Host: Meg Bowles
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Meg: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. And in this hour, we bring you three stories of history and tradition, or more specifically, the ways people are often restricted by these legacies, especially when they're dictated by law.
Attorney Michael Steinberg told this first story at an evening we produced at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York. Here's Michael Steinberg, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Michael: [00:00:42] In 1997, I was appointed legal director of the ACLU of Michigan.
[cheers]
It was the honor of my life. But I had considerable anxiety about whether I was up to the task. You see, I viewed the ACLU as being the organization responsible for keeping our country true to its stated values of freedom and equality and democracy. It was a tall order, and there's a lot of pressure. Plus, it seemed like the ACLU legal directors of other state affiliates were all graduates of Harvard or Yale Law School, and many had already argued cases in the US Supreme Court. Me, I had been a high school teacher and a soccer and basketball coach, and I did a little political organizing before I went to a state law school and started a very small private practice. I had no idea how it ever matched the accomplishments of my colleagues.
My worst fear was I would do something stupid and they'd laugh at that imposter in Michigan. But being the coach that I was, I decided to give myself a pep talk, and I said, “Steinberg, you may not have the fancy credentials of your colleagues, but there's nobody, nobody who works hard than you or cares more about social justice than you. And sure, you're going to be working around the clock for little pay and you're not going to have any fun. [audience laughter] But this is your opportunity of a lifetime to make a difference. So, stop whining and get in there and kick some civil liberties butt.” [audience laughter] And I said, “Okay, coach, put me in. I'm ready.” [audience laughter]
Everything went great for the first year. I was defending affirmative action at the University of Michigan in a case that eventually went to the US Supreme Court. I was fighting for racial justice, and women's rights, and LGBT rights and immigrant rights. Everything was going as planned until in the summer of 1998, I get a call from this guy who says his name is Timothy Boomer. He wants our help, because he was charged with a crime for swearing.
I rolled my eyes and I said, “This is not why I came to the ACLU.” But he insisted on telling the story, and he was canoeing down a river in northern Michigan when his canoe hit a rock. And he capsized. His friends were laughing at him, and he was playfully splashing them and he admitted to using some choice words. And then, out of the blue, another canoe comes paddling up, and it's a cop. He issues him a ticket for swearing in front of women and children. [audience laughter]
At this point, I thought the call was a practical joke. It wouldn't have been the first time that friends had called up and pretending like they wanted my help. [audience laughter] But he seemed serious. So, I said, “Okay, Mr. Boomer, somebody will be back in touch with you.” When I hung up, I did some quick research. And sure enough, on the book, still in Michigan was a law from the 1890s that made it a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail for using improper, indecent or immoral language in the presence of women or children.
I called Boomer back and I said, “This is outrageous. We're going to make these criminal charges go away.” I tell myself, we're going to make them go away quickly, so I can get back to my real cases. I call up the prosecutor and I said, “What are you doing, charging this man with this ancient law that's clearly unconstitutional? I'm with the ACLU, and we'd like you to dismiss the charge.” He said, “The ACLU? I've never gotten a call from the ACLU before. [audience laughter] I'm sorry, we can't dismiss the charges, but we'll make Boomer a deal. All he has to do is plead guilty and not get in trouble again for a year, and we'll have the judge dismiss the case.”
So, I call Boomer up. And mind you, when I call potential clients, I'm usually urging them to stand on their principles and fight the power. But this was a different case. I say, “Mr. Boomer, this sounds like a pretty good deal. You can be done with this fiasco and you won't run the risk of having a criminal conviction following you around for the rest of your life.” Boomer pauses for a minute, and he decided to stand on his principles and he said, “Let's fight this thing.” And I'm stuck representing him. [audience laughter]
So, I call up a volunteer lawyer, one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state. And luckily, he readily agreed to help, because I thought he would take care of most of the work and I could focus on my important cases and maybe the case would go away quietly. But then, the media got wind of the case, and it began to blow up. I had been used to doing interviews with local press about ACLU cases. But this case instantly became a national sensation. Mainly, I think, because they dubbed Timothy Boomer the “Cussing Canoeist.” [audience laughter]
So, I'm working away one day and I get a call from MSNBC. They want me to come down to the studio in Detroit late that afternoon to do a live show about the Cussing Canoeist case. And I said, “I'm sorry, I took the Vanpool to work today. If I come down to do the interview, I won't be able to get home.” And they said, “Oh, don't worry.” They sent a stretch limousine to pick me up. [audience laughter] I had never been in a limousine before.
