The Moth Radio Hour: Mr. Rogers, Bellevue, Super Markets and Coney Island

Summary

Summary of "The Moth Radio Hour: Mr. Rogers, Bellevue, Super Markets and Coney Island"

Release Date: January 31, 2017
Host: Katherine Burns

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1. Dr. Danielle Ofri: A Night at Bellevue Hospital [02:52]

Dr. Danielle Ofri opens the episode with a gripping recount of her early days as a medical intern at Bellevue Hospital. She vividly describes the chaotic environment of night float, a grueling schedule where interns manage multiple emergencies overnight.

One pivotal moment occurs when Dr. Ofri must declare a patient, Mrs. Rodriguez, dead. Her inexperience and the high-pressure situation lead to a deeply personal crisis of confidence. As she navigates the technical and emotional challenges, she reflects:

"Dead is dead, and if you're not dead, then you're alive, right?" [12:30]

This poignant moment underscores the profound responsibilities doctors bear and the emotional toll of medical practice. Dr. Ofri concludes her story by emphasizing the importance of empathy and attentiveness to patients and their families:

"Our truest teachers are our patients and their families, whose lives and experiences we are so, so privileged to be a part of." [14:50]

2. Isabel Connolly: Confronting Fear in the ER [17:52]

Next, Isabel Connolly shares her personal experience as a young patient diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). At six years old, Isabel navigates fear and uncertainty in the Emergency Room, facing both her heart condition and the intimidating medical environment.

A particularly tense moment unfolds when Isabel must undergo a defibrillation procedure. She narrates the family's anxiety and her own vulnerability:

"What if I got it wrong? How could I say anything?" [23:15]

Despite the fear, Isabel's resilience shines through. She ends her story with a powerful realization about her relationship with doctors:

"I'm no longer that little kid who's afraid to say how they're feeling. I call people out on their shit." [24:00]

Her journey reflects the transformative power of facing one's fears and advocating for oneself in critical moments.

3. David Newell: Behind the Scenes of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood [25:04]

David Newell, famously known as Mr. McFeely from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, recounts his long-standing relationship with Fred Rogers and memorable experiences on the show. From his first day as a production assistant to interactions with guests like Eddie Murphy, Newell provides an insider's perspective on the beloved children's program.

A heartwarming anecdote highlights the enduring impact of the show:

"Idlewild Park is a charming amusement park... these visits are most important to me." [33:10]

David reflects on the legacy of Mister Rogers and the meaningful connections formed over the decades:

"If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." [34:00]

4. Steve Zimmer: The Supermarket Saga [37:00]

Steve Zimmer brings humor to the episode with his story about navigating modern dating and a chaotic encounter in a supermarket. Faced with the dilemma of meeting his girlfriend Kate's son, Steve's attempt to purchase limited-edition ice cream leads to an awkward confrontation with a stranger.

A humorous exchange captures Steve's internal conflict:

"So I say, I don't have kids. I'm single." [40:20]

As Steve tries to retreat from the situation, he humorously describes his failed attempt to hide his actions:

"I place the Girl Scout cartons amongst frozen Purdue chickens. The resulting diorama is unexpectedly sad because it's such a mess." [41:10]

His story blends comedic elements with relatable struggles in personal relationships and social interactions.

5. Helen Cooper: A 1959 Birthday at Coney Island [43:55]

Helen Cooper takes listeners back to 1959, sharing a nostalgic tale of her 12th birthday at Coney Island. As the third of seven children, Helen always sought excitement beyond simple celebrations. Her father's decision to take her to Coney Island becomes a cherished memory filled with games, rides, and heartfelt moments.

A memorable moment illustrates her desire for independence:

"I could have knocked me over with a feather. You mean I really can go by myself?" [47:30]

Helen details the joy of playing skeeball and the thrill of winning tickets for prizes. Her narrative captures the essence of childhood adventures and familial bonds:

"I'm not just any kid. I'm his daughter, and it's my birthday." [51:00]

She concludes by reflecting on how these experiences shaped her, now passing on the tradition by making elaborate cakes for her own children and great-grandchildren.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour masterfully intertwines diverse stories that explore themes of responsibility, fear, legacy, humor, and cherished memories. Each storyteller offers a unique perspective, enriched by personal insights and emotional depth. Notable moments, such as Dr. Danielle Ofri's harrowing experience at Bellevue Hospital and Helen Cooper's joyful birthday at Coney Island, leave a lasting impression, demonstrating the power of storytelling to connect and resonate with listeners.

