Host: Dame Wilburn

Dame: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dame Wilburn. As graduation rolls around and the academic school year comes to an end, we're thinking about the lessons you learn in school, outside of the classroom. 

When I went to high school, I got caught in that middle period between neon-colored clothes and Jheri curls. And I got to tell you, I did not show up for my first day looking my best. But by the end of the of high school, I'd also managed to take that hairdo into the pool and lost most of my hair to chlorine damage. And that's when I figured out that short hair could actually be a personality trait. 

We have two stories for you this week. First up, Joanna Courteau. Joanna told this story at a GrandSLAM in Ann Arbor in 2017. Here's Joanna. 

[cheers and applause] 

Joanna: [00:01:00] Hi. [audience chuckles] You can tell by my hat that I'm very bashful. And this is a story of how bashful I really am. [audience chuckles] You cannot imagine the amount of courage it took. But my bashfulness was especially noticeable when I was in middle school and in high school. And in middle school, I was so bashful that I would do anything to avoid talking to other people. I would hide. I would cross the street. I would hide under the bed anywhere, anytime and I would actually snarl. [audience chuckles] I was awful. I wasn't nice at all. I was mean. But this all came to an end one day. 

Well, what I must explain to you is I grew up in Brazil, where it's really difficult not to be part of a group. So, all my neighbor kids were part of a group. All my classmates were part of a group, everybody but me. And no matter how much they tried to get me, draw me out, I drew in. 

But this one day, we were all invited, my class was to a military academy. We were going to be told how wonderful military life is. [audience laughter] But I guess no one believed it, because no one came out to talk to us. We were standing there in a hallway doing nothing and just getting in trouble. As you well might imagine, teachers had no control of us. We were wild, except for me I was hiding into the wall. [audience chuckles] 

Finally, this impressive gentleman emerged from one of the doors. He had 100 stars and he was very scary looking and very severe, and he just screamed at us. He said, “You guys better behave or else--” And I thought of or else. What does it mean? The Gulag Archipelago? I was just reading The House of the Dead by Dostoevsky. [audience chuckles] I was so afraid, I thought I'd better leave that place before the military police get me. So, I just walked right out of the building, and guess what? That's all I remember of that story. And the rest of what I tell you is what other people have told me. 

So, apparently, I walked right into the path of a car. I was hit by the car so hard that I flew 40ft in the air. My head landed on the side of the curb. And from what they told me later, it cracked like a watermelon. And the doctors in the ER said, “Why? Her brain injuries are too severe. There's no way we can get her cured. So, let's just clean her up, bandage her up, put her in a room for her family and friends to visit her.” Well, like family, okay, but what friends? [audience laughter] I didn't have any friends and I didn't want any friends. 

But anyway, unbeknownst to me, all those kids whom I left facing The Gulag Archipelago came to visit me every day after school. They milled around my room. They tickled me, they talked to me, because they couldn't tell the difference. I was as unresponsive as ever. [audience laughter] And so, they milled around every day until it was time to go home. 

And then, on the third or fourth day of the coma, kids are in my room, they're milling around and one of the kids come-- They were sitting on my bed in tickling me. One of the kids tickles me under the chin and says, “Oh, you are not in a coma. You are just pretending.” I bolted right up [audience laughter] and I said, “I, too, am in a coma. [audience laughter] I am not pretending.” 

And so, the kids told me everything that happened, all the details of the accident and how they weren't really worried, because although my head cracked like a watermelon, my brains didn't come out. So, they figured I was okay. [audience laughter] We had such a wonderful love feast. There, I was, surrounded by these friends I never wanted, but now I love them. It was really amazing. 

So, two months later, I went back to school. I could say I went back to school to resume my normal life. But my normal life, remember, was unsocial loner. And now, I had become a groupie. And not only a groupie, but a groupie with a passion and with cause. I was involved in everything. I tried to save the world then and have done so ever since. I can only echo Margaret Mead when I say when I express my gratitude to that bunch of determined kids who not only saved my life, but also changed my world. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause] 

Dame: [00:07:06] That was Joanna Courteau. Her almost fatal Car accident transformed her into a groupie and a social activist. You could check out some photos of Joanna in the extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org. 

When I was in middle school, we ended up having a basketball team. I went to an artsy school. The idea was to make us more social, because there was only 200 of us in the whole school and about 10 of us in the high school. I ended up playing basketball, but mostly because I wanted to impress my mother, because I have no athletic skill, like the things you need for basketball are running and dribbling and being able to breathe while you're running and carrying and I had none of that. 

