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- [00:00]
Morgan
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Kevin Allison
Hello folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and today we're revisiting a story by Morgan that she told on risk back in 2012, plus a conversation that she and I had about it in 2025. Looking back, oh my goodness, this story meant so much to me, meant so much to so many people. When we first ran it back in the day, it wasn't the first story we ever ran by a trans person on the show, but it was the first that was about the trans experience, you know, that that focused on that part of a person's story. We even ended up including a version of it, a personal essay sort of version of it in the Risk book. And you'll hear Morgan is just such a unique and wonderful and hilarious person. Now this is Trans Awareness Week when we're releasing this, and it's a hell of a time to be revisiting this because so much has changed in such alarming ways in American society since this story was first recorded. So let's jump on in for all of the laughter and the sadness. So a quick break and when we come back, Morgan and I will revisit and review. Always a woman.
- [01:45]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [02:15]
Kevin Allison
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- [02:53]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [02:54]
Kevin Allison
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- [03:00]
Sponsor/Announcer
This season only at K. We're back.
- [03:05]
Kevin Allison
Hey everyone, I am here to listen to one of the all time classic risk stories from 2012, all always a Woman by Morgan. And joining me here to listen to it, listen back, is Morgan. Hey, Morgan, how are you?
- [03:22]
Morgan
Hi, Kevin. So good to see you.
- [03:25]
Kevin Allison
Is the last time we saw each other maybe when the Risk book came out? Because I think you didn't you read. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [03:33]
Morgan
You did a book signing thing in San Francisco at the Ferry Building.
- [03:40]
Kevin Allison
It's amazing. I mean, it's just so wonderful to me that this story, like people still love it, it's still so resonant and it's just such an important part of our history.
- [03:53]
Morgan
I'm so happy to have a place in the book too.
- [03:56]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. Yeah, let's give a listen to it. This is from 2012, it's always a woman.
- [04:07]
Sponsor/Announcer
I've known my whole life that I was in the wrong body. I can remember asking my mother, when do I get to carry the purse? How about some frilly stuff? For me, being a child of the 50s, that drew me a smack in the head from my mother, the one person I should have been able to tell my truth to. And it was very hard to figure why. Why it was wrong, you know, and why it was so unacceptable. And it never went away. By the time adolescence hit, I had been swiping and trying on my mother's clothes for quite a while. Mothers realized that, and I needed a new place to shop. And I couldn't just go to a store and say, hey, I want, you know, I want lady stuff, because this was wrong. But I found Salvation army drop boxes. They were all over town. Any big department store or chain store had one of these receptacles in the parking lot where people would put clothes in. And if you were agile and adventurous enough, you could climb right in there and find outfits. So that's what I used to do. I used to pilfer Salvation army boxes for my lady's clothes. And I would take the outfits that I concocted in the dark of these boxes out to the woods and pretty much dress up for the squirrels. The nice thing about squirrels is they don't judge. And again, it like, never went away. Never went away. Never went away. A big part of being transgendered for me was I was bent on overcompensating just because I didn't want you to know. Early on, I started anesthetizing myself. I figured out how to drink and drug because that made my inconvenient truth a little bit easier for me to bear. I know I can act Because I pulled the boy thing off for years. I didn't really do a lot of high school. I actually stopped going to school around seventh grade. I became, you know, it was like I was a secret agent or something. Like I had some kind of dual thing going on with me and it was just too uncomfortable to be in school. Any of the jobs that I took was essentially to take the heat off. And I've genuinely always been good with my hands. I did auto body work for a while, I paved road, I worked with carpenters, I did all sorts of stuff when I was on the road. I've hitchhiked over 40,000 miles from the time I was like, I did my first coast to coast when I was 13 years old. Being good with my hands and tools is one of the things that makes me a kind of a hot shit lesbian, you know. I know the God of my understanding has a sense of humor. The God of my understanding decided, let's give the trans girl a 10 inch cock. Really? God, do you have any idea