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For more episodes and stories, visit The Moth's website.

Transcript

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[Katherine Burns]

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX and I'm Katherine Burns. The Moth is all about true stories told live on today's show. A little girl with a scary heart defect, a chance encounter with Mr. Rogers and Eddie Murphy, late night drama in the ice cream section of a supermarket, a visit to the Coney island boardwalk circa 1959, and our first story told by Dr. Danielle Ofri. Here's Danielle live at a show we produced with our friends at the World Science Festival.

[Dr. Danielle Ofri]

The most ominous day of the year if you're becoming a doctor, is July 1. On July 1, everything turns over in the medical world. So medical students become doctors. They're now interns. Interns become residents, residents are now fellows. Fellows become attendings. You're not supposed to remark on the bizarreness of being ratcheted up a notch at the stroke of midnight. No, on July 1st, you walk into your untested role, cool as a cucumber. And you act as though the world of June 30th and before never existed. Or as the interns say, when in doubt, pretend. And so, on June 30, I was a measly medical student. And on July 1, I was now one of those interns. I had been scheduled to start internship on night float four weeks straight of night shift only at 10 o'clock at night, I walked down First Avenue in the pitch darkness for my first day of internship. Now, night float is supposed to be the direct continuation of medical care from the day teams, but as a night float intern, I had the patient load of four other interns, so this wasn't possible. My beeper never stopped. Mr. Rivera, 19 south needs a new IV. Mr. Soto in 16 east is having chest pain. Mrs. Ahmed in 17 north has a fever. Mr. Halal's daughter's here, wants to talk to a doctor. Mrs. Rashid fell out of bed. Mrs. Kwan's refusing her meds. Mr. Nolan's having a blood transfusion reaction. Mr. Rivera's IV is out again. And so night float turned out to be 10 hours of damage control. I raced from one ward to the next, patching things up, putting out fires, just hoping to keep everyone alive until the sun came up over the east river and the day teams came back. So one night in my second week of night float, I get paced by my resident. Around 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, Alba Rodriguez's blood count just dropped 13 points. Get over to 16 north, do a rectal, see if she's bleeding from her gut. Now, you should know that in the human body, there are only a few places where you can bleed briskly enough to drop your Madiker at 13 points. And the GI tract is the prime suspect. And if you bleed anywhere along that line, from the mouth to the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, there will be traces of blood in the stool. So the way you check for a GI bleed is you get a stool sample, you put it on the card, and you put a few drops of the special developer fluid on it. And if it turns blue, that's blood. And the way you get a stool sample is you send an intern over to a rectal exam. And so at this point in my career, I was very adept at taking orders. I didn't ask questions. I did what I was told. Mrs. Rodriguez was this tiny, wrinkled Dominican woman with layers and layers of family at the bedside. So I walk and say, hi, I'm one of the night docs. I'm not her regular doctor, but I'm just here to do the rectal. And I'm thinking, Dr. Ofri, rectal specialist. And so the grandson steps forward. He says, well, we understand what you have to do, Doctor. I'm actually a nurse, and if you don't mind, I want to stay with abuelita while you do the exam. Stay while I do this. And I'm thinking, what is the protocol for this situation? I've been a doctor now for two whole weeks, and I have no idea what to do when the family wants to stay. But I say, okay, whatever. So the rest of the family goes out to the hallway. We pull the curtain for some privacy from the other three patients. The grandson and I roll Mrs. Rodriguez onto her left side, and I start disgorging my pockets. The gloves, the lubrication fluid, the test cards. And then I realize I'm missing the bottle of developer fluid. So I say to the grandson, can you just hold on for one second? I need to get one more thing. So I dashed out of the room, and I avoid the. The gaze of the family members there, and I run to the supply closet and start rifling through the shelves and the bins. No developer fluid. So I raced down the hall to 16 west to their supply closet. And of course, none there. All the other interns have pocketed them. The ccu, the cardiac care unit was always well stocked, but I knew the nurses guard their supplies like hawks. So I crept in from the back door of the ccu, where they keep the dirty laundry and the used bedpans, and I tiptoe over to the supply shelf. I start going through the shelves, and there's gauze pads and IVs and blood tubes and culture bottles and glycerin swabs and Betadine swabs. Right behind the chest tubes is a single yellow bottle, developer fluid. And I snatch it just as the nurse yells, hey, those are CCU supplies. I cram it in my pocket, and I run out with my head down, because from the back, all interns look alike, or so I hoped. So I get back to 16 north, and I'm out of breath, and I'm flustered and sweaty, and the grandstone is still calmly balancing Mrs. Rodriguez on her left side. And so I undo the floral housecoat, the cardigan sweater, and the patient gown. I get down to her skin, and while I'm doing the exam, like a good nightfall intern, I'm running my scut list into my