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- [00:00]
Unnamed Advertiser
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- [01:08]
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Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This week on the podcast we have another episode of the Moth Radio Hour for you. Our founder, George Dawes Green is going to host this episode. You'll hear stories from Edgar Oliver, Sherry Holman and Chuck mcdouhy. That's going to be an awesome hour of stories. So sit back and enjoy the show.
- [03:06]
George Dawes Green
From prx. This is the Moth Radio Hour. Why do Southerners tell so many stories? I'm George Dawes Green, founder of the Moth, and I got my inspiration for the Moth from remembering nights on the Southern island. I grew up on St. Simon's, an island a little south of Savannah, Georgia. Sitting around on Wanda Bullard's porch drinking too much bourbon and watching the moths fly around and telling tales all night long. Some people attribute our Southern story skills to something in our character. Thomas Jefferson said that Southerners were, quote, fiery, voluptuous, indolent, unsteady, zealous in their own liberties, but trampling on those of others, unquote. Well, that's the truth. And that does sound like folks who would be spinning a lot of tales or starring in them. But I've also heard our raconteuring tendencies blamed on our Scots Irish background or the legacy of the African griot or just underemployment. We got too much time on our hands or on the heat, which makes more active pursuit seem loathsome to us. But I really like best Flannery O'Connor's formula because we have had our fall. Ms. O'Connor was born in Savannah, as was our first storyteller, Edgar Oliver. This tale of his fall from grace at a military academy was told to a Savannah audience during a stop of the Unchained tour at the Knights of Columbus hall on Liberty Street. Here's Edgar Oliver.
- [05:05]
Edgar Oliver
Hi everyone. I attended Benedictine Military School here in Savannah for the entire four years of my high school. Maybe some of you did too, but you know, I was kind of terrified when I first went to Benedictine. I, I just was scared to go to an all boys school. I thought that I would be teased mercilessly and during my first year I was teased, but it never seemed like it was in an evil way. By the end of my first year there, I just began to realize that all those boys loved me. I felt very loved there and the military instructors seemed to like me a lot also. Every time that promotion time came around, I was always promoted. So when I began my last year at Benedictine, I Discovered that I had been promoted to the rank of major. I was Major Oliver, and I was one of the highest ranking boys in the whole school. So, you know, they had to put me in command of something. But they, they couldn't really put me in command of a squadron or a company or anything like that. Mainly because everybody just found my voice so strange. That if I had tried to give commands on the drill field, Everyone would have burst out laughing. So what they did was the military instructors decided to put me in charge of the military office. So that meant that I was responsible for all the military records for the entire school. Recording grades on military exams and scores in maths, craftsmanship and merits and demerits received. And attendance for all the students in the whole school. I think the military instructors thought that since I did so well in school, that I was highly organized. But that was not true that year. School was very, very important to me. I was all alone in Savannah. My sister Helen had gone north to begin her first year at George Washington University in Washington. And mother, who was always looking for a way to escape from Savannah, Decided to head north to be with Helen. And so I was just there alone in our house for the whole year. I had never learned to drive. So I took the city bus to and from school every day. I was the co editor of the school paper, the cadet. And I was also the cartoonist for the cadet. So I would stay really late at school, school every day to work on the cadet. And I was, you know, then I'd go home and I'd do my homework. I was a very diligent student. But the one thing that I entirely neglected were my duties in the military office. I just. That hour, that one hour of each school day that was devoted to military training. I just began to think of as this hour of enchanted solitude. I had been given these four boys to command. And they were supposed to help me keep track of all these records. But I just made it very plain to them that I expected no help from them whatsoever. That they were free to go off and do whatever they wanted to do. And everybody else was just parading around on the drill field. So the whole school was empty. And I just did whatever I felt like. I would, you know, write or I would draw cartoons for the school paper. Or just dream away that hour. And finally spring came, and it was time for the general inspection. And that meant that this very high ranking general was coming around to all the military schools in the south, inspecting them and ranking them. And one of the things that they were Going to inspect were the military records, which were blank. But I felt that I had this really good solution to this problem. It seemed to me that if I could take the military