The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright

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Speaker 3 This is the moth radio hour. I'm Jay Allison, and in this episode, stories about finding the light at the end of the tunnel, bright futures in dark times, and hope even when things seem hopeless.

Speaker 3 Our first storyteller is Katya Duff. Katya told this story at one of our Open Mic Story Slam competitions in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCRW.

Speaker 3 Here's Katya live at the mall.

Speaker 4 When I was 14 years old, my parents decided it was a great idea to get me out of school and move a million thousand miles away from the far east of Russia close to Moscow so I could go to a great college several years later.

Speaker 4 I didn't want any of this. I liked my school, I liked my skiing, I liked my rock climbing, my friends.
So when they just moved me to Moscow I got very depressed.

Speaker 4 In addition to everything, once we moved, we had a little bit of savings, but they suddenly all disappeared because of a financial crisis.

Speaker 4 So when I came to my new school, not only we were poor, but also had no friends. I mean, it's all my fault.
I was very grumpy about moving, and I didn't want any friends.

Speaker 4 But the first year in the new school was extremely miserable. So, for my 15th birthday, my dad told me, I know what you'd like as a birthday present.

Speaker 4 Let's go camping with a bunch of other adults and kids. And this way you can climb the tallest mountain in Europe.
You know, most girls for 15 years old,

Speaker 4 at 15, they want probably a dress or a pair of shoes. For me, it was an amazing idea.
Yes, I really want to climb climb the tallest mountain in Europe.

Speaker 4 So we go on this trip, which was not very well planned, honestly, because it was 10 parents and about 15 kids, and we didn't bring enough food for all of us. And it was non-stop camping for a month.

Speaker 4 We lived in

Speaker 4 tents, bathing in rivers. And for the last two weeks of our trip, we completely ran out of food and we were in the mountains.

Speaker 4 So we had to stop by different villages, asking Highlanders Highlanders for cheese and milk. And that was our diet for about 10 days.
We all lost about 10 pounds, I'd say.

Speaker 4 And we were completely emaciated. But for my birthday, I said, I'm still climbing that mountain.

Speaker 4 So we spent the night in a wooden house, all of us, and they tell me, Katya, the weather doesn't look very well.

Speaker 4 You know, they promised like a little bit of rain for tomorrow and maybe a little bit of a storm. I say, no, we are going.
It's my birthday. I absolutely have to do it.

Speaker 4 So next morning when I get out, I realize that there is no electricity because all the electric cables lay on the ground after a storm. My dad tells me, Katie,

Speaker 4 we are not going. No, you're not doing this.
I say, no, it's my birthday. I'm 15.
My life has been crap for the last year. I absolutely have to do it.

Speaker 4 So when my dad turns away, I put all the equipment on, this special metal

Speaker 4 shoes and I bring a metal stick and I start climbing. Good thing my dad got out of the house and he saw me on the horizon and he was like, oh god, she decided to do it.

Speaker 4 So he starts chasing me with other adults. They grab me off the mountain.
They bring me back to the house. They say, Katia, you don't want to die on your 15th birthday.

Speaker 4 And that's when I started bawling and saying, oh, my life just sucks. It's been non-stop for years.
So bad, I'm so depressed. Why, why, why? Why did you take me away from my friends? You started this.

Speaker 4 And then my dad looks at me and he says, Katia,

Speaker 4 but you know what? This is the worst event of your life. You think then, after all, it can only get better.
So look forward to

Speaker 4 going back to Moscow, going to a new school, and it will all be amazing from now on, I promise you.

Speaker 4 Except when we get on the train and listen to the radio, the first thing we hear, there is a coup d'état in Moscow. It's 1991.
It's the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Speaker 4 The train trip takes 36 hours, and every minute of a trip, we listen to updates. And they say, oh, Gorbachev was arrested and taken away.
Oh, now there is a provisionary government.

Speaker 4 All the power is taken away. And the minute the train gets into Moscow, we see tanks on the streets, people with guns, explosions, black smoke everywhere.

Speaker 4 I look at my dad and I say, Dad, you promised that

Speaker 4 you promised my birthday was the worst thing ever. What is going on?

Speaker 4 So when we come home and turn the TV on, they say, okay, coup d'etat was a failure, but Soviet Union has collapsed anyways, but it's not going to be that bad.

Speaker 4 But for me, it was more than bad, and I actually,

Speaker 4 I got so sick with flu, my temperature was like 103 or something. And for two weeks, I don't remember anything.
When I got out of this condition, I felt different.

Speaker 4 I felt like I was suddenly stronger or something. Because to be honest, it's been what now 28 years since that happened.

Speaker 4 And no matter what happened in my life after that 1991 summer, nothing shocked me anymore. And

Speaker 4 I think that really made me a strong person as I am now. Thank you.

Speaker 3 That was Katya Duft.

Speaker 3 She is the author of the public public transit blog, Tales from the Bus. She's a linguist fluent in English, Russian, and French and works in subtitling and translating.