head. All right, I've got to do those blood cultures on 15 North. I've got to the chest X ray to follow up on 17 west, and that guy in 19 south keeps pulling out his IV. And so I'm doing the exam, running the scut list, and the grandson says, I think that Abuelita is no longer with us. No longer with us? What was he talking about? With his free hand, the grandson crossed himself and murmured something in Spanish. I'm still frozen in the middle of the exam. No longer with us. Mrs. Rodriguez is dead. The grandson sighed. Abuelita lived a long and wonderful life. She didn't want any heroic measures or machines. She just wanted to drift off in peace. We just need you to pronounce her dead, Doctor, and then we can take her home. And I'm staring at the grandson. Suddenly my mind begins to race. I tear the glove off and I'm thinking, okay, okay. How do I declare a patient dead? And I'm running through the file cab in my head, thinking, okay, okay. Ah, ah. Pupillary reflexes. That's it. So I whip out my handy pen light and I shine into Mrs. Rodriguez's eyes. To my dismay, she has huge cataracts and probably wouldn't have had reflexes anyway. Okay, okay. Respirations. Dead people do not breathe. And so I whip out my stethoscope. By now the family is filtered in from the hallway, and they gather around and watch as I put in one earpiece and the other and I plant the bell in her chest, and suddenly a twitch vibrates through her body and I jump back. Was this rigor mortis or might she still be alive? Suddenly dawns on me that we never had a lecture in medical school on how to declare a patient dead. I guess it was assumed to be pretty obvious. Dead is dead, and if you're not dead, then you're alive, right? Pulse. Pulse. That is it. Dead people for sure do not have a pulse. And so I run my fingers along her left carotid and then along her right. Of course, the only way you know you found the pulse is when you've found the pulse. How do you document the absence of something when its presence is defined by hunting until you found it. Maybe I was in the wrong spot. Maybe I'm pressing too hard. Not hard enough. Was I supposed to go over her entire body to document the absence of a pulse? Another twitch runs through Mrs. Rodriguez's body, and the family is staring at me, waiting for an answer. But how can I say anything? What if I got it wrong? Okay, okay, an ekg. That's it. If I get a flat line on ekg, nobody could argue with that. So I run out and get the EKG machine and wheel it back in. These old decrepit EKG machines that Bellevue had, all the leads are tangled up, and these old machines have these red rubber suction cups to put on the chest, and when you squeeze them, electro jelly from EKG has gone by, slithers out in crusted blue clumps, and Mrs. Rodriguez, the skinny little woman, doesn't have much bulk on her chest for the suction cups to stay onto. So I'd squeeze one on and another one would pop off. And so I'd apply more jelly and put it on. Another one would pop off back and forth, and the family is like watching, like a tennis match, back and forth as I'm chasing down the obstreperous suction cups. Finally, finally, I get the EKG set up, all the chest leads, all the limb leads, and I press the start button. And we all stare at this skinny strip of graph paper that's sneaking out of the EKG machine. And I'm praying for something definitive. It emerges with completely unreadable squiggles between the rattling air vents and three IV pumps. The next bit over, I can't get a stable baseline, and I readjust the leads and two more suction cups pop off. The grandson curls his hand around his grandmother's wrists, and he says, she's dead, Doctor. You don't have to do any more tests. The family joins hands and begins to pray in Spanish. And I'm standing there with EKG jelly crusted under my fingernails, burning with embarrassment. How could I not figure out whether or not Mrs. Rodriguez was dead? Isn't that what doctors do? Pronounce the time of death? How could I ever be a doctor if I couldn't tell a dead person from a live one? How could there exist so much to be ignorant of? When were these magical medical skills going to materialize? And what was I going to write on the death certificate as the immediate cause of death? The sun came up over the east river, as it always does, even after the longest, hardest night of night float. And as I'm signing out to the day teams, I'm thinking about Mrs. Rodriguez. And I imagine her as a young woman, a fresh immigrant, right off the boat to New York. And maybe she came to Bellevue every year for her annual checkup. Maybe she had her children at Bellevue. Maybe she thought she would die at Bellevue. Wherever she was, I hoped she forgave me for the indignity she suffered at the hands of an inexperienced intern. Now, most of us, when we go home at the end of the day, it's the end of the day. The light is falling, twilight's coming, dusk. But when you work at night, the end of the day, it's brilliant morning sun. And I did night float. The month of July. And so it was so bright. I remember I would go home every morning like this, with my eyes covered. And when I look back at that time now, I realize that I spent so much of my medical training with my eyes closed. Medicine, learning medicine, so internally focused, cramming in all those facts, all those diseases. I always had my head in a book. But one of the things about becoming a doctor is that you need to open your eyes. You need to open your eyes to the world around us, to the experiences that teach us medicine. But our truest teachers are our patients and their families, whose lives and experiences we are so, so privileged to be a part of. Thank you.