records home with me for one night, just one night of frantic transcribing would be enough to bring them completely up to date. So a few days before the general inspection, with what I thought was plenty of time, I just admitted everything to Sergeant Harold, who was the military instructor in command of the office. I just said, you know, Sergeant Harold, the military records are blank, but if you'll just please let me take them home for one night, I promise you I can bring them up today. But this was a highly unorthodox request. Sergeant Harold was, you know, this very dreamy, shy sort of soul that I looked upon as a kindred spirit. And, well, I'm sure much against his better judgment, and probably because he just realized he had no choice, he agreed to my request. He agreed to let me take all the military records for the whole school home with me, unbeknownst to his commander, Colonel Shields. So I took the military records home, and I stayed up all night. And by dawn, I had brought them completely up to date. So I put on my full dress military uniform, and I packed my book bag with all the military records, and I went to wait for the city bus at the bus stop on Broughton Street. I had my book bag sitting there on the sidewalk beside me. And the sun was rising through the scaffolding of the abandoned gas works on the eastern edge of town. And Broughton street was just so beautiful and desolate. And I had with me a single lens reflex camera that I had borrowed from my friend Richard Bunbury on the way home from school the night before. And this was what I was going to photograph. The desolation of Broughton street at dawn with the sun rising through the gasworks. So I started taking these photographs. And then I stepped around the corner onto Price street to photograph the gasworks from a better angle. And I was gone for less than a minute. And when I stepped back around the corner, my book bag was gone. And I just started dashing back and forth, just peering at the sidewalk as though peering at it would make my book bag reappear. But it didn't. And there wasn't a soul inside. It just seemed that this could not have been the work of human hands. And I didn't know what to do. And so, just without thinking, I strode across town. And I strode to the central police headquarters by the colonial cemetery. And I strode in, I strode up to the front desk. And I said in this booming voice of desperation, a crime has been committed. Important military documents have been stolen. And the entire police force leapt to attention. I was there in my full dress military uniform with this bizarre accent, looking far older than I was. And I think that they just thought I was some. I don't know, some high government official, and that Savannah had suddenly been plunged into the depths of the cold world. And squad cars were sent racing off in all directions with their sirens.
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Kathryn Burns
How?
- [16:15]
Edgar Oliver
And then I said, I will be at 520 East State street, awaiting the results of the search. That was my address. So then I strode home. And when I got there, without giving myself time to think, I just picked up the phone and I dialed Benedictine and asked to speak to Sergeant Harold. And he got on the phone and I said, sergeant Harold, all the military records have been stolen. And he didn't say anything. So I said, and I've been to the police. And then he made some sort of sounds. So then I said, and I'm not coming to school. Bye. And hung up and tried not to think of poor Sergeant Harold. And then I lay down on the couch in the living room, still in my full military dress uniform. And all I could think was, I can never go back to Benedictine. I can never go back. And it seemed to me that the only punishment suitable to a crime of this magnitude was court martial. And I didn't know what that might entail, apart from hanging, which seemed a bit drastic for the junior rotc, but to me, what it meant was disgrace, Just complete disgrace. So I thought, I can never go back to school. And as I was lying there, the doorbell rang. And I thought, ah, they've come for me. So I got up and I went to the front door, and I looked through the peephole and I saw the chins and throats of these three men standing abreast of one another with epaulettes on their shoulders and their chests covered with medals. So I opened the front door, and there were these three beautiful officers standing shoulder to shoulder. And the central officer said, major Oliver? And I said, yes. And he said, I think we have something of yours. And then he smiled and held up my book bag, and I almost fainted. And, well, it turned out that these were three officers from the Marine Corps training camp at Parris Island. And there had been a Marine Corps pickup truck parked on Broughton street right by the bus stop. And when the truck got back to Parris island, they'd found my book bag, this leather kind of suitcase covered with military insignia in the back of the truck. Maybe the Marines put it there or a passerby thinking it had fallen from the truck and these three officers had been hand picked to return my book bag to me and they gave me hundreds of brochures detailing the glories of the Marines and they asked if I would please dispute the brochures to my fellow students and I said yes. And that's how I wound up graduating from high school.