what this shit is doing to my panty lines? It was hidden away that overcompensating that carried over into, you know, I've been given this 10 inch cock, I might as well play that. And it kind of makes an impression on people along the way. So I tried numerous times to like screw it away. I tried to marry it away. And it was during one of those marriages to a good one that I had a friend that was a union iron worker that told me, you can do this Joey. And ironwork was, was a wonderful little person job. Actually being little was an attribute right up until the boss was like, you're little, go on out there, you know. So I did iron work on the waterfront in Jersey city for like 10 years. I worked on a bunch of different buildings and hanging out with the boys right before lunch we'd be looking over the side of the building from like the 20th floor or something and seeing girls. And I still, I love women, I've always loved women. But I'd be looking over the side with the boys, they that I was working with, they'd be thinking we could do those curls. I'd be thinking I could do that outfit, look at those shoes. And they had no idea. The story of my transition starts at like 4:30 in the morning in Island Heights, New Jersey. I'm up at 4:30 because I got a 71 mile ride to work. And I get there and I tell the boss that I have to leave at 12 because my wife and I are going To a convention or something. And he tells me, fine, take an apprentice and go to 28 and start cleaning up. There's a floor gonna be poured tomorrow. So I go up in the, it's called a buckhorse. It's that screened in elevator that rides the outside of buildings. It's cool. It's like an amusement ride on your way to work because it's all screen. The floor is screen. So I ride to 28 with Benny. He's the apprentice that I've been, been given for the day. Benny is a great guy to have on your crew if you have dope that needs smoking, or if you want to play hide and seek instead of working. We get to 28, Benny disappears. I start looking around at what the job's going to entail. I'm supposed to be cleaning up and I see a piece of plywood that needs to be moved. A full sheet of plywood. I'm little, I've never been big enough to just pick up a piece of plywood and move it. So what I would do is pick up one end of it waist high and go to push it out of my way. I, I did that. My first step was great. My second one was in a two story hall. I went from the 28th floor to the 26th floor and I broke all the shit you could break in a two story fall. Broke like 29 bones. And I was in and out of consciousness. And the first time I came to, the ironworkers had me leaned up against a column and I looked out in front of me and I knew it was bad because the whole working gang was there. Even the guys from the ground that had been sending iron up, they were there too. And they were all looking at me. They were in a half circle, all eyes were on me and they were looking at me like little boys that had just shit their pants. And I was like, oh, this is bad. And then I looked down and I realized there was bone sticking out of my arm. And I was like, oh, damn, this is bad. And then I realized there's two EMS guys working on me. One of them's cutting my pant leg off and the other one's cutting my boot off. And the only thing I could think of was these guys are going to see my legs are shaved and my toes are painted. Not I just fell two floors and I'm probably gonna die. These guys are gonna see, you know, jungle red on my toes. And like I said, I know, I know I can act. I, I worked with iron workers for 10 years and they didn't kill my ass, you know, because in New Jersey, that's a. I don't know, like a hangable offense. The next time I came to, I was in intensive care, where I realized morphine is a wonderful drug for when you fall two floors and break 29 bones. Not so much for Friday nights as I had thought previously. And the next thing I realized was I've lived 50 years without ever being able to tell my truth. And I also got a real grip on just how precarious life is. You know, how many pieces of plywood I moved before I moved that one. You know, how many buildings I worked on before I worked on that one that day, you know? And in like that much time, my life changed. And the next thing I realized laying there in that hospital bed was, there's plenty of ugly women out there. I'm doing this. Get out of the way. I gotta tell you, when I first started getting out as Morgan, I was not as proficient at it as I am now. On any given day, it was hard to tell just what it was I was going for because I didn't have. I was married when I fell, and I told my wife two months in what went on with me because she loved me, we loved each other, and we were married for like 20 years before I fell. Strangely enough, I thought I was in a lesbian relationship. She thought she was in love with a well hung man. And she was not receptive at all. She. We even tried to step to it and she was like repulsed by that side of me. I decided it still had to be covert