[Katherine Burns]

That was Danielle Ofre. Danielle's a physician at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country, and she's a co founder and editor in chief of the Bellevue Literary Review, which is the first literary journal to ever come out of a medical setting. When I was getting ready to work with Danielle and her story, I read her book called Singular Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. I liked it so much that I read her next book and then her next, and then her next. So by the time I got off the train at Bellevue on my way to meet with her for the first time, I had this surreal feeling like I'd stepped into the set of my favorite medical drama. It was like Grey's Anatomy, only real. Her fifth book, what Patients say, what Doctors Hear, is out now. Coming up, a little girl is told by doctors that the only way to save her life is by stopping her heart. That's next up on the Moth Radio Hour.

[Production Voice]

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

[Katherine Burns]

This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Kathryn Burns. Our next storyteller is Isabel Connolly. We just had the story from a doctor in a hospital, and now we're going to hear from a young patient. We Met Isabel when, at age 15, she signed up for our high school story slam workshop at the School of the Future in New York City. Here's Isabelle.

[Isabel Connolly]

So I'm six years old. I'm afraid of kites, balloons, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and really any adults that aren't my parents. I sit in an ER with my mom. I've gone there because this weird thing happened to my heart and it started beating really, really fast and no one really knew what it was. And so we sit there and this kind doctor comes in and he looks at me and he looks at my mom and he says, isabel, there's something wrong with your heart, but we don't really know what it is. They said it could be this thing called supraventricular tachycardia, or svt. Essentially what this means is that there is an arrhythmia in your heart and so your heart beats really, really, really fast. And it's very dangerous in the deaf sense of the word. But they didn't tell me that because I was 6. Instead, they said, isabel, when this happens, you need to find an adult immediately and get to the er. And for six year old Isabel, this is two very terrifying things happening at once. I have to talk to an addiction that I don't know. And then I have to go to the er, a place that I don't know. And so they just let us leave because they said there's nothing you can really do until it happens again and you come back. And so we leave and I go to school and it. It doesn't really affect me. I try not to think about it. And I go to my friend's house with my mom and we live in San Francisco, and so you have to drive everywhere and there are a lot of hills. And we get there and I'm upstairs and we're doing whatever little six year old kids do. And my heart starts to beat so quickly and I look around and I'm a little bit freaked out. And I go downstairs and I grab my mom's wrist and I'm like, mom, it's happening. We have to go to the ER now. And so she takes me and we jump in the car and we drive to the er. And because this is San Francisco, the only parking space is at the bottom of the hill and the ER is at the top of the hill. And so we run up the hill and my mom's out of breath and I'm even more out of breath and everything's starting to get a little bit hazy. And we get in there, and the woman at the front desk is like, welcome to the er. And my mom's like, she's having supraventricular tachycardia. And the woman's like, oh, my God. And they. And they whisk me into this other part of the er, and I'm in a bed, this white cot, and suddenly there's this wash of blue. The blue scrubs. And I'm starting to realize that I don't really feel very okay anymore. And I can feel my heart beating. And they're attaching all these different things to me. And this man grabs my arm, and he says, I have to put the IV in your arm. And this has happened to me, like, six times now, and I know how much it's gonna hurt, and I so badly do not want him to do it. And I say, please, please, please don't. And he says, I have to. And so he does, and I hate it. And then they look at the monitor, and for those of you who don't know, a regular heartbeat is about 60 to 100 beats per minute. At the height of this, like, heart thing, my heart was beating 360 beats per minute. So they look at the monitor, and they're looking at me. And I'm looking back at them, hoping to just find something in their eyes telling me that I'm going to be okay. And the doctors start to look nervous. And when doctors start to look nervous, I get nervous. And they look at me, and they look at the monitor, and they call the head cardiologist from the hospital to come down because they've never seen anything like this. And they all go away into this corner, and my mom wears these clinky bracelets. And when I hear them, I know it's all going to be okay. But I don't hear those clinky bracelets anymore. And it's really quiet, and I really don't think I'm going to be okay. And the doctors come over to me, and they start unpacking this thing, and they go, isabel, we're going to have to give you this medicine. This medicine is going to stop your heart from beating, and it should pick right back up again. But if it doesn't, we're going to defibrillate you. So they put two stickers on my chest, and the guy sits there with the defibrillator, and he looks at me, and the head cardiologist puts this medicine into the iv. And they look at me, and they look at the monitor, and suddenly it goes flat, and then it goes beep, beep, beep. And I'm okay. So by this time, they're 100% sure I have supraventricular tachycardia. And they tell me, isabel, you're going to have an operation. They call it an ablation. And I will be the third person in the world of my age to have the operation. And I'm fine. I had it. I'm okay. My heart is totally normal now. But I've had lots of different encounters with hospitals and doctors. And what I've really taken away from it is that I'm no longer that little kid who's afraid to say how they're feeling. I call people out on their shit, and I have this feeling inside of me that if doctors can save me once, I really believe that they can save me again. Thank you.

