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- [00:00]
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- [02:21]
Kathryn Burns
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX and I'm Kathryn Burns. Today we're going to hear stories about courage. All our storytellers in this hour were pushed, either by themselves or outside forces, to dig deep, face their fears and find the guts to do what was needed. First up, the writer A.J. jacobs. The story contains a description of the perils of having a nude photo taken, so we wanted to warn you just in case that would be troublesome, but we thought it was funny and hope you will too. It was recorded at Lincoln Center's beautiful Alice Tully hall in New York City, where we Partner with wnyc, here's AJ Jacobs.
- [02:59]
A.J. Jacobs
Okay. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. Okay. It started out innocently enough. I was working as an editor at Esquire magazine and my boss tells me that the actress Mary Louise Parker has agreed to write an essay and I'm assigned to be her editor. And he says, here's her number, give her a call. You two figure out what she should write about. So I call Mary Louise Parker. I do the awkward but necessary I'm a huge fan of your work. I love you on the West Wing. That's what she was on at the time. I say, what would you like to write about? And she says, well, I have an 8 year old niece and I thought maybe I could write an essay about what it's like to be an ant. And I say, great, great, great. And in my mind I'm thinking, not so great, not so great, not so great. Because you have to understand, Esquire is a men's magazine and my boss is a manly man. I'm new to the job. I really want to impress him. So I just know that if I brought this to him, it would put him in a stage three coma. So I say, I love that, but do you have any other ideas? And she says she does have another idea. She says that she was thinking that she could pose for a nude photo and then write an essay about what it's like to pose for a nude photo and then Esquire could print the photo and the essay. At this point, I have to restrain myself from getting down on my knees and making a burnt offering to Mary Louise Parker because she is just guaranteed my holiday bonus. My boss is going to love this. So I'm about to hang up and tell him the good news, and she says, I do have one little addendum. I was like, okay. And she says, I was thinking that you should also pose for a nude photo. And I was like, what's that now? And she said, yeah, I was thinking, as editor of the piece, you should pose for a bunch of nude photos. I'll pick one of the photos and Esquire will run your photo in addition to mine so that you can experience the objectification and loss of control that goes with this experience. Now, I, I don't recall exactly what I said, but later, Mary Louise Parker actually wrote an essay where she describes my reaction. And I brought it along in writing. I was given permission for just this one passage. So this is how she describes it. She says, I was met with some sputtering and Choked, mortified. Laughter. The way people laugh when they feel suddenly light headed or when they view something both compelling and grotesque, like, say, two cats having sex or a child vomiting into his Easter basket. So that sounds accurate. I was certainly rattled. And so I hang up. And reluctantly, I have to go to my boss and tell him. And my only consolation is that I figure there's no way he's going to want my nude body in Esquire magazine. That was a grave miscalculation. He is gleeful. He thinks it would be hilarious to humiliate me. So he starts brainstorming, like, we can put whipped cream on you. I'm like, all right, let me think about it. I go home to my wife and tell her, figuring that she's going to be as disturbed as I am. Another grave miscalculation. She says, oh, you got to do it. It's only fair. Turns out later I found out she thought this would motivate me to lose the flab around my middle. So she had an ulterior motive. But I didn't know what to do because I am not comfortable in my body. I kind of see my body as a vehicle to carry my brain from place to place, and I've always felt that way. And I don't work out and it shows. So I have, you know, I have what I call a concave chest. So I've got an indentation in my chest about the size of a soap dish, which comes in handy when you're taking a bath, but which is not for public consumption. And I'm a writer, so I'm okay with exposing my mind. But I thought my body, that is a violation. That's an invasion of privacy. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided my wife and Mary Louise Parker were right. It is only fair. I always tell my kids, you can't ask someone to do something for you if you wouldn't be willing to do it yourself. So I say, all right. Plus, I wanted to keep my job, so that was another motivation. I went to my boss. I said, okay, let's. Let's do it. Then I spend the next two weeks getting prepared as much as I can. So I do a lot of stomach crunches. I eat a lot of quinoa salads. Doesn't make much impact. I stress out. I worry about the worst case scenarios. You know, this is the first time that my private parts are going to be in public since I was like 2 years old. And my mind goes to weird places. I'm thinking, like, what if the, you know what if the worst thing happens and I get. I lose control and my private part acts up. And, you know, it's unlikely. I'm not 13, but I've never been in this situation. So I come up with a list of depressing mental images that I can call up if I need an emergency to deflate, like the Hindenburg, you know, that's going to help me. So finally the day comes. I go to the studio, which is huge. It's like the size of an airplane hangar. And I get there and I'm disturbed to see there are already like a dozen people there. Producers, assistants, assistants to assistants, and most of them are women in their 20s. And one of them gives me a glass of white wine and she says, okay, it's go time. Get undressed. So I follow orders. I put my clothes in the corner and I am directed to this round red cushion on the floor and told to sit down, which I do, hoping that it's been dry cleaned since the last nude photo shoot. And I'm sitting there and there are these, you know, these dozen women 10ft away. They're unpacking lenses and they're just chatting about the news and zero interest in my naked body, which is partly. It's relieving. It's a relief, you know, I don't want a big fuss. And it's also kind of sad because it's clear that my nude form holds as much allure as like a wicker table. So just no interest. So I'm sitting there, I'm getting cold air conditioning. I can feel it on my neck. I don't know what to do with my hands because I usually put them in my pockets when I'm nervous. I don't have pockets because I don't have pants. So then out comes the photographer. His name is Nigel. He's from Scotland. He's got a thick accent and he's photographed a list actors and presidents. So this is no big deal for him. He adjusts the light some more and he starts shooting like. And he says to me, okay, now relax your face. So I try to relax my face. I try really hard to relax my face. And he says, no, now you just look constipated. And I'm like, this is not a relaxing situation. He says, okay, now suk in your gut. And I'm like, what's that? He says, suk in your gut. And he points to his gut, his stomach. I'm like, oh, suck in my gut. Okay, I can do that. So I suck in My gut. And I'm sitting cross legged on the floor and I'm not a yoga practitioner, so it's actually getting kind of uncomfortable. So I adjust my legs and he says, no, no, no, not like that. Now I can see your chopper. And I had never heard the word chopper used in that context. Maybe it's Scottish. But I figured out what he was saying and he was, I definitely do not want, want my chopper out there. Because I've been thinking while this is going on, that chopper or not, this is one of the worst decisions I've made. Because the Internet is forever. You know, this is when people Google my name. This is what's going to show up. So I'm spiraling. Then I try to put it in context. I'm like, look, I talk to myself. I'm just, you're one of 7 billion people on earth. There are people with much larger problems. You're going to die in a few decades. The universe is slowly dying. So in like a few billion years, it'll just be a collection of lifeless atoms and they won't care about a mid level men's magazine guy posing nude. So that made me feel better, actually. That just depressed me. So I try to give myself a pep talk and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to reframe this. I'm going to say, this is liberating. I am making myself vulnerable. I'm going to survive this. And I've stripped down to my bare essence and I'm going to come out stronger. There's that phrase, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. I literally have nothing left to lose, fabric wise. So then Nigel, the photographer, he says, okay, let's wrap it up. And they give me this nice white bathrobe and I am delighted to see that they have set up a buffet on this table of like couscous and grilled chicken and expensive bottles of champagne. And I'm like, yes, I deserve this. Thank you. I worked for this. So I go over and an assistant says, oh, no, this is not for you. This is for Mary Louise Parker. She's coming in to shoot after you. You're finished. You should go home. So any sense this delusion of liberation was crushed and no dignity. I put on my clothes, I do the walk of shame home. A month later, the article comes out and we get some letters. One man wrote that seeing Mary Louise Parker and reading her essay, it was like a great meal. And then turning the page and seeing me was like botulism. After the meal so that's done. Thank you. Yeah. But I will say we didn't get any canceled subscriptions. And it was much better than it could have been because Mary Louise Parker and Nigel were actually. They had mercy on me. I couldn't believe how much control you have over a photo. You think a photo is reality. It's not. You know, they used black and white, which is automatically 40% more classy. And the lighting was miraculous. It like brought out muscles that didn't exist. And they used Photoshop so they got rid of a lot of the hair on my legs. It was like a deforestation Agent Orange situation. And so I figured I really should be grateful to Mary Louise Parker and thank her because this was a. An unpleasant experience. But it really did teach me. I got to see, and I will tell you this, never again have I asked a woman to pose nude. In fact, the very thought of it makes me want to vomit into an Easter egg basket. Thank you.