They whisked me down to the studio, they put powder on my face, so it wouldn't shine, they mic me up, the bright lights come, and all of a sudden, I'm on national television. I'm nervous at first, but I begin to hit my stride. I talk about how un-American it is to have speech police lurking in the bushes, and how dangerous it is to have the state criminalize a whole range of speech that's commonly used by most Americans.
The interview went well, but the press kept calling. National Public Radio, The New York Times. My mom called me and she said, “Hey, I heard you talking about the Cussing Canoeist case on the BBC.” [audience laughter] But then, I started getting calls from other state ACLU legal directors. And they said, “What are you doing in Michigan?” [audience laughter] I'm getting calls from people in my state, they say that want me to represent them on swearing cases. “And who the hell is the Cussing Canoeist?” It was my worst nightmare come true. I felt like I was an embarrassment to the ACLU, to my colleagues, but I didn't have much choice because we had already committed to Boomer and we had an ethical duty to continue.
And besides, the media storm began to subside, until [chuckles] I get a call from an attorney from Court TV. And he says, “Court TV wants to cover the case from gavel to gavel.” And he just wanted to make sure that I didn't have an objection to his motion to bring TV cameras into the courtroom. And I thought, of course, I have an objection. This case is ruining my life. [audience laughter] But I told him the ACLU, as an organization that treasures freedom of the press and transparency, does not have an objection. [audience laughter]
And so, on June 10th, 1999, with considerable dread, I walked with Timothy Boomer and our volunteer attorney into the so-called courtroom for the trial of the Cussing Canoeist. [audience laughter] Despite thinking that this is the most absurd case in the history of the country, I had to project an air of seriousness, because the judge and the jury was taking the case seriously, and the fate of our clients lay in their hands.
The trial started out great until the prosecutor decided to call his key witness. It was a man who was canoeing with his wife and child near Boomer on that fateful day. And eventually, he asked the witness, “Okay, sir, what did Mr. Boomer say when he fell out of the canoe?” And the man who had been very shy up to that point looked up at the judge and he said, “Your Honor, I can't say those words. I'm a Christian man.” And the judge looked back at him and said, “It's going to be okay, sir. I'm sorry, but you don't have any choice. You're under oath and you must tell us what Mr. Boomer said when he fell out of the canoe.”
So, this supposed shy man, without being prompted, decides to stand up in the witness stand. [audience laughter] He starts screaming at the top of his lungs, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” [audience laughter] And the prosecutor says, “Okay, sir. Okay, sir, you can sit down now.” [audience laughter] “How many times did Mr. Boomer use that word?” “50 to 75 times.” [audience laughter]
At this point, I couldn't take it any longer. [audience laughter] I was biting my hand as hard as I could to prevent me from bursting out in laughter. And Court TV was eating it up. [audience laughter] Every commercial on Court TV for the next week was a replay of this man standing up in the witness stand and screaming, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. [audience laughter]
Unfortunately, based on that testimony, it didn't take long for the jury to find Boomer guilty of using improper language. The judge actually sentenced him to four days in jail. We appealed, and the Michigan Court of Appeals, in an unanimous published decision, struck down the improper language law as unconstitutional and reversed the conviction in a case called People of the State of Michigan v. Boomer. [audience laughter]
Rather than being the laughingstock of the ACLU, we actually started a trend and other state ACLU legal directors started getting involved in these cases until prosecutors stopped abusing their power and charging people with a crime for swearing. In the end, Mr. Boomer was thrilled that he decided to stand on his principles and didn't plead guilty to an unconstitutional law. And me, I learned that not only can you defend constitutional rights, but you can have a fucking good time doing it. [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:13:02] Michael Steinberg served as the legal director of the ACLU of Michigan for 22 years. He's now a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he's the founding director of a legal clinic called The Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Michael says the vast majority of the cases he worked on at the ACLU raised much more serious and weighty issues than the Cussing Canoeist case, though he did once successfully represent a man who was arrested for flipping off a police officer. He called that the middle finger case.
Michael still works with the ACLU of Michigan as a volunteer attorney. But as an educator, he says that he feels like he's back where he's supposed to be. He takes great pride in preparing the next generation of civil rights attorneys and social justice advocates. You can see a picture of Michael and Timothy Boomer, aka the Cussing Canoeist, on our website, themoth.org.