[Katherine Burns]

Isabel Connolly has participated in two high school Grand Slams and a Moth Main Stage, and was also part of our first ever All City Story Slam team. She's now a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, and she's an aspiring artist and filmmaker. We're pleased to report that her heart continues to be absolutely fine. Now we're going to hear from David Newell. You may not recognize his name, but you and your children would recognize his face. David starred as the beloved Mr. McFeely, spending 33 years bringing speedy deliveries to Mr. Rogers neighborhood. He told his story at a Main Stage show in Pittsburgh, where we partner with Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures and public radio station wesa. Here's David Newell live at the Moth.

[David Newell]

When I was nine years old, my grandfather took me to see my first play at the Nixon Theater in downtown Pittsburgh. And the name of the play was Harvey. Well, I was mesmerized by not only the play, but the theater. The Nixon Theater was built in the early 1900s, and it was said to be one of the most lavish theaters Pittsburgh ever had. I remember a sea of red velvet and polished marble and gold trim everywhere. It's then that I realized that I wanted to be involved in some form of theater. But in the summer of 1967, I had the chance to go to London to visit my cousin. And then after that, Tour Europe on $5 a day, you could actually buy a book. Tour Europe on $5 a day? Well, you could do it in 67 if you didn't want to eat. But it was also hard to locate anybody in Europe. This is 1967, and there are no computers and no cell phones, so it's really difficult to catch up. With somebody who's on the go. And I had a friend in Pittsburgh who was trying to locate me. His name was Bob McCully. And he located the American Express office in London and sent a telegram in hopes that I would get the telegram and the message when I came back to London. Well, I did. And the message was that Fred Rogers had gotten some underwriting to take Mr. Rogers neighborhood national. And he said, I have set up an interview for you with Fred Rogers when you get back to Pittsburgh. So about three days after I got back to Pittsburgh, I met with Fred. Now, I didn't know Fred. I knew him from the popularity of his first program called the Children's Corner and then the regional production of Mr. Rogers neighborhood. So during the interview, he explained the concept of the program. And he said, and the job we're offering you is that of a production assistant. You would be in charge of finding props and making sure the props are ready to go when we tape and checking the costumes and so forth. Oh, and he said, and dressing the puppets. And that was the job description. And so after about an hour, he hired me. So I had a job. And on the first day of taping, I had the props already. All my assignments were done, the costumes were in order, and also the puppets were dressed, even King Friday. And I was in my delivery costume, waiting in the corner of the studio to get ready for taping. Well, we start taping the first program. And my first delivery, I remember it was a armadillo, a South American animal armadillo. Now, I don't know how that worked in the context of the script, I can't remember, but somehow it did. Then my delivery service was called Speedy Delivery, a one man delivery service. And we finished the scene and I was leaving, I said, Speedy delivery, Mr. Rogers. And he said back to me, Speedy delivery, Mr. McFeely. And off I went. And it's been my catchphrase for 40 years. Well, we were a success. We went from black and white to color. And we were