Speaker 3 She's a frequent participant in storytelling shows and contests in Los Angeles and is a Moth Story Slam winner.

Speaker 3 Katya says, to this day, this remains the most challenging camping trip she's ever been on. To see a photo of Katya and her father shortly after their trip, visit them.org.

Speaker 3 Up next, we have another moth slammer, Aditya Dakshinamoti. Aditya told his story at the Bell House in New York City, where we're presented by public radio station WNYC.

Speaker 3 Live from Brooklyn, here's Aditya.

Speaker 10 Well, I'm not really proud of admitting this, but one of the biggest breakthroughs I've ever had in my life is to to get an interview from the greyhound of the skies, Spirit Airlines.

Speaker 10 I'm not sure if any of you know, but getting a job as an international student here in the U.S. is very hard.
In fact, most companies have it in their policy not to hire internationals.

Speaker 10 And I was painfully made aware of that in my first year here in the U.S. as a student.
Probably applied for over 100 jobs, zero callbacks.

Speaker 10 Every recruit I spoke to would say, good resume, but we don't hire internationals.

Speaker 10 But in hindsight, it's not really a surprise that Spirit Airlines is the first company to give me an interview, is it?

Speaker 10 They probably tried hiring regular Americans here, and they didn't want to work for them. So they're coming after desperate folk like me.

Speaker 10 But that didn't matter to me, you know, I came here not just to get a master's, but also to get a job and live and work here. So I was ready for this.
This is what I've been waiting for.

Speaker 10 And they came through my university, which meant I had a head start over the others, you know, by default, because I was living up to my Asian student stereotype.

Speaker 10 I had a 4.0 GPA and I was the darling of my professors. So they put in a very good word for me.
The first round of interviews was on campus. I feel like I did that pretty well.

Speaker 10 Second round, they invited me down to their headquarters. Went there.
Again, I feel like I did pretty well there. Two nervous weeks go by, and then I get a call from the recruiter.

Speaker 10 And she says, hey, you know, thank you for coming down. We feel like you'd be a great addition to the team.
We'd like to offer you the job. And as she's saying that, I'm on this side going,

Speaker 10 and then I calm myself down and I say, oh, I'm so glad to hear that.

Speaker 10 You know, I'm very excited. And then she tells me what the salary is going to be.
And that was less than what they had advertised when they were coming to my university. And I took issue with that.

Speaker 10 You know, why is it less? She said, okay, give me a couple of days. Let me talk to the management.
She calls me back and she says, hey, I spoke to the VP. Turns out, I don't think he's going to move.

Speaker 10 And I was like, I said the same thing, but you said you were going to give more.

Speaker 10 And it was a couple of minutes, a couple seconds of silence. And she goes, okay, but are you still interested in the job? I was like, Are you kidding me?

Speaker 10 You're the only one to interview me, let alone give me a job. Of course, I'm interested.
And then she says, Okay, can I send you the offer letter?

Speaker 10 Now, I wasn't really sure why she asked that, but in my mind, because I grew up in India, nothing is official till it's on paper.

Speaker 10 So, I thought this is her wanting to get everything that we spoke on paper. So, she sent me the email with the offer letter.
I respond back with my counter offer, stating the exact same things.

Speaker 10 And a few days go by, I think it was the long weekend or something, and the next Monday, I get again a call from them. This time,

Speaker 10 it was the recruiting, the hiring manager, and he says, Hey, is this audience? Like, yeah. And he says, I just want to let you know that we're rescinding the job offer.
And I'm like, wait, what?

Speaker 10 What happened? I mean, he said, well, we're taking back the job offer. We're going in a different direction.
I was like, well, is it because I asked for more money? It's okay.

Speaker 10 I'll take whatever I gave earlier.

Speaker 10 I'm sorry, don't do this. And he's like, no, it's too late.

Speaker 10 We're going in a different direction. And I was actually sleeping when that call came.

Speaker 10 Not really a good way to be woken up. And then I was like walking around my room yelling, what the fuck happened? How did I screw this up? I just couldn't understand.

Speaker 10 And then I texted my professors immediately and said, okay, don't panic. We'll try to find out what happened.

Speaker 10 And the next day, went to one of their offices and he said, well, turns out you went back on your word. I was like, what do you mean?

Speaker 10 Well, it turns out you accepted the offer on the phone and then you renegotiated once you got the offer.

Speaker 10 And I tried to explain to him, well, that's because I'm in the culture and the country that I grew up in, nothing spoken is official. Official things start only when things are on paper.

Speaker 10 And he kind of had this like, you know, sad look on his face, but he said, you know, I'm sorry, I think this is it. Can't help you here.

Speaker 10 And I walked back slowly to my car. I remember I sat in that parking lot for about 45 minutes.
My eyes were welling up and I felt like I have screwed up my best chance to get a job here.

Speaker 10 I don't know if I'll ever get that chance. And I was terrified.
And I just didn't know what to do. But that was only like half of the problems or things in my mind at that time.

