The Moth - Hot Child in the City: David Brown & Randi Skaggs

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

This week, stories all about making it work in the city. Hosted by: Jodi Powell Storytellers: David Brown, Randi Skaggs

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, Jody Powell. This episode is all about city living. There's a couple of common reference you've probably heard

about the lifestyle. It's expensive, it's loud, it's crowded, and take it from a New York City resident, they're all true. You might even be able to hear some of the noise in this recording. What's not so easy to put in a neat list are the moments that keep us in the city, the joy that springs up every once in a while to remind you why you came here in the first place. So our two stories this week are all about finding that beauty in the chaos of the city. Our first storyteller of this week is David Brown. David told this at a storieslam in

Boston where the theme of the night was voyage. Here's David, live at the mall. So I moved to Boston 20 years ago. I moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to take a job at Channel 5 as a morning meteorologist. I had never been to Boston before I moved here. I believe right now that Boston is freaking awesome. 20 years ago, I didn't even know what frickin' an awesome put together, what that meant. On paper, Milwaukee and Boston are the same. Same population, both cold and snowy.

In Milwaukee, it's beer and brats. Beer and Fenway, Franks and Boston. Both are located by large bodies of water. Both have great TV series set there. Laverne and Shirley. And sheers, where everyone knows your name. So what I thought. So I loaded up my Chevrolet, Burretta.

I got my triptics, and I drove all the way to Massachusetts. It wasn't until I got to the rotary at A.O. wife off of Route 2. Did I realize that Boston and Milwaukee are nothing alike? I got into that rotary, and I got cut off and flipped off and mouthed off. All by a really pretty young woman driving a Volvo with two car seats in the back seat, a baby on board, a 26.2 sticker, and this car went to Mount Washington sticker. All I had was a cheesehead sitting in the front seat. My first six months at work were kind of tough.

The hours were brutal. I had to get up at two o'clock in the morning. Wasn't used to that. The cities in Wisconsin, they are hard to say because they're hard to say. It's like a connoble walk, walk a Shah, manna to walk, manna many falls, Shaboygan. Cities here, all right. Cities here are tough to say. I don't know why, but it's like Peabody. Peabody. Peabody. Wester. The Boston Herald would call me a weather hymnbo, it was hard. I didn't quite warm up to the viewers. They would call up and say, hey David, my mother loves you. Or my sister-head that thinks you're hot.

But why are you always wrong, you suck, seriously? How can I get a job in which I'm always wrong, and get to keep my job? No, seriously, I want that job. And then it always end the phone call with, you're not from here, are you? And the winner of 1995-96, it broke all records. So by March, I was ready to leave.

But instead, I got a two week all expense paid, all inclusive trip to Jamaica. Jamaica Plain. On March the 28th, I drove to work normally, felt like hell. I drove away from work at four o'clock in the afternoon, and instead of going home, I went to the Faulkner Hospital because I just knew something deep inside wasn't right. Parked my car, I ran in, and I started getting violently ill. They took me into an emergency room, and this woman says to me, do you have a sore neck?

And I said, oh my God, my neck's been killing me. At that point, everybody starts to throw on the white surgical masks. And she says to me, we think you have bacterial meningitis. I'm like, what? And at that point, I felt like I was a foreigner in a country in which I didn't even know the language. Because bacterial meningitis is an inflammation of the menendee in the spinal cord and around your brain. And they were asking me questions like,

where are you from, what's your name, what year were you born? I knew the answers, I was trying to say it, but all that came out of my mouth was gibberish. And then they said, we're gonna give you a spinal tap. And at that point, I didn't hear anything, except a doctor say, the last person that came to Faulkner with meningitis died. You don't want to be old for two.

So I woke up and I looked around and I was in a different room and I saw people that looked different, but they all had that white surgical mask and this woman walked over to me and I looked up at her and I said, Mom, what are you doing here? She says, I've been here since Friday. And I'm like, what's today? It's Tuesday. Like, you've got to be kidding.

I missed the Boston Harolds headline saying, local weathermen, prompts meningitis scare. I missed the reporting on my station. I missed the reporting in the globe. But what I got to learn that week is really true Bostonians, the nurse that took the overnight shift so she could be at home during the day for her kids. Dr. K. McGowan, the infectious disease doctor, who nourished me back to health. I got a get-well card from Dick in Whalan to Weather Watcher for 30 years.

I got another card from Sheila in Magnolia. I got a card from Ron in Loonenberg. I got a card from Mayor Menino, but I also got homemade cards from school kids that just said, the weatherman at Faulkner Hospital because I'd gone to their school. And I went back to work after a couple of weeks on April the 15th, 1996, which was the 100th running of the Boston Marathon. And I got to broadcast live from the top of Harp Ray Kill. And I saw the runners coming up for the very first time.

And I knew, and they knew, the exact same thing, and that was Boston is freaking awesome. Thank you. That was David Brown. David spent 18 years forecasting the weather at WCVB TV Boston. Currently, David is the chief advancement officer at the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. He oversees their Boston marathon team, team with a vision, the largest team of blind runners and sighted guides. To see some photos of David from

his days as a weatherman, head to our website, themof.org slash extras. Up next is Randy Scads. Randy told this at a Louisville store Islam where the theme of the night was happy. Here's Randy, live at the Moth. It was my first summer as a New York City school teacher, and I was enjoying a lazy day at home while my roommates were out working when the power