- [20:53]
George Dawes Green
That was Edgar Oliver. Edgar's long form story, a memory of Savannah called Helen and Edgar, has been performed at the Public Theater in New York City and in other theaters around the world. To see some amazing photos of Edgar in his cadet's uniform, please go to our website themoth.org in a moment we'll be back with the story of two almost maiden aunts travel together in an old house and the long buried secret that poisons their lives. Purest, most delicious Southern Gothic when the Moth Radio Hour Returns the Moth Radio.
- [21:41]
Unnamed Producer
Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org the Moth.
- [21:51]
Unnamed Advertiser
Is supported by Makers 46, a handcrafted bourbon that begins as fully matured maker's mark. Then makers 46 is finished longer inside barrels containing seared French oak staves, and only during the cool winter months when bourbon matures more slowly. The result is a more complex taste highlighted by bigger vanilla oak and caramel flavors. Online at makers46.com makers46 Bourbon whiskey, 47% alcohol by volume, distilled in Loretto, Kentucky, reminds listeners to drink responsibly. Support for the Moth Podcast comes from Mulholland Books, publisher of Broken Monsters, the new novel by Lauren Bucus, which the Los Angeles Times calls a thoroughly modern supernatural thriller. Broken Monsters depicts a series of disturbing killings in Detroit as witnessed by the city's police, its homeless, its artists and its Redditors. Broken Monsters by Lauren Bucus is available now as a hardcover e book and audiobook. Go to mulhollandbooks.com to read the first chapter.
- [22:55]
George Dawes Green
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm George Dawes Green, and we're talking about what makes the south such a fountain for stories. I raised that question recently with Kathryn Burns, the Moth's beloved artistic director. So, Kathryn, you were raised in Alabama?
- [23:15]
Kathryn Burns
Yes, I was.
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Sherry Holman
I was raised in Alex City, Alabama. If you write Alabama across the map, I grew up on the next to the last A.
- [23:20]
George Dawes Green
And when you were a little girl, were you hearing stories?
- [23:25]
Sherry Holman
Kind of. It's like my dad's a Very quiet man. But my mama, she could tell stories and so could my grandmother. And actually both of my grandmothers were great storytellers and told all the family stories. Like when I was little, they wouldn't like tell me like bear, rabbit and things like that. They told me all these stories from our family, which I loved.
- [23:42]
George Dawes Green
Now I want to ask you a question. It seems to me, it seemed to me when I was on Wanda's porch listening to stories, and it has always seemed to me ever since that there's a particular beauty of southern stories that's true.
- [23:54]
Sherry Holman
I've tried to think about this so much because you and I have talked about it before. Like there's just something, there's a gentility that is just truly southern. I feel like kindness in the modern world is a story, you know, and decency. Unfortunately, we live in this world where it's like so modern and hurried and so people being going way out of their way to treat other people well is always a good story. Have I ever told you the story about my grandfather and the Ford company, What happened?
- [24:24]
George Dawes Green
No, I have not heard that.
- [24:25]
Sherry Holman
Can I tell it to you? I have this impulse and it's like been in my head slightly distracting. So my great grandfather, Richard Quals, he had a Ford dealership right before the Great Depression and the crash came. And Ford basically said that they would give him money, he would repossess his neighbors cars and send them back up to Detroit, that Ford would pay him for every car he sent to them because the people couldn't make payments. So he's living in this rural farmer community. He takes these people's cars away, they're going to starve. You know, it's serious. So he sold his big house, he moved to this tiny little house with my grandmother and grandmother. And he said that people could just pay like a penny, that he wouldn't repossess their cars. And in this way, as a community, they rode out the great tax depression. So the end of the depression, Ford says, you know, it's the new deal. Build a big fancy showroom. My grandfather was like, with what money? Like, I've been shipping all cars back. I don't have any money like some of these other people. And so they're like, oh, really? Well, we're taking your dealership away. So they took his dealership away. And Buick heard about this and Buick called him up and said, you want a dealership? We hear you need a dealership. And he opened a Buick dealership. And all those people whose cars and families and Everything in the community he stuck his neck out to save with their new money, came in and bought Buicks. And the Ford company was out of business, I'm told, within six months. And my grandfather was the first man in his county to become a millionaire.