Speaker 10 You see, in just that long weekend, I threw a party for all my friends because I had just gotten a job at Spirit Airlines.

Speaker 10 I put it on social media, on Facebook, that, hey, everyone, all thousand of my friends all over the world, I'm going to be working for Spirit Airlines in Miami.

Speaker 10 I didn't have Twitter at the time, otherwise, I would have tweeted at Spirit Airlines as well.

Speaker 10 I told my mom, I told my girlfriend, I told my dad, like everybody knew. And I was thinking, man, this is messed up.
Now I got to walk all of it back and also try to find another job.

Speaker 10 This is going to be fun.

Speaker 10 Things eventually worked out well for me. I went on to work for Southwest Airlines, which is a much better company.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 this time I did not negotiate past the phone. For those of you who thought I would have never negotiated, if you fuck up something the first time, next time you do it right, you do not do it.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I waited one whole month till after I got the job to tell anyone that I now got a job. Thank you.

Speaker 3 That was Aditya Dakshina Moroti.

Speaker 3 Aditya is an airline professional, storyteller, and DJ. He grew up in South India before moving to the U.S.
for his master's and currently calls New York City home.

Speaker 3 He has appeared in Moth Story Slams, as well as many other storytelling shows throughout the U.S.

Speaker 3 We followed up with Aditya to find out more about his experience job hunting as an international student without a work visa.

Speaker 10 There's always this, can they hire me question that goes into your head before,

Speaker 10 you know, am I a good fit for this role?

Speaker 10 So there's a lot of shot in the darks and the first thing you tend to ask anyone is do you sponsor for a visa?

Speaker 10 And most of the time the answer is no and the conversation ends then and there. You have to probably

Speaker 10 try

Speaker 10 way more than you normally would. You cannot be picky at all

Speaker 10 because you don't know who who will sponsor

Speaker 10 and who won't so you might have to take a job that's not necessarily what you really want.

Speaker 12 So are you still working with Southwest?

Speaker 10 No. So I actually had to leave Southwest and the US

Speaker 10 because I couldn't get a visa. Then I left Southwest thinking I will never come back to the US and it's all over.

Speaker 10 And I took a job in a Middle Eastern country called Qatar working for an airline there.

Speaker 10 And six months into my job there, they asked me to move back to the US completely out of coincidence. So I ended up back in New York, like within the next year.
That's what happened after.

Speaker 12 So, where did this dream of like wanting to work for an airline come from? When did you start?

Speaker 12 When did you start knowing that that was what you wanted to do?

Speaker 10 So, I'm an only child, and I was, I mean, you could call me a spoiled child when I was growing up, and that's not a bad characterization at all.

Speaker 10 So, for me to get a sense of the real world, my parents sent me one summer to live with

Speaker 10 my cousin. He was living in Bangalore at that time.
It was close to

Speaker 10 an aviation manufacturing company in India. And while I was there, I would see fighter jets taking off and landing, and commercial aircrafts taking off and landing.

Speaker 10 And I grew up in like a very small city in south india where you don't see airplanes often like they are like mythical creatures um you you see one and you just stop dead in your tracks um at least i did every single time i loved everything about them they fly they make a loud noise um and they seemed not accessible which is why i really wanted them so at that point i decided i wanted a career that had to do something with airplanes and that's what I did.

Speaker 3 That was Adicha Dakshina Morti speaking with Moth producer Emily Couch.

Speaker 3 When we return, two more stories from our SLAM series about the things that inspire us to move forward.

Speaker 3 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

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Speaker 3 This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison and this episode is all about looking ahead to what promises to be a brighter future.

Speaker 3 Next up is Brenda Williams who told this story at a New York Slam presented by WNYC. Here's Brenda.

Speaker 15 Thank you. You're welcome.
Hello, I'm Brenda and I'd like to share with you how worth came to be defined in my family by a set of pots and pans.

Speaker 15 And we have to go back to when I was about three years old, growing up in London. My parents emigrated from Jamaica to England before I was born and there was never enough money.

Speaker 15 So my mom would go to Freddie the Butcher and she would get these scraps and turn them into these really delicious savory stews and soups.

Speaker 15 And at that age I thought it was some kind of sorcery, some kind of kitchen magic, total mystery.

Speaker 15 And it was around that time that the door-to-door salesman came calling and he came with these stainless steel pots, lots of them with every imaginable insert, broiling, steaming, you know, everything,

Speaker 5 whatever.

Speaker 15 Anyway,

Speaker 15 I don't know what it was about these pots, but they ignited in my mum some kind of fierce longing,

Speaker 15 enough that she entered an instalment arrangement with this man that she could in no way afford.

Speaker 15 So she struggled through it, and I was about six years old when the box arrived. And I had elder siblings who were not interested in a box, but I was.
And I remember my mum made me wash my hands.