I ended up deciding that the only thing I was really good at was enforcement and being dangerous, so I pretty much just attacked any girl that came into the paint, pretty much got the name enforcer. And then, my stats for the end of the year was two total points, six technical fouls and 32 fouls. And I stand by that record. 

Up next, we have Gabe Mollica. Gabe told this story at a New York City StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Music. Here's Gabe. 

[applause] 

Gabe: [00:08:29] When I was a little kid, I would sometimes go to the varsity football games in my town, and I would watch the football team play and I would think, maybe one day that could be me representing my town in front of the fans, scoring a touchdown and hearing the Garden City High School fight song [imitating the song lyrics] and then it would repeat. [audience laughter] And by the time I got to middle school, I had a whole plan. It was flawless logic. One, if I join the football team, football would make me cool. And the second part was, I was a fat kid. And so, joining the football team would make me thin. And that combination of cool and thin would get me a girlfriend and I would have no problems for the rest of my life. [audience laughter] 

And the first day of practice happens, and it turns out the football equipment, there's a lot of it. There are thigh pads, and knee pads, and hip pads, and a butt pad, and a cup and a thing that holds it together called the girdle and a rope belt. None of this I knew. And so, I got to football practice and I just shoved it all in there and tied the belt. I ran out and I would go into my three-point stance, and my pads were falling out of my pants and my ass was hanging out and they started to laugh at me. 

And in that moment, I thought, this is not how you become cool. I hate this workout. This is not how I'm going to become thin. Do I even really need a girlfriend? [audience laughter] And I quit. This stayed with me. I was a quitter now. I was somebody who wasn't tough enough, wasn't man enough, wasn't something enough. When JV football tryouts came two years later, I was ready. 

I trained all summer. I found what are the requirements to play JV football. You have to run a mile in nine minutes. I got it down to eight. You have to be able to bench press your body weight. I was 185 pounds. I could do 130, but I tried. [audience laughter] And you have to do a certain number of push-ups and a certain number of sit ups. I remember training all summer. I gave up soda in between commercial breaks of Whose Line Is It Anyway? I would do push-ups and sit-ups [audience laughter] to be more fit than Drew Carey. [audience laughter] 

I'm ready to have a new leaf in high school, being thin and cool and having a girlfriend. And the second day of practice, we're doing bear crawls. I'm not prepared for this. I didn't train for this. I rip off my helmet and I'm throwing up and they're laughing at me again. And the next day, I quit and I can't do it. And so, now, this weight is on me that I quit things, that I'm not good enough. 

And two weeks later, high school starts, ninth grade. I start getting sick from school, so I can go home. I can't do any homework. I'm just sad all the time. I'm not depressed. I'm just sad. And in my lowest point, I tell my mom, “Mom, I just wish we could all be in heaven,” because I didn't have the words to say, “Mom, I'm sad.” And of course, she took me to a therapist and that didn't really work. Nothing was working until I met Mr. Ludwig, the choir director. 

And that year, for whatever reason, thank God, they needed one freshman boy to join the tenor section of the chamber choir, the varsity choir. And that year, that was me. And suddenly, I had friends who were cool and wanted to make music, and they had cars and they invited me places and they didn't care that I had quit football. And the chamber choir led to the vocal jazz, and the vocal jazz led to the fall plays, and the fall plays led to the spring musicals, where two years later I was cast as Conrad Birdie. I lost weight, so I could fit into my gold lame pants. [audience laughter] 

And that night at the cast party, I had my first kiss. I was on top of the world. I didn't realize how much I had changed, how much I had grown from that quitter, from that kid who wasn't enough until the fall of my senior year of high school when the Garden City Trojans went undefeated and played in the Long Island championship game. And I was there in uniform with the rest of the trumpets and the marching band [audience laughter] finishing every touchdown with bup, buh, bup buh, bup, buh, bup. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause] 

Dame: [00:13:10] That was Gabe Mollica. Gabe went on to major in music at Hamilton College and volunteer with the Pride of Westmoreland Marching Band for two state championship winning seasons. He now performs stand up and stories all over New York. His first one-man show, Gabe Mollica: The Whole Thing has run at the Magnet Theater and soon the Edinburgh French Festival. To see a photo of Gabe in the high school band, head to our website, themoth.org. 

That's our show. Thank you for listening. And on behalf of The Moth, have a story-worthy week. 

Julia: [00:13:44] Dame Wilburn is a longtime storyteller and host at The Moth. She's also the chief marketing director for Twisted Willow Soap Company and host of the podcast Dame's Eclectic Brain. 

Dame: [00:13:54] Podcast production by Julia Purcell and Argo Studios. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.