and instead of Salvation army boxes, it was, you know, her side of our closet. And she knew, and we really tried to address it to make it out loud, but it just didn't work for her. She was just repulsed by it. But it's my heart, you know, My heart has been female right along. And if you fall off a building as a union iron worker and live, it's pretty lucrative. So I had the money for my transition and I did all the research. And on the days of my endocrinologist appointments, I would drive to Jersey City where I'd done all that ironwork. And this one day I drove to Jersey City, I parked my vehicle and I was walking down the sidewalk, and out in front of me were two iron workers that were on the same building I was on when I fell. Except they didn't recognize me because I was doing. It was in early transition. I call that my clown hooker stage. It was hard to tell what it was that I was going for when I first started dressing up and going out because I had no practice, I had no idea. And my wife wasn't really in my corner. I don't know that I got the best information from her about how I looked, you know, or about whether this went with that or not. And I'm walking down the street in Jersey City, I look out in front of me and there's two iron workers that were on the building. They were part of that half circle when I fell. They were guys I saw every day and they didn't recognize me. But I couldn't let it go by. I'm like, hi, I'm Morgan. I used to be Joe. They looked me right in the face and said, wow, you really did bang your fucking head, didn't you? And that's. I get a lot of that. But I, you know, I can't hide. This is my truth. I'm not going to hide. I've seen it in living color. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. I don't know what later today is going to be like. But I know this is my truth and I know it's not wrong. I know I'm a good woman. It's a lot of shit I didn't know. I didn't know bringing a 10 inch cock to a lesbian relationship was a good thing. How would I know? As close as I ever came to not getting the surgery was when I met the woman that I'm in a relationship now with. I met Sharon when I was pre op. She's a confirmed lesbian, has been forever. She saw my heart and was quite enthused with my bad plumbing. That was as close as I came to not doing the surgery. And now I did more thinking and more research about that after coming to the realization that somebody could love me for who I am. I told my mother I was going to Trinidad to have this surgery and she was mortified. I was like, no, Mother Trinidad, Colorado, stop it. They're not going to do it with coconuts or something. That was hard too. You know the telling my mother, you know, my stepmother had a son for, for 50 years and she's from that place where if you don't talk about stuff, it goes away. Well, really doesn't go away. One of the questions that still hangs with me that they asked me in this final evaluation in order to qualify for the surgery, the psychiatrist asked me if I was ready to give up the power. And I was like, oh my God, what power? I'm getting a pussy. I thought that was the power. And she was like, no, the power of being a male in this society. Are you ready to give that up? You know, I understand now what she was talking about, how it's a male driven society. And I do get pretty good service at Home Depot with my little push up bra and stuff. So I understand that. But I was so thrown off by that question. After I had been out in early transition, I thought part of being responsible was letting everybody know. And I used to fish all the time. I fished striped bass on the other coast. And I had this favorite spot where I would go and buy sand worms. And I pulled into the parking lot and I grabbed the door handle and I couldn't get out of the truck. It was scary. It was genuinely scary. And I finally got the courage to open the door and I went in presenting as the other gender. And Dennis was in there and he's behind the counter. And I was like, dennis, I want a dozen sandworms. And he turns around, goes over to the cooler, gets a cup and starts counting the sand worms out and putting them in the cup. And I'm talking the whole time, I'm like, dennis, this is what's going on with me. Me, I've known my whole life, blah, blah, blah. And I'm telling him and telling him, he finally gets up to 12 and he turns to me and he goes, do you have the money for the sand worms? And I was like, yeah, Dennis, I have the money for the sandworms. I wanted to tell you. But he goes, yeah, fine, give me the money for the sandworms.
- [20:24]
Morgan
Go fish.
- [20:26]
Sponsor/Announcer
And who would have thought, you know, I find affirmation in the strangest places. You know, if you had told me the man from the bait and tackle shop is going to be so on your side, I would have said, bullshit. No way. And he was. He is my friend. And your. Your real friends, the people that really care about you, they're there no matter what, Especially essentially.
- [20:57]
Morgan
They want to.