Speaker 15 So I washed my hands and we opened the box and we took out the pots one by one and we oohed and awed over their magnificence.

Speaker 15 And I figured that the kitchen magic at this point would take on some kind of upgrade, but my mum had a different idea.

Speaker 15 She took the pots, put them back in the box and put them on top of the fridge. And that's where they stayed.

Speaker 15 And I remember just Every year, once or twice a year, I would beg, oh, mummy, mummy, can we look at the pots? And she would take them down

Speaker 5 from the box. Ooh,

Speaker 5 ah,

Speaker 15 back in the box, up on the fridge.

Speaker 15 And I realized now that she felt the pots were too good to be used, or more specifically, too good for her to use.

Speaker 15 But I was little and I fretted. I thought the pots were lonely up there.
I was really afraid that they would be sad that they weren't being used for their proper purpose.

Speaker 15 Then I became a tween and a teenager and I stopped thinking about them altogether until when I was 14 my family emigrated to America, New Jersey, land of all good things.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 10 yeah,

Speaker 15 New Jersey. And so

Speaker 15 my mum packed up all her precious things, including the pots. And the box was dilapidated by then, so she got a new box.

Speaker 15 And they went on top of the fridge in our New Jersey apartment.

Speaker 15 And at that point, I asked her, Mum, you know, why don't you just use them? Just use them.

Speaker 15 And she gave me this little smug smile, and she said,

Speaker 15 not just yet.

Speaker 5 So,

Speaker 15 in the meantime, she trained to be a nurse in England but could only get night work.

Speaker 15 And so I took over making the family dinner, which was truly awful. You know, we're talking tuna casserole, hamburger helper, until eventually I learned some of her skills.

Speaker 15 I also learned that the key to kitchen magic, it's in the hands.

Speaker 15 that do the work, it's in the love that goes into the process, and it's also in the imagination in terms of how you work the ingredients.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 15 remember not just yet. That became a reality when at 31

Speaker 15 I married a highly educated man.

Speaker 15 And my mom gifted us the box of pots

Speaker 15 on my wedding day.

Speaker 15 And my highly educated groom, he looked askance at this spots. There were much more,

Speaker 15 you know, sophisticated brands, all-clad, Le Cruze, whatever. Anyway, I felt that my pots would not feel welcome in my fancy new home.

Speaker 15 And so we didn't use them. And eventually, I did not feel welcome in that home.

Speaker 15 And it took 14 years of marriage before I got my divorce and I packed up my precious things

Speaker 15 including my box of pots, which had been unused for 40 years,

Speaker 15 and

Speaker 15 I now use them every day.

Speaker 15 Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 15 I experiment with them, I bang about, I singe their bottoms all the time, and my friends and family, they sigh around my dining room table.

Speaker 15 They breathe in those savory scents, and they often eat much more than they plan to, which thrills me.

Speaker 15 You know, I've adjusted my thinking. It's still the hands and it's still the love and it's still the imagination.
But for me, the kitchen magic is also those pots.

Speaker 15 And I am finally worthy as my mother always was, even if she didn't know it. Thank you.

Speaker 3 Brenda Williams is a writer and human resources executive who lives in Brooklyn. Many of her stories focus on Caribbean immigrants in New York and London.

Speaker 3 Brenda says that when her mother gave her the pots, she was thrilled to have that piece of her family history and thrilled that they would finally be put to use.

Speaker 3 Her mother has passed away, but not before knowing that Brenda was using the pots regularly. She's still using them, and she says her cooking continues to evolve.

Speaker 3 Next up, with a tale of finding hope is Alistair Bain.

Speaker 3 Alistair has told many stories at the moth from slams to the main stage and here's one from an open mic story slam we produced in Denver where we partner with public radio station KUNC.

Speaker 3 A note that the story contains the use of a homosexual slur.

Speaker 3 Here's Alistair Bain live at the moth.

Speaker 9 When I was 13, I got my first horse. His name was Bo.

Speaker 9 He was a half an inch over pony class, a chestnut with sort of anonymous breeding history, not very well trained, a little bit mean and shaggy coated, but I didn't mind because he was mine and I was willing to put the hours I knew it would take to train him in because he was the one part of my life that didn't feel dark and dangerous.

Speaker 9 At that point, my dad had dropped me off with my mom in a small town in central Illinois. She had enrolled me in a Catholic school where I was the only Native person in an otherwise white school.

Speaker 9 I felt different, but that wasn't the only reason.

Speaker 9 The kids had another name for

Speaker 9 the reason I was different. Words like fag, queer, it, and freak.
I heard that all day. The teachers told me if I didn't act so weird, weird, maybe I wouldn't get in trouble being bullied.

Speaker 9 And when I went home, although my mom's words weren't quite that crude, her sentiment was the same. Everything I did, how I walked, how I talked, seemed disappointing.

Speaker 9 But every afternoon, I would get to go to the stable and saddle up Beau and go for a ride.

