Phyllis Bodron (17:32)

That was Phyllis Bowdoin. No surprise she excelled at her job as coordinator of casting for abc. In addition, Phyllis is an award winning writer, jewelry designer and artist. She currently works in the Bronx at the Neighborhood Women's Collective where she mentors women and girls. So look out predatory mimes. To see a picture of Phyllis, visit themoth.org where you can also see a photo of the now legendary canister of pepper spray. Yes, you heard right, she still has it. You can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area through our website, themoth.org there are moth events year round. Find a show near you and come out to tell a story. And find us on social media too. We're on Facebook and Twitter Hemoth In a moment, a woman, her sled, her pack of dogs and the Soviet empire. When the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Jennifer Hickson (18:57)

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.

Jennifer Hickson (19:06)

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Phyllis Bodron (20:36)

This is the Moth Radio hour from prx. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This next story was told at the Moth's first show in Anchorage, Alaska, where we partnered with their local storytelling organization, Arctic Entries. I heard about Sue Steinecker's story from another teller who didn't have Sue's phone number. She suggested I call the local radio station because, quote, everyone knows everyone and nome. I thought that was probably an exaggeration, but I called KNOM and in a big long winded way asked the person who answered the phone if they knew of this woman Sue Steinecker. Well, he interrupted me politely and said, oh yeah, I know Sue. I just dog sad for her a few weeks ago. I'll have her give you a call. So here's Sue Steinecker live in Anchorage, Alaska.

Sue Steinecker (21:19)