Coming up, a story of the world's worst time capsule, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Jay: [00:14:20] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Meg: [00:14:32] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our next story comes from Samuel James. Samuel is a composer, musician and journalist writing about racial issues from one of the whitest states in America, Maine. His great grandfather was a musician born into slavery, his grandfather a blues guitarist, his father a renowned jazz pianist. Music and storytelling are deeply entrenched in his DNA. Samuel traveled to New York City and shared this story live at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln center for the Performing Arts. Here's Samuel James.
[cheers and applause]
Samuel: [00:15:12] My parents used to drop me off at my grandmother's house every Friday afternoon. Grammy was a tall, regal woman. She stood 5’10” with ballerina posture even into her 70s. She kept her hair in that semi short curly style popular amongst grandmothers. [audience laughter] I'd spend the night on Fridays, and she would let me stay up late and watch our favorite show, The Dukes of Hazzard. [audience laughter]
She even gave me a little car that I would drive through the air and mimic the sounds of its Dixie car horn. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. [audience laughter] My car was not anything like the car from the show. The car from the show was called the General Lee and it was bright orange, it had 01 racing numbers on its doors and its entire roof was one confederate flag. My car, my little General Lee, was one solid color, carnation pink. [audience laughter] It was a hollow shell made from a mold that had no moving parts. But to my small child's mind, it was exactly the same.
So, every Saturday morning, she would bring me back to my parents apartment and she would come in, we'd all have breakfast together and she would get up to leave and I would start to cry. She would come over, make sure I had that little pink General Lee and she'd say, “Hang on to this, take good care of it and I'll see you on the weekend, we can stay up late and watch our favorite show,” and she would leave. And then, 24 hours would go by and I would have lost that car.
Come Friday, I would get to grammy’s and somehow, she would have found it and I would have it in my hand ready for when our favorite show came on. This little pink General Lee is in all of my memories of grammy, including the time that I lost it under her couch. I jammed my arm under to get it, and got my arm stuck and really freaked out. But then, along comes grammy with a smile and one arm lifting up the edge of the couch, saving the day. I grabbed that thing like it was Indiana Jones’ hat.
And then there was the time that I was simulating one of the General Lee's famous jumps by throwing this car across the room [audience laughter] where it landed perfectly between grammy's left eye and her glasses. [audience laughter] Then there was the time that I was five years old, and I was laying on my stomach on the floor between my parents kitchen and living room. Grammy and my parents were having breakfast at the table. grammy liked to have a little sip of whiskey in the morning. She was having a little sip. She took a little bite of banana. She started to say something and then she fell backwards out of her chair. My father jumped up, and he caught her and he laid her on the floor. I ran over, and her glasses had fallen off and she looked so strange without her glasses.
Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide, but they had rolled back, so they were entirely white. And I start screaming. My mother picks me up and she brings me to the other side of the room, and she has the phone cradled in her ear and she's talking to 911. But the ambulance did not arrive in time.
Grammy willed her house to my mother. And we all moved in. This was a very old, old house. It was built by grammy's father, who had been a veteran of the Spanish-American War. Everybody who'd ever lived here was still kind of there. We open up this closet, and there'll be threadbare monogrammed uniforms. And in this drawer is old sepia toned photographs of people forgotten to time. And in this drawer see old rusted tools probably used to build this house.
When my mother died, she left the house to me. But I moved away and my father stayed. I think these ghosts comforted him, because he never changed anything about the house. Every time I would come to visit, it was the same. Our visits were almost always the same. I would bring a guitar, and he would sit in front of the piano, and we'd trade songs, and we'd swap stories and we'd sing old songs, we'd swap stories and on and on until I would go home.
But this one particular day, he gets up to get a glass of water, and I get nostalgic and I go up to my old room. My old room also had not changed. My very same pretentious music and movie posters were still on the exact same walls. They were painted the exact same color I painted them in high school, black. [audience laughter] The bed was still in the same place.
Now, this had been grammy's room before it had been mine and the bed frame had been grammy’s. It was the same white and gold matching set from Sears as the dresser that was also still there. And opening the drawers to the dresser, inside you'll find grammy’s jewelry, and old letters, and hundreds and hundreds of photographs, at least 100 of which are of her and I. They perfectly reflect my memory of grammy. I'm taken right back to this perfect moment of grammy joy.