renewed and renewed and renewed. And as the years went on, I worked in public relations for the program. And Fred and I were in New York City. Fred was rehearsing for the interview on the David Letterman Show. And oh, by the way, the guests that night were Julie Andrews, Andy Kaufman and Fred Rogers. And between the rehearsal, there was about an hour before the taping and there was a crew man on the floor. I don't know, he came over to me and started whispering. It was sort of hushed. And he said, why don't you take Fred up to Studio 8H. They're rehearsing Saturday Night Live there and surprise Eddie Murphy. Well, if you don't know, Eddie Murphy did a lot of spoofs on the neighborhood. And he called them Mr. Robinson's neighborhood. And not all of them were G rated. Anyhow, we went up. Oh, he said. The man said, take that elevator because it goes right to 8h. You'll get. No one will stop you. So we did. And when we got there, they were on a break. And Eddie was in his dress room. That was it. And they recognized Fred, and they said, oh, Mr. Rogers, Eddie's dressing room is over there. As if. And Fred goes over and knocks on the door. And Eddie opens it, and he was truly surprised. And actually, he stepped back like this a little bit and then gave Fred a big hug and said, the real Mr. Robinson and Fred. Oh, somebody took a Polaroid picture of the famous meeting of Eddie and Fred, and Fred took it down to Letterman later that evening and showed it to Letterman and his audience. You know, Fred Rogers skillfully used television to communicate, and even someone as cool and as talented as Eddie Murphy knew that. I think it's a connection that Eddie made as he was growing up. He said he watched the program. Well, meeting Eddie was years ago. But just recently, some cast members and I, we were at Idlewild Park. Idlewild park is a charming amusement park about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. And we were there meeting and greeting, and a family came up to us with their son, who was a teenager in a wheelchair. And I had met them before, but this time they had a picture with them, a photograph of me as McFeely holding a young child. And they said, do you know who this child is? And I said, no, I don't. And then they pointed to their son in the wheelchair. And it was just then I realized that this family has probably been coming back to see us every year of that child's life. We at mister Rogers Neighborhood are touchstones for people, giving families the opportunity to come back again and again for a visit. Of all the things that I do, these visits are most important to me. As the saying goes, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And for that, I have my grandfather and Fred Rogers to thank, and generations of children who grew up in Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Speedy delivery, Mr. Rogers.

[Katherine Burns]

That was David Newell. Having been with Mr. Rogers neighborhood since its inception in 1967, David has been the show's property manager, associate producer, and director of public relations. David continues to make personal appearances as an ambassador for the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Series. Coming up, a man is busted trying to hoard cartons of an elusive flavor of ice cream when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

[Production Voice]

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

[Katherine Burns]

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX and I'm Kathryn Burns. Now we're going to hear from many time story Slam champion Steve Zimmer. Here's Steve live at the Music hall of Williamsburg.

[Steve Zimmer]

