Host: Chloe Salmon
Chloe: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Chloe Salmon, your host for this week.
When I think about what it takes to be an engaged human being, standing up for what you believe in tops the list. To push for what you think is right requires the bravery to find your voice and the conviction to raise it, so others can hear and respond. In this week's episode, we have two stories of standing up and being heard.
Our first storyteller is Jan Stapleman. Jan told this at a StorySLAM in Denver, where theme of the night was Love Hurts. Here's Jan, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jan: [00:00:44] Little, tiny bit more.
Male Speaker: [00:00:46] Tiny bit more?
Jan: [00:00:48] Thank you. I was 17 years old, lying in a nightmare of pain in a hospital delivery room. I was surrounded by people dressed in white, but I was alone and terrified. I didn't know anything about giving birth, and obviously, even less about birth control. [audience laughter] Nobody was explaining anything to me. I weighed about 80-some pounds when I got pregnant at age 16, because I wanted so much to look like Twiggy. But I managed to give birth that night to almost nine-pound baby girl. [audience woo] My baby's father, who literally was the boy next door, said, “We'll get married.” But I didn't want to get married. We were two clueless teenagers. I knew I wasn't ready to be a mom.
Before we left the hospital, we stopped at the nursery window to see her. “Oh, my God, she was the most beautiful baby in the nursery.” We stood there holding onto each other and weeping, and then we walked away. We left her there knowing that the folks handling the adoption would be there soon. We went back to our lives, finished high school. I started college. We drifted apart, grew up and eventually started our own families. More than 30 years passed. Then one day, I got a phone call. My daughter had launched this epic search and her private investigator found me. I was thrilled.
We started writing letters, exchanging photos, talking on the phone. This heavy, dark secret I had been carrying around for more than 30 years fell away and was replaced with light, with the prospect of knowing and loving my daughter. She lived in a southern city with her husband, who's an executive. They had two little boys. I visited them. She visited me. She gave birth to a daughter. She's so like me in so many ways. She looks a lot like me, her voice is a lot like mine and she's strong in her opinions like I am.
There were some dark clouds gathering in the background, but I thought we could overcome them. Yes, she belonged to a conservative Southern Christian church. Whereas if I could be classified in any religion, a concept I reject, I guess I'd be closer to the Rainbow family. [audience laughter] It's true, her politics put her firmly on the right, whereas I lean far to the left. But it's okay, she’s my daughter. I figured all we have to do is just get to know, and love each other and everything will turn out just fine. What could go wrong?
So, I started employing diversionary tactics whenever our conversation veered toward any topic that might divide us. And it worked for a while. And then, she started thanking me in every conversation for being anti-abortion. “If you weren't against abortion,” she said, “I wouldn't be here.” I'm not against abortion if that means going back to the days when young women died, because their choices were disgrace or a back-alley abortion. But I didn't want to argue with her. I knew this topic was painful for her, so I was a coward. I was a coward. I didn't tell her the truth. I just avoided any topics that might divide us.
Usually, I'm outspoken about my beliefs, but I didn't want to argue with my daughter about this. There was a deep rift growing between the right and the left, and they were beginning to regard each other as the enemy. I couldn't let that happen between me and my daughter. She knew I was dodging the topic of abortion, so she pressed me during a phone call. I said, “Okay, so we might disagree about some things, but that's all right. We don't have to share all the same opinions. Let's embrace all the things that we have in common.” She burst into tears and yelled, “If I would have been conceived after Roe v. Wade, you would have killed me.” I didn't really remember that she was born before Roe v. Wade. [audience laughter] All I remembered was that as a teen, I knew about abortion, but I had no idea how to get one. I said, “But I didn't have an abortion, and I'm so glad I didn't.”
A few days after that phone call, she sent me an email and told me that she didn't respect my values, I could never be a mother to her. She told me to never try to contact her. I had lost my daughter again, and the pain was unbearable. I know she was striking out because she was hurting too. She grew up in a loving home, but always wondering why her birth parents walked away from that hospital without her. What could hurt more than that? Then she launches this search, perhaps picturing a Phyllis Schlafly type mom she could relate to. And instead, she finds me, an aging hippie more along the line of Gloria Steinem. [audience laughter] She finally finds me and I turn out to be the enemy.
After a few years, she sent me a letter at Christmas time. She apologized for hurting me. Well, what she wrote was that, as a Christian, she couldn't justify hurting someone like that. So, now we're in a period of detente. We exchange polite emails about the weather, the kids’ activities, our work. We don't talk about anything of consequence. We don't share our deepest thoughts, beliefs, dreams. But as long as we're in touch, there's hope, right? I figure I'm going to do everything I can to keep that door open. Maybe this search isn't over. Maybe if we just keep talking, someday we can get past the pain and find our way to love.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe: [00:07:27] That was Jan Stapleman. A self-described word nerd. Jan has channeled her passions for writing and editing into a career in communications and publishing. She says that when she's not obsessing about grammar and punctuation, she's likely hiking or working out. Jan is happiest when she's summiting peaks, exploring canyons and backpacking wherever the trail leads her.
Our next storyteller is Frank Chalmers. Frank told this at a StorySLAM in London, where the theme of the night was Busted. Here's Frank, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Frank: [00:08:04] I hope you're not expecting anything professional like the last act. [audience holler] When I came to London as a student, I didn't expect the streets to be paved with gold or even crack cocaine. [audience laughter] But my arrival coincided with the coming to power of one of the most vicious and ideological governments that this country has ever seen. And overnight, I stopped being an economics graduate and became a political activist.
