Host: Jodi Powell
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Jodi: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jodi Powell, a producer and director at The Moth.
After the worst of the pandemic, I took a trip to The Moth office. We were out for over a year. It looked like everything was frozen in time, unchanged, except the plants that were maintained. They were now three times the size. But all else the pens on the desk in mason jars, postcards sent for birthdays, the calendars still read 2019.
From where I stood, the sunset came in like always. We all have moments where time loses its meaning, but sometimes we get reminders that the best moments are right now. Just then, I looked around the whole office, everything was covered in sunset in true amber. In this episode, stories about when time slows down. And sometimes its slowness brings a gift.
Our first story comes from Scott Gravatt. He told it at a StorySLAM in Portland, Oregon, where our media partner is Oregon Public Broadcasting. Here's Scott, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Scott: [00:01:23] My son has always been a little countercultural. When he was in eighth grade, someone gave him a Guitar Hero video game, and he traded it in for a real guitar under the moniker dad. Real guitar heroes play real guitars. [audience laughter]
When we moved here 10 years ago, he kept all of that countercultural aspect and found it in Portland in a way that Miami could not provide. [audience laughter] Well, number one, “I will be on my bike,” he said, “Forever, for all time.” He was committed through high school to riding that bike. It was a pain in the ass for me, because he would call me at 11 o’clock at night, not wanting to ride his bike home, and I would have to go get him. So, there was a couple of times where I begged him to buy a car and to get his license, and he just refused.
And then came Zanna. Zanna lived in Beaverton. [audience laughter] All good stories start with love. [audience laughter] And my son, while I was sitting at the dining room table one day, said to me, “Dad, I think I want a car.” The opportunist that I am, 90 seconds later, I was on Craigslist. [audience laughter] Two minutes later, I had found a car. [audience laughter] And within three minutes I was on the phone talking to a guy. Less than an hour later, I was standing in front of him with my son behind me and $1,000 in my hand, walking around a 1994 Subaru and kicking the tires like I knew what I was doing. [audience laughter] I did not.
We drove the car around the block. It was near perfect, and I wondered why it was only $1,000. And I asked the guy, I was like, “Hey, not going to haggle you for the price. This is a $1000. It's 250,000 miles, but still, why is it only $1,000?” And he says, “You see, there's this girl.” And my son, “Say no more.” [audience laughter] Totally got what was happening. So, I went to hand him the $1000. And before I did, I shook my hand out and I said, “$1,000 for the car.”
He grabbed my hand and he looked me in the eyes. There was a moment there when we were holding hands, and he looked me in the eyes, and we had an exchange of energy and he said, “Before I sell you the car, there's a couple of rules, two of them, to be exact.” And I said, “Okay.” And he wouldn't let go of my hand. And he said, “Rule number one, my mom was the original owner. She passed it to me. We don't refer to it as the car. We don't refer to it as the Subaru. We don't call it the sub. We don't call it his car, your car, anyone's car. His name is Buster.” [audience laughter]
[applause]
Still holding my hands. [audience laughter] To which I said, offensive pronouns aside, “We will call it Buster. No problem.” And he said, “One more thing. Buster doesn't have a CD player. There's no six CD changer. The AMFM radio doesn't work very well. Buster only plays one tape.” [audience laughter] I looked at my son knowing that this could be a deal breaker for the Guitar Hero. If you get in the car every time and Cyndi Lauper comes on. Not going to work. And the guy said, “I hope you like Led Zeppelin IV.” [audience laughter]
This was a deal. I handed him $1,000, and we drove away with Buster. And for four years, my son drove from Southeast Portland to Lincoln High School and it served us well. He spent a couple of nights in the back of the car, going to assume drunk, probable deniability. It took him to the coast once. It took him to the base of Mount Hood more than once. It was very reliable. It was a family car for us. We lent it to some friends. We got him attached to Buster. So, you can see why I was bummed a couple of weeks ago when I went to go unlock Buster and he was gone.
He wasn't where I left him last. And my son, who's in New Zealand right now, in school, I had to call and tell him that Buster was gone. And it felt like your family pet had run away, like your dog had gone and you couldn't find him and you didn't know where he was. All things happened. We moved houses and it's been a month. And on Friday this week, the Portland police called me and said we found Buster. [audience laughter] I was beyond excited that we had actually found Buster. I called Ransom immediately and I was like, “Yo, Buster is back. This is so cool.”