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Sponsor/Announcer
They want to see you happy, you know, and that's all I want to do. I just want to be happy. I just don't want to. Hormones. Since coming to San Francisco six years ago, I don't know if it's fact that I'm in this little bubble or, you know, that's San Francisco, or it's just that I'm of an age where I'm like, this is the decision I've made. This is my truth. I'm doing this. I'm stepping to this My life has been unbelievable. I've been doing stand up as a way of making stuff out loud and making people laugh. I've always been a storyteller and apparently I have an interesting story. I want to keep telling my story and getting it out there because it's not wrong. I am a good woman and I'm a contributor. I make people laugh, damn it. I feel like my mission is to clear brush for the people that come behind me, you know, for the people that are my age. And a lot of the people that do step to this, do it later in life when their parents have died, when their children have married and gone away, when this and when that. The God of my understanding with her sense of humor and all the 10 inch cock stuff, knew it was going to take a two story fall and a really good banging of my head to wake me up. And I'm just trying to clear the brush for the people coming behind me. And my heroes are the parents of the children of today. When their kids tug on their purse and ask, when do I get to carry the purse? They're listening. They're not just negating it right off the bat, which is kind of cool.
- [23:05]
Kevin Allison
Wow. Oh my God, that was so great to hear again. How was that for you?
- [23:13]
Morgan
It was, it was good to hear it again. And yeah, it's a good story.
- [23:22]
Kevin Allison
It sure is. It's a story beautifully told.
- [23:27]
Morgan
Yeah.
- [23:29]
Kevin Allison
Okay, I'll tell you what, hold that thought because we're gonna take a little break and then we'll come back and talk.
- [23:37]
Sponsor/Announcer
We'll be right back. We're back. Yeah.
- [23:44]
Morgan
I hadn't gone back there in, in so much time. And I let the pandemic take stand up away from me. I did stand up for almost, I don't know, 11 or 12 years he here. I did enjoy it, but after a while it was, it was a lot to go to all the, all the pee in the corner bars for 20 bucks maybe.
- [24:15]
Kevin Allison
Yeah, totally.
- [24:16]
Morgan
You know, it was like. And I, and I still, you know, I could still ring the bell and stuff and I'm still funny. I'm just, I'm just not doing that anymore. I have a wood shop in our garage.
- [24:29]
Kevin Allison
Oh, amazing.
- [24:30]
Sponsor/Announcer
And I'm.
- [24:31]
Morgan
And I'm doing that. I'm doing it as a. It's not a production shop. It's one old lady doing everything.
- [24:37]
Kevin Allison
That's incredible. That's beautiful. Yeah. You know, it did really strike me listening to it this time. There's so many funny lines in it. But it's also so moving. It's both things at the same time. And I think that so many great stories are like that. They kind of hold space for a wide range of emotions and attitudes. And this is just such a journey, this story.
- [25:09]
Morgan
Yeah. And it's been. You know, when I look back, it's been. It's coming up on 22 years since I transitioned, and there's been. There's been a lot of things that happened since then. You know, my.
- [25:25]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. My goodness.
- [25:26]
Morgan
I had. I had a heart attack two years ago.
- [25:31]
Kevin Allison
Wow.
- [25:32]
Morgan
And in being responsible with my cardiologist, we decided I should no longer take hormones.
- [25:39]
Sponsor/Announcer
Oh.
- [25:40]
Morgan
Anymore.
- [25:41]
Kevin Allison
Oh.
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Morgan
I'm like, oh, my God. What's. You know, it's not like. Like, stuff's gonna grow back or anything.
- [25:50]
Kevin Allison
Right.
- [25:51]
Morgan
But. But that. That was still. That was still hard realizing that I would have to do that. But the hormones promote clots, and I have. I have two stints. And then after that, I had months where I was a kidney stone farm. I was growing kidney stones to beat the bear.
- [26:13]
Kevin Allison
Oh, damn.
- [26:14]
Morgan
You know, so I was in the hospital three times with kidney stones that were too big to pass.