- [16:33]
Kathryn Burns
That was A.J. jacobs. A.J. is an author, journalist and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, Thanks a Thousand, is about him going around the world thanking everyone involved in making his morning cup of coffee. I can't resist sharing the other half of AJ's story. Here is what Mary Louise Parker wrote about asking AJ to pose nude. I didn't mean to be sinister or punishing. Wouldn't dream of running an unflattering shot. We could just both do Some fairly tame PG13 photos. Nothing much showing. If anything, just so he could get the feel of the experience. And champ that he is, he shocked me. God love him, he said yes. The whole thing ended up being wonderfully reciprocal, egalitarian. I'll show you some of mine if you show me some of yours. To see the pictures in question and read Mary Louise Parker's entire story, go to themoth.org to find a link. Coming up, a woman known for having fun hairstyles decides to try something drastically different when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [17:57]
Production Team
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [18:07]
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- [19:36]
Apple Representative
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- [20:07]
Kathryn Burns
This is the Moth radio hour from prx. I'm Kathryn Burns, and in this show, we're talking about courage. It's a topic that comes up over and over in the stories told around the world in our story slam competitions. And we're going to play you three of them. First, a story about having the guts to chase a childhood dream. Here's Alethea Brown live at a Moth slam in the Bronx.
- [20:31]
Alethea Brown
So I was maybe 5 or 6, I stepped off the curb on the corner of 106th street and 3rd Avenue. My mom looks back and reaches her, her hand like, come on. And I see this woman standing there waiting for the light to change. And she's poised and regal and deep dark midnight blue black. And she's got an elongated neck with beads wrapped around her in all kinds of colors. And I'm thinking in that moment, wow, how beautiful. I look at the top of her head and I realize she's got no hair on her head. And I'm thinking, just in that moment, if I live to be 50, I want to touch that kind of beauty and cut all my hair off. So we move up to the Bronx and I'm living in 1500 Noble and I done did every kind of do and don't to my hair from Kool Aid to conditioners with all kinds of stuff in it. And I'm walking down the hallway and my mother and my brother's waiting at the door. And my brother's looking at was coming out the room and he's like, ma, you gonna let her walk out this house like that? She's like, shut it down. Toni Brown, your sister's an artist and she's expressing herself. So I move up to Riverdale, and I've now got a new do. My cousin Carla is a natural hair rista, and she did some coil thing that has a pattern that looks almost like the pineapples. And I'm living in a neighborhood that's predominantly Jewish. So back in that moment in time, if I saw one brown person that looked like me, we came running towards each other, like in slow motion, like.
- [22:21]
A.J. Jacobs
In an old love story.