- [25:54]
George Dawes Green
Ah, that's beautiful.
- [25:57]
Sherry Holman
But that level of community, that level of community, there's something about that that I think is very. That really creates this sort of beauty that sometimes in our rushing subway modern world, we miss, like our little tin cans driving down the road, not connecting with other people. You miss that deep connection and, you know, which I think is something we're trying to restore.
- [26:17]
Unnamed Listener
Right?
- [26:18]
Edgar Oliver
Yeah.
- [26:18]
Sherry Holman
I mean, that is really above all.
- [26:20]
George Dawes Green
That'S what the moth is about.
- [26:22]
Sherry Holman
That's what the moth is about.
- [26:27]
George Dawes Green
That was Katherine Burns. Back in the year 2000, back in the dark ages, when our recordings weren't as good as they are now, we held a special moth in New York City to celebrate the South. We called it bourbon and porch light. My old friend Wanda Bullard, remember her porch in Georgia. Well, she came up to preside. And the novelist Sherry Holman, my dear friend, regaled us with the story of her mysterious aunts. Here's Sherry Holman.
- [27:05]
Unnamed Listener
I want to start my story tonight with my favorite overheard Southern conversation that I shared with George Lobos. Ten years ago when we first met. I overheard this in a Denny's in Atlanta, Georgia, about 15 years ago, 3:00 in the morning. I was nursing heartache, and obviously the women behind me were nursing the same heartache because I heard one woman say to the other one, she said, I said to him, I said, my love blossomed for you, and you took it and you threw it away and now you want it back. Well, fuck you. So this story is actually not about those two women Denny's, so perhaps it should have been. It's about my two old maid aunts who lived together in this one decaying Falconerian mansion outside of Richmond, Virginia. They lived together for about 60 years, and their house was at the edge of a field that was at the edge of a railroad track that ran north to Washington and points north and eventually on to New York City. And every weekend through my childhood, my sister and I, my two cousins, would go to this old house to stay with these aunts. And the thing about this house is I don't know why we loved it so much. Because it had no air conditioning in the summer, it had no heat in the winter. If you washed your hair in the morning, by the time you got downstairs, your hair had Frozen to your head. But luckily then by the time you got into the breakfast room, my Aunt Beth would be standing there frying breakfast. And she made sausage and bacon and eggs and toast and biscuits and waffles and pancakes and grits and peaches, because this was a healthy breakfast. And my Aunt Shirley, her younger sister, would be pouring me a cup of coffee. I was about six years old, coffee. And they would have a typical aunt like conversation which would go something like this. My Aunt Beth would say something like, you know, Cynthia died this week. And my Aunt Shirley would say, oh, Lizbeth, she did not. And then my Aunt Shirley would say something like, lizbeth, pass me a damn napkin. And my Aunt Beth would say, get it your own damn self. Sit at this table eating our sausage necks, bacon, grits, peaches. And so I would spend my entire childhood, I just kept trying to think, why do these two women who live together, they don't move apart. Why do they hate each other so much? And I would rack my brain, and the only thing that I could come up with was the fact that my Aunt Shirley's last name was different than my Aunt Beth's last name. Her last name was Yarborough. And we were, my Aunt Beth, my dad, myself, we were all Holmans. And there was this mysterious marriage back in the early 50s that had lasted, I knew, one week and just long enough for me to have a cousin Anne. So I knew that somehow the story of my aunt's hatred grew out of this love affair a long time ago. And I was determined to find out. So one morning at one of these breakfast, I just, you know, gleefully piped up, so tell me about Anne's daddy, Billy Arbor. Well, my Aunt Beth pushed herself back from the table and she went to the stove where she was the most comfortable. And what I should tell you about my Aunt Beth is she was crippled, she was large, she was hunched over, and she hurt her leg when she was very young. And we could never again. It was another sort of secret like this marriage. We could never figure out how she had hurt herself, which was very convenient for my mother, who is in the audience today, because whatever we were doing bad, like we were jumping from bed to bed, my mother would say, that's how your Aunt Beth hurt her legs. Had no idea. But the one thing that we did know is that this had happened when she was very young. So young that she never went to school. She stayed home and was home schooled. She never had a chance to meet boys, so she never got married. So Thus in the south, she was a virgin. And my Aunt Shirley, the firecracker of the family, who'd had this one week wedding, was left sitting at the kitchen table. And I turned to her and I was like, what is it about Billy that you won't talk about? And my aunt just looked so crestfallen. And she showed a horrible looking mouth. Death. And she said, let me show you something.