Yesterday, my phone rang three times the number I didn't recognize. And the guy on the other end of the phone said to me, “You don't know me from anyone. My name's Bob. But someone sold me your Subaru. The title and registration was in the car and I paid $750 for it.” He explained to me that he was a veteran on disability and that he worked all summer long, so he wouldn't have to walk to work in the wintertime.
So, today at about 6 o’clock tonight, I met Bob at the station, at the tow station. And together, we paid to get the car out of the lot. He took the car and he's 60 something years old and he shook my hand. When he did, there was a moment between the two of us. [audience laughter] I looked at him and I understood where he was coming from. He looked like he had seen some hard times, blue collar, like he had seen war. He looked me in the eyes like men of a certain age would want to do and he said to me, “Thank you. You will not understand how much this car means to me.” I didn't let go of his hand. Then I looked him right back in the eyes and I said, “We don't call it the car. [audience laughter] His name is Buster.” Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:08:14] Scott Gravatt is a high school cross country coach in Portland, Oregon. Scott tells us that he and his son, Ransom, bought another car shortly after and traveled all around New Zealand. They've made a pact to wake up in a National Park every January first. To see photos of Scott and his son Ransom, visit themoth.org.
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Our next story comes from Nimisha Ladva. She told this at a Philadelphia GrandSLAM. Here's Nimisha, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Nimisha: [00:09:02] It's the end of new professor orientation, which I have been attending because of my new job. I'm leaving the building and it's pouring rain, which is a problem because I'm a transplant from California and I have no jacket, no umbrella, flimsy open toe shoes. And to get home I have to wait for a bus. That's when I see him, a man from new professor orientation. He's got salt and pepper hair, really ugly glasses and a tweed jacket.
I'm not making this up. It has Bonafide elbow patches. It looks a bit weird to me. Because of that, he's the one person I'm trying to avoid at orientation. Of course, he's walking towards me and introduces me himself, “Hi, I'm David. I couldn't help, but overhear that you were going to take the bus home and I wanted you to know I've got my Buick [audience laughter] right here on campus, and I'd be happy to give you a ride home.”
And of course, I say no, because who gets into a large American sedan with a stranger. I say no, because my good Indian girl programming has taken over, because I know that I'm not supposed to be interacting with men really, because my parents are going to find a nice, suitable boy for me to marry. I'm supposed to have an arranged marriage.
In California, my parents are handing out my biodata sheet. It has my name, my age, my height, how dark my skin is, my education level, some background about my family and my photograph. They're handing it out to families, hoping that someone with a medical doctor son will show some interest.
But in Philadelphia, it’s still pouring rain, so I make a practical choice. I say, “Hey, actually, a ride's okay.” So, he gives me a ride home, whatever. I see him at some faculty functions. He invites me to go out with some friends of his from out of town. And then, he actually asks me out and then we actually start dating and it's weird. I like it. [audience laughter] So, I realize I have to tell my parents.
So, two years later, I do. [audience laughter] My dad takes it well, but my mom, not really so much. So, her reaction comes every day, three times a day on my voicemail, like this, it's like, “Hi, this is Nimisha. Leave a message. Bye. Beep. [mother cries]. Beep.” [audience laughter]
And so, one day, David hears one and he says, “Nimisha, your mother is choosing to react this way.” Choosing? What kind of stupid post therapy white man thing is that to say. [audience laughter] I am killing my mother with this, with us. Are you crazy? And I start to stress out. I actually stopped being able to sleep. My hair starting to fall out. I'm getting really stressed out. I should have known this conversation was coming, because David has been into this idea of therapy and being the best person he could be. We are having the kinds of conversations I never have. I do like him. I think he's got emotional maturity, he's like a man.
But I'm stressed out. I am not sleeping. I'm not really even eating very well. And then, in all of this drama, he asks me to marry him and I say no. I give him back his ring. I move back to California, and there is a continent between us. It's really awkward. We talk on the phone from time to time. There's this one random day he says he's going to be back in California and would I like to go see a movie. I'm like, “Whatever.” I say yes.
So, we get to the movie theater. It's just like packed with people, totally packed with people. So, he says, “Why don't you wait at this bench, and I will go over there and get the tickets?” And so, David walks away. I don't sit at the bench. I get up and I walk away. I'm thinking of my mother's voicemail messages. I'm thinking of what the heck am I doing with my life and why did I say yes to this movie and what the heck? I find myself on a balcony and I look down at theater crowd below and I can see David walking by. He's got the two tickets in his hand and he looks like walking sunshine. But I don't go back. I just watch him.