- [22:22]
Alethea Brown
A black person. So I'm pulling stuff out the back of my car and I'm get myself ready for my journey. And it's wintertime now, and this guy walks by. And parking in Riverdale was horrendous. So, you know, everybody kind of had a little chit chat about the parking rules and regulations. And the guy steps over to me and says something as I'm pulling stuff out of the back seat. And I looked at him and, you know, he goes about his business and he turns back around and he says, oh, by the way, and happy Kwanzaa. I was like that child five on the corner and the bare head sister. And I'm saying, he identified my culture. He could have said merry Christmas or played it safe and said, happy Holidays. And I'm thinking, ooh, something going on here. So I walk into the house and I'm thinking about my cousin said, if you don't cut this out or unravel those coils, it's gonna lock. And it does. And I didn't care. Cause I've got a culture that I gotta represent and preserve. So now I'm living on the east side of the Bronx and I'm dating this guy. And we're having a good time and we have our weekends and all kinds of plans. And I'm at my studio painting and getting ready for a show. And I'm thinking about cutting my hair off. And I'm not quite 50 and I'm thinking about this locks that are down my back in the Dr. And I'm thinking at this moment, let me call some folks up and see what they think. And I made seven calls and Everybody. Oh, you did everything to your hair. Go ahead, girl. You know you could rock. Whatever. So the last call was my once upon a time. And you know you got those once upon a time that you still friends with way after. So my once upon a time, he says, I'll even cut your hair for you. So I get in my car, and it's 2. 2:00 in the morning. And took me two hours to convince him to cut my hair off. Cause now he's realizing, if you don't like it, I'm gonna be to blame for something. So he cuts it off and says, let me leave the two LOCs in the front so you got something to remember your journey. So I'm packing my bag the next night, and I'm getting ready to go to my new dude. And as I'm walking up the steps in his apartment, I'm like, what have I done? Cause, you know, I just told him I did something surprising. I didn't tell him what. And I get in, and it's nice and toasty in there. And I'm taking things off as we're talking, but I'm not taking my hat off. And I'm realizing he's waiting, like, come on in. The water's fine. Because he's waiting to see what's under here. Because he's now figured out the surprise is this. So I. I'm standing there, and finally I pull a hat off. And that whole weekend was different, wasn't quite like we normally did. And I went home a little earlier than I usually do. And next day, I'm thinking why I didn't hear from him. So I'm in my studio getting ready, like I said, for the show, and I get the phone call, and he says, I'm not used to dating a woman with hair short as mine, so, you know, I can't do this. And I realized he was dating my hair. So I said, in that fleeting moment, I want to celebrate women with a bare head. And unapologetically, I shave off my head and I unveil and unlock. Cause I am a barehead woman.
- [26:15]
Kathryn Burns
That was Alethea Brown. Alethea is an artist whose works are in numerous permanent collections. In 2016, Alethea launched the Global Barehead Beauty Day. To this day, she keeps her head bare. We met our next storyteller at our Slams in Sydney, Australia, where we partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Here's Huang Yu Yang live at the ma.
- [26:46]
Huang Yu Yang
Growing up in Australia, as a little Chinese boy in Canberra, my parents always told Me that there were three things that I could be. A lawyer, a doctor, or a failure. But at nine years old, a career path wasn't really what was top of my list. The top of my list of my things to do was the same thing that most other kids wanted. It didn't matter how old you were or what color your hair was or, or what culture you're from, the one thing that most kids wanted was to just be accepted by the other kids. Now at nine years old, I had pretty simple logic and acceptance equaled coolness. The cooler I was, the more accepted I'd be. And I thought that was pretty simple. But the, the problem was I wasn't that cool. Bowl shaped haircut, not cool, math nerd, not cool, and speaking pretty bad English wasn't cool. Now in my search for coolness, I realized that there was some hope because I realized that a bit like karate kung fu was cool. And at the time, my idol was Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan's this famous Hong Kong martial artist. He climbed trees, he jumped off buildings, he pretty much kicked everybody's ass. And I figured, he's got black hair, I've got black hair. He spoke bad English, I spoke bad