Speaker 9 I spent so much time grooming him and training him that within a few months, the first time we went into the dressage ring, he was flawless, and we walked out with a long, shiny satin blue ribbon in front of everyone who had thought that we were misfits.

Speaker 9 And for just that moment, everything felt good,

Speaker 9 like a story of redemption.

Speaker 9 But over the course of the next few months, as I entered eighth grade, it seemed like the bullying got worse.

Speaker 9 And at home, I had decided that it was was time that I finally said it out loud to my mother. I came out and her reaction was everything I feared it would be and more, worse.

Speaker 9 I could almost feel her disapproval through the walls in the house.

Speaker 9 And at that point, it seemed like even when I was at the stable with Beau,

Speaker 9 Those rides, that time I had with him, weren't enough. And there's this darkness that was encroaching on my very spirit.

Speaker 9 A voice inside me that said, maybe there was no place I would ever belong, and no use going on.

Speaker 9 One Saturday morning, I found myself in the bathroom, looking in the medicine cabinet and my mother's newly refilled prescription of tranquilizers, thinking that it would be so easy that night before bed to take them all.

Speaker 9 The kids would have no one to bully on Monday. My weather would have no one to say was embarrassing the family.

Speaker 9 I left them there, knewing they'd be there, and went out to the stable. And I saddled up Bo.

Speaker 9 I decided that day I was going to do something good for him, something to make him happy, because even if I felt like I couldn't feel happiness anymore, he could.

Speaker 9 So I rode him down by the airport where there was a long dirt road.

Speaker 9 I take him down there and let him just run to his heart's content.

Speaker 9 As we got near, I could feel him getting excited. He knew what was coming next.
As we turned the corner onto that road, I step in my stirrups like I was a jockey in the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 9 I let him have his reins, and he took off.

Speaker 9 I had heard someone say once: if you're a true horseman, there comes a day when the communication between you and your horse ceases to be the tug of a rein or the nudge of a knee, and you simply become one with that animal.

Speaker 9 And as he ran flat out down that road, I began to feel that happen.

Speaker 9 It was as if he and I could speak without any cues from myself.

Speaker 9 He ran faster and faster, and as we approached the end of the road, there's a dead end sign. But I didn't have to rein him in, he knew what to do.

Speaker 9 He slid to a stop, pivoted on his back legs, and ran back the other direction.

Speaker 9 And as he did, it felt almost like that little horse's joy of being alive on a fall day, running full out under a crisp blue sky with the smell of the dried corn in the field next to us, came up through those reins and ran through my body like electricity.

Speaker 9 And so that everything was suddenly quiet and clear and beautiful.

Speaker 9 We reached the end of the road and standing there was a woman outside our car. She'd stopped and was watching us.

Speaker 9 She smiled, waved at me, and said, You and that horse, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Thank you, I said.

Speaker 9 And that was enough.

Speaker 9 In my culture, we say horses have the ability to heal.

Speaker 9 And I know that that's true.

Speaker 3 Alistair Andrew Bain is an Eastern Shawnee writer, storyteller, and artist. His short stories have appeared in Alone Together, Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19.

Speaker 3 Alistair's love of animals hasn't waned. These days he fosters dogs who are feral or who have experienced trauma.

Speaker 3 Alistair says his dogs have taught him about resilience and healing, that they seem to be able to let go of the past and live in the present.

Speaker 3 After the break, two more stories of optimism against the odds.

Speaker 3 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 The Moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

Speaker 2 This condition can cause polyneuropathy, like nerve pain or numbness, heart failure or irregular rhythm, and gastrointestinal issues.

Speaker 2 HATTR is often underdiagnosed and can be passed down to loved ones. Many of us have stories about family legacies passed down through generations.

Speaker 2 When I was five, my mother sewed me a classic clown costume, red and yellow with a pointy hat. It's since been worn by my sister, three cousins, and four of our children.

Speaker 2 I'm so happy this piece of my childhood lives on with no end in sight. Genetic conditions like HATTR shouldn't dominate our stories.

Speaker 2 Thanks to the efforts of AstraZeneca, there are treatment options so more patients can choose the legacies they share.

Speaker 2 This year, the Moth will partner with AstraZeneca to shine a light on the stories of those living with HATTR. Learn more at www.myattrroadmap.com.

Speaker 2 The holidays are noisy, busy, a little chaotic, but nothing beats the quiet joy of cozy. And that's exactly what Bombas brings: with socks, slippers, tees, and more that feel like an instant reset.

Speaker 2 Bombas is the most cozy. Like many of us, Bombas socks were my way in, but now I want everything Bombas.
Slippers, tees, everything.

Speaker 2 They also make gifting ridiculously easy. Need something for the runner in your life? Bombas running socks for the neighbor's new baby? Baby Bombas that actually stay on tiny feet.

Speaker 2 Even mom's mysterious new ski lodge friend, Bombas has them covered with slippers, ski socks, or both. And the best part? I don't like to shop just to buy.
Where's the meaning in that?

