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- [00:00]
Sarah Austin Janess
Hey moth listeners. For 17 years, the moth Podcast has shared thousands of stories from stages around the world. Now it's your turn to take the stage. We want to hear from you. The Moth has created a listener survey to help us better serve our community and continue bringing you the best possible content. Visit themoth.org to share your thoughts. It takes just a few minutes for your voice to be part of our story. Head to themoth.org and take our survey today.
- [00:28]
Mark Salinger
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- [02:34]
Caroline Connolly
Welcome to the Moth. I'm Sarah Austin. Janess Summer has us thinking about travel, about vacations, beach trips, barbecues and picnics, starry nights in the great outdoors, and exploring other countries. I'm also thinking about what makes travel special. It's not just about the places you visit, but the people you visit and the people you travel with. So in this episode, two stories about trips and sojourns in which the meaning and memories are made because of friends and family. Caroline Connolly is our first storyteller. She told this at a Boston Grand Slam, the show that's filled with past winners of our open mic story slams. Here's Caroline live at the mall.
- [03:20]
Lala
I spent the summer of my freshman year in college living with my then 75 year old grandmother in Boca Raton, Florida. If you don't know Boca Raton, it is a place with a lot of 75 year olds. That's what my grandmother told me when I called to ask if if I could stay with her while I was interning at a company nearby. Now my grandmother goes by Lala in our family because we couldn't pronounce Abuela when we were little. And she is the ultimate Cuban matriarch. A fourth grade teacher who raised four kids, some of her nine grandkids, and never left the house without lipstick, earrings, and should you ever need it, at least five packets of Splenda in her purse. It's worth noting that Lala is begrudgingly a diabetic. And by begrudgingly I mean she just doesn't feel like being one. That's really the best way I can describe it. And that summer she had been directed to change her diet and do something that absolutely horrified exercise. And because I was there, it became my responsibility to oversee all of this. So we established a routine. I would wake up early in the morning and make us two cups of cafe bustelo. I would take mine black and Lala would take hers with milk and a huge fistful of corn flakes that she would cram into the mug every day. This is a recipe she concocted to quote, trick the blood sugar level test. Now, I was a communications major in college, so I wasn't like questioning her science and the levels for the most part seemed fine. We would take our coffee out onto her back patio table where there was a small pool and we would just chat about life. She would ask me questions that had been troubling her, like why do so Many white women do yoga now. And she would dispense love advice like, marry someone who you can have a conversation with for the rest of your life. And in the same breath, do not marry someone who does yoga. And as for the physical activity, Lala had decided, allegedly with her doctor, that cleaning around the house and the occasional light stroll were sufficient forms of cardio activity. So when I would point out to her she had an exercise one day, she would get up from the couch with a smirk on her face, walk over to her kitchen counter and casually wipe it down. It was Lala's way of saying, go to hell, granddaughter. And on the weekend to meet our strolling goals, we would drive to the local mall and do laps inside Nordstrom. And so we would start in the shoes section and then make our way over to cosmetics and jewelry and eventually work our way to the second floor where they had the higher end designer stuff. And we would walk around like two of the most lethargic robbers casing a joint. And we would reward ourselves for our effort. At night we would lay in her bed side by side, chowing down on sugar free wafers, watching a movie from her extensive VHS collection. And these were films, by the way, that Lala had bought on sale at big box stores all around Florida in the 90s. So the genres range from Air Force One kind of action to Not Without My Daughter, that controversial Sally Field film. And this was us week to week. And I found myself a single 20 year old with no friends in the area getting so excited about a sugar free Jello night and a third viewing of the First Wives Club. But several weeks into my visit, Lala wasn't feeling well. One day her blood sugar had spiked and we thought it was best she go to the hospital. And so while she was being driven there, I was asked to look after my then 10 to 12 year old male cousins. And generally speaking, I am somebody who relates more to a 75 year old than I do a 12 year old boy. And that is true at like every stage of my life. And so when I went outside to check on them, it was no surprise that things weren't going as planned. They had taken all of Lala's patio furniture and thrown it into her pool. So her white table and matching white chairs were all underwater. And by the time she came back from the hospital, I had only managed to drag out one of the chairs. I was someone after all who had spent the summer exercising at Nordstrom. And at first I could not tell what she was feeling. Lala is Someone who has always looked just as shocked by a car crash as she does. The discovery that my boyfriend doesn't speak Spanish. And so I wasn't sure how mad she would be. But as she looked from the pool to her white chair, she started laughing because the chlorine from the pool had cleaned that chair. It had never looked better. Lala is now 92 years old and she no longer lives in that house. But I will always remember all the trips I took there, all the ridiculous, funny things she said and all the advice she gave me. But I will especially remember how we spent the rest of that summer, which was once a week, we would take our cafe con leche and cornflakes out onto her patio and we would throw all of that furniture into the pool because that was exercise.
