The Moth - 25 Years of Stories: Detroit and Chicago

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

This week, we take a look back at our Detroit and Chicago StorySLAMs, and play two of our favorite stories from those events. This episode is hosted by Dame Wilburn. Host: Dame Wilburn Storytellers: Grace Topinka tries to learn stick shift. Jeni De La O remembers her grandmother.

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's theMoth.org forward slash Houston. Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dame Wilburn. In 2022, the Moth has been celebrating its 25th anniversary by taking a look back at each year we've been around.

This episode we're at 2007. In 2007, we started our open Mike's story slams in Detroit and Chicago. Pretty much a story slam is you put your name in the hat, you tell a story on the theme, and if your name is pulled, you got five minutes to razzle dazzle. Detroit and Chicago have so many stories we've been so lucky to be able to share just some of them. I've never been to a Chicago slam but I've heard stories from them and I sometimes host a Detroit slam and I can tell you both of us are running Nick and Nick for having great stories and great storytellers. Our stories in today's episodes are from these two cities. First up is Grace Topinka. She told this at a Chicago Story Slam where

the theme of the night was backwards. Here's Grace, live at the month. When I was 16, I decided that I wanted to learn how to drive Stick Shift because I thought it would make me cooler Also, stick shift cars tend to be cheaper and I had this fear that if I was ever kidnapped and the only getaway vehicle was like a six-speed Jeep Liberty, I should know how to drive it and I was thinking about this because my parents had told me that they were gonna get me a car because my dad and I had both started new jobs and our schedules are just like so crazy that they decided It kind of needed to happen and this was a very important time in my life because I was

16 years old and I wanted to prove that I was independent and capable and having a car was like a huge part of that and I was a pretty confident driver. I feel like I was a good driver and a quick learner. So I was like, oh, stick shift, that should be easy. And not to mention my dad and the used car salesmen were like, oh, driving stick is easy. The hardest part is just getting the car in first gear. After that, everything's basically the same. I was like, cool, that sounds cool. And then I learned that getting the car in first gear

means making the car move at all. So I feel like they really downplayed, like the importance of being able to do that. So my dad took me to this quiet street in my neighborhood and the first thing he taught me was how to go and reverse. And it's not that hard to reverse in a stick shift. It's basically the same as in a regular car. So I like got that really quick. I was like, wow, I'm amazing at this.

And then he was like, great, now we have to go forward. And he basically taught me it's all about the balance. You have to release the clutch and push down on the gas pedal, but with perfect timing and balance. And he seemed to think that I could just feel it, because he could just feel it. And he had learned how to drive stick like 45 years ago. So 45 minutes passed and I had not felt anything.

I could not get this car to move if my life depended on it. And the worst part was that because I kept having to restart the car, my dad was like, we should turn off the AC because it's not good for the AC to be turning on and off, which is like the most dad thing ever. But this was in Miami in like 87 degree weather. So we were sweating bullets. I was crying.

I was so frustrating. I was like, is there a return policy on a car? Like, I can't drive this. And my dad was trying to make me feel better. And he was like, grace, millions of people drive stick shift every day. And I was like, great. people drive stick shift every day. And I was like great I'm so happy for them.

He was like if you drive this car half a block I'll drive you home. So I put the car in reverse and reverse half a block and he drove me home. That is basically how all of our driving lessons went. And then we got to a point where I had a car that I could only drive backwards. But I had places to go and so did my dad, so he very graciously switched cars with me. And this was fine, but I felt kind of bad because my car was considerably crappier than my dad's car. But then I felt really bad when I was driving my dad's car and I got into a car accident. This was my first and only car accident and it was a minor

Fenderbender known was hurt, but I still had to call my dad and be like, hey, you know that car that you're letting me borrow Do you like it with or without scratches on the front bumper? No, but really I felt so guilty because my parents had like sacrificed a lot to get me this car and my dad had sacrificed a lot of time and a lot of sweat. So like try to teach me how to drive it and I just couldn't and I felt all that confidence and like independence I had felt just melted away and I felt so young and stupid and in over my head. But I decided that if I was going to be be rear-ending people I was going to learn how to do it in my own car. So my dad and I went out anytime we could, and because of our schedules, it was usually at like 6am before school or like 9 o'clock at night,

and we would very painfully inch around my neighborhood. And I was slowly improving, and my dad was very patient with me, and then he realized something that changed everything. He was like, you're being too hesitant on the gas pedal, that's why the car keeps stalling. Just give it way more gas than you think you need, and the tires will squeal, and it will not be as smooth at all, but the car will be moving, and you'll be in first gear,

and then the rest is easy. And that worked. I mean, I was squealing like crazy, like if I was going from a dead stop at a red light, it sounded like I was in NASCAR, even though I was going like two miles an hour. And like kids in my high school like knew me in the parking lot because I feel like squealing out of a parking space,

like going like this. But after like a week and a half, I officially became one of the millions of people who drive stick shift every day. And I know in that context it doesn't sound that impressive, but I was really, really proud of myself. And that whole kidnapping situation, thankfully, hasn't happened. But there have been at least like two times where it's coming handy that I knew how to drive stick shift, so I guess it's been worth it.