Speaker 2 That's why I love that for every single item you buy, Bombus donates one to someone facing homelessness. So your gift of cozy gives someone else a little comfort.

Speaker 2 Head over to bombas.com/slash moth and use code Moth for 20% off your first purchase. That's bombbas.com/slash moth code Moth at checkout.

Speaker 16 Hi, Moth listeners. I'm Caledonia Cairns, Vice President of Development.
As an independent nonprofit organization, the Moth relies on support from listeners like you to keep our stories alive.

Speaker 16 In order to share even more stories, fostering empathy and connection, we hope you will consider making a donation directly to the Moth.

Speaker 16 Every dollar will support the production of the Moth's signature live events, podcasts, and radio hour, as well as community engagement and education programs.

Speaker 16 We're proud to bring you inspiring inspiring stories from all over the globe. Please visit themoth.org or text GIVE25-78679 if you've been moved by a story you've heard this year.

Speaker 16 And thank you for being a part of The Moth.

Speaker 3 You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. In this hour, we're hearing stories from people who have faith in the future, even when the present isn't always so promising.

Speaker 3 No stranger to working against the odds is Kathy Kinnear Hill, who took a difficult campaigning job in a place she felt unwelcome and unsafe.

Speaker 3 Kathy told this story at a Moth Main Stage in Jackson Hole, where we were presented by the Center for the Arts. A quick caution that this story includes the use of a toxic racial slur.

Speaker 3 Here's Kathy Kinnear Hill.

Speaker 7 It was Kansas City, Kansas,

Speaker 7 the year 2012,

Speaker 7 and it was the reelection campaign for President Barack Obama.

Speaker 7 I was working it,

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 one wonderful day,

Speaker 7 I walked into the office.

Speaker 7 I'm not gonna lie, I was thrilled to find out that we were gonna Skype with the president.

Speaker 7 He popped up on that screen and he gave us a pep talk. You know that Obama kind of pep talk.

Speaker 7 And he thanked us for all of our hard work.

Speaker 7 And then he said,

Speaker 7 get out of Kansas.

Speaker 7 We're wasting our time.

Speaker 7 For those of you who could do this,

Speaker 7 take this campaign to Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Speaker 7 Take this campaign to Iowa. And I'm asking you to please deliver Iowa to me, to us.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 yeah, I'll do that.

Speaker 7 I'd already worked his election campaign a few years before.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 when you're campaigning and volunteering, you have duties like putting signs, you know, yard signs up and pamphlets here and there,

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 having conversations because the president always would say, just have conversations.

Speaker 7 Conversations after conversations don't stop.

Speaker 7 And also, we are registering the people to vote. And I will never forget

Speaker 7 looking into the faces of my African-American elders

Speaker 7 and they say to me

Speaker 7 I've never voted

Speaker 7 I've never registered

Speaker 7 but I'm registering now

Speaker 7 because I have a reason

Speaker 5 so

Speaker 7 not only do I have a personal reason to be working these these campaigns

Speaker 7 after reading a little bit about about Senator Obama back in the day I realized that he and I had a couple of things in common

Speaker 7 one

Speaker 7 we were biracial in America and identified as black

Speaker 7 and we grew up in an era of turmoil where we We both had to We had to decide and determine who we were,

Speaker 7 where we were going.

Speaker 7 No one could could help us and tell us that. We had to go on that journey.

Speaker 7 Another thing we had in common and do have in common is that we were raised by loving white families.

Speaker 7 So I'm heading from

Speaker 7 the suburbs and cities of the Kansas City area to campaign in the cities and suburbs of Iowa.

Speaker 7 And I I got in my little Honda every weekend for about a year and drove four hours there and four hours back and did the same types of things, lots of hundreds and hundreds of phone calls,

Speaker 7 knocking on doors and

Speaker 7 registering people to vote.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 towards the end of that campaign in 2012, I got a phone call and I was asked to be a canvas captain,

Speaker 7 which is

Speaker 7 basically just taking a leadership role and doing the same duties that I'd already been doing. But they asked me to do this in rural Iowa.

Speaker 7 So, being that committed person that I am,

Speaker 7 I said yes.

Speaker 7 I dropped off me, a middle-aged African-American woman, and another campaign worker, a little bit older African-American woman, in rural farmland, Iowa.

Speaker 7 So we walked into this little teeny campaign office and we got our little clipboards and our pens and all of our papers and put our little buttons on, our little Obama hat, and we're gonna go register people to vote.

Speaker 7 So we did, and we walked out of that door. And

Speaker 8 Rita,

Speaker 7 my partner in in campaigning, was

Speaker 7 one of the strongest and most amazing women I've ever met, a retired school teacher. So I looked up to her and I looked over at her and I said,

Speaker 6 yeah, we don't, do we, are we going to, we're going to do this, right?

Speaker 7 And she said, I am fired up and ready to go. Aren't you? I'm fired up and ready to go.
Let's go.