- [26:18]
Kevin Allison
Holy shit.
- [26:20]
Morgan
And found out that one of the medications that I had been on forever promotes kidney stones.
- [26:27]
Kevin Allison
Oh, no.
- [26:27]
Morgan
And I was like, well, we're gonna stop that.
- [26:32]
Kevin Allison
Did that medication have anything to do with transitioning? No, no, that was just another medication.
- [26:37]
Morgan
No, that's. I do. I'm. I'm an addict in recovery with like, 35 years or so, but I still have. I have chronic pain, but I don't want to do anything narcotic.
- [26:51]
Sponsor/Announcer
Oh.
- [26:52]
Morgan
So it was. It was a non narcotic pain med that I quit. And then, you know, under a doctor's supervision, I had another non narcotic drug prescribed. And I just did not like the way it made me feel at all. And I stopped that. So now I'm like, in between, and I'm. I'm just dumbstruck that 22 years later, I am still in pain from all the crap that I broke. I broke my arm in over 20 places. I broke my pelvis top and bottom. I broke my hip clean at the ball. You know, it just so much stuff, and it. It's. And I still. I want to believe in my head that at 22 years is time enough I can get off some of this crap. Yeah. You know, so right now I' not on any pain meds, and I'm in. I'm in pain.
- [27:52]
Kevin Allison
Oh, my God.
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Morgan
And the health care system being what it is, I have to wait a month before I get to have the blood work done and see my primary care doctor and talk about something else.
- [28:06]
Kevin Allison
But it's, it's something else.
- [28:10]
Morgan
It's still, you know, it's, it's wonderful to be who I am in San Francisco. My, my stepmom passed last year and she was 99. So I have longevity.
- [28:25]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:27]
Morgan
In my, on my side of the family for sure. At this point in my life, I'm like my. I want to believe my body's like not on my side anymore, but it, It's. My body's 73 years old and I did most of the jobs I had were, were real physical stuff, you know, and there's a, there's a price to pay for all that.
- [28:51]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. I remember when we put the episode out originally, we had a picture of you before and after the transition. And the before picture you were working on a motorcycle.
- [29:05]
Morgan
Yeah. I built that motorcycle. I bought a rolling chassis in three five gallon pails full of motorcycle.
- [29:12]
Kevin Allison
Amazing.
- [29:13]
Morgan
For $500. And I was in that position fixing shit on it for ever for like 20 years. I still ride, but I have an old Vespa that I ride and I do all the work on that.
- [29:29]
Kevin Allison
But I loved what you said in the story about like clearing brush. You know, like we're in this era now. Things are so different than they were in 2012 when we recorded this.
- [29:43]
Morgan
I know, I know things are frightening now.
- [29:47]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [29:48]
Morgan
I'm a transgendered female. I'm married to a woman. And the. Whatever he is in charge is like coming after all that. He's coming after same sex marriage.
- [30:03]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
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Morgan
He used part of his inauguration speech to tell me I don't exist with the only two. Only two genders will be. I'm not like a history buff, but I have an idea of what went on in Germany in the 30s. And there's, there's a lot of similarities happening now.
- [30:25]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [30:26]
Morgan
You know, right down to national guard in Washington D.C. that's just, it's just frightening.
- [30:34]
Kevin Allison
It's very frightening. And that is a reason that I think continuing to get these kind of stories out there is so important that people be heard.
- [30:44]
Morgan
Yeah. Everything I said in, in that, like, as, as far as the people that came after me wanting the clear brush for them and, and they're. And the parents of those young trans people, they're my heroes.
- [31:01]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. The ones who have been accepting and.
- [31:03]
Morgan
That'S all getting squashed now. You know, it's like really, I waited this long to find out this is Wrong. I don't think so.
- [31:13]
Kevin Allison
Right. Yeah. And your story is also inspirational in that it shows. I mean, the tides turn and the tides turn again. At the time that you did that, it was. There was much less consciousness about it in the society.
- [31:31]
Morgan
Yeah.