English, Hey, I'm a kung fu master. And so when I found out that Jackie Chan was actually going to be eating in a little Chinese restaurant in Canberra, I was like, over the moon. I was like, I've got a plan to be cool. All I have to do is go to the restaurant, get his autograph, get a photo, take the evidence to school, and it'll be instant coolness. And so my parents took me to this Chinese restaurant which happened to be called Great Wall. And they took me to this restaurant and I sat down on the table in front of me and the waiter told me that Jackie Chan was in the private room. They were up some stairs, sort of about the same height as this stage, up on a mezzanay, a little bit on the side. And I went up to the private room. Big white blank doors, you couldn't see through them. And I stood there and I was ready to knock on the door. And then my 9 year old logic said, wait a moment, I can sit down on the table. Wait till he walks out of the room and that won't be as conflicting. And so I walked all the way back down the stairs, sat on the table and I just stared at the door. And for the next hour I was standing, staring, hoping that Jackie would come out. And he didn't come out. And I was thinking, dude, don't you need to go to the toilet. What's happening? And then I looked in front of me on the table and all the food had finished and I was running out of time. And so I said to my parents that I was still hungry. And they ordered another plate of sweet and sour pork. And for the next half hour I ate as slowly as I could, looking at the door. But another half hour passed and I went. My parents said, look, you've got to go knock on that door or we're going home. And so I walk up the stairs, I stand in front of the door, and again, I can't do it. And I'm shaking, my knees are shaking, my heart's thumping, and my inner voice starts speaking to me and it says, come on, just knock on the door. It's not that hard. Come on, just grow some balls. Just do it. So I was standing there and I realized I just can't do it. And then the door opens and I think it's Jackie, but it's a lady in a blue dress. And so I just pretend that I happen to be walking past on this little mezzanay. And I'm standing there again and I realize I can't do it. And I realize I'm never going to be cool. And I start to cry. And I have no idea, but I don't know how long I'm standing there, but it must have been for at least three to five minutes because the lady in the blue walks back up and walks around me into the room and my tears are flowing. I go back down, I sit down with my parents, and I'm hoping, just hoping that maybe my tears will convince them to actually do the dirty work for me. And I'm praying and I'm hoping, and my parents stand up and they start putting on their jackets. And I realize my parents aren't going to be doing anything awesome because they're Asian. And so they're about to. They want to teach me a life lesson, that I need to do things by myself. And so as I'm sitting there crying, I realize I just can't do it. I'm just going to go home empty handed. I put on my jacket and the next thing I know, the door opens, out comes Jackie Chan with this huge smile, and behind him is the lady in the blue dress. Jackie comes down and he says, I heard there's somebody here that I need to meet. I get his signature, I get a photo with him, and I am over the moon. So that night I learned there are three people who help us in our lives. They're our idols who inspire us. There are the people who love us, who try to teach us, and there are just those really, really nice people who just want to.
- [33:33]
Kathryn Burns
That was Kwang Yu Yang. Kwang Yoo is a communications and presentations coach based in the Asia Pacific region. I don't know about you, but I'd love to find that woman in the blue dress and give her a big hug. To see a photo of Kwang Yu and Jackie chan, go to themoth.org.
- [33:55]
Apple Representative
Now.
- [33:55]
Kathryn Burns
We'Re going to hear a slam story from Neisha Coleman. A caution. The story contains a description of an aggressive encounter. Here's Nisha.
- [34:06]
Nisha Coleman