Well, we all had a lot of good laughs back when Sarah Palin was running for vice president with this. But I'm here to tell you truth, that there are people in Alaska that can see Russia from their house. You see, the Alaska mainland and the Russian mainland are less than 60 miles apart. This is what forms the Bering Strait. And right in the middle of the Bering Strait are two small islands just two and a half miles apart. And the border between our two countries runs right down between those two islands. And that means that the people who live on Little Diomede. Whenever they look out their window, they. They can't help but see Russia. Now, also, the international Date line runs between those two islands. And the Diameters kind of get a kick out of saying, well, we live in today, but we're looking at tomorrow. But the Russians get an even bigger kick out of saying, we live in today and look at yesterday. Well, I'm old enough that I was born or grew up during the height of the Cold War in what was called the duck and cover years, because as elementary kids, we went through regular drills where we had to duck under our desks and cover our heads in case the Soviet Union dropped an atomic bomb on us. So I grew up very fearful of the Soviet Union. It seemed like a very dark, very grim, and very distant place. So in 1985, when I landed on Little Diomede as a wildlife biologist to work on a walrus study with the local people, I found myself face to face with what I had grown up believing was the evil empire. Well, fortunately, there was a warming, a political warming between our countries in the late 1980s, and this led to an opening and an opportunity to visit. Well, this ice curtain that ran between these two islands and divided our Bering Strait began to thaw. And the first people to take advantage of this were adventurers who wanted to cross the Bering Strait. And because of my connection with the Little Diameters, it actually led to an invitation to bring my dog team over to the ussr. Now, my most favorite thing in life had been seeing Alaska from the back of a dog sled pulled by my nine best friends. These dogs were my family. And because I loved to travel and camp, I was partial to really big, tall, leggy, happy dogs. But I had one dog in there that was a misfit. And this was a small, tiny, little white husky with ice blue eyes named Vixen. And I had taken her simply because a friend was desperate to find a home for her. Well, she. She remained shy with other people, but she formed a bond with me, and very soon she was a steadfast member of our team. So In April of 1990, myself and another American are in Nome, Alaska, and we are loading up all our dogs, our dog sleds, our gear into a small Bering airplane. We take off from Nome, Alaska, and an hour and 20 minutes later, we land a world away in Providena, USSR. We mushed our dogs right out of the airport and out onto the ice, where there was a big bonfire and a picnic, and these people who I had Grown up, thinking of as my enemy, were welcoming us and embracing us with an outpouring of friendship and goodwill and vodka. We started our journey the very next day. There was us two Americans, there were four non native Russians and two Russian Chukchi Mushars. And we were to embark on a two week, 200 mile northbound journey up the coast of the USSR. It's beautiful country, it's completely treeless country. And we traversed mountains, rolling tundra, sea ice, and visited these far flung native villages all along the coast. And everywhere we went we were greeted with tremendous friendship and generosity and women with basins of seal meat and walrus meat for our dogs. One particularly memorable day, we crested a hill and it just disoriented me a moment because I found myself staring at the Diomede Islands from the opposite side. It was like looking in a mirror. And for the first time, this divided Bering Strait became whole. Well, two weeks passed far too quickly and we found ourselves at our final destination, the village of Uellen, where we were met both by traditional native dances as well as two Soviet biplanes parked on the ice of the lagoon behind the village. They were there to carry our dog teams back to Provigenia, where we'd begun this trip. So we loaded our sleds and our dogs and our gear into these planes. I sat on my sled and I clipped my dogs in all around me. We taxied down the lagoon, lifted into the air. I could look out this small window and I could see the villagers down below waving at us. And then all of a sudden the plane erupted with panicked commands in Russian that I of course didn't understand. But I lay down on my sled and I braced myself. We were about 100ft up and the plane stalled and it just fell and crashed, almost belly flopped down on the ice. The next thing I remember was, was waking up to the sounds of frantic dogs barking and the smell of fuel. I was injured, but I was able to go around and unclip each one of my dogs loose. The very last dog was Vixen, and she was on her side, thrashing about with fuel spilling down on her from the wing. And as I carried her and pitched her out of the plane, I stepped over the body of one of my dogs that I knew now had died. Well, once out on the ice, we all regrouped. I learned that two more dogs had died. And then far more tragically, one of our Russian teammates had been killed as well. The grief stricken villagers, they took myself and the other wounded Russian on sleds. And they carried us back to their village and they put us in their clinic for the night. And early the next morning, I, one of my teammates came and they said, well, we've been rounding up all the dogs and we found all of them except Vixen. And then they said, there is also a Russian military helicopter on its way. They want to get you and your dogs, the wounded American, out of the Soviet Union as fast as possible. I beg them, please let me stay, Let me look for my dog. She's very shy. She's not going to come to anyone but me. But they wouldn't allow it. And as they were loading me onto the helicopter, I think in a desire to make up for my losses, one of the women from the village put a little brown puppy in my lap. So very quickly we were back in Providenia. And even quicker back in Nome, Alaska. I had four broken ribs and some pretty serious bruising, but I was able to take comfort. I could call an English speaking woman in the village of Llewellyn and she would try to find my dog. And she would tell me how she and her daughter were walking the hills and calling for Vixen and that hunters were putting meat by the plane in an effort to draw her in, but no one had seen her. But she did offer me some comfort when she said that my former teammates had dug a shallow grave and buried all three dogs that had died together, and that they had made sure that my dog's head was pointed east towards his home in Alaska. So six weeks passed and still no word of Vixen. And one day I get a call from Behringer that a letter has come over for me from Pravidenya. I run down, I rip it open. My God. My friend writes, he has found Vixen. Apparently all this time, while everyone was looking for her up north, she was retracing our trackless journey all the way back to Providenia. And she had been found amongst the other stray dogs in Providenya. And she was still wearing her American style harness almost two months after the crash. My friend wrote, vixen is still shy. And when I went to grab her, she ducked into a tunnel. And he said I had to crawl 50 meters in the darkness, the dirtness and the dustness, until he had her cornered and he said, and then we had a 30 minute conversation in English before he felt he could grab her. So I immediately run home. I call my friend, I say, oh my God, she must be sick, she must be thin, she must be starved. After this journey. And he said, susanna, my wife Luba is a very good cook. Okay, so some days go by. The next Bering Air flight returns from Pravva. Dania. I go down to claim my dog, and there's no Vixen. I run back to home. I call Oleg. Oleg, what's the problem? And he says, susanna, it's something about that disease that makes dogs crazy. And I was like, okay, rabies, of course. Well, she's got all of her vaccinations. And I gather up her vaccinations and her tags, and I send them back over on Behring Air, and I wait for the return flight. And again, no Vixen. We go through this one time, there's been a quarantine. Another time, there's another problem. And finally it's like, oleg, please. And he said, susanna, the authorities that are just not very interested in your dog. Well, this was an extraordinary time in the reconnection between the United States and the Soviet Union. And for about three years, the Soviets really cared about how they were being viewed in the American press. So I took a chance and I told my friend a very big lie. I said, oleg, do your authorities understand that there are newspaper reporters here and radio station people and television reporters? They're all here waiting for this dog to come home? Oh, Susanna, you should have told me this sooner. Vixen was home on the next flight, and she was looking good. I was excited, a skinny dog. And that's not what I got. And as soon as I had her home, I called my friend again, and I felt like I needed to fess up that I'd lied. And he said, oh, Susanna, you understand the Russian system very good. So I felt like I told a lie to get Vixen home. So what I decided I would call the Anchorage Daily News and I'd give them the story. They seemed interested. They wrote it up. They put it out on the Associated Press, and lo and behold, that story got picked up by newspapers all across the country, even around the world. And eventually she made it into Ripley's Believe it or Not. But I had told the story before. I realized that the reason Vixen was looking so filled out wasn't because just because of Luba's good cooking, but my little girl had come home pregnant. Less than two months later, she gave birth to seven Russian American puppies. I named every one of them for one of my new dear Russian friends, and the local press dubbed them the Glasnost pups. So this was truly an extraordinary and an exuberant time in the reconnection between our two countries. And just as miraculous as this little dog finding her way all the way back to Providena 200 miles without a trail was that people who had long lived in fear and distrust of one another had come together out of friendship to bring a little lost dog home. Thank you.