- [31:32]
Kevin Allison
So, yeah, you were really swimming against the current there. That's one thing I love about the story. Especially that. That scene with the guy in the bait shop and Dennis.
- [31:46]
Morgan
I went back to the east coast for my, my mother's memorial. And while I was there, I went to Murphy's Hook House, which is. And Dennis is there. And Dennis is still. He's my friend. He's my friend around the common thing of. I like to fish. I used to like to fish. I quit when I got out here.
- [32:11]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. And that's just it, you know, like so much of the political currents and the use of the Internet, the algorithms and everything is deliberately dividing and conquering, deliberately taking people who would otherwise be like, hey, well, you're different in this way, but we have something in common and we can be friends. There's people who are really high up trying to drive wedges in between us like that.
- [32:42]
Morgan
Oh, yeah. And you, you would think that, like lesbians as a group would be on your side. And I recently stumbled on a group that's very anti trans, the turf sort of people. Yeah. They're. They're lgb.
- [33:04]
Kevin Allison
No T. Right, right, right, right.
- [33:08]
Morgan
And. And I had a conversation with a, with a woman about that, and she was like, well, I just don't want you in our locker rooms. I would say, first off, I don't want to be in your locker room. And I don't get it.
- [33:25]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [33:26]
Morgan
You know, so a lot of it, I don't know if it's ignorance or just not having an open mind or not. I can't do hate. And I'm just. I'm so repelled by it.
- [33:38]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [33:39]
Morgan
And I can see. I can see when people clock me. I'm not that hard to clock, you know, especially when I'm in the shop. Like, I have a little kick ass wood shop in our garage and I have a display case where I. I do cheese slicers and cutting boards and scroll saw stuff and things like that. But it's, it's all made out of like exotic hardwoods and stuff. And men will like sidle up to my display case and look over the top of it and tell me what a wonderful job I've done on my shop. And I'm like, what about the stuff I made? You know? But so I have that. You know, and that's, like, the commonplace between so many people and. And me. That has nothing to do with. They're not even counting that I'm trans.
- [34:33]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yes.
- [34:34]
Morgan
It's not even an issue. And I just. I didn't do it to be an issue. I did it to get right with. With who I am.
- [34:42]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [34:43]
Morgan
You know, and I thought recently I had somebody ask me, do you ever fem it up? And I was like, what mean? But I thought, you know, having a. A lesbian approved vagina installed was gonna count for femming it up something. Yeah. I mean, you know, could you. Could you not just see my heart?
- [35:11]
Kevin Allison
Right. Holy shit.
- [35:17]
Morgan
You know, and then. And then later that. Later that day, I'll see a woman who's a lesbian who presents as harder than I did when I was Iron Man.
- [35:27]
Kevin Allison
Oh, sure, sure.
- [35:29]
Morgan
And I'm like, I don't get it. Why. Why would you need to single a group out?
- [35:35]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. Yeah. It's so frustrating. I forget who I was. I think it was in a workshop. In a storytelling workshop last night. I was talking about when I was in the seventh grade, I became obsessed with Bob Dylan. And I heard a song that. From his folk music days, from one of his earliest albums, where he sings a song about how in the south at that time, the Southern politicians were using racism, were stoking racism, in order to distract people from noticing that, oh, we're stealing from you, you know?
- [36:15]
Morgan
Yeah.
- [36:15]
Kevin Allison
And at the time, in the seventh grade, I was like, oh, that's fantastic. We figured that out. That was nice and settled then. And here's this super famous singer who explained it to everyone. So that must be all figured out now. Like, that's the naivety of a seventh grader. But all these years later, how painful is it to feel like, my God, the Civil War, you know, the way that those poor southern soldiers were tricked into defending plantation owners, that they had nothing to gain from being in that war. They were just fighting in order to make rich men richer. And here we are all over again with. They just.
- [37:03]
Morgan
It's.
- [37:04]
Kevin Allison
And that's why they want to keep people uneducated. That's what it is. Yeah.