She also has a closet. Now, I never spent very much time in this closet, because it always felt like grammy’s. But this particular day, I walk up, and it smells musty, and there's cobwebs and there's old coats hanging up and my grandfather's tuxedo and grammy's wedding gown. And then, on the floor is a walk-in closet. It's built under one of the eaves, so you have to duck down if you're going to go all the way in. There's a plastic bag. It's an old biodegrading plastic bag. But it's the only thing plastic in this room, so I walk in to look at it. As soon as I set foot in here, I feel like a kid again. But when you're a kid and you're going to get caught, like any minute, someone's got to come around the corner and be like, “Hey, what are you doing?” [audience laughter]
I kneel down, and I open this bag and inside this bag is probably 150 little pink General Lee’s. Right, I'm with you. Right. It's like somebody gave me the setup for the joke and then waited 20 years to give me the punchline. [audience laughter] I'm just laughing. I thought that like she had found the one singular perfect toy for only singularly me. She was probably at a church rummage sale, and saw a bag of pink cars for a dollar and thought kids lose stuff. [audience laughter]
So, I grab this bag in full grammy joy and I run downstairs, I'm like, “Dad, dad, do you remember the little pink General lee, because here's 150 of them.” He does remember them, but there is no grammy joy for him. He's not laughing, he's not smiling, he looks half disappointed and half confused and he begins to tell me how his relationship with grammy had been very different than my own.
Grammy's family has been in New England as long as there has been in New England. She was a pillar of her community, she was a sheriff's widow and she was a very proud and protective white mother of a white daughter who had brought home, and married and had a child with a big southern black man. She was never forthright in her expression of her opinion of my father's race, but she let him know in other ways, in more passive aggressive ways.
For example, she would introduce his small black child, me, to a television show that whitewashed and glorified and romanticized racist symbolism of the south. She would go a step further by encouraging that same black child to run around his house literally singing Dixie. She did this full well knowing exactly how he felt about it. And so, there I am, standing there with this nostalgic grin fading from my face holding the world's worst time capsule, thinking about how she had found the one perfect, singular toy just for only me, but it hadn't even been for me.
And then, my father laughs just the smallest amount. He explains how every Saturday night he would wait until my mother was asleep and until I was asleep, and he would come into my room,- [audience laughter] [audience applause] -and he'd take the little pink General Lee into the kitchen and he would throw it into the trash. [audience laughter] So, I take this bag of little pink General Lee’s back up to grammy's closet, and I put it back where I found it and I stop and I look at those pictures of her and I again. They still reflect every grandmother's love for her grandchildren. It's still true. But I also know that digging through the house a little more will find you a Barry Goldwater campaign pin and a little personal size Confederate flag. She was a loving grandmother. There's no doubt about that. It's absolutely true. But she was also a cruel person who would manipulate her own grandchild in order to make his father suffer for their race. Both things are true.
I'm standing there thinking about how it's easy to love a child while I am the exact same size and shape and color as my father, and I move through the world how he did and it reacts to me how it reacted to him. I went back downstairs and we played some more songs. But we didn't talk about grammy ever again. About 10 years after this, my father died, and I went back through the house and it was still the same. The closet still had those threadbare uniforms, and the drawers still had the sepia toned photos and the old rusty tools. And up in my old room, those photos of grammy and I were still in that dresser. Her closet still had my grandfather's tuxedo and her wedding gown, but that bag of little pink General Lee’s was nowhere to be found. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:28:32] That was Samuel James. You can find links to his writing and music, which you're listening to right now on our website. His father, Mike DeFayette, died on December 30th, 2016, three days after his 71st birthday. And Samuel said it was many months before he was able to go back to the house. When he finally did, he said it felt strange, like a black hole. All the evidence of his father's existence was still there, a blanket tossed over the back of the couch, like he'd just gotten up from a nap. All his stuff was still there, but not him.
All these years later, Samuel is still going through the house, cleaning it out, trying to determine the value of things, not monetary value, but emotional. He says that all this stuff meant something to somebody at one time, and now he's just trying to figure out what it all means to him. He says he'll probably keep holding on to the house, because the ghosts of his family are still there and they're loud.