But now I know anytime when I face a challenge or have to do something that I'm really terrible at, I remember that it can be easy to go backwards or to reverse and like keep doing the things you're used to doing, but sometimes in life if you want to move forward you just got a slam on that gas pedal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That was Grace Tepinka. Grace is from Miami, but has been living in Chicago for 10 years. She is the co-host of Two Girls, One Crossword, a weekly trivia podcast for people who are bad at trivia. You can find her paying late fees at the library and on escape room leaderboards across the city. Up next is Jenny Della O. What up Jenny? Jenny told this story at a Detroit Story slam where the theme of the night was neighborhood. Here's Jenny live at the

mall. I'm not originally from Michigan. I am originally from sunny South Florida and specifically I'm from a little city called Hyalia and If you're from Hailea, you're from Miami, the same way that people from Ferdale are from Detroit. So, anyway. So, I lived in a neighborhood called Hoffman Gardens, also known as the Projects. And the thing about growing up in Hoffman Gardens is that your neighbors were just as likely to feed you as they were to give you a coconut and for my monolingual friends out here a coconut is a good one upside the head and you only need one because you learn your lesson.

So I can think of one specific incident like this was with my younger brother Lionel. I was sitting on this huge green transformer which is located in front of my grandmother's house who also lives in the projects. In what I now know would be a front yard in a normal house. So I'm sitting on the transformer and just watching the day go by. And all of a sudden I look in the house and I hear my grandmother scream, I don't know what my brother did and I surely don't know what he was thinking because he took off running. And my grandmother took off running after him.

And I know he was thinking, this old Cuban lady with spinal stenosis, she's not gonna catch me. And just as he gets out of reach, I hear my grandmother give the abuelita that signal, abuelita's grandmother for you guys, you don't know. She calls out Juanita, go hello! Which means Juanita,

that's the neighbor, get him. From where I can, where I'm sitting, I have prime seating to this unfolding drama because I'm between these two houses, so I couldn't look into Juanita's house and she's got the windows open, the salsa music's pouring out, she's scrubbing her house down with me Stoleen, which is like Pineshall but on crack. And she drops them up, and she takes off after my brother. I mean, so you've got these two old Cuban ladies chasing after my brothers. Pink phone rollers her flying. Juanita's bleached blonde hair is just waving in the wind.

And I'm thinking, gosh, my brother is crazy. And I'm watching him go laps just around. And Juanita doesn't know what my brother did. And she doesn't need to know. So that going laps, that going laps, and each time my brother comes around me, he gives me this look, this pleading look, like, please help me.

But we both know he's screwed. Around the fifth time he comes around, the neighborhood kids have gathered onto the Transformers. We're all watching this. My youngest brother's sitting in front of the Transformer. Around the sixth lap, they share a telepathic moment, these two Cuban grandmas, because they don't exchange

a word, but they split up like velociraptors in Jurassic Park. And they trap him. And I'm not saying my youngest brother tripped him, but he laughed really hard when Lionel fell. And so he's on the ground. These two women are closing in, and we scatter because we know it's about to be a beat down. And before you say, a Cuban grandma beat down can't be that bad.

These women start their day with Cuban coffee, which is like red bull and crack. So you don't want to pay their money when it goes down. So I take off. And the last thing that I hear is my little brother screaming, no! I would have heard more, but I'm a little chunky and I was running as hard as I could. So that was when it was like in my neighborhood, keeping grandma beatdowns were not an uncommon thing. It's happened all the time. And I remember my father, his father, who's a little raisin of a man and my grandmother,

leaving our house to help a kid who was being jumped by one of the new gangs that had moved into the projects. And they went out there armed with brooms and with baseball bats, and they rescued that little kid and doctored him up. So for obvious reasons, my parents wanted to get us out of the projects and the fact of the matter is a whole army of Awalitas can't save you from gang violence and drugs and so they did manage to get us out of the projects we moved into a suburban neighborhood

and by that I mean a white neighborhood and there were no avalitas, there were no hundred eyes I was watching. The thing about half my garden was, you couldn't get away with anything because you were never out of sight and out of mind. There were always dozens of avalitas watching. You're heavy move. And you never knew when the beatdown was coming, but you knew if you did something shady, it was coming. So we move into the suburban neighborhood and there are no avalitas-as, there are no coquotastos. The trees are sculptural and not suited for cutting branches off to beat small children when they mouth off to

their elders. So I had a front lawn. I did not have a transformer to watch the days go by and there was no gang violence, no alarms going off in the night. But I have to tell you, even after all these years, I have never felt as safe as I felt in Hoffman Gardens with all of it. I will leave this. That was Jenny Dilla O. Jenny is a poet and storyteller living in Detroit. She is associate editor of Frontier Poetry and writes The Brown Study. Her poetry collection, Sofia's won the Tear and Burrell Chatbook prize and is forthcoming

from Nights Library in September of 2023. That's all for this episode. And remember, if you are ever in Detroit or Chicago or anywhere, come to a story slam. For more information on where they are and when they are, check out the Moth.org. From all of us here at the Moth, have a story-worthy week. Dean Wilburn is a storyteller, a host of the Moth podcast, James Eclectic Brain podcast, and various live shows, including the Moth main stage. Her storytelling began as a way of keeping cool in the summertime on her grandmother's

porch in Macon, Georgia. She has completed four residencies for storytellers, including at Cerenby in Palmetto, Georgia, and one with air treas in Almond, Michigan. Dames has also presented at the University of Iowa and UCLA. She lives in a state of possibilities and in Michigan. This episode of the Mouth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Gines, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger. The rest of the Mouth's leadership team includes Captain Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson,

Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klucci, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Lee Anne Gully, Ingeglidowski, and Aldi Kaza. All mall stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by Pierre XX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at pirex.org.