Rafters

Summary

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

Episode: "Rafters"
Date: June 16, 2026
Host: Aaron Mahnke
Podcast Theme: Unbelievable, unsettling, and bizarre stories from history—two short tales per episode.

---

Episode Overview

In "Rafters," Aaron Mahnke presents two riveting historical stories linked by the theme of individuals or communities stepping out of line—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of conviction. The first tale explores the harrowing journey of a Cuban refugee during the 1994 raft exodus (the "balseros"), focusing on human ingenuity and desperation for freedom. The second centers on Winston County, Alabama—dubbed "the Free State of Winston"—which stood in defiance of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, embodying a rare allegiance to the Union in a seceded South.

---

Story 1: The Balseros of Cuba

[00:34 – 06:36]

Main Points

• Cuban Crisis, 1994:
  • In August 1994, economic hardship and scarcity in Havana forced desperate measures. Residents secretly collected makeshift materials—oil drums, styrofoam, car engines—to build rafts ("balsas") for a perilous escape to Florida.
• Construction and Secrecy:
  • Families constructed rafts using whatever they could find due to government restrictions on key materials.
  • The rafts ranged from makeshift foam squares to elaborate floating cars.
• Personal Story – Hanoi:
  • Focus on one refugee, Hanoi, who built a raft with his family and faced the looming threat of drowning, dehydration, or sharks.
  • The tension of leaving family behind, the hope for a future, and the anxiety of the journey.
• Sudden Change:
  • On August 8, 1994, Fidel Castro temporarily lifted the emigration ban, allowing Cubans to leave openly.
• The Departure:
  • Families gathered on beaches, said tearful goodbyes, and wished loved ones well; they "fed him a simple meal of rice and beans" ([03:00]) before launch.
• Ordeal at Sea:
  • The journey was treacherous—rough seas caused Hanoi to become sick. Multiple rafts dotted the ocean, some poorly built, exposing occupants to sharks at night; screams echoed in the darkness.
  • Many lost their lives or limbs.
• Climax and Twist:
  • As Hanoi neared Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the balseros.
  • Instead of being welcomed, they were detained and rerouted to Guantanamo Bay, as President Clinton halted the previous open-door policy ([05:25]).
• Coping with Detainment:
  • Though the camp was hot, boring, and bleak, the refugees received food and shelter and none were sent back immediately.
  • Memorable Quote:
    • "The country, they seem to say, no longer had room for them." ([05:31])
• Resolution:
  • After months of limbo and negotiations, the Clinton administration allowed them into the U.S.—Hanoi's journey from desperation to hope was at last rewarded.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Human Motivation:
  • "The sunrises in Cuba are magnificent and the ocean is bright blue, but of course, you can't eat the view." ([02:45])
• On Desperation:
  • "He waved and waved, not stopping until Cuba and his family were a dot on the horizon. And then he got to rowing." ([03:12])
• On Danger:
  • "All these balseros, the Spanish name for rafters, soon found that some of the rafts were better designed than others. ... At nighttime, hungry sharks took advantage of this. More than one balsero lost a limb or their life." ([04:30])
• On Perseverance:
  • "But he kept on rowing. Finally, mercifully, land appeared on the horizon. It was Florida. He was nearly there." ([05:00])

---

Story 2: The Free State of Winston

[07:23 – 12:43]

Main Points

• Secession and Civil War Context:
  • On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, motivated explicitly by the defense of slavery ([07:30]).
  • Alabama followed, but not all counties agreed, especially Winston County, a small, non-slaveholding region.
• Christopher Sheets – A Lone Holdout:
  • Sheets, Winston County's sole representative, refused to sign the secession ordinance.
  • Imprisoned for "treason against the Confederacy," spending the war in custody ([08:32]).
• Free State of Winston Declaration:
  • Unionist residents met at Looney's Tavern, symbolically declaring independence as the "Free State of Winston" ([08:53]).
  • Their rallying logic: "If Alabama could secede from the United States, Winston County could secede from Alabama."
• Conflict and Hardship:
  • Confederate pressure increased—including forced conscription and food confiscation.
  • Many locals fled to join the Union Army, leaving the county in hardship.
  • Winston County became a microcosm of civil strife—neighbors divided against each other.
• Aftermath:
  • Even after the war, tensions lingered.
  • Sheets was released and attempted a return to politics, eventually serving in the Alabama House and a brief stint as U.S. ambassador to Denmark.
  • The county's peculiar history is immortalized by the courthouse statue "Dual Destiny"—a soldier literally split half-Union and half-Confederate ([11:58]).
• Irony & Reflection:
  • Mahnke observes the irony—Confederate states chanting "states' rights" yet harshly repressing a county seeking its own autonomy.
  • Memorable Quote:
    • "A rebellion, even a symbolic one, can carry real weight." ([12:32])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Confederate Motivations:
  • "You'll often hear it said that the Civil War was about states' rights, but folks who say that rarely elaborate. The state right that South Carolina and all the others wanted to protect was their right to buy, sell, and use other human beings." ([07:37])
• On Personal Defiance:
  • "Sheets, a schoolteacher in his early 20s, refused to sign the ordinance. He was the sole representative of Winston County and his county did not want to secede." ([08:17])
• On Commemoration:
  • "The statue depicts a Civil War era soldier whose uniform is split down the middle...half Union, half Confederate. The statue bears the title Dual Destiny." ([11:58])