- [31:47]
Kathryn Burns
And.
- [31:47]
Unnamed Listener
And she took two stick matches and she put them together like this. And she lit a third match. She set the two heads on fire. And one match sort of peeled back, they caught on fire and one peeled back, sort of like a woman lifting her leg in a kiss. And she said, billy taught me that trick. And that's all she would say about it. So the years went by. This secret stayed locked in my aunt's virginal lips and my Aunt Shirley's painfully depressed lips. And every weekend we'd go back there and we would have the same breakfast and everything stayed wonderfully the same until I was 13 years old and my aunts could stop worrying with one another. Because for one minute, because there was a new enemy, an outside enemy, who was my mother. Because my parents were getting divorced and my mother had the insane idea of moving us 10 miles up the street into town. And no one in this family had ever left. We all lived within a very small radius of one another. And my mother was taking us away from them. And we were all. They had the kids coming every weekend, what they lived for. And they said, you don't have to go with your mother. You can live here with us. And I thought, oh, that would be wonderful. I loved this house. But the only thing is, they thought so much, I didn't know if I could take it. And my mother, in her infinite wisdom, said, if you can make it a week with these women in this house, then we'll talk about it. So I went back the next weekend with a renewed sense of purpose. And I decided if I can just get to the bottom of their hatred. I was 13. I thought I could save the world. If I can just get to the bottom of their hatred, I can bring peace in this house. I can live in this wonderful old house with all these nooks and crannies and beautiful spaces that I love. And I don't have to step into the future. I don't have to take that scary step. So I went to their house and my Aunt Beth was cooking lunch. She was cooking pork chops and beans with fat back and peas with fat back and squash with Fat back and chicken because it was a healthy lunch. And my Aunt Shirley was up in the bathroom and she was wont to be eating Russell Stover's chocolates on the toilet and reading romance novels. And I snuck into my Aunt Shirley's bedroom and I went to her vanity and I opened up her drawers. And I was going to find some relic of. Billy. I was determined I was going to do this. And I went through old postcards of Niagara Falls and I. I found old family photographs. And I found the weirdest thing I've ever seen. My father's umbilical cord with his name printed there. And I found this box. And I opened up the box and there was a letter inside. And it was a letter to Shirley. I mean, to Billy, from Shirley. And it went something like this. She said, dear Billy. Oh, how I miss and love you, Billy. Life is hell here since you've left us, Billy. And she loves you. She's young. She's starting to take her first step. She's so beautiful, Billy. You would love her. Mama's as nasty as ever. Daddy's as drunk as ever. Elizabeth is the biggest bitch I've ever seen. And I can't believe she turned you in, Billy. Oh, Billy. Oh, Billy, how I love you. Please come back and take me away from here. And it was double spaced. And on the envelope on the outside, it was addressed to Billy Obero, care of the Virginia State Penitentiary. But it was this double spaced, beautifully written letter. And the most remarkable thing about it is in the spaces in between where my aunt had written. He had written back to her. And his note back went so. Something like, you know. Hey, Shirley baby. Good to hear from you. Shirley baby. Paper sure is hard to come by in prison. Shirley baby. 20 bucks sure would go far in jail. Love you, Billy. As I was reading this letter, I was just. This feeling came over me. I can hardly describe it. It's like the air was getting hotter and hotter and the room was getting stuffier and stuffier. And this house that I loved suddenly seemed so small and so airless. And