Phyllis Bodron (34:50)

That was Sue Steinecker, who flew 500 miles from Nome to Anchorage to share her story, bringing along several giant empty suitcases so she could load up on supplies at the big stores in Anchorage. Sue's an artist, photographer and nature lover. She lives in Nome with her husband and her loving pack of dogs. Pro tip. If you're going to call sue, don't call her at noon, Alaska time, because in Nome at noon, the fire station sounds its alarm and Sue's dogs go crazy. It takes him quite a while to simmer down. Take a listen. This is Zach, Zoe, Zevon and Zelda.

Sue Steinecker (35:38)

Hey, nice job.

Phyllis Bodron (35:50)

Next up, a teenager is moved by the story of a man on death row and decides to write him a letter when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Jennifer Hickson (36:17)

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange. PRX.org.

Phyllis Bodron (36:32)

You'Re listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We first met Gotham Nerula when he called the Moth's pitch line. More on that later. He ended up telling his story at a Moth show in Salt Lake City, where we partnered with radio station KUEER. Here's Gotham.

Gotham Nerula (36:55)

When I was 15, there were two things that made up a good day. The first was chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. And the second was a chess tournament after school. I was a good, if apathetic, student. I had a penchant for bad puns. I was kind of nerdy and awkward, wore these baggy shirts that my mom bought me. And I had this long, shaggy hair that kind of made me look like an Indian. Anakin Skywalker, if you can imagine that. It wasn't a good look. But yeah, that was me at 15. And I was 15 when I got involved with the most well known death row inmate in American history. It started when a friend of mine gave me a ring and told me about this man named Troy Davis. He told me Davis was convicted in 1991 of murdering a police officer. And there was no physical evidence, no gun, no DNA. So instead, this conviction was based on nine eyewitness testimonies. But in the years since the trial, seven of those nine came forward and Said they lied at the trial because they'd been intimidated or coerced by the police into saying Troy Davis shot the police officer. And now Davis was trying to go to a court, any court, to present this new evidence, but none of them would even give him a hearing. Now, I had this blind faith in the justice system, and this just seemed too evil to be true. I didn't want to believe it, but there was one small detail I couldn't get out of my head, and it was the fact that the state of Georgia, my home state, was due to execute Troy Davis six days before the US Supreme Court was supposed to review the case. And at this point in 2008, Troy Davis had been on death row for 17 years. So why couldn't they wait one more week for the highest court in the country to review the case? Something was wrong. And for the first time in my life, I started following the news really closely. And when the Supreme Court, 90 minutes before the execution, stepped in to stop it so they could review the case, for the first time ever, I wanted to write a letter. A physical letter. I didn't really know how to write one. My dad had to help me put the stamp on the right part of the envelope, and I accidentally switched the to and the from, put them in the wrong place. But I wanted to write him a letter just so he knew that there was someone out there who cared, that there was something so obviously wrong with this case. But when that same week, I found out that not only did Troy read my letter, but he wanted me to come visit him on death row, I was conflicted. I didn't want to go. I was scared. He was 39 and I was 15. He was black. I was brown. He grew up in a poor neighborhood full of drugs and gangs. And I grew up in an affluent suburb full of manicured lawns and overpriced coffee shops. And he was a convicted cop killer. I was the president of Chess club. But he could face another execution date in a matter of days. How could I say no to him? It reminded me when my dad and I would walk through downtown Atlanta and homeless people would ask us for money. My dad would just avoid eye contact and walk right through them. Or he'd lie and say he didn't have any money to give. They'll probably just spend it on drugs, he said. So I followed suit and walked right through. But it felt wrong not to help someone nearby when they were in need. And now Troy Davis was less than 100 miles away from where I was standing. Possibly about to be executed for a crime he didn't commit. I couldn't walk right through again, so I decided to visit him on death row. And I was too young to drive, so my mom got behind the driver's seat and we made the two hour drive down to Georgia's death row, during which she insisted on feeding me her signature cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches. And I'm sorry, Mom, but that's a gross combination. And I don't know why I didn't say anything then about it, but I shouldn't have eaten those. When we got to death row, we at a check in, and if Troy hadn't submitted our names for approval a while in advance, we wouldn't have gotten in. You go through security, and they take our wallets and keys and IDs. Then you walk through this Orwellian hall of motivational posters that say things like integrity, courage, justice. And then you go up a flight of stairs to this lobby. And on the left side of the lobby is this row of vending machines, which will rapidly deplete the 80 quarters we bring, because when an inmate has visitors, the prison refuses to feed them. So we have to replace Troy's lunch. The death row inmates are kept three at a time in these cages that they call special visitation cells. And I tell one of the guards I'm here to see Troy Davis. And so he motions me over to one of the cells, unlocks the door, ushers me in, and then locks it again from the outside. So now here I am, 15 years old, on death row in a cage with three convicted murderers, and the only guards are on the other side of that locked door. But the first thing I noticed about Troy was just how warm he