---

Episode Highlights & Takeaways

• Ingenuity in Crisis:
  • Both stories showcase resourcefulness—Cuban families building rafts from scraps, and Winston County residents leveraging legalistic arguments and symbolic gestures to protect their values.
• Courage in Defiance:
  • Whether fleeing a failing regime or resisting the Confederacy’s pressure, individuals and communities prove that even the smallest acts can make history.
• Lasting Symbols:
  • The episode ends reflecting on how memorials and oral histories preserve these flashes of rebellion, courage, and hope for posterity.

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Cuban Balsero Journey: 00:34 – 06:36
  • Hanoi’s story and the 1994 raft exodus
• Winston County’s Defiance: 07:23 – 12:43
  • The Free State of Winston and the complexities of Civil War loyalties

---

Memorable Closing Lines

• On Rebellion’s Impact:
  • "In the long arc of history, a rebellion, even a symbolic one, can carry real weight." – Aaron Mahnke ([12:32])
• Signature Sendoff:
  • "And until next time, stay curious." ([12:43])

---

Tone: Calm, thoughtful, and gently ironic—Mahnke’s signature blend of wonder and historical insight.
For Listeners: Whether you like riveting tales of survival or the nuances of history, this episode reminds us how ordinary people, facing extraordinary circumstances, shape the course of events.

---

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[B]

I turned off news altogether.

[C]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everyone in Hanoi's neighborhood had a secret. In their garage, each family worked under cover of night, bringing strange materials from their workplaces. Oil drums, styrofoam, old car engines. They used whatever they could find. It was August of 1994 in Havana, Cuba. Food and other resources were scarcely the people longed for a better life. And it was only 100 miles to Florida. 100 miles of choppy, shark infested water. But they were willing to take the chance. Many garages house secret balsas, makeshift rafts that families could use to send loved ones to America. The name is derived from the cheap, flimsy balsa wood some Cubans used to construct their rafts. The government didn't approve of its citizens leaving the country, though, so they kept tight control over materials such as plywood and inner tubes. And so the people used what they had. The rafts were as numerous as they were strange. Some were barely better than a cork bobbing in an ocean, truly just a square of foam and aluminum. But some were more elaborate, too. Entire cars were hollowed out and then placed between two rows of floating oil drums. Hanoi and his family members worked on their raft in secret. They used tar as an adhesive to attach blocks of Styrofoam to a wooden frame. An old shower curtain was to line the interior. Hanoi would travel alone in the small compartment. The thought filled him with anxiety and despair. He might drown or die of thirst or be eaten by sharks. Even if he was successful, he might never see his family again. But they wanted this for him. They wanted him to have a future. And as it turns out, they didn't have to bring the raft to the ocean under the COVID of night. On August 8th of 1994, the country's leader, Fidel Castro, lifted the emigration ban, allowing Cuba's citizens to flee on their rafts without fear of capture. People like Hanoi and his family lined up along the country's beautiful beaches, preparing to say goodbye. The sunrises in Cuba are magnificent and the ocean is bright blue, but of course, you can't eat the view. And so Hanoi's family fed him a simple meal of rice and beans and then helped him into the raft. They pushed him off and into the ocean. He waved and waved, not stopping until Cuba and his family were a dot on the horizon. And then he got to rowing. The trip could be completed in about a day and a half. The shorter the better, of course. The rice and beans were all the food his family had. It would be his last meal unless he could reach America. Similarly, he didn't have any drinking water, and unfortunately, the choppy waves meant that not even the rice and beans would stay in him. He soon got sick and threw up over the side of the raft, and as he traveled, he could see other rafts dotting the ocean. He and the other sailors encouraged one another, but as night fell and darkness surrounded him, he could no longer see them. However, he could hear screams. All of these balseros, the Spanish name for rafters, soon found that some of the rafts were better designed than others. Some were little more than a frame, and the balseros feet dangled into the water. And at nighttime, hungry sharks took advantage of this. More than one balseros lost a limb or their life. When morning came, Hanoi was alone. He continued rowing, pushing himself in the heat. His mouth was dry and his hands were blistered, but he kept on rowing. Finally, mercifully, land appeared on the horizon. It was Florida. He was nearly there. But now he was sharing the water with a very different type of sailor. The United States Coast Guard descended on Hanoi and his fellow ball seros. President Clinton had ordered that they be rounded up and taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They would not be allowed into the United States as their predecessors had in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The country, they seem to say, no longer had room for them. There were 30,000 detainees in total. The thought of returning to Cuba was heart wrenching. But being kept at Guantanamo actually had its upsides. The soldiers there provided the Cuban refugees with tents, food and water. But it was excruciatingly boring to wait in the hot, dry, dusty camp while the world powers argued what to do with Hanoi and his countrymen. All he could do was hope, and ultimately, that was enough. After nearly a year, the Clinton administration relented and allowed the Cuban refugees into the United States. Hanoi's long ordeal was over. Now he could begin the equally hard work of building a new life for himself. But that was what he had always wanted. The ingenuity of his family and his curiosity in facing the unknown finally delivered him to America. This show is sponsored by American Public University. The future won't wait and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers Master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality and flexible. So you keep moving forward with career relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, it and more. You can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University made for what's next? Learn more at apu Apus.