Part of why I love Samuel's story is the way it unravels and reveals how perception changes, how when we're young, we have this childlike understanding of things. But as we grow older, we fill in the blanks and realize how incomplete that understanding was, like family, relationships, issues of race, it's complicated. Samuel shared this story in several cities across the US. And without fail, there was always someone who would come up and say, “But your grandmother would have loved you now, right? You've forgiven her, or your father forgave her, right?”
There was this tendency, this desire to center his grandmother. They wanted the story to be about white redemption, when actually it's a testament to just how difficult racial issues are in America. It's complex. It's hard.
For Samuel, the story is more about black resilience, and the weight of racism and who carries that weight and how easily it's hidden in plain sight. Redemption, forgiveness, exoneration is not the conclusion. It's about seeing and acknowledging the truth.
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Coming up, breaking the confines of tradition at a water park in Florida, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Jay: [00:31:10] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Meg: [00:31:24] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our next storyteller, Frimet Goldberger, grew up in a community bound by history and religious doctrine. She's a writer. And while sharing her stories has been a freeing experience for her, it's also come with a lot of inner conflict. Frimet told her story at an evening we produced in partnership with 3CDC at the Anderson Theatre Memorial Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here's Frimet Goldberger, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Frimet: [00:31:54] So, I am a Hasidic woman from one of the most pious Hasidic Jewish communities in upstate New York. Growing up, all forms of secular influences were strictly verboten. TVs, movies, the internet, newspapers. We were expected to keep the highest standards of modesty. I wore shirts that covered my elbows, collarbone, skirts covering my knees, and thick-thick stockings from the age of three. This was the uniform of my childhood and my people. I knew of nothing else and I cared for nothing else.
When I would catch a glimpse of someone in shorts and a tank top, I would think, “Eww, why would you want to expose your private parts?” [audience laughter] tznius or modesty was a concept so well ingrained in our minds and in our existence that we couldn't fathom why anyone would want to dress any differently.
And I was a good girl, a wide eyed Hasidic Edel Madal, but I didn't always want to be and I had a few transgressions under my belt. Like, the time a friend and I went to Walmart and filled our bins with trashy romance novel. [audience laughter] I would hide them between my bed spring and mattress, and my friend and I would devour these titillating tales as if we were breaking the Yom Kippur fast. [audience laughter]
Marriage was my ticket to freedom, away from the prying eyes of parents and matchmakers. I met my husband for the first time in my parents dining room. I was 17, and pining for a strapping man to fulfill my Nora Roberts inspired dreams. [audience laughter] He was 21 and just trying to clear the way for his two younger siblings waiting in line. They couldn't get married before he did as is the custom in the Hasidic community.
My mother thought it unsuitable for her young good girl to marry an older boy. But I begged and cajoled and she finally relented and agreed to this shidduch, or arranged match. I had heard through the grapevine of yentas that he wasn't in yeshiva full time, that he smoked and he drove. I had also heard that he moonlighted as a theatergoer. And that to me was downright sexy. [audience laughter]
So, for the ba’show or the half hour, 10-hour meeting between a prospective bride and groom, we were ushered into my childhood playroom. I broke the ice by asking him about his family, the number of children and grandchildren, even though I knew them quite well. His sister was my classmate, his other sister is married to my first cousin, my brother is married to his first cousin and two of my sisters are married to two of his other first cousins. [audience laughter] It's a doozy. [audience laughter]
So, after a while my mother pokes her head in and she's like, “[unintelligible 00:35:11], did you make a decision?” Now there were trays of cakes lined up on the kitchen counter, cakes that I had baked that day for a potential engagement party, and no one wanted to see them go to waste. [audience laughter] There was no good reason for either one of us to say no, but I desperately wanted confirmation that he was indeed dabbling in secular matters. [audience laughter] So, when my mother left, I boldly asked him if he listened to the radio. And he blushed. Something about his blushing confirmed it for me. I knew then and there that he was my knight in shining side curls. [audience laughter]
We were not supposed to speak during our engagement, but he further confirmed his renegade speech status when he sent his phone number, scribbled on a note through a mutual acquaintance. I would call him every Thursday evening, hiding behind the clothes in my closet, so my mother wouldn't overhear. [audience laughter] We were married on a cold December evening, the first snow of the season blanketing the streets. The next morning, my mother showed up to shave my head, all of it, down to a stubble, as is the custom in this very stringent Hasidic community. Everyone did it. All married women were required to shave their heads monthly for the duration of their marriage.