Speaker 7 And I said, well then, yeah, I'm fired up and ready to go too.

Speaker 7 So walk we're walking down a farm road and our first stop was a trailer park

Speaker 7 and as we're approaching the gate to open it

Speaker 7 we looked up

Speaker 7 and there was

Speaker 7 and a man a big old man with a big old rifle

Speaker 7 and before we could open that gate

Speaker 7 He looked at us and he said, I didn't vote for your nigger last time, and I ain't voting for your nigger this time.

Speaker 7 Now you girls better turn around and get.

Speaker 7 And we did.

Speaker 7 And again, I looked at Rita and said, you know, we don't.

Speaker 7 We don't have to do, we don't have to do this. And she said, oh, I'm more fired up and ready to go.
Let's go.

Speaker 7 So we did, and we knocked on doors, and we knocked on doors and we rang doorbells. Nobody on that day was ever that horrible to us.
We had people, of course, you know, closing the door in our faces,

Speaker 7 just saying, no, thank you.

Speaker 7 And then, of course, you've got the ones that you knock on their door and you can see the curtain open and then close.

Speaker 5 And we're like,

Speaker 2 yeah, we know you're there.

Speaker 7 But we didn't stop us. We kept walking and we kept having conversations.

Speaker 7 And then we get to a farm, and we're walking down this long gravel driveway.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 approaching us is the farmer who owns that land.

Speaker 7 And he looks at us,

Speaker 7 and he says,

Speaker 7 no.

Speaker 7 I see what you're selling and I'm not buying.

Speaker 7 And I remembered our president asking us to have conversations. And I said, could we just have a minute?

Speaker 7 And before he could answer, his wife opened the front door.

Speaker 7 And she said,

Speaker 7 ladies, if you're going to be at my house, you better come in here. Supper's on the table.

Speaker 7 And we were scared and hungry.

Speaker 7 But I'm thinking, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, but do I really want, it was a get-out moment,

Speaker 7 do I really want

Speaker 7 to go into this

Speaker 7 home, farmhouse, in the middle of nowhere? I don't know these people,

Speaker 7 and then the door closes, right?

Speaker 7 But before my thought was finished,

Speaker 7 Rita says, Yes, ma'am, we are hungry.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 we went in and we sat down.

Speaker 7 Oh, that food.

Speaker 7 I could make you drool if I went into detail about it.

Speaker 7 It was meatloaf that was melting in our mouths, mashed potatoes and gravy, greens,

Speaker 5 cornbread,

Speaker 7 and sweet tea.

Speaker 7 It was soul food.

Speaker 7 And our conversations with Cecil and Wilma,

Speaker 7 it was a beautiful time.

Speaker 7 We talked about a lot of things. They asked us a few questions about the campaign and we talked a little bit about that.

Speaker 7 But mostly we asked them questions

Speaker 7 about their lives.

Speaker 7 And they told us about their kids. and their grandchildren.

Speaker 7 They literally breathed for those grandbabies. They lived for those grandbabies.

Speaker 7 And then they told us about the church down the way where they got married.

Speaker 7 And before we knew it,

Speaker 7 it was time to go. So we head to the front door, we thank them for this lovely meal.

Speaker 7 And Wilma gives us a hug and hands us some food to go.

Speaker 7 And as we're walking back down that gravel drive, Cecil is walking with us to get us to the road.

Speaker 7 And when we get to the road, he takes both of our hands, Rita and Kathy.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 7 Thank you for coming in and sharing this time with us. And thank you for talking to us.

Speaker 7 But most of all,

Speaker 7 thank you for listening to us.

Speaker 7 Now I probably won't vote for your guy.

Speaker 7 And we waved and turned around and walked away. In a few steps up, we hear this.
But hey, Kathy,

Speaker 7 I just might.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Kathy Kinnear Hill grew up in Portland, having been adopted as a baby into a white family in the early 60s.

Speaker 3 Her dad was a professor at Lewis and Clark College, and her mom taught at Martin Luther King Jr. School, where Kathy is an instructional assistant to a class of kindergartners.

Speaker 3 Kathy and her husband, Dennis, have two children and recently became grandparents. To see photos of Kathy working for the Obama campaign, visit them.org.

Speaker 3 Our final story this hour is from Jason Schelmer. Jason told this story at a slam in St.
Paul, Minnesota.

Speaker 8 Standing in a sea of organic produce consisting of pineapples, cucumbers, and strawberries, I saw her standing there in a wide-brimmed hat, a cardigan that was tan and white over a summery outfit and flat shoes.

Speaker 8 Our eyes met. We smiled.

Speaker 8 I knew,

Speaker 8 and she knew that I knew.

Speaker 8 Now, the fact that I'm at Ralph's Grocery in North Hollywood is surreal at best.

Speaker 8 A week earlier, I had been offered a job to work behind the scenes on a TV show. So I quit my job, threw everything I owned into a storage unit, and drove cross-country.