He sees I'm not there at the bench, and he starts pacing back and forth around it. Then he starts taking slightly bigger steps. The movie starts and David doesn't leave. I realize that he's going to just keep looking and looking and searching and searching, because the only person in that whole movie theater he is looking for is singularly and absolutely me. I get it. But if I walk back, I will fail at being a good Indian girl.
What I want to do, as I'm looking at him, I want to tell him that I've made some judgments about his appearance, about the things he can change, like his style if he wanted to, [audience laughter] and his skin color, which he can do nothing about. I just want to talk to him, and I realize that he makes the hard conversations easy. So, I walk back. I walk back to David. And full disclosure, we are 10 years, three kids and one mortgage into our marriage. Thanks very much.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:15:05] Nimisha Ladva says that now instead of crying voicemails, her mother likes to send flat rate boxes bursting with homemade goodies and things she scored on a sale. They just got a Diwali box, homemade sweets for the kids, random T-shirts, biscuits from England. And always, always a T-shirt for David. To see photos of Nimisha and her family, visit themoth.org.
[whimsical music]
In a moment, legendary TV producer, Norman Lear, tells us about a valued childhood sweater that is remembered over 50 years later, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Jay: [00:16:22] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Jodi: [00:16:33] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jodi Powell. We're listening to stories that throw you back in time.
I used to take long walks through the streets of Harlem before dinner with my godfather, Thomas Sutton. And what should take a few minutes took much longer. He would stop to watch the kids playing, admire the old brownstone that he knew since he was a boy. He would live in every moment. And if we ran into somebody from his past or our journey back home would come to a full stop, the cause back in the day, stories from yesteryear, the good old times. This is precisely where our next storyteller takes us.
Norman Lear is a legend. And the fictional stories helped bring into our consciousness are still very much with us. He told the story about a particular blue and white sweater at a Moth Mainstage in Los Angeles, produced in partnership with the Public Radio Station, KCRW. Here's Norman Lear, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Norman: [00:17:36] Thank you. When I was a little kid, I wondered if I could get my fingers in my father's head and twist a little screw a 16th of an inch in one direction or another, he might tell right from wrong, because he never did. I was nine-years-old, and there was a-- It was summer. I was going to summer camp for the first time. I couldn't have been more excited. There was a little roll of tape cloth that said Norman M. Lear, Norman M. Lear, Norman M. Lear that my mother was going to sew into the clothes I would be taking to camp. It just couldn't have been the more exciting moment.
And also, my father was going off to Oklahoma. He was flying to Oklahoma with some men that my mother said, “I don't like those men, Herman. I don't want you messing with those men.” But Herman knew everything. He used to tell me, “I've been everywhere where the grass grows green, Norman, and I know everything.” Man, he actually said that. [audience laughter] And he was off.
He was arrested when he came back. It turned out he had been trying to sell or these men my mother didn't care for had caused them to try to sell some fake bonds from a Boston brokerage company. He was arrested when he got off the plane. That night or the next night, the morning paper had a picture of my father holding a hat in front of his face manacled to a detective coming out of the courthouse. The paper was lying around that night all over the place.
My mother had a house full of people, because she had decided she couldn't live in-- This was Chelsea, Massachusetts. She couldn't live there in that kind of shame. So, she was leaving. As it turned out, I didn't know that she was going to take my sister. I had one three years younger sister. She was going to take my sister and disappear. I was going to go to one uncle, and another uncle, and another uncle and wind up eventually with my grandparents in New Haven, Connecticut.
It was an awful scene. The house was crowded. My mother was selling the furniture. And especially when she started to sell my father's red leather chair-- My father had a red leather chair that he used to control the Atwater Kent radio. It was why we needed a floor model radio, I'll never know, [audience laughter] but we had a floor model radio. He used to sit in his red leather chair, control that dial when we listened to Jack Benny and Fred Allen and all the radio shows at the time. This, of course, was before television.
As my mother was selling this red leather chair, the guy who seemed to be purchasing it put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Well, you're the man of the house now.” I think that was the moment that I learned the foolishness of the human condition. This [beep] [audience laughter] is looking at a nine-year-old kid under these circumstances puts his hand on his shoulder and says, “Well, you're the man of the house now.” I know that that was the moment I began to absorb the foolishness of the human condition. It never left me.