It's 2010 and I'm 46, the age when emotionally retarded single men in New York try to replace their mommy girlfriends with daughter girlfriends. But as usual, I'm trailing my peer group and I'm dating Kate, who has a 12 year old son. Kate says I don't get to meet her son until we've been dating three months. And that's fine with me. I previously dated a woman with a kid and I'm still very close to them. They're my quasi family. I don't need two quasi families. And that's not even counting the quasi family I grew up in. So Kate and I quickly develop a strong mutual bond because she's a taker and I'm a giver. Calculator. Resenter. So time flies and we hit three months and Kate wants me to meet her son. And I say let me think about it because there's a lot of issues. There's big ones like Kate's ex husband and subtler ones like for example, Kate and I experience sarcasm differently. Kate likes to make good natured sarcastic comments about me, whereas I like to compile and analyze Kate's supposedly good natured comments, a process she refers to as Steve's psycho echo chamber, which is exactly the type of comment that goes in the chamber. So, so? So after five months of dating, I still haven't agreed to meet her son. And Kate's discontent begins to color everyday conversation. One night I say, well, for dinner tonight I made stuffed green peppers, but this time I used ground turkey instead of ground beef, so they may not be as good. And Kate says, I have no illusions. That night after dinner, we don't speak. I need to give Kate an answer about her son. My answer will clarify our relationship. In addition, for me, it will address the eternal New York men's dating question of will I ever be an actual grown up? And for Kate, it will address the eternal New York women's dating question of what the fuck? So I decide I'm going To give Kate her answer within the week, I also decide to visit the supermarket. Now, it's already 11:30, so I go to the Food Emporium, which is open until midnight. So at the Food Emporium, I walk around trying to figure out what I want. I find it in aisle three half gallon cartons of Edie's Grand Light ice cream in the elusive seasonally available Girl Scout mint cookie flavor. Unfortunately, scumbags have hoarded all but five of the cartons. So I take the remaining five and head to the lone checkout line. Immediately ahead of me in line is a woman, late 30s, no ring. She sees my ice cream and says, your kids are gonna love you. Now, let me just stop here and say that romantically speaking, I've never done anything drastic. I've never hit on a stranger, and I've certainly never cheated on someone. But I'm 46 and the supermarket's closing soon, so. So I say, I don't have kids. I'm single. And she says, you must really like girl Scouts. And I'm like, oh, no, the ice cream was on sale half price, which is a total lie. It's not on sale. But this way I don't seem suspicious. So she says, would you hold my place in line? And I say, sure. And she's gone before I realize that she's going to get the ice cream because it's on sale, except it's not on sale. And she'll not only discover that I'm a liar, but also that I took all the Girl Scout ice cream, even the damaged one. So this woman's about to know me much better than Kate does, and so I need to run and somehow stop her. So I turn to the guy behind me to ask him to hold my place in line, but he's hunched over his cell phone, you know, so that no one can interrupt his meaningless conversation. And meanwhile, the woman I love has disappeared into aisle three. And she'll be back soon with no illusions. I can't face her. So I wheel my cart around and head to the far opposite corner of the store, ultimately settling in poultry. I'll just wait here until she leaves the store. I figure 10 minutes to keep the ice cream from melting. During this wait, I place the Girl Scout cartons amongst frozen Purdue chickens. The resulting diorama is unexpectedly sad because it's such a mess. I need to go home and tell Kate that I'm not going to meet her son. I could have told her that two months ago if I didn't believe my own bullshit. By the time I return to the checkout line, it's all new people. In New York, there's always new people. The cashier is a 40 something woman with an oddly compassionate voice. She says, did you find everything you were looking for? And I say yes, thank you. And she probably knows I'm lying, but it's late and she gives me a smile. Thank you.

[Katherine Burns]

That was Steve Zimmer. When I asked Steve for a bio, he wrote this. An aging yuppie from the Midwest, Steve is known for telling funny childhood stories about navigating the grown up world with undeveloped emotions and sad adulthood stories about navigating the grown up world with undeveloped emotions. Listen, that bio aside, let me tell you what Steve is really like. He's an incredibly generous guy. He has this old school New York loft and he's always loaning out to friends for birthday parties and baby showers and wants even a funeral. I'm thrilled to report that Steve recently met an amazing woman and put a ring on it. He's now a married man. Our final story is from Helen Cooper. We met Helen through a moth community workshop at the Family center in Brooklyn, New York. So now taking us way back to Coney island In the year 1959, here's Helen Cooper.

[Helen Cooper]