especially in light of my aunt's desire back then to just get away and now here. They wanted me to come and stay with them. And I called my mother and I took the first step into the future. Away from their past that would lead me to college and eventually onto that train to New York City where I now live and am a writer. And just a brief codicil to this story. I was living here for a while and I suffered a tremendous setback in Romance like my Aunt Shirley did, though he did not end up in jail, but perhaps he should have. And I suffered such a heartbreak, and I wanted nothing more than to go home. I think every Southerner hits apart a time in life when a heartbreak in York City suddenly Virginia doesn't look so bad. It's actually very appealing, and you just want to be in the bosom of your family. And I wanted to see my aunt's house, even though by this point my Aunt Shirley had died and my Aunt Beth was in a nursing home. And so I got on the train and I started coming back and the railroad tracks passed right by their house. And so I had my nose pressed up against the window and I just wanted a glimpse of the house. And we came, came by, we came by the town and we came by the field and I looked out and the house was gone. And I'm like, maybe I just have the wrong plot of land. So we kept going and I had my nose pressed and nothing, nothing, nothing. And then we were in Richmond and my mom met me at the train station. I was like, what happened to Shirley and Beth's house? And she said, they tore it down. You know, they didn't even own that house. They'd been renting it for $15 a month, the price they'd been paying since the 1930s. And I realized at that moment what taking that first step into the future had cost me. And it was as though the ghost of that house rose up and the ghost of my virginal Aunt Beth and the ghost of my thwarted Aunt Shirley, and they rose up and they said to me, they said, our love blossomed for you, and you took it and you threw it away and now you want it back.
- [38:37]
George Dawes Green
That was Sherry Holman. I asked Sherri for a bio note and this is what she sent us. Sherry Holman is the author of five new novels, including the Dress Lodger and Witches on the Road. Tonight, today, she is trading the railroads of Virginia and the subways of New York for the freeways of Los Angeles, where she is writing for television. Oh, no, Sherry, I know television's the fabulous thing now, but I just wish you'd come home and write more beautiful novels. That's my personal opinion and not necessarily the opinion of the Moth Radio Hour or PRX or this radio station or anybody else. We'll be back in a moment with the story of a black freedom rider charged with treason and locked away in a Louisiana prison, who tries to rescue the 11 year old white boy in the next cell. When the Moth Radio Hour returns.
- [39:49]
Edgar Oliver
The.
- [39:49]
Unnamed Producer
Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org.
- [39:59]
Unnamed Advertiser
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 150,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and and featuring audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.com themoth I'm George Dawes Green.
- [40:20]
George Dawes Green
The founder of the Moth, and you're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from prx. This is a special hour of Southern stories. Remember the last item in Thomas Jefferson's list of Southerners attributes zealous in their own liberties but trampling on those of others. The Dark side of Dixie in May 2001, we had a night. We called and justice for all our raconteurs included Chuck McDo, the former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or sncc, and another freedom rider, Bob Zellner, a white man from Mississippi. He and Chuck hadn't seen each other for years, and after a tearful reunion, they both told stories about being imprisoned in Louisiana and charged with treason. This is Chuck McDo's story. It's brutal and sometimes graphic and heartbreaking, so be ready. Chuck McDo at the mall.