I saw it when I went to this uncle and that uncle, and they had no understanding at all of what I was going through. What I was going through was a piece of what I've used all my life in my work, that aloneness. I believe we are all alone in this world, whatever our situations are, whatever our families are, we are still each of us alone in the world. And that served me well in the writing of everything I did from that point on.
Along the way before All in the family, I made a film in Greenfield, Iowa called Cold Turkey. It was about a city that was committed where the minister got the city to agree all of the smokers to stop smoking for 30 days. So, they all took a pledge to stop smoking for 30 days. And the film was about what the media around the country made of a town that said they were going to get give up smoking. I couldn't be more proud of anything I've ever done than that film, which had a lot to say about media and America.
In the course of the film, I had a little girl in a montage where she was perhaps on the screen for three seconds. She was crossing the street, and a mother-- Traffic monitor was screaming at her. It was an illustration of bad behavior of the city, of all the smokers who had given up smoking the morning following their pledge. The little girl's name was Amy. She was on the screen for two and a half, three seconds.
25 years later, the town of Greenfield, Iowa invited me to come back with as many of the players as I could bring. They wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cold Turkey in Greenfield, Iowa. Dick Van Dyke starred in the film, he came back with me. Pippa Scott came back with me. Tom Poston, for those who remember, Tom Poston. Bob Newhart was in the film. And Edith Bunker, Jean Stapleton was in the film. As I said before, All in the Family, they all came back, and we had the most incredible weekend in Greenfield, Iowa.
I knew that those people would be telling time by the year that the summer of the film was made there. “Oh, Gert, she got married in. No, no, that was two years before Greenfield. No, no, that was before Cold Turkey,” when Cold Turkey she had already-- And indeed, that's the way it was in that community. We had a whale of a time. In the course of that, the little girl that was on the screen, her name was Amy, for about three seconds, got a hold of me and threw her arms around me and told me that my decision to use her in that little role was just the most important thing in her life. She spent a couple of minutes talking to me about how important that was to her. I appreciated it as much as I could and hugged her and we kissed.
And now, take a long dissolve. I've done All in the Family and all the shows, The Jeffersons and Good Times, all the shows that followed from there. It's a great many years later. I've written a book. This was just last year. Even this I get to experience, which is true of this moment for me. Even this with all of you, I get to experience. Took me 93 years to get here to this moment.
[applause]
But in the course of running around the country talking about the book, I get a call. Greenfield, Iowa would like me to come back. They want to celebrate. I agreed to go back there, because I'm selling the book. I'm thrilled to be going back to Iowa. Nobody else was available to go back with me. A lot of them had passed on. I went back alone. It was a great evening. The governor introduced me. There must have been 300 people at dinner in this big ballroom. They had named theater the Marquis. Next door to the ballroom was the Norman Lear Theater.
The moment of moments was Amy, who was now 51, threw her arms around me and said, “You know, Mr. Lear, I was 31, 20 years ago, when you came back to Greenfield. I told you what that meant to me. You were very nice about it. We hugged and you kissed me.” And she said, “But you didn't get it and you're going to get it now.” [audience laughter] I couldn't imagine where the hell she was going with this. [audience laughter]
She said, “I read your book.” She said, “When you were in your 10th summer, you were in Woodstock, Connecticut. Your father was in prison. Your mother and your sister had disappeared. You were in the only cottage the whole family, all the relatives could afford, and it was crowded with families and kids, but you were altogether alone and nobody understood the pain you were in. You couldn't describe the pain in your book, it was so strong.”
She said, “But you had a gray and blue sweatshirt, and you used to put that on in the late afternoon. And in that sweatshirt, you felt stronger, and taller, and tougher, and wiser, smarter. You used to walk down Savin Rock to a place called Sloppy Joes. And among strangers at Sloppy Joes, in your gray and blue sweatshirt, you were more comfortable, more at home, more yourself. You felt better than you did with your family back in the cottage.” She said, “Well, you wear my blue and gray sweatshirt.” I wept and she wept. When I walked away from Amy now, as I said 51, I walked away feeling like I was still wearing my blue and gray sweatshirt. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:29:49] Norman Lear is a celebrated American television writer and producer of sitcoms, including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons and Good Times. In 1999, President Clinton bestowed on him the National Medal of Arts, noting that Norman Lear has held up a mirror to the American society and changed the way we look at it. He received the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement and his memoir, Even This I Get to Experience, is available now. Norman told us, “I am grateful to say that the stars of my life have aligned every day of my 99 years.”