- [37:09]
Morgan
Yeah. It's just, you know, I'm really happy to be in the Persona that I feel I belonged in right along. But it's still. It's still scary times.
- [37:19]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [37:20]
Morgan
And now I have. You know, I'm in. I'm part of a little unit, and I've. I've always taken it as my spot to. To be the protector you know, and I'm. I'm frightened.
- [37:33]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [37:34]
Morgan
Even though I'm in San Francisco and it's a really good neighborhood in San Francisco, but there's still, like, on my block, there's people who are not down with this, and they go so far as to make faces at you and stuff. I'm like, well, okay, I'm. I'm not in fifth grade anymore, but.
- [37:53]
Kevin Allison
Right.
- [37:53]
Morgan
Thank you for your input.
- [37:56]
Kevin Allison
Oh, man. Oh, man.
- [37:58]
Morgan
Yeah.
- [37:59]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. The struggle continues in a big, big, big way.
- [38:04]
Morgan
Yeah. My initial response was to, like, not be out there, and then I realized that's not going to work.
- [38:12]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [38:13]
Morgan
You know, I. It's. It's. It's kind of my place to make some noise, you know, so every time there's a. There's a march or something, I'm there and my honey's there, too. You know?
- [38:25]
Kevin Allison
I absolutely agree with you. That's that quote from Thoreau. I think most people are living quiet lives of desperation. It's so much of the hatred also comes from people trying to bottle things up and trying to be what they're not.
- [38:41]
Morgan
Yeah. I just have to believe that it's not forever.
- [38:45]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [38:45]
Morgan
You know, and eventually people will wake up.
- [38:48]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. That the tide will turn again. Yeah.
- [38:51]
Morgan
Yeah. And I'm. I'm frightened of what kind of waking up they're gonna do.
- [38:55]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [38:56]
Morgan
You know, but the massive amounts of dumb in our leadership is just colossal. It's unbelievable. You know, I have, like, a seventh grade education and the rest is like, you know, I learned on YouTube, but it just seems so blatant. You know, it's like. It's the way you catch snakes. You wiggle your finger in front of their nose and then grab them with the other hand. There's so much of that going on now. Doesn't anyone else see that this is wrong? You know, and then there's so much of it. I'm like, well, maybe it's me. And I only entertain that for a little while. And I'm like, no, no, it's not me. I'll continue to be who I am.
- [39:41]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. I think that the folks who have everything, the fol who have billions and billions of dollars, they see that they can benefit from all of this hatred and desperation.
- [39:55]
Morgan
Yeah.
- [39:56]
Sponsor/Announcer
I don't know.
- [39:57]
Morgan
That's not how we want to live.
- [39:59]
Kevin Allison
No. No. And I think what you're talking about is exactly right, that in order for the tide to turn, we can see that what happened to our government. Both parties got so captured by big money and, you know, Just unregulated capitalism, which is what FDR warned about. He was like, unless you regulate these capitalists, they'll just destroy democracy. And here we are.
- [40:30]
Morgan
And there's been, there's been plenty of warnings through the years.
- [40:35]
Kevin Allison
Oh, yeah. It's been a long time coming. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I've been like Chicken Little warning that the sky is falling for the best at least decade or so.
- [40:48]
Morgan
Yeah. I've been around for a minute and I, I'm noticing so much of science fiction.
- [40:55]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [40:56]
Morgan
Is now fact.
- [40:58]
Kevin Allison
Totally. Totally. That, that, that show Black Mirror about, you know, how technology can be used for evil. I'm like, oh man, they should maybe stop making those because they might be giving people too many, you know, the wrong people too many new ideas.
- [41:15]
Morgan
Yeah. And everybody has access to that, Right?
- [41:19]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. Well, it was really beautiful to hear it again though. You know, it was funny. I was so tickled by how often I laughed and how poignant it is. You know, it's also a story that's filled with twist twists, you know, like you, you really are a survivor and a. Someone who shows that resiliency makes a difference, huh? Yeah.