So I'm nine years old, and my dad is furious with me. He's absolutely furious. And I don't know what I've done this time, but it doesn't really matter because he's coming at me fast and his hands are in a fist. And so I do the only thing that I can do in this situation. I just hold my body completely still, tighten my muscles, close my eyes, and hold my breath until it's over. And when it's over, my dad turns his back and walks away. And as he's doing this, he does this thing that drives me crazy. He whistles. He whistles as if he's the most carefree person in the world. You know, when you're faced with a threat or danger, there are three things you can do. You can fight, you can flee, or you can freeze. At nine years old, I can't fight. I can't flee. Freezing is the only thing that I can do. But as an adult, freezing is like the worst thing you can do. It's the last option. Unless maybe you're being pursued by a grizzly bear. Otherwise, it's really not the most advisable option. And yet it seems to be my default reaction to stress. It's like a learned behavior. And so every time I am faced with a threatening situation, I freeze. And so last year, I'm taking the bus from Montreal to Toronto. And as usual, I arrive late. There's only a couple of seats left. And so I take one almost at the back at the window. This young woman sits beside me. And then the creep, there's always one on the bus, sits directly behind us. I turn around, I see the first thing that he's doing is peeling off his boots. And the pungent sort of sour odor starts to permeate throughout the bus. And the second thing he does, of course, is open a big bottle of Southern Comfort and as you may imagine, he's just getting steadily drunker as we go along. He's starting to mutter to himself. He's pissing with the door open. He's sneaking dregs from his cigarette. And about halfway through the ride, he's starting to get aggressive. And since me and my seatmate, who's this young woman, we are the closest humans to him. And so we are his inevitable target. And he's yelling things like, ah, fuck you. Fuck you right up. Then he throws his liquor bottle at us. He sings a charming little song about rape. Then he wedges his face in between our two seats and he grins. He's got this terrifying grin, and his eyes are glistening with a Southern Comfort glow. And I'm reminded from that scene in the Shining, you know, the one with Jack Nicholson. But in that scene, the woman and the child, they open the window and they jump out and they escape and they flee. They flee. And once again, I'm in a situation where I cannot flee. And of course, I see my father in the face of this man. And I am terrified and I am frozen. And that's when the young woman beside me, who's at least 10 years younger than me and English is not even her first language, she says to the creep, you are a bad man. And somehow her courage unfreezes my mouth, and I say to him, hey, back off. And he does. And a few minutes after that, the bus pulls off onto the side of the highway because someone on the bus has called the police. And that makes the creep really angry because he knows he's in deep shit. He's livid. He's screaming, he's swearing, he's aggressive. But every time he gets up into our faces, me and my seatmate, we yell, back off. And he does. And that's when I realized it's not just fight, flee or freeze. There are other options like this, like solidarity, because there's safety and there's power in solidarity. And freezing is what you do when you don't have any other options. But that's not the case anymore. And finally the police arrive and they come on the bus and they handcuff the bad man and they take him away, and the bus continues on to Toronto. When we reach Toronto, me and my seatmate, we've bonded over this experience. And we hug each other and we exchange phone numbers and we exchange photos of the bad man getting handcuffed. And then we part ways. And as I'm walking down the boulevard towards the subway, I find myself doing something that I almost never do. I'm whistling. I'm whistling as if I'm the most carefree person in the world. Thank you.
- [39:12]
Kathryn Burns
That was Nisha Coleman. Neisha's memoir. Memoir. Stories from the Streets of Paris documents the years she spent as a street performer. Nisha tells us, I still find strength in solidarity. When someone is acting aggressively in public. It has the potential to bring people together, to let them know that certain behaviors are not okay. It's easier and safer as a group. Of course, it's easiest and safest to do nothing. But now that I'm learning to stand up for myself and for others, I no longer see that as a possibility. Coming up, a young nerdy boy from Alabama gets uprooted and sent to live in Southern California. That's next on the Moth Radio Hour.
- [39:57]
Production Team
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.
- [40:11]
Kathryn Burns
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Kathryn Burns. So in addition to the Moth, there are now thousands of storytelling shows that have popped up around the world. There was even a Moth style storytelling event held at the McMurdo base in Antarctica. One of my favorite groups is Ark Stories in Birmingham, Alabama. Full disclosure, I'm from Alabama too, so. So I have some extra hometown love. We met our next storyteller, Leonard Lee Smith, through those guys. We asked him if he joined them off on the road, and God bless his heart, he said yes. Here's Leonard Lee Smith live at the Paramount theater in Austin, Texas.