[whimsical music]
Our next story comes to us from an Atlanta GrandSLAM, where we partner with Georgia Public Radio. Here's Dylon Killian, aka Cola Rum, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Dylon: [00:31:01] Cola is now or never is what I thought. As I sat near the exit door of the model train that had just pulled into Art Center Station, either switch cabs now or continue to listen to this asinine debate all the way to Fort McPherson.
Now, when I first walked into this dispute 10 minutes prior Lindbergh Station, I wasn't surprised. Those of us who frequent the martyr know. After 10:00 PM is when the more extroverted members of the Atlanta community ride the train. [audience laughter] It's when you can hear the latest street news from young drug dealers heading to their traps, loud, indecipherable soliloquies from the mentally disturbed, baby mamas giving relationship advice ass backwards and random one-man rap karaoke performances for marijuana inspired individuals. [audience laughter]
So, it wasn't a surprise when I got on the southbound train to run smack dead into a passionate debate. Nor was I shocked when I was immediately called upon by one of the participants to help strengthen his argument. He said, “Yo, dawg, you an 1980s baby?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Yo, tell this cat that the late 1980s, the golden age of hip hop, was the greatest era to be alive.”
I had walked into a three-sided debate on the greatest era to exist within. Before I could respond and tell him that it was all relative to the individual, the second debater spoke. He said, “Yo, dawg, don't listen to him man. His whole argument is weak. It's biased because he's stuck in the 1980s.” Now, when the second debater said this, I turned back to Lance to corroborate what was put forth. I knew his name was Lance, because that's what the big 1980s 14 karat gold nameplate [audience laughter] spelled across his chest.
Complimenting the nameplate was a Kangol bucket hat, gazelle glasses, a terra cloth Adidas sweatsuit and a vintage pair of 1986 run-DMC Adidas.
[cheers]
Hence, one of the standard uniforms of somebody stuck in the 1980s. [audience laughter] Then Lance corrected the second debater saying that he wasn't stuck in the 1980s, he just liked paying homage, because that was his era. That's when the third debater spoke. She said, “And as I said before, your era ain't got nothing on the 1970s.” Then Lance being the chronologist that he was asked which era in the 1970s that was three, the black exploitation era, the disco age and the post disco age. She had to be more specific. She said, “Whenever the movie Cleopatra Jones came out, [audience laughter] people said I look just like her.”
Then she stood to her feet, put her hands on her hips and arched up her chin as if she was about to sashay across the stage. I thought, oh, my God, because what I perceived was a red church turban was an authentic Indian turban complimented with some leather wrist bangles and a low-cut chiffon blouse with the balloon sleeves, thus one of the preferred outfits of a hero in a blaxploitation movie.
As I sat there observing her posturing in silence, the second debater, Malik, blurted out what I was thinking. “This chick stuck in the 1970s.” [audience laughter] I knew that Malik name was Malik, because Malik started talking in the third person to help strengthen his argument [audience laughter] while negating the other two. He said, “You see Malik, don't look back, man. Malik always in the present, [audience laughter] because tomorrow never comes, while she's stuck in a damn movie and he's somewhere between 1986 and 1988.” [audience laughter]
Now scrutinizing Malik, I realized that Malik was more of a tragic comedy than the other two, because Malik had to be in his upper 50s. But his clothes were not. Malik had some Kanye West Yeezy’s on his feet, [audience laughter] some tight skinny jeans that hung down below his Gucci boxer cup of rump, a tight muscle shirt that magnified his tatted arms and middle-aged gut and some red dyed dreadlocks with the blonde tips that were topped with an extremely receded hairline. [audience laughter]
While Lance and Cleopatra was stuck in arrows, Malik was trapped in a time capsule that was more brutal, the forever changing merry go round of trendy hip culture. Well, tomorrow never comes. So, there I sat at Art Center Station, 10-minutes removed from my entrance, thinking, Cola, it's now or never. Either switch cabs now or continue to be entertained by three-time relics who were scared to face tomorrow, which to me was dumbfounding.