We settled into married life, or as best as you can settle in as two strangers. After three days, I decided it was time my husband knew me better. So, I bedecked our little kitchen table in this dollhouse size apartment, and I whipped out a 2x2-inch DVD screen. The next day, he one upped me with a box of Yankees paraphernalia and a computer that he kept hidden in his parents’ home. [audience laughter] We were a match made in heaven, [audience laughter] except were practical strangers. We watched movies, and we went to the library every Friday afternoon, and we would have to look right and left and back before making a beeline for the blockbuster door or the library door, because no one could see us heretics.
After a while, about two to three months, we decided it was time to take our rebellion on the road. My husband suggested Florida, and this place he had heard of called Wet ‘n Wild Water Park. [audience laughter] Now, I had never been to the beach, I had never been to a water park, never really traveled before and certainly never flown on a plane. So, you can imagine I was excited. In preparation for this trip, we went shopping. I owned a bathing suit. And this bathing suit was called a [unintelligible 00:38:18]. It's the kind of garment I imagine Mother Teresa would wear [audience laughter] when and if she allowed herself a dip in the water. This [unintelligible 00:38:30] had sleeves, and it had a skirt reaching down to my knees and I knew it was unsuitable for a water park.
So, we went shopping. I can still feel my heart buckle when I think of the way we crisscrossed those bathing suit racks at Walmart and darted every time we saw a familiar Hasidic face. They all looked equally immodest to me. My husband picked up this backless one piece. And I am in this cramped woman's dressing room, imagining a thousand eyes peering in from under the door slit. I strip out of my clothes, and I pull on this bathing suit that simultaneously reminds me of hell and also of a delicious piece of babka. [audience laughter] I turn to the mirror, and I am seeing my bare arms and bare legs full length, possibly for the first time. This backless bathing suit has a sun rising from the nether regions, [audience laughter] which sounds like a metaphor for my life. [audience laughter]
I look at myself in the mirror and I imagine that this is what it must feel like to be on the covers of one of the magazines I peruse. I am young, I am perky in all the right places and I know it. [audience laughter] We were giddy for days leading up to this trip. We told everyone about this trip and we told no one about this trip. My mother called a few days prior to wish us farewell and did we pack warm clothes, do we know that it's warm in Florida? And I laughed. She had no idea what we were up to.
So, we land in Orlando and we visit Universal and Disney, and we missed all popular cultural references. [audience laughter] I marveled at this thing that was part spider, part human. [audience laughter] We were so sheltered. We felt like aliens walking around in those parks, except I can assure you, we did not know what aliens were back then. [audience laughter]
Then came the big day, Wet ‘n Wild Water park. [audience laughter] I'm wearing a bathing suit for the first time. We are newlyweds, fair skinned who had never used sunscreen before. [audience laughter] Bodies covered from head-to-toe literally have no use from sunscreen. And on my head, I am wearing a chill length wig with a Yankee sun visor securing it. My husband was a fan, and of course, that meant I was too even though I'd never heard of baseball before a [unintelligible 00:41:22].
So, I'm wandering around on my husband's tail, ogling this bevy of bikini clad chicks in all their tan glory. [audience laughter] I keep my arms on my chest and alternating between that and my thighs, and knees and elbows until I realize I am practically in the nude and I just walk around in a self-conscious daze. My discomfort was so palpable, a constant reminder of the grave sin I was committing. I felt like everyone around me could see right through my shame. I might as well have been curtsying in front of the grand rabbi. It felt so wrong to expose all these parts of my body that I was taught to keep hidden. And yet, it felt so right and so darn liberating.
So, we make our way through the park. And up the tallest ride in the park, down a winding tube into a shallow pool, and I am having the time of my life. As I get into the shallow pool and I bob my head out of the water, I feel a muggy breeze. I turn around to the guy manning the pool and he's holding up my wig, with a limping sun visor. And he's like, “Ma'am, ma’am, did you lose this?” I was mortified. But more than that, I was afraid. I feared that someone would recognize me and report me back home to the authorities.
Before you know it, my mother knows and my neighbor's bubby knows. My mother's heart is broken, and my good girl facade is stripped from me and my future children won't be accepted into the only school in town. I risked losing a lot. So, I grab my wig and visor and I start heading out of the pool when I feel eyes on me. I turn around and they're pitiful eyes. They must have thought, poor woman. Poor, poor woman with cancer. I was relieved. [audience laughter] They didn't know me. Cancer sounded plausible. [audience laughter] I'd rather they believe I have cancer than know my shame. That way, at least, I can hide my shame behind their pity.