- [41:36]
Kathryn Burns
I'm glad you're all here. Langston Hughes did a poem one day that said, you don't know, you just don't know my mind. When you see me laughing, I'm laughing to keep from crying. Because we survived a lot. When we were arrested and charged with criminal anarchy, there had been two people in the history the United States, that had been charged with criminal anarchy, Saquon Benzetti. And they hung them. And that was not funny. We thought we were going to die. So well, you know, we had all been arrested, SNCC members, and we were taken to the cellar of this jail and it was like 3:00 in the morning and they were coming down and taking us out of jail, out of the cell. And if you knew about the United States in 1960 or 50, that if you were black and taken out of a jail cell in the middle of the night, you were going to die. And we knew this. The last thing I was thinking when they came to get me, I was looking at my hands and I was thinking, keep your hands free, keep your hands free. Because when they castrate me, I have to get my hands down to open the wound so that I can bleed quickly and pass out. And if I bleed quickly after they castrate me and I pass out, maybe I won't beg for my life. And since I'm about to die, I don't want to beg for my life. And I kept looking at my hands. But I had said to my friends before that realize that all of us are not going to make it through to the end of this journey. Some of us are going to die, and some of us are going to die tonight. So it is incumbent upon those of us who live, we must promise each other that we will tell the story of why the others died. The only reason I am here is to fulfill a promise that I made to young men 30 years ago, 40 years ago in a prison in Macomb, Mississippi, most of whom are not here, many of whom did die. And they died terrible and painful deaths. The reason I'm here telling the story is because of a promise I made to friends of mine years ago. I was kept in solitaire the whole time I was there. And Saltan in Louisiana, in the cell that was about the size, less half the size of the stage. And they'd keep the heat on in the daytime. They came out the ceilings and they would like turn the lights on for four days, turn the lights off for four days, turn lights on for five days, turn the lights out for six days. And one day they brought a child, a young white boy, who was about 10, 11 years old. And they put him in the cell next to mine. The fact situation was this little boy Johnny had been in an argument with his employers, his mother's employer's son. And they got childhood argument, two kids arguing. One little boy took Johnny's skates, Johnny took his bicycle and he was arrested and he was put in juvenile detention center. His mother came to visit the detention child on a Sunday, which was a non visiting day, and they tried to see her son. It was a non visiting day and she got an argument with the guards and the guards pistol whipped her. The guards pistol whipped the mother. The child was watching from the third floor as this was happening. And he started tearing at the bars and trying to get to his mother. Because of that, the officials in Baton Rouge, Louisiana decided that the child was too tough, quote, too tough for the juvenile center and sent him to the prison where Bob and I were being kept to, quote, break his spirits. And they used to give him tranquilizers. And as many of you know, that if you give a child tranquilizers, it has the opposite effect that it will have on adults. And so they give this kid these tranquilizers and then a few minutes later, the child would become uncontrollable and start yelling and screaming and saying, let me out of here. And I can remember he had his his since he was a juvenile. He had his own guard, and it was a woman, and she's a woman matron. And she said, I know what you know. I studied child psychology at lsu. I know how to deal with him. You just put him in a straight jacket and beat his little ass till he can't cry no more. And that's how we'll handle him. And that's what they used to do. They used to put him in a straight jacket and they would beat him and beat him and beat him till he couldn't cry anymore. And that's how they'd handle him. Well, during the times when he was sort of awake, I would talk to him in the cell next to him and say, look, Johnny Tribe, when they give you those pills, I was trying to teach him how to put him under his tongue and not swallow him because obviously the pills were making the kid act the way he was acting. And I would tell him about my family in Ohio. I had brothers his age who played little league baseball who were 10 and 11 years old. And Johnny was about their age, 10 or 11 years old then. I remember the last thing I remembered about that child was when they came to transfer him to Angola to the Angola State Penitentiary prison farm, the Honor farm in Louisiana. They used other prisoners, lifers as guards in these prison farms. And the reward these lifers get as guards are little boys. And they brought this child to me to say goodbye. And I remember he was so small that they have a rule about transporting prisoners in irons. He was so skinny that they couldn't put the handcuffs on him. So they sort of wrapped the chains around his arms and sort of wrapped the chains around his legs. And he came to me by the sail and said to say his goodbyes. And I said, look, Johnny, when you get up to Angola, terrible things are going to happen. Horrible things are going to happen, and it's going to be painful and they're going to hurt you. And I'm afraid there's not many much you can do because if you try to fight them, they're going to do more than hurt you. They will kill you. So you have to let them do what they're going to do. I remember that story because this last time I wasn't. You don't know my pain when you hear me laughing. I'm laughing. Keep on crying. It was the last time I cried. But I said, don't worry, Johnny. We will get you out. We will find you and get you out. Our lawyers will be here in a month and we will find you. We never found him. We never got him out. We assume what happened. He resisted being raped and was killed and gave me to understand that it's not a struggle of black people or white people dominating black people. The struggle of people without power being exploited, run over and destroyed. That night in macomb, Mississippi, when we thought we were going to die, we said, made a pledge to each other that the only thing that will make our lives or our deaths meaningful is that we tell the story of why we did what we did and why the others died. That's why I'm here. Thank you.