Coming of age in the ghettos of the gory 1980s amid daily drug wars and crack monsters, all I ever had to look forward to was the concept of tomorrow. But then, I thought facing tomorrow is probably the event that compelled them to lock themselves away in an era of their greatest comfort, because the face of tomorrow was too harsh, or even worse. The tomorrow that they were looking for never came. Weighing that notion as Lance began to explain to the entire cab, while Run-D.M.C. was a more influential music group than The Chi-Lites, [audience laughter] I chose now, not the now as the next cab over, but the now of Lance, Cleopatra, Malik, an eclectic time capsule of the absurd where tomorrow never comes.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:36:51] That was Dylon Killian, also known as Cola Rum. He's a poet, spoken word artist, storyteller and novelist from Jacksonville, Florida. He's also the author of two gothic comedy novels. He's lived in Atlanta, Georgia for the last 25 years. Cola Rum still rides the train every opportunity he gets. He says, it keeps him grounded and humble and it constantly reminds him of the frailties and the uncertainties of life itself. To see photos of Cola Rum in his style, visit themoth.org.
[whimsical music]
Next up, a young scientist races against time in an attempt to save an island from climate change. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:38:18] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org.
Jodi: [00:38:30] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jodi Powell. In this hour, we've been listening to stories about things and moments we preserve.
Our final storyteller, Hannah Morris told this at The Moth Mainstage in New York City, where we partnered with the World Science Festival. Here's Hannah, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Hannah: [00:38:55] Now, I am the daughter of a geologist. What this means is that I grew up on bedtime stories of peak oil and environmental catastrophe. [audience laughter] No, we also did some fun stuff when I was a kid, like collecting fossils. But a running theme throughout my childhood was sitting outside with my dad and talking about big oil and pollution and global warming. Yes, I was that kid. Really, I can't remember a time when I didn't know what these things were.
Now, as I got older, I found that I wasn't scared of the dark anymore, but I had this knowledge about climate change, just a little bit of knowledge. And it became this big monster that lived underneath my bed. I had a very particular response to it. I call it worrying out of the corner of your eye. It's this mixture of fear and anxiety that is so strong that you're compelled to worry about this thing, but at the same time, it's so scary that you can barely stand to really look at it.
Now, one night when I was about 16, I was outside on my parents’ porch and I just finished a paper about global warming for science class. I'd wanted to learn more about this topic and just peek underneath the covers. So, I'd read about chlorofluorocarbons and the greenhouse effect. I'm sitting outside, and there's this warm breeze coming down off the mountain, and I can hear frogs and crickets and the creek rushing by. I suddenly have this intense moment of fear that one day there will be no more beautiful nights like this. At this time, I had no idea how to handle that type of emotion. The only thing I could think to do was to ignore it and try and distract myself from it.
Now, at 16, this was not incredibly difficult. A few months later, I was tagging along on my dad's geology class to Wyoming. We got to spend a day out on a dinosaur dig. We were out in the middle of nowhere. We were on the side of this hill and we were picking away at these little pieces of bone and squirting them with the solution to harden them. I just get lost in this. I am loving every single second of it.
Now, as the day is ending, the students are tired and hungry, and they're making their way back to the vans and they're going to leave me. I decide that I'm just going to keep working. It took my dad coming over to me and physically placing his hands on me to drag me away from the site.
Now, a little while later, I was in college and I took anthropology course. And one day, the professor starts talking about archaeology. As he's describing what archaeologists actually do, which is nothing like Indiana Jones, for the record, I have to say that, [audience laughter] I realized that it's pretty much just what I was doing in Wyoming, except instead of dinosaurs, I would get to dig up people. It's very apparent to me that people are much more interesting than dinosaurs. So, in the span of about 5 or 10 minutes, I just decided that I'm going to become an archaeologist and spend the rest of my life playing in the dirt.
Now, one of my first jobs was actually working for the American Museum of Natural History on St. Catherine's Island, Georgia, which is a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. Now, I never knew that you can fall in love with a place the exact same way that you can fall in love with a person. The first time that I arrived on the island, it was late summer, the time of year when the gnats are trying to eat you alive and it's been way too hot for way too long.
When I stepped off that boat onto the island, it felt like I was stepping into the world as I always hoped it would be. There were these huge live oak trees with these long, graceful limbs that were covered in Spanish moss and resurrection ferns. By that time of year, this plant called dogfennel is blooming. It has this nice, light green, earthy scent. And then, of course, there's the sunsets, and the marsh and this beautiful language that they have to describe the different kinds of tides, a neap tide, ebb tide, my favorite, a sparrow tide. So, before I knew it, in this quick and breathless way, I was just in love with this place.