- [41:50]
Morgan
And I still tell the, the three minute version of my fall just in, in passing, all, all the time. And I've. There was a town wide yard sale a few weeks ago and there were three young women that were here and I just. I don't know how I fall into it sometimes, but sometimes I just fall into it. And I told them that like three minute thing about my fall. Two of them were crying and I was like, it's okay. This is, this is what you get when that happens, you know, and it's, it's all right. You know, you get an old lady in a wood shop, you know.
- [42:32]
Kevin Allison
Yeah. And the guys, the guys saying, wow, you really did bang your head moment as a class.
- [42:39]
Morgan
That was true. I was on my way to the water taxi in Jersey City. I would drive to Jersey City. Like I was driving to work and I would park my car and I would take the water taxi across into Manhattan because my first endocrinologist was in Manhattan. And I would take the water taxi across and there were, there were two guys that were on the, on the same building I was on when I fell.
- [43:05]
Kevin Allison
And that's amazing, actually.
- [43:06]
Morgan
The, the rig foreman from that job was very much on my. On my side. And he rode in the ambulance with me to Jersey City Hospital. And I saw him after that a few times, like years after that, and he was still like on board. Oh, Great. Yeah. Which is cool.
- [43:30]
Kevin Allison
Amazing.
- [43:31]
Morgan
But I was glad that I told this story about Dennis in the. In the bait shop because he was genuinely glad to see me when I came back, and he's still there.
- [43:42]
Kevin Allison
That's great. Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, that is something to find hope in. The fact that there are people out there who are loving and accepting and compassionate and that.
- [43:56]
Morgan
That's what I'm going to focus on. Not the. Not all the negativity. I don't want to get any of that on me.
- [44:02]
Kevin Allison
Yeah.
- [44:03]
Morgan
You know, but I can't. I can't not be aware of it because it's so blatant, you know?
- [44:08]
Kevin Allison
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you got to stick close to folks who are compassionate.
- [44:13]
Morgan
Yeah, that's. That's not where I want to live. I want to live on the. On the compassionate, accepting side of, you know, and I'm still trying to grow. I'm still, you know, and I'm just growing in different ways now.
- [44:25]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [44:26]
Morgan
You know, for sure. I'm. I'm 73. We have a house, and. And I just. We've been together 22 years, and we just celebrated our one year anniversary. Our one year wedding anniversary.
- [44:38]
Kevin Allison
Oh, my gosh. Congratulations.
- [44:41]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [44:42]
Morgan
And now I'm glad we did it when we did it, you know, and I'm glad. I have a friend, a trans friend who's a vet who hadn't transitioned yet and went to the Internet one day, and anything related to transgendered as for a vet was just gone.
- [45:05]
Kevin Allison
Oh, my God.
- [45:06]
Morgan
It was missing.
- [45:08]
Kevin Allison
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [45:09]
Morgan
You know, and she still has to do all the stuff that I did 20 years ago to do that now. Oh, my God. They're hurdles that they put in front of you. You got to really show intent now.
- [45:24]
Kevin Allison
Holy shit. Well, let's hope this story was helpful to some folks out there who needed to hear it. Just like that.
- [45:34]
Morgan
Yeah. And I'm still at it. I'm not going away.
- [45:38]
Kevin Allison
That's great. That's good to know. All right, well, thank you so much. It was so great talking to you again and revisiting the story again. It's a beauty.
- [45:50]
Morgan
Thank you, Kevin. It was wonderful to see you too, again.
- [45:55]
Kevin Allison
And that's that. You can find morgan online@morgancandoit.com. let us know what you think about these revisiting of stories that we've been doing with the Storytellers. And if you've got an old Risk favorite you'd like us to revisit with the Storyteller today, let us know. You can find us on all the socials riskshow or look for us at the Risk Podcast Fans Discussion group on Facebook or on Reddit@r riskpodcast. Or you can email me directly at kevinrisk-show.com could be that this story inspired you to share a story of your own. You can find us for That@risk-show.com submissions folks, today's the day. Take a Risk.