Speaker 8 Once there, after working a few days, I was notified that there was going to be some production changes, and it wasn't going to work out.

Speaker 8 Scheduling issues.

Speaker 8 Yeah, no grand, you're fired, no scandalous story, nothing, just scheduling issues. So I had come to Ralph's grocery to emotionally eat.

Speaker 8 And the moment I saw her, I was immediately whisked away to a snowy mountaintop.

Speaker 8 It was Carney Wilson from Wilson Phillips.

Speaker 5 Oh my God.

Speaker 5 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 5 Carney freaking Wilson?

Speaker 8 Now, if you don't know who Carney Wilson is, let me tell you, she is one-third of the power trio Wilson Phillips,

Speaker 8 who in 1990 gave the world the number one anthem for anyone, for anyone who was teetering and on the brink of giving up to just hold on.

Speaker 8 Now I love pop culture. I'm a pop culture fanatic.
So I immediately recognizing the magnitude of this knew I needed to follow Carney Wilson

Speaker 8 So I did

Speaker 8 and it was awkward. She got pork chops.
I bought pork chops. I'm a vegetarian

Speaker 8 She bought flowers. I bought flowers.
I'm allergic

Speaker 8 She was in feminine hygiene products.

Speaker 5 I'm a boy

Speaker 8 So I ducked around the aisle to text my friend Jen to let her know of this moment. Now, Jen is a massive Wilson Phillips fan.

Speaker 8 She actually was in negotiations with their management to have them perform at her graduation. I sent her a text, oh my god, I met Ralph's grocery at North Hollywood and I just saw Carney Wilson.

Speaker 8 And that's when Carney Wilson walked right past me and mouthed, hello.

Speaker 8 She didn't say it, she just mouthed.

Speaker 8 Now, if you are a famous singer or an actor and you talk in public people recognize your voice She couldn't say hello. She just had to mouth it

Speaker 8 Because then five people aisles over would have come running over screaming sing sing sing and she would have been like no I'm just here to buy yogurt

Speaker 8 Sing and she would have felt pressured and she just would want to go home.

Speaker 8 She's not even wearing makeup and they would have been demanding it and so then she would have started singing an a cappella version of her number one hit hold on and then people would have cracked out their phones to record it and put it on YouTube in hopes of it going viral And then people would have started screaming and losing their minds.

Speaker 8 And then TMZ would have shown up and it would have been a debacle. Don't ask me how I know these things.
I just do.

Speaker 8 So she mouthed.

Speaker 8 After following her around the store and acquiring a cart of stuff I don't want or need, they came to check out.

Speaker 8 She was two aisles over. And I watched them scan every item out of her cart.
And I was trying to time it perfectly so we could have a moment, her and I, as we left the store.

Speaker 8 But I had the slowest cashier in the world. world she had the fastest

Speaker 8 she walked past the end of my aisle she turned around looked at me and said goodbye

Speaker 6 I died

Speaker 8 it was just like their song hold on someday somebody's gonna make you turn around and say goodbye

Speaker 5 I Jason Schover from Little Falls Minnesota made Cardi Wilson turn around and say goodbye.

Speaker 8 She got into the elevator to go down to the parking garage and as the doors started to close I thought do it.

Speaker 5 Just reach out and yell, hold on.

Speaker 10 But I didn't.

Speaker 8 I'm respectful.

Speaker 8 So here we are chasing our dreams, doing what we want to do. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
We'll go through horrible things in life.

Speaker 6 We'll fall in love. We'll get divorced.

Speaker 8 We'll have successes and failures. We'll fall flat on our face, and sometimes we'll pick ourselves up.
Sometimes we won't.

Speaker 8 Sometimes what unites us all is the fact that we just find that little kernel of hope. Sometimes we find it in a prayer or a mantra or a text from a loved one.

Speaker 8 Just that one little thing that we cling on to. And sometimes...
It's seeing a celebrity in a grocery store that sang one of your favorite songs in three-part harmony

Speaker 6 that gives you the hope to hold on for one more day

Speaker 8 because things will go your way.

Speaker 10 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Jason Schomer is a stand-up comedian and storyteller who spent two years as the opening act for comedian Louis Anderson in Las Vegas and continues to tour with Louie regularly.

Speaker 3 Jason has worked in New York City for the Rosie O'Donnell Show and behind the scenes in Hollywood on the television series Baskets.

Speaker 3 So that's it for this episode. We hope these stories offer you some comfort and hope.
Hope that things can get better even when it feels like they won't.

Speaker 3 Please join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.

Speaker 3 Larry Rosen directed the stories in this show with additional coaching from Jennifer Hickson.

Speaker 3 The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Emily Couch.

Speaker 3 Moth's stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by by The Drift.

Speaker 3 Other music in this hour from Nigel Kennedy and the Croca Band, Soul Live, Michael Hedges, Blue Dot Sessions, and Wilson Phillips. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.

Speaker 3 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 3 This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys-Dennis.

Speaker 3 For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.