I reeled back in shock when the face spoke. What the face said was, “You dropped the flashlight in the river.” [audience laughter] I had three reactions, the first of which was confusion, followed quickly by realization and relief. I was relieved when I realized that the face that I saw there floating in the darkness was not the face of the ghostly face of a boy named Lonnie, but the face of my friend, Terry, illuminated by the glow of the in the Indiglo watch. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
It would be eight years before I would become a soldier in the United States army and get the night navigation training, I could have used that day. [audience laughter] But I'd get a crash course, because the light of the watch only allowed us to see a few feet in front of us, so we were forced to crawl most of the way, clutching tightly to each other's belt loops. We encountered several creepy crawlers. It took us twice as long to get out as it did to get in, but we were able to find our way out of the darkness by the light of the Indiglo watch. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
Our adventures didn't end there at the cave. There would be many more close calls and narrow escapes, but somehow, we managed to survive those restless and reckless southern Kentucky summers. I don't know, if there ever really was a boy named Lonnie, but if there was, I hope he found his guiding light as well. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Alex: [00:15:37] That was Trevor Nourse. By day, Trevor does work climbing trees. The highest one was 125ft. He still loves exploring out of the way places all over his home state of Kentucky and the world at large.
Remember, you can find Louisville's StorySLAM dates at themoth.org/events, where there'll also be details about all of our other open mics and shows. We'll also have a link in our episode description. That's it for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope to see you and hear your story soon.
Marc: [00:16:11] Alex Román Peters is proud to be a lifelong New Yorker. Yes, Staten Island is part of New York City. She is a firm believer in the kindness of strangers, the power of live performance and the restorative properties of diner coffee.
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, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant-Walker, Lee Ann Gullie and Aldi Kaza.
The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themost.org/giveback. All Moth Stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers.
For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.