- [40:50]
Apple Representative
It was Christmas time, 1974. I was 10 years old, but I wasn't looking forward to Christmas that year. The previous spring, my mother and the man who was to become my stepfather, when all the divorces had been finalized and he and my mother could marry, had moved us from rural central Alabama to sunny Southern California. My brother and I were leaving behind our father and all our extended family. This would be my first Christmas away from Alabama. My beautiful and elegant mother took to California like a swan to a royal lake. My soon to be stepfather was a California native. My very athletic little brother reveled in a temperate climate that allowed him to be outside 11 months of the year. I, however, was a fat, awkward child with a high pitched voice and a heavy Southern accent. I was having extreme difficulty with the transition to a west coast lifestyle. My first day at my new school, I walked to the front of my fourth grade class to introduce myself. All I said was my name and where I was from and the class erupted in laughter with jeers of he talks funny and he has a weird accent. It took the teacher nearly two full minutes to restore order, and she was angry at me for having caused a disruption. I was so disillusioned after that first day that instead of walking home after school, I went to a nearby gas station and used a phone booth there to try and place a collect call to Granny Smith, my paternal grandmother. She was my biggest ally. I was going to ask her if I could return to Alabama and live with her and if she would send me the money for a bus ticket at home. But despite several attempts, the line was busy and I never got through. My mother was constantly encouraging, nagging, and badgering me to lose weight and always trying to help with that endeavor with whatever the latest diet craze was. She had been a fat child herself, but with puberty she had gained height and lost weight and undergone the proverbial ugly duckling transformation to become a great beautiful in high school. She saw weight loss as the panacea of all problems and believed it to be the key to my happiness. She was very relieved to have me away from the annual holiday sugar binges and weight gain that my Granny Smith's cooking provided. Granny Smith was for me, everything good about Christmas. Her language of love was food. She was an excellent baker and candy maker. She would cook for weeks in preparation for Christmas Eve, when all of her children and grandchildren would gather at her house. Every favorite dish, dessert, and confection had been made to specification. Her table and sideboard groaned under the weight of all of the food. My brother, my cousins, and I would burst through her kitchen door, brimming with anticipation, our arrival announced by the sound of five silver bells suspended from red velvet ribbon, hung on a plastic poinsettia bouquet on the door. Her house was tiny and saturated with tacky Christmas decorations and cigarette smoke, but to my childhood aesthetic it was glorious. She sewed new pajamas for all of her grandchildren. She scoured newspaper ads, catalogs, and stores all over town to get us exactly the toys we had requested. She was interested in me and my happiness. She was my resilience. She was magical, and I missed her desperately. It was Sunday evening and I was moping around the house, dreading Monday and the return to school. Fortunately, there was only one week left until the Christmas break. I was longing for my familiar Southern Christmas, that Thanksgiving we had spent with my stepfather's extended family. He and my mother had finally gotten married in Vegas over the summer. His family were polite, kind people, but I did not know them and fit poorly into their established routine. And I feared that Christmas would be more of the same. The phone rang. It was Granny Smith. She often took advantage of the discounted long distance rates after 7pm on Sundays. She spoke with my brother Todd and I for nearly half an hour, asked us about our life and school and how things were going, assured us she had gotten the toys that we wanted and they would be there by Christmas. But before we hung up, she asked to speak to our mother. This request made my brother and me very anxious. When our parents separated, they didn't so much dissolve a marriage as to declare war on each other. My brother and I knew that the campaigns and battles of this war could be long and brutal. My mother considered Granny Smith to be in the enemy camp. They maintained a civil but strained relationship. My brother and I were always worried that hostilities might erupt whenever they spoke to each other. Granny Smith informed my mother that she had sent a Christmas package and that it should arrive in the coming weeks. My mother said, thank you, but you didn't have to do that. It's very expensive to ship things across the country. I hope you did not have to spend a lot of money. Despite their differences, my mother understood and respected that Granny Smith was a woman of very modest means. Granny had been a widow for nearly 30 years and worked mostly menial jobs. For her, money was always scarce. Granny said it wasn't very expensive at all, and I was happy to do it. They exchanged polite but tense pleasantries, wished each other merry Christmas and said goodbye, and my brother and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure enough, on Thursday after school, the phone rang, but it wasn't the U.S. postal Service. It was the Greyhound bus lines calling to say we had a package waiting at the bus terminal in Claremont, California. My mother said to the clerk on the phone, I didn't even know that Greyhound shipped packages. The clerk said, oh, yes, ma'am. And we're much cheaper than the Postal service because we don't deliver door to door. We have some of the cheapest rates around. My mother was a little annoyed by this since the bus station was nearly 10 miles