Lots of my friends were chucked on the dole. We were involved in campaigns against nuclear weapons, apartheid. We were acting for civil liberties. We were pretty good. We had an office. We thought we were really great activists. Our campaign slogan was “Jobs, not the bombs.” [audience chuckle] One day, an anonymous leaflet was pushed under the door and it said, “The Prime Minister will be giving an inaugural lecture at The Church of St. Lawrence Dury next to the Guildhall in the city of London.”
Now, this was the Prime Minister who had called Nelson Mandela, a terrorist, who had refused to introduce sanctions against apartheid, who was cozying up to President Reagan, who was introducing or planning to introduce neutron bombs which killed or could kill millions of people but would leave property intact.
So, my friend and I went down to this church. I've never seen anything so rich in my life. We walked in. There was a balcony above us. TV cameras from all over the world were setting up. There was a long aisle in front with pews on either side. There was a side chapel that could hold hundreds more. And at the bottom, there was a lectern being set up for the Prime Minister. We were young and we thought, you know, we've got to do something. This isn't right.”
So, we decided we would have a protest the next day and try to find a place halfway down the aisle. So, we met in a pub in Clerkenwell, in a room above a pub. We planned it all out. A guy called Terry was going to give a speech, and the rest of us were going to stand up and sing, Give Peace a Chance. Eight of us decided that we could do it, because we were the only eight who had a suit or a nice shirt and tie. [audience laughter] We were going to come the next day an hour early to get there. Terry was going to make a speech. I wrote the speech for him. We were all going to sing.
So, we turned up an hour early at this church. No chance. It was packed. People had been there for hours. All the rich and famous were there. We couldn't even get in the door. And then, the vicar came to close the door and he saw how disappointed we were. We were the only young ones there. Everyone else was in fur coats and pinstripe suits. And he said, “Don't be disappointed, my children. I'll find you something.” [audience laughter] And he took us in and he looked. There were no seats. And I thought, there's not even any room at the inn here, never mind at the manger. And then he said, “I know. Come, follow me.” And he took us right down the front to these choir boxes on either side. [audience laughter] And I thought, this is a setup. This is a setup here. [audience laughter]
] So, I was sitting with Terry at these choir boxes. After a while, you could feel the sweat dripping, the hair was starting to rise on the back of our necks. And then, this guy came and stood behind us. I recognized him. He was a Special Branch officer that always opened the door of the Prime Minister's car. But he stood behind us this time, and he had his hand in his breast pocket and I thought, we've had it here. Terry suddenly opened this big Bible that was sitting in front of us and he said-- I said, “What is it?” He said-- And these are the words I'd never heard before. He said, “I've lost me bottle.” I said, “Pardon?” “I've lost me bottle.”
Now, I had no idea which bottle he was talking about. [audience laughter] I come from Scotland. I'd never heard this phrase. [audience laughter] I said, “What?” He said, “I can't do that. I can't do that. I've been worrying all night about this. I can't do it.” I thought, oh my God. Oh my God, what are we going to do? All I was worrying about was remembering the words for Give Peace A Chance. [audience laughter] They're pretty easy. So, I looked around and there was a great big pulpit behind us about 10 or 12 feet in the air. And I thought, I've got to do something.
Just then the Prime Minister came in, and I counted to three. As soon as Mrs. Thatcher put her hands on the lectern, I ran up into the pulpit. And it was silent. I remembered the speech, because I'd written the bloody thing. I said, “How can you call yourself a Christian when you're supporting apartheid in South Africa? How can you call yourself a Christian when you're going to consign a million young people to the dole?” It all came out. There was silence in the church. Nobody knew what to do, because we weren't throwing eggs, we weren't swearing, we weren't fighting. I must have gotten 30 seconds of free speech. All the TV cameras from all over the world were going like this.
And then, suddenly, these kids that were with me stood up and started singing, All we are saying [audience laughter] is give peace--" It was absolutely amazing. And suddenly. I felt these hands on my back. I turned around, it was the Chief Superintendent. He said, “Will you come quietly or otherwise--?” I said, “I'll come quietly” because we'd done our job. They took us out and had us huckled up the middle of the aisle.
Terry, of course, walked out with his hands up [audience laughter] like this. He was on the front page of the Daily Mail, [audience laughter] and the Daily Mirror and the Guardian. The next day, it was over all the press. It was on every TV bulletin. But we were busted and then released, because we hadn't done anything illegal. We'd done an honorable thing. The moral of this story is, if you're going to be busted, don't do it behind a mask. Do it for something in public that you feel proud of, and then you can get busted free as well.
[cheers and applause]
Moderator: [00:14:23] Frank, everybody. Frank.
[Been asleep too long plays]
Chloe: [00:14:34] That was Frank Chalmers. When he was young, Frank expressed his political views through nonviolent direct action in London. Now, having retired, he uses music. In fact, in anticipation of the Climate Action Summit in Glasgow, Frank's band released Been Asleep Too Long, the protest song you're listening to right now. As Frank says, “You can retire from work, but you can't retire from your principles.”
[been asleep too long continues]
To see some photos and flyers from Frank's history of protest and to listen to the rest of this song, head over to our website, themoth.org/extras.
That's all for this episode. Thank you to our storytellers for sharing with us, and to you for listening. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Davy: [00:15:24] Chloe Salmon is a producer and instructor for The Moth's community and education programs and a director on the Mainstage. Her favorite Moth moments come on show days when the cardio is done, the house lights go down and the magic settles in.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, Julia Purcell and me, Davy Sumner.
The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
All Moth stories are true as remembered by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, visit our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.