So, I grab my wig and visor and I head out of the pool. I'm both mortified, but also owning my pity. My husband is completely traumatized and will leave the park soon after. And thankfully, no one back home did find out. We've been married for 16 years, nearly half of our lives. We just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last December.
[cheers and applause]
Thank you. Thank you. We are no longer Hasidic. We moved out of the community a little over a decade ago with our two children. What a decade it's been. It's been a decade of heartache, both for us and for our families. And it's been a decade of loss, loss of a community, a people, a lifestyle, the only life we ever knew and the only life we were taught was worth living. We've made every effort along the way to be respectful of our families, their customs and their traditions. Even though I know that my mother doesn't understand my choices, and she doesn't appreciate the life I live and that I have veered from her beaten path, she has come a long way in learning to accept me. And for that, I love her dearly.
I no longer cover my hair with someone else's natural hair. I am not obligated to wear long sleeves or skirts reaching my knees. I am also no longer obligated to be a Yankees fan. [audience laughter] My son stepped into those shoes. We've returned to Orlando several times since, but I can never bring myself to go back to that park where I imagine a thousand eyes are still staring at my bald head. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:46:02] Frimet Goldberger is an award-winning writer and investigative journalist. Frimet has written a lot about growing up in an insular Hasidic community. She's currently working on her first novel, which she jokingly says, you can look for on bookshelves in 2080. After Frimet shared her story, she talked with Moth producer, Emily Couch, about what it was like to leave her community.
Frimet: [00:46:25] They were confused, understandably. My mother asked, “What's wrong with this community? Why do you have to leave?” Whenever I wanted to do something that was outside the norm, it was always my mother that gave me pause, should I do it? I'm going to break her heart. Even now, when I write and I stand up on stage and I'm always thinking of my mother and thinking, this woman does not deserve it. She did her best and she's been through so much in life. I think it's my Jewish guilt speaking. [laughs]
Emily: [00:47:06] are you still in touch with your mother and the rest of your family?
Frimet: [00:47:09] Very much so. Yeah. But in the past few years, I have strengthened my bonds with my sisters and my mother. We have really made every effort to be respectful of them. They've come to accept us. But as time goes on, I am constantly revealing another part of me that they didn't know before, and I find that they are okay with it.
I met my sister-- We had my niece's wedding in Montreal. Everyone was so surprised that I traveled all the way there to attend the wedding. But I wanted to be a part of it. And in between the celebrations, the wedding, we just went on a few outings, my husband and I, with the children. We were at the old Montreal court for a fabulous boat ride through the rapids. It was so fun. Of course, I'm wearing shorts. When I come out, I change into my jeans, a short sleeve shirt and here, like, regular clothes. My son comes to the room and he's like, “Your sister is here.” I freaked out, because they had never seen me in pants and short sleeve shirt and my hair.
I'm taking a breath and I am going to face them. There is no hiding. I can't stay in this little cramp toilet. So, I exit and there she is with her grown children and her husband. They're just smiling at me. And they're like, “Hi. Oh, you're here.” It took me a moment, I'm like, “Oh, my goodness, they're totally fine with it.” Nothing happened.
Emily: [00:49:04] It's really nice that you have that sort of mutual respect and understanding. That's wonderful.
Frimet: [00:49:10] Yeah. Sometimes I say, my family is special or my mother is special for that. But then I think, you know, isn't that what it should be?
Meg: [00:49:21] That was Frimet Goldberger talking with Moth producer, Emily Couch. Frimet says that it's been a long, exhausting path to where she and her family are today. Although she's confident that she made the right decision, she often wonders whether the tradeoff was worth it. She says, despite best efforts to reconnect, she will always be on the outside looking in.
You can see a picture of Ferment on that fateful day at Wet ‘n Wild Water park on themoth.org. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time for The Moth Radio Hour.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:50:06] Your host this hour was Meg Bowles. Meg directed the stories in the show along with Larry Rosen.
The rest of The Moth directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness and Jenifer Hixson. Production support from Emily Couch.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions, Samuel James and Oskar Schuster. 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 and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.