away. But the clerk had assured her that the bus station was open 24 hours a day and that there was someone on duty at the shipping desk around the clock. We could pick the package up at any time. So after supper we drove to the bus station. We went in to see the clerk. He confirmed that we had a package. And then he said to my mother, you can pull your car around into the loading bay. My mother said, what for? He said, oh, the package is too large to hand over the counter. My mother said, are you sure you've got the right package? This irritated the clerk and he leaned over the counter and addressed my brother and me and said, are you guys Lee and Todd Smith? We nodded and said, yes sir. He said, then this package is for you. I'll meet your round back. We drove around to the loading bay and the shipping clerk came to our car with a hand truck carrying a heavily reinforced cardboard box large enough to hold a dishwasher or small refrigerator. He said, this barely makes it inside the maximum freight dimensions and weight restrictions as he hoisted the box into our trunk and went to get some twine to tie the trunk lid closed. My brother and I were giddy with anticipation on the drive home wondering what the box contained. Our mother was not in such a good humor. She knew her ex mother in law well and was suspicious of the box. When we got home we had to go inside and get our stepfather. The box was too heavy for us to get out of the trunk. He grunted and complained as he sat the box down in the living room and said, what the hell did she send a jeweler safe? My brother and I tore into the box and the smell of our granny's house wafted into the air. A combination of fried meat, grease, furniture polish and cigarette smoke. There, beneath wadded newspaper and excelsior was our Southern Christmas. There were presents wrapped in colorful paper and bows to go under the tree. Neatly folded in brown paper was a new set of pajamas for both of us. There were also two five count packs of Fruit of the Loom underwear in the appropriate sizes for us both. There was a countless number of decorative tins and repurposed Cool Whip containers. We opened them to find mounds of homemade Christmas divinity fudge, boiled chocolate cookies, parched peanuts, a massive container of nuts and bolts which is what Southerners call homemade Chex Party Mix, but to which no prepackaged Chex Party mix will ever compare. A whole fruitcake, a chocolate pound cake. She even included our traditional style stocking stuffers of candy bars, chewing gum, citrus fruits and pecans and walnuts in the shell. The box was as bottomless as Mary Poppins satchel. As every sugary confection came out of the box, my brother and I shrieked with delight and our mother moaned in defeat. Mother tried a last ditch effort to hide all the confections and dole them out a few at a time. But each equ evening when our stepfather arrived home, he would begin to search for them and our Mother's scheme would be thwarted. Eventually she just gave up and left it all out on the kitchen counter. Each Christmas that we spent in California, Greyhound would call and say that our package had arrived. Over the years, many treasures arrived in the box. Hand crocheted afghans and heirloom family quilts, homemade Christmas decorations, a check to help with the purchase of my first car. For me, it was always the best part of Christmas. Even after I moved out of the house, the box continued to arrive. My friends and roommates at college were always astounded and delighted by the contents of the box. My grandmother was able to package and ship magic and love. Granny is long gone and missed more each year since her death. I have discovered in conversations with my cousins that Granny came to the rescue of all of her grandchildren at one time or another, softening what would have been hard and harmful emotional landings. She did it in such a way that we each thought we were her favorite. Granny had endured a sad and difficult childhood with a mother who suffered from mental illness. She understood the importance of a child having an ally when a parent fails them. Each year, a few days after Thanksgiving, I hang Granny's plastic poinsettia bouquet with the bells on my front door to announce the arrival of holiday guest. I have mastered many of her recipes and last year finally managed a very respectable batch of divinity. When the Christmas season arrives, I lovingly remember Granny and cherish the magic and resilience she gave me. And during the holiday season, when I see a Greyhound bus on the highway, I think to myself, in the belly of that machine may travel some child's Christmas.
- [53:20]
Kathryn Burns
That was Leonard Lee Smith. Lee's been a licensed hairdresser in Birmingham, Alabama for 20 years. He previously worked as a costumer at the Alabama Ballet and the Texas Shakespeare Festival. He says that many of his stories were formed while giving people one of the most important tools needed to get through life a good hairstyle. To see a photo of Lee and Granny Smith standing in his driveway on the day he left Alabama for California, go to themoth.org you can also find Granny Lee's Divinity recipe, which Lee has graciously agreed to share with our listeners. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.
- [54:09]
Production Team
Your host this hour was the Moth's artistic director, Kathryn Burns. Kathryn also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moth directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Luke Lee. Special thanks to Taylor Robinson, Chris Kinsey, and everyone at Ark Stories, as well as Michael Kroll from wbhm. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Punch Brothers, why Wu Lap, the Black Keys, and Khaki King. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour is produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by prx. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.
- [55:05]
Kathryn Burns
Org.