[B]

Edu Hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My Favorite Murder we cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Want the full story? Take a listen. She starts dating Howard Hughes and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane and that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamarr and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Goodbye.

[C]

On December 20th of 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States. It was the first of 11 states to secede which would form the Confederate States of America and kick off the American Civil War. Their secession, by the way, was all because they wanted to keep owning and enslaving other human beings, refusing them rights and dignity and freedom. You'll often hear it said that the Civil War was about states rights, but folks who say that rarely elaborate. The state right that South Carolina and all the others wanted to protect was their right to buy, sell and use other human beings. South Carolina said so right in their declaration of secession. The fourth state to secede was Alabama on January 11th of 1861. The vote in Alabama was 61 to 39 in favor of secession. However, when the vote was secured and the state officially decided to leave the Union, there was one holdout in the Alabama House of Representatives. Christopher Sheets, a schoolteacher in his early 20s, refused to sign the ordinance. He was the sole representative of Winston county and his county did not want to secede. The push towards secession was driven by slaveholding plantation owners, and Winston county was not a large participant in that system. A county of less than 4,000 people, it only had 14 slaveholders and around 120 enslaved people within their county lines, a vanishingly tiny portion of of their already small population. Christopher Sheets was ultimately imprisoned for treason against the Confederacy for this, but spent the entire war awaiting trial. Meanwhile, his home county became an ideological battleground in the middle of the Civil War, not long after Alabama's secession, Winston county residents loyal to the Union gathered in Looney's Tavern, where they declared it the Free State of Winston. The gathering, while informal, declared Sheets a hero for opposing secession and said that if Alabama could secede from the United States, well, then Winston county could secede from Alabama. That same year, an opposing gathering of Confederate sympathizers occurred, where they wrote a petition to the governor asking for his support to quell the growing Union sentiment in their county. They said that citizens needed to be forced to swear a loyalty oath to the Confederacy. Starting in 1862, the Confederate government attempted to force Winston county residents, even those who supported neither the Union nor the Confederate sides, to enlist. Many wound up fleeing north, joining the 1st Alabama Cavalry with the Union army. Enough farmers fled conscription that Winston county farms struggled to grow enough food for their remaining residents, a problem that worsened when Confederate soldiers confiscated food for their own use as they passed on through. For the next several years, conflicts broke out across the county. It was the target of several raids from both Union and Confederate units. Neighbors turned against neighbors. There was little strategic value to this northern Alabama county, nor were there any huge political values to its capture. All the same, the county became a microcosm for the war itself. Families found themselves split down the middle. And even after the end of the war in 1865, when the south lost, tensions remained between neighbors who had served on opposite sides during the conflict. Christopher Sheets was let out of prison and attempted a rocky return to politics that concluded with him serving in the House of representatives in the 1870s and briefly served as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. Like the rest of the country, Winston county did its best to move on from the turmoil of civil war. But the reminders of its particular role in the conflict remain to this present day, most prominently in a memorial statue in front of their courthouse. The statue depicts a Civil War era soldier whose uniform is split down the middle, half Union, half Confederate. The statue bears the title Dual Destiny. There's a lot to say about the Free State of Winston and its unique history. If the rallying cry of the south in the Civil War was states rights, it should be abundantly ironic that they tried so hard to suppress a county that asserted its own independence in the face of a state in active rebellion. The county never actually seceded from the Confederacy. It remained officially Confederate territory until the end of the war, but not by signing a single piece of paper Sheets determined that his county would retain its integrity after the war. In the long arc of history, a rebellion, even a symbolic one, can carry real weight. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron man, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grimm and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it [e-mail] curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up [e-mail] grimandmild and until next time, stay curious.

[A]

A Better Help Ad Summer can be a mix of things. For some, it's about travel, adventure and making memories. For others, juggling everything can feel overwhelming. Kids at home, packed schedules, shifting routines. It's easy to slip into survival mode and wonder where the days are going. Taking time for yourself can make a difference, and therapy can support that, helping you feel more confident setting boundaries and making space to recharge so that summer feels more balanced and enjoyable. With BetterHelp you can connect with a licensed therapist online. You'll be matched based on your needs and can switch anytime. It's not the right fit. With over 30,000 therapists and millions of clients worldwide, people are finding the support they need with better Help. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find guidance in therapy. Visit betterhelp.com to get started. That's betterhelp.com this is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.