was. As soon as he saw me, his face split into a wide grin, and he said, wow, you're tall. In his deep Savannah drawl. Then he motioned for me to sit next to him and thanked me for my letter, which he said was now taped on the wall of his cell. And then he told me his side of the story about the night the police officer was killed, about how he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, how he didn't even have a gun that night. And once he was arrested, the media, before he was even convicted, before his trial, had erased his identity as Troy Davis and given him a new one. Cop killer. And he was forced to deal with the realities of being a black man in Georgia, in South Georgia in the 1980s, accused of killing a white cop when her time was up, Troy Hugged me and said, I'll see you again real soon. Fast forward three years, and Troy Davis is now the face of a worldwide movement. A million people signed petitions trying to get his execution halted. Talking heads on CNN discuss his case every day. Kim Kardashian and Alec Baldwin tweeted about him and so did three Nobel Peace Prize winners. There were rallies in every major American city and most major European ones, even one in Lagos, Nigeria. And I always try to remind Troy about these events so he'd never forget that there were people on the outside fighting for him. By this time, Troy started signing his letters as Uncle Troy, and he called me his adopted nephew. He'd ask me about my grades and remind me to study for tests. And he was more excited about my SAT scores than my own parents were. And he taught me dance moves for my senior prom since he was a really good dancer and I wasn't. And he'd then make fun of me for how awkward I was around girls. And a lot of times we talk about what he would do once he got out. He said on the first night, he was going to do two things. First, he would take a hot bath, which he hadn't done since 1989. And second, he would sleep at the foot of his mother's bed so when she woke up, she would know this wasn't a dream and that her son had finally come home for real. And he said, longer term, he wanted to speak to kids in schools, especially troubled kids, and show them how his faith had given him the strength to persevere two decades on death row. And so if he could do that, they could do anything they put their minds to. And he promised he'd take me fishing since I'd never been. And so in exchange, I promised I'd teach him how to use a computer and how to use Facebook. And Troy was always convinced that he was going to be set free. And that's why, for all four of his execution dates, he refused his last meal. Because to him, it wasn't going to be his last meal. That fourth execution date was September 21, 2011. I just started my freshman year of college. It was a Wednesday. I just finished my first college exam. Then I hopped in my little red Chevy to make the drive down to the prison grounds to join the protests where thousands of people were. And my family was there, too, my younger sister and both my parents. And they'd been divorced for nearly a decade. But we all came together that night because we all loved Troy. At 7:00, the moment of Execution. The crowd fell silent. And I just stared out into the sunset, wondering if they were injecting Uncle Troy with poison right now. Two minutes later, the crowd erupted in a roar. The Supreme Court had just issued a one day stay of execution so they could review the case one last time. And Troy had pulled off yet another miracle, because in all four execution dates, he had managed to somehow pull off something like this. So I drove back to my dorm, making a mental promise to Troy that I'd be back the next day. And I was hanging out with some friends, trying to unwind for the night, when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out and flipped it open because this is the time when I had a flip phone. And it was a text message from a friend. And it just said, gotham, I'm so sorry. And that's when I learned that the one day stay of execution was a lie. I don't know if it was an intentional lie or just misinformation, but the truth was that the Supreme Court had just delayed it for a few hours so they could release a one word, one sentence, 23 word statement saying that they would not intervene. And so Troy Davis would be executed tonight. Now. And instead of being out there on the prison grounds with him, I was now hunched over on the couch in my dorm lobby in my blue I am Troy Davis shirt, watching Anderson Cooper on CNN Countdown. And then finally announce that the state of Georgia had executed Troy Davis. And I felt like I had abandoned him because even while he was being strapped to the gurney, he wouldn't have known that I wasn't out there on those prison grounds. But I did. I knew I wasn't there. I was here. An acquaintance walks in and she sees my shirt and the announcement on TV and asks, what do you think of all this Troy Davis stuff? But I couldn't say anything to her. Not a word. Not to her or to the people I passed on the two flights of stairs back to my room. Not to my roommate that day or the next. And not to myself as I drift off into a numb sleep, knowing deep down that this wasn't justice. This was a murder. The next day, there was an envelope waiting for me in my mailbox. Before I looked at the sender, I knew who it was from. I'd seen that broad, looped script too many times not to know which hand had written it. The day after he was executed, I received the last letter I would ever get from Troy Davis. I try to keep Troy's story alive so people don't forget the truth of who he was or what really happened. And I fight to end the death penalty, to honor the final request Troy made moments before he was executed that his supporters go out and fight for the other Troy Davis there. I was 15 when I first met Troy, 18 when he was executed. And I'm 23 now. And I find myself missing the conversations that we never had at and the questions I never asked him. But I always remember the final words Troy wrote in that final letter when he said, remember that even in the worst of times, God will open a door to hope and a window to prosperity. Thank you.

