The Moth - Cruise Control: Oscar Saavedra & Nina Slowinski

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

This episode is all about cars - the places they take us and the memories we make along the way. Hosted by: Chloe Salmon Storytellers: Oscar Saavedra, Nina Slowinski

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 the moth.org forward slash Houston. Welcome to the moth podcast. I'm your host for this week, Chloe Sammon. Today we're talking about a true cultural icon, an object of obsession for many, immortalized in countless movies and songs, and the ultimate symbol of freedom.

Any guesses? This episode is all about cars. Whether it's your pride and joy or a hunk of junk that gets you where you need to go, or you know maybe it's both. The cars we spend our time in are filled with stories of close calls, sing-alongs, and road trip realizations. My first car was a used green old mobile that I got when I was a teenager. I was really grateful for the freedom it offered me, but it definitely wasn't winning any awards for like the coolest car on the road. It was a tank. I'd grip my teeth every Kansas summer when the AC blew out only hot air and roll my eyes every

time I pulled up to a drive-through only for the driver's side window to not budge down an inch. One stormy night driving home from my job at the grocery store I found myself in the middle of a flash flood on a pitch black back road. My car started to a halt and died and I was just completely filled

with panic. I called my dad for help and sat and watched the water inch further and further up, hoping that my car would stay on the road. Not only did it stay firmly put until my dad arrived in his truck so I could jump to safety, the next day to all of our amazement, it started right back up again when I put the key in the ignition. My tank of an old mobile had kept me safe and we cruised together for many more years, with much more respect on my end. Our first story this week is from Oscar Savedra. He told it at a DC Story slam where the theme of the night was intentions. Here's Oscar live at the mouth How's everybody doing today?

All right, I'm here because of you you convinced me to do this This is my first time here, so I'm a little nervous, so make some noise. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so as everybody knows, and as he mentioned, my name is Oscar, I am 100% Mexican, born and raised there. So as a teenager growing up, we all did things

of which we remember hiding from our parents. You know, we all have those times where we slip up. So, I'm 15 years old. Of course, I'm a 90s baby and a 90s baby's in here. Woo! Yes. So, I'm like watching the Fast and the Furious

and I'm like, I can, I can now wait to get my learners permaid and I'm gonna, I cannot wait to get my learners permit. And I'm gonna do my thing. So the day comes and I get my learners permit. And I'm like, I cannot wait. My dad told me how to drive. And I was like 14 years old. So I'm like, I'm away from my mom to go to sleep.

And I'm gonna just slip out for a little bit. So I go and I have my best friend and I'm like, listen, tonight we going out, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna borrow my mom's car. And you know, we're just gonna go out and cruise. So he's like, all right, I'm down. And we didn't have cell phones. So we kind of had a set time where it's like,

I'm gonna pick you up at this time on flash the lights, just come out. So my mom goes to sleep and of course me being me, I go out, I take her keys, she had like a van, it wasn't even like a sports car, like, yo, I look like a soccer mom in this van. So I'm like, whatever, I just wanna drive, and so, I pick him up, I'm like, I flash I just want to drive. And so I pick him up.

I'm like, I flash in my lights. He comes out. And of course, I'm excited. I'm just like two in the morning. And this is like in Howard County in Columbia. I'm like, we good. Like, we good. You know, this is Saka Maunvan.

I'm almost going to pull us over. We don't look suspect at all. Right? I was in. So I'm like, all right, let's go. We just cruise. suspect at all. Right? It was a fuck. So I'm like, all right, let's go. We just cruising. And I'm like, and she had the ox cord. So I'm like, you know, me being,

I'm like, you're gonna put some daddy Yankee on. Like, yo, we just gonna cruise. So I'm like, all right, so we're like jamming. We got the volume all the way up. We're cruising. We're not even going. We have no destination in mind. We're just driving. And so I'm like, all right, we cruising, we're cruising, we're not even going, we have no destination in mind. We're just driving, so I'm like,

ah, we're cruising, we're cruising, we thinking we cool. And next thing you know, I run a stop sign, and of course, boom. We get hit from the side. So I'm like, ah, so I'm looking at him, he's looking at me. I'm like, you know, I'm Mexican. You African-American man, like, so I'm looking at him, he's looking at me. I'm like, yo, I'm Mexican.

You African-American man, like young dude, like we, if the cops pull up, we they not playing with us. So I'm like, nah, we can't. And like, my mom is gonna, if you're Mexican, I don't know if everybody else, but if you're more scared of your mom than you are of the police, like, that's just a fact. So I'm like, I'm thinking of my mom, like, yo, I'm sorry, but we gotta leave

it. I mean, it felt like a meagle song. We like, skrrr skrrr. And we leave, yo. We bail. He's like, what are you doing? I'm like, nah. Like, you don't understand.

Like, no. So we get back, my intention was to bring the car back in one piece with no scratches. And we live in an apartment. There's no reserved parking. There's no garages. So when I came back, the parking spot somebody took it. And I'm like, my mom is going to kill me.