- [51:53]
George Dawes Green
That was Chuck McDoo, the former chairman of the student nonviolent coordinator. He lectures around the country on civil rights issues and lives in Minnesota. All of the stories you've heard this hour are available at the iTunes store. Just search for the best of the moth. You can pitch us your story, record it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684.
- [52:34]
Raymond Ray Christian
My name is Raymond Ray Christian. My mother wanted to apply for Social Security and she stood in the line. The lady looked at my mother and she said, just go to the line. Fill this out. Go to the desk.
- [52:46]
Kathryn Burns
Fill it out.
- [52:47]
Raymond Ray Christian
I'm about 10 years old. My mother looked at the paper and turned it around back. She started tearing up in the eyes and she said, son, I can't read. And I looked at the first line and it said, name. N a m e. Name. I said, mama, that's your name. She said, my name is Annie B. Christian. And I wrote annie b. Christian. We went down the whole forum that way and went it in and my mama broke into tears. She said, you'll never know what it's like to be ignorant. And that would change my life forever.
- [53:23]
George Dawes Green
Remember, you can pitch us your story@themost.org we'll bring the best story idea to the moth stage. 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 the moth.
- [53:50]
Unnamed Producer
Your host this hour was novelist and founder of the moth, George Dawes Green. George also directed the stories in this show along with Joey Zanders. The moth's directorial staff includes Katherine burns, Sarah haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Jenna Weiss Berman and Whitney Jones. Moth's stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the Stories storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Alain Toussaint, Tin Hat, the Waybacks and Regina Carter. Links to all the music we use can be found at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Vicki Merrick. 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. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org for more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and and everything else, go to our website themoth.org another great.
- [55:12]
Dan Kennedy
Episode of the Moth Radio Hour right here on the Moth Podcast. Man, that Edgar Oliver story. I love hearing that story. I actually went skeet shooting with him one time on the road and he was this amazing crack shot. I was hitting nothing. And Edgar Oliver, in all of his sort of gothic poise was, was, you know, not the guy you would expect to be great with a shotgun. Guess what? Edgar Oliver. Really great with a shotgun.
- [55:40]
Unnamed Advertiser
This podcast is supported by Citrix GoToMeeting Good communication is crucial for any business, especially when the people you work with aren't in the same office. That's why millions of business professionals rely on Citrix GoToMeeting to connect with remote clients and co workers. And you should too. GoToMeeting lets you share this same screen so everyone stays on the same page wherever they are. And with built in HD videoconferencing, you just need a webcam to see each other face to face. GoToMeeting helps your team work smarter from any location and on any computer, tablet or smartphone work smarter. Get started with GoToMeeting now. Sign up for GoToMeeting today and get another Citrix tool free for six months. Visit GoToMeeting.com and get but don't wait. This special offer ends October 10th. Visit GoToMeeting.Com and sign up to receive this special offer today.
- [56:33]
Dan Kennedy
Hey Bay Area listeners, the Moth Main Stage is coming to Palo Alto on Friday, October 17th. And if you're in North Carolina, the moth main Stage is returning to Durham on Thursday, October 23rd. You can find out about tickets and all of our upper upcoming tour stops by visiting the site themoth.org Our podcast.
- [56:55]
Sherry Holman
Host, Dan Kennedy is a writer and performer living in New York and author.
- [56:59]
Unnamed Advertiser
Of the new novel American Spirit. Available now.
- [57:03]
Dan Kennedy
Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by Pete Prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.