Phyllis Bodron (49:00)

That was Gautam Nerula. To learn more about Gotham and Troy Davis and their unique friendship, you can read Gotham's memoir Remain Free, which includes all of their correspondence. Gotham is currently studying artificial intelligence with the long term goal of finding ways to reform the criminal justice system. As you heard, we met Gotham on our pitch line and I want to let you know that you can pitch us your story by recording it right now on our site@themost.org or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pictures are developed for moth shows all around the globe.

Shelly Wright (49:42)

Hi, my name is Shelly Wright. My story is called Two Phone Calls. And the first phone call came on the morning of September 11th. You. It was that horrible phone call. The call was actually from my mother. She was calling to tell me that one of the towers had been hit and that she was fine and not to worry about her. And as we were on the phone with her, her tower was hit and we could hear what was going on. And she said she was going to call me when she got out of the building. And of course, that phone call never did come. But the second phone call that I got, which was about three weeks later, was from a man named John. And he was calling to tell me that he owed her, in essence, his life. He worked with her years and years and years prior. And it was during that time that he was diagnosed with both AIDS and cancer and given two years to live. And he went to my mom asking basically for a shoulder to cry on. And the story that he told me was that she did the opposite. You know, she said, how dare you? How dare you take whatever time you have left in this world and feel sorry for yourself? And she said, you know, she took him outside, if this was, you know, New York City in the middle of the workday. And she took him outside and said, see that sunshine? See Those clouds. Look how beautiful this day is. This is it. This is what you get. You get today, I get today, you get today. We all do. And I think the, the interesting thing is that everybody talks about living in the moment and appreciating every day, but she truly believed it. She truly lived her life that way. And she encouraged him to stop living in counting away the days or whatever time. And she said, doctors don't know, they make a good guess. But who knows? You can't live with that kind of death sentence. You just have to live today and then tomorrow you live tomorrow. And the beauty of the story was that he was calling 11 years later after getting a two year to live sentence from his doctor and in tears of sadness at losing my mother, but also joy in what she gave to him as a gift. And as sad as all of it is, it really validated for me that she believed that sentiment that you have to live every day because you never know when it will be your last. And I think that she lived her life quite well.

Phyllis Bodron (52:06)

Remember, you can pitch us at 877-799-MOTH or online at the moth.org that's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from.

Jennifer Hickson (52:37)

Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Lou Lee Moss. Stories are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Albert Collins, Thomas Lieb and Stellwagen Symphonette. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was 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.org.