- [09:16]
Caroline Connolly
That was Caroline Connolly. Caroline grew up in Massachusetts and spent a decade reporting for news stations across the country. She lives in Boston with her husband and their dog, her grandmother. Lala will turn 94 years old this fall. Caroline says Lala now lives with family who dote on her regularly. And if you're wondering, she still doesn't like yoga. Speaking of traveling together, last summer I visited my friend Julie and her family in San Diego. When she picked me up from the airport, she said, you'll be so excited. We are going to be in a flash mob dance sequence in a movie that's filming or puppeteers. One of her director friends needed folks for a dream sequence in her new film and Julie had signed us up. I was thrilled. But I told Julie I was nervous about learning the dance and honestly, I would love to puppeteer. So Julie agreed. She relayed the news to the team, but the puppeteer spots were already taken. We showed up anyway. Julie and I are old friends from theater and we were just happy to be spending time together. We figured we'd just be extras in this movie and that would be the adventure. But secretly I was thinking, this will happen. We will be puppeteers somehow. So we pulled up to the set location and there's a big pickup truck next to us with bigger than life size puppets in the back. These are the kinds of puppets that a human needs to be inside of to operate. The man next to the truck says, I have one small handheld puppet left that needs a puppeteer. Do you know anyone? And I said, I do. I happened to be wearing a blue jumpsuit with birds on it, and the puppet was a bird of the exact same color. Julie and her daughter grabbed the wings and led the puppet parade. And we joined the professional puppeteers for another adventure in the history books. For photographic evidence, go to the moth.org after the break, we take another trip. Be back in a moment.
- [11:15]
Sarah Austin Janess
Summer's here and we're all chasing something. A break, a goal, a vibe. Let's not let bad socks and blisters ruin it. Bombas make socks and now slides and seamless essentials that keep up with whatever your summer looks like. My Bombas are one of my day to day essential luxuries. I never realized I could have such strong opinions on socks but they are so soft, so comfortable. When I run, they hug my feet and they keep me cool and I never ever get blisters. And when I travel, I have become a compression sock person because honestly, I look good and I land with legs ready for adventure. Best of all, they don't just feel good, they do good. One purchased equals one donated to someone who needs it.
- [12:00]
Caroline Connolly
Cool, right?
- [12:01]
Sarah Austin Janess
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- [13:20]
Caroline Connolly
Welcome back. Marjorie Cohen is our next storyteller. She told this at an open mic story slam in Detroit. Here's Marjorie live at the mall.