This is not going to work. So I parked somewhere else. I didn't sleep all night. And I'm like, my mom wakes up, she starts taking a shower because she used to drop me off at school. So I'm like, I didn't sleep all night. I'm like, hey, ma, I know you're taking a shower, but I'm gonna go get the car, you know, so that we can leave, because I want to be late. I got an exam. So she's like, yeah, yeah, go get it. So I go to and it's like a big scratch, I got an exam, so she's like, yeah, yeah, go get it. So I go to, and it's like a big scratch,

the headlights all bent in, and I pull up, so I'm like, I go into the house, and I have to like fake, like, I don't know what happened. I'm like, my, somebody hit the car, I'm like, no, I'm not a police, I'm like, I'm like, my, like, she's like, no! Mother police, I'm like, I'm like, my, like, oh, and she's like, what have it is?

And she comes out and she's just like mad. And to this day, like, she does not know what. What? She does not know what have it. But the funny part is, like, when I signed up for this, there were like, you can either have this on record or you can keep it So now I was like let me put her on record and then in a few days I'm gonna tell my mom and you ever heard of the mouth?

I got a story to I want you to hear That was Oscar Cimeja. Oscar, if you're listening and you haven't gotten around to telling your mom about the car, now is your chance. Let us know how it goes. Up next is Nina Slowinsky. Nina told this story at a story slam produced by the Moth Education program at Skidmore College. The theme of the night was transformations. Here's Nina live at the Moth. Okay. My parents have been divorced since I was like a little kid, which is fine. But with that came like a lot of associations. My dad kept the house, my mom moved out, my dad got a new car, which was like so cool at

the time because it was a red Honda CRV, and he was very particular on that choice. He was like, you'll always know it's me when I come to pick you up at school. Um, that way he wouldn't fit in with all, or he would stand out of like the silver cars and the black cars and the white cars and the mundane cars he thought. But he was really into his car and himself and my mom moved on pretty quickly and she is great and my dad is great too,

but it took him a long time. I mean, he grew out his hair really long. He went through a lot of different glasses styles. He had his car littered with CDs on the folding mirror of Mary Gose and Lucinda Williams and Greg Brown. And I didn't know that the radio existed until I would drive with my mom because my dad would just play CDs all the time. And I mean, his car had like a snack compartment.

It was decked out. He had like an eyeball and his antenna and he was kind of like this artist growing up. So it kind of stuck with him, I guess. And so he grew up with the car a little so we he grew up with a car a little bit, and I grew up with a car a little bit, and by the time high school came, I liked spending nights in with my dad.

Doing not weird things, I think I just dressed weird. Like, it would be winter, and I would wear a sundress, and a bandana, and converse, and none of it matched. Not that it has to, but it didn't. And my dad never questioned it once. He just, we would go grocery shopping at night. We would take the groceries, put them in the car. That'd be it.

We'd come home. We'd go out to Barnes & Noble's. I'd get a bad teen romance book like Sarah Desson or like from the Pretty Little Liar series I Feel really guilty admitting that but it's true And then we would go to five guys and he's a vegetarian so I would get a burger and he would get the sandwich with like every vegetable on it Which didn't taste really good, but he he go in, I would see him go in like through the glass, get our order, come out and we would eat it in the car, listening to Mary

Goshay, or listen to Williams. As though we were eat again five guys, but the music was slightly better. And we drive home and we would turn the car off and sit in the silence in the car, just the two of us, even though we were home. That was really important, that we just spent like a few more minutes there. We like really lived in the car together at times. But the car got older and I got older and it was my junior year in high school and my dad was driving me to my mom's house as he always did since I would like switch between their houses really often and He'd gotten a new car and I'd noticed and of course I complained and

We got in the car and he's driving to mom's house and he pulls in to a gas station where his car is, he's like dead car and we look at it and he says I just wanted you to have the chance to like say goodbye to it which was really sweet and it kind of hit me then that we were in a silver Toyota Camry, the car that he'd never wanted And we were saying goodbye to this red boxy oversized car That he'd really wanted for I think since he was like a kid and I think in that moment We kind of both grew up a little bit. Thank you That was Nina Spolinsky. Nina is a storyteller, theater director and playwright.

She's grateful to have graduated from Skidmore College in 2019 just before COVID hit, with a Bachelor of Science in Theater. To see a photo of Nina, her dad, and the car, head to our website, themoth.org slash extras. Thank you to both of our storytellers this week for sharing their stories with us and to you for listening. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week. Chloe Sammon is a producer on the Moths main stage and story slam teams,

a director on the main stage and a member of the pitchline team. Her favorite Moths moments come on show days. When the cardio is done, the house lights go down and the magic settles in. This episode of the Moths podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell, with Sarah Austin Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson and Chloe Samman. The rest of The Moth Leadership Team includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluche, Suzanne Rust, Branding Grant,

Inga Gladowski, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.