I'm one of seven children. The third, which was very hard. Being the third. We got along pretty good. We did a lot of fighting. That was fun. Usually on our birthdays, our mother gave us a choice of what type of cake did you want. We didn't have regular birthday parties, so choosing your cake was really nice. My sisters and brothers always wanted something plain, chocolate, vanilla, coconut. But not me. I always wanted something exciting, something different. I wanted purple and rainbow, something with M&MS. On it. But something wonderful happened around the time of my 12th birthday. My mother asked me, what do you want to do for your birthday? Not what kind of cake you want. She said, what did you want to do? I couldn't believe my ears. She was asking me, helen, what did I want to do for my birthday? I quickly said, I want to go to Coney island and play skeeball. And to my surprise, she said yes. Coney island was a beautiful place back then, 1959. They had so many attractions. They had the fun house. They had the fat lady. You guess how much she weighed. They had the petting zoo for the children. They had that two headed snake and the three legged chicken. Oh, it was wonderful. They had the, the steeplechase park. You thought you were winning the race, but they were mechanical Horses. They had the roller coasters. The Thunderbolt was the best. It whipped around the corners faster than just the plain old. I forgot the name of it. The Cyclone. Then they had the games you played. I only loved skeeball. It was a bowling type game. You had three circles you had to get these balls into to win points. The points amounted to so much, you got tickets for it. You could buy a gift. That was the best game in the whole park. You could have your rides. I wanted to play skeeball, so my mother said, yes, I could go. So then I really took a chance. I closed my eyes and put my hand behind my back and crossed my fingers. I said, can I go alone? I opened one eye. Cause she was taking a long time. She said, yes. You could have knocked me over with a feather. You mean I really can go by myself? Yes. I couldn't wait to tell the others. You could imagine the uproar. How come she get to go by herself? It's her birthday and we're starting something new. When your birthday comes, you can choose where you want to go. So the week went on, and I'm all excited. My birthday fell on a Sunday, which was my father's day off. My father was a cab driver, and he did the evening shift. So we never really got time to really talk to him or be around him. Because when he was sleep, we were in school. When he was up, we were asleep. So when Sunday came, I found out my father was taking me. This is extra icing on the cake. My father's taking me to Coney Island. He had brought his cab home the night before. So I'm not only gonna get to go with my father, I'm gonna ride in a cab. I don't have to take the train. It's time to go. I sit in the back seat like I'm a passenger, a paying passenger. As we go along, my father tried to talk to me like any other father would do. How? School. Oh, it's okay. I didn't tell him about the things I had got in trouble about. But before we knew it, we were at Coney Island. I'm saying to myself, the most I can really Hope for is 2, $3 to play this game. My father hands me a bill. I said, darn. He gave me a dollar. And then I look down. It was a $10 bill. I said, well, how much of this can I spend? All of it. It's yours. Oh, thank you. And I rushed off to get it changed before he come to his senses. So here I Am. And I'm playing this skeeball. I'm just playing it. And finally I'm getting all these tickets. I'm really excited. Here comes my father. It's time to eat now. Okay, gather up my tickets and we go off to Nathan's to have that famous hot dog. I gobble it down as fast as I can, and I'm on my way back and my father says, wipe that mustard off your face. I didn't know I had mustard on my face. This is taking up time. Wipe it off. Rush back. To my horror, somebody was playing my machine. I stood there a minute and I said, well, maybe they'll get tired and they'll go away and I can use this machine. I had done so well on it. It was mine. I waited a while, and they were just doing so well on it, too. So I chose another machine. And lo and behold, I did better on that machine than I did on the other one. Finally, my father came again and he said, we've got to go. But, Daddy, I got all these dimes. Okay, finish that dimes and then we have to go. I finished up the dimes. I got so many tickets. Here I go. I'm going to the counter. I'm going to choose my gift. The first thing I saw was a big white cup with Coney island on it and a picture of the Ferris wheel. That's mine, and nobody's drinking out of it but me. Then I saw a cute. Oh, that's mine, too. It had a puff of blond hair and big rosy cheeks, and it was on a stick. Nobody's touching this but me. And then it hit me. My sisters and brothers. I'll have to buy them something so they won't touch my stuff. I get everybody something. Luckily, I had enough tickets to get everybody something. My stuff was safe. So we started home. My father asked me how did I like my day out by myself. Oh, it was wonderful, Daddy. I never had a day like this. This is like heaven. I sat there looking at him as he drove the way home. I sat in the front going home. I just looked at it, said, you know, I'm not just any kid. I'm his daughter, and it's my birthday.

[Katherine Burns]

That was Helen Cooper. Helen was raised in Brooklyn and Jamaica Corporation, Queens, and now lives in Far Rockaway. Helen told this story more than 13 years ago, and when we decided to air it, I called her up to tell her and was so thrilled when she picked up. Remember how in the story she always wants a crazy fun cake for her birthday? And not just vanilla. Well, she told me that she now makes cakes like that for her four children and six great grandchildren. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

[Dr. Danielle Ofri]

Your home.

[Production Voice]

Our host this hour was the Moth's artistic director, Kathryn Burns. Kathryn also directed the stories in the show along with Michaela Bly, Frank D'Amico, Catherine McCarthy and Kate Tellers, with additional storytelling coaching by Tim Manley and Nora Matthews. The rest of the Moth's directorial staff include Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jeuness, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Lou Lee. Special thanks to Brian Greene, Tracy Day and Kate Roth of the World Science Festival. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Chili Gonzales, Stellwagen, Symphonet, Yaman Jazz and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass playing Coney Island. You can find links to all our music at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. Moth Radio Hour is presented by prx. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themauth.org.