Now, St. Catherine’s is not just a beautiful island, but it's a place where amazing research happens. There are people who work on everything from sea turtles to birds to geology, and of course, archaeology. The island has been occupied by people for about 4,000 years. One of the most interesting sites is a 16th century Spanish mission. Over the course of the history of this mission, there was a rebellion, and it was destroyed, and then rebuilt and eventually 432 people would be buried in the fort of this church.
Now, I worked on archaeological sites on St. Catherine’s for a couple of years and then I took a break to do my masters. When I came back to the island in 2012, there was something different. Suddenly, it seemed like the words climate change and global warming were coming out of everyone's mouth. Everywhere you went on the island, you could see evidence of these forces, and every year you could see more and more.
One day, I went down to the very southern tip of the island to a place called jungle beach. As I came around the last corner, I had to stop my truck, because I was literally about to drive into the ocean. I got out to watch the waves wash up into what had been the road, and I felt that same sense of fear that I'd felt at 16 out on my parents’ porch, except this time, it was very real. I could see this one spot where I'd camped underneath these two palm trees and that was now underwater and those palm trees were gone.
So, the island as a whole is experiencing these somewhat traumatic effects. This is impacting the archaeological sites as well. When I came back, we had a new protocol in place. We call it archaeological triage. Basically, that means we work on the most vulnerable and important sites before they're destroyed. And in fact, the 16th century Spanish Mission, the Mission Santa Catalina de Guale, is exactly this type of site. It's located on the western edge of the island, and there's this tidal creek that runs along the bluff. And every single day, with every tide, this creek inches closer and closer to this church where 432 people are buried. So, a few times a year, we go down to excavate and document this area.
Now we've learned that, because you can't stop the tides, you have to work harder and work longer to try and outrun them. One night last September, I found myself knee deep in water covered in sand holding a floodlight. We were working into the night, because we didn't know what would be left of this site in the morning when the tide went out. Like any research project, we only have so much time and money. We had been counting down not the days we had left on this dig, but the tides. We have three tides left. We have two tides left. This night we had no tides left. This was it. The monster was in the water with me that night, it was coming in with this tide and swimming around my feet and it was telling me exactly what the consequences of climate change would be.
Now, I rode home that night on a cooler in the back of the truck. I was tired, and I was scared and I was very sad. I knew that I had done things in my life that had directly contributed to what was happening to this island and what was happening around the world. I was riding home from sight in the back of a gasoline powered pickup truck. And that irony is not lost on me.
We came through this one area where the dogfennel grows really high on either side of the road. I could see this mist rising up from the ground, and there was moonlight and starlight coming down through the trees. I felt all of those emotions settle within me just looking at the beauty of this place. I realized that I could survive all of that that I could survive this fear. Ignoring it had once felt like the only way that I could be in the world and love the world, but I'm no longer a child and that's no longer possible.
Now, the erosion on the island will continue and it will probably get worse. Today, the erosion is threatening the 16th century Spanish Mission. But in the future, it could threaten the houses that we live in when we go down to work on the island. For me personally, this means that I'll continue to go down every chance I get to try and save this site and to try and really understand this monster that we've created. It means that I'll probably be going back to graduate school, which is something that I never thought I would say talk about monsters. [audience laughter] And it means I'll be getting to know this monster very intimately and probably wrestling with it for the rest of my life. Thank you.
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Jodi: [00:48:07] Hannah Morris is an archaeologist and a singer in Storms from North Georgia. Hannah intends to move down to one of those islands, where she won't be able to turn away or separate herself from the effects of climate change and sea level rise. Hannah says, she's sure it will be the most difficult thing she's ever done. In the same way, you'd want to spend time with a loved one who is dying. That's how she feels about the forests and islands.
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And that's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. Thank you for joining in stories of people, places and things cherished. How are you passing time? Is life making stories for you? What's your back in the day tale? Until again, we hope you'll join us next time.
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Jay: [00:49:29] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns and Jodi Powell, who also hosted and directed stories in this hours along with Sarah Austin Jenness and Meg Bowles. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch.
Additional GrandSLAM coaching by Chloe Salmon.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza. Special thanks to Liana Schwartz on Norman Lear's team.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphonette, Rat-Tat-Tat, Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau, [unintelligible 00:50:20] and Philip Glass and Third Coast Percussion. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. You can find us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, @themoth. For more about our podcast. For information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.