- [13:34]
Marjorie Cohen
I met Ruby first when I represented her in a wrongful death action. Ruby's mother had died as a result of malpractice at a nursing home. Her mother had been her best friend and her loss was devastating. Ruby settled the case and she bought a little house that Was really very close to my own house. Later, my own mother passed away. And I called Ruby because I knew that she, of all people, would understand what it's like for a daughter to lose a mother that she was so very close to. And Ruby was kind, and it was a good decision to talk to her about it. Sometime after that, Ruby told me that she had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. You know, I married late. I lived alone for a long time, and I liked living alone unless I was sick. And then I didn't like it at all. So I said to Ruby, what if I come over and we'll watch some TV or something? So she and I started watching the first season of Survivor on Wednesday nights. It was a great icebreaker for us as friends. You know, we had lots to gossip about and talk about, but the irony that Ruby was fighting for survival was never lost on me. We used to go out to lunch. I'd take her out to lunch, we'd talk about everything. We learned so many things. She told me that she had once gone on a date with Muhammad Ali. She said he was a perfect gentleman and she loved to gamble, so she had rewards points from the local casino. So she'd take me out to lunch and we'd talk for a long time. And when she found out that I'd never been to Vegas and she said, we are going. So we made reservations. But Ruby was getting sicker and sicker, and I wasn't at all sure that she'd be able to make the trip. I came to her house one day three weeks before she showed me she had completely and meticulously packed for this trip three weeks in advance. And when we got on the plane, she was so sick that she had her head down on the tray the whole time. I was worried sick. When we got to Vegas and checked in, she perked up and she rented one of those scooters and I literally trotted along next to her down the strip and she showed me everything and it was great. We were going out to dinner with a friend of mine and Ruby said that she didn't feel well enough to go and that we should go. And when we came back, we'd go. We had tickets to a Gladys Night performance in the Flamingo Hotel where we were staying. And I thought, she's never going to be well enough to go now. I should mention Ruby was a very big woman, tall and large, but she owned it. She always dressed beautifully and looked so put together. She was featured in an article in the Detroit News about Large women who are fashionable. And she gave me a few pointers that I don't know if I follow. But anyway, so when we come back from the hotel, from dinner, much to my amazement, Ruby is dressed to the nines. Her hair, the makeup. She was gorgeous. And because she was handicapped, we had priority seating in the first row. And Gladys Knight was phenomenal in this small theater, about the size of this one. And at one point, she leaned forward and acknowledged Ruby. And they had a moment. When we came home, Ruby went right into the hospital. And I was with her one day. And she said to me, didn't we have a great time? And I was thinking it was such a stressful time for me. I'm so glad it was wonderful for her. And one day a social worker came in and said to Ruby, who is this? And Ruby said, this is my best friend. And the social worker looked at my face and she said, are you okay? And I said, no. She said, do you want to talk to me? I said, yes. We went into her office and I cried and cried. You know, when this started, I was just trying to do what the Jewish people call a mitzvah. I was just trying to be kind to someone. I had no idea that Ruby's love would touch me to my core and that I would suffer so much pain when I was losing her, which I did just a couple days later. And I sobbed and sobbed. So does love hurt? Yes. But if you know someone who's alone and sick, you could say to them, please let me know if there's anything I can do. You could send them a card that said, thinking of you. But if you call them and say, what if I come over and we'll binge watch something on Netflix, you have no idea what you might gain.
- [18:41]
Caroline Connolly
That was Marjorie Cohen. Marjorie is a retired trial attorney, a recovering video game enthusiast, adult fan of Lego, and surrogate grandma to several sweet kiddies. She began telling stories at the Moth two years ago, since in retirement, she, quote, missed running her mouth in front of an audience. That's it for this episode. From all of us here at the Moth, wherever you go this summer and whoever you go with, we hope you have a wonderful trip.
- [19:11]
Sarah Austin Janess
Sarah Austin Janess is a director, the Moth's executive producer, and a co author of the bestselling how to Tell a Story, the Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from the Moth, which is available now wherever you get your books. Caroline Connolly's story was coached by Meg Bowles. This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin. Janess. Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Mark Salinger. The rest of the Moth's leadership team include Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Marina Clouche, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust and Patricia Urenia. The Moth podcast is presented by Odysee. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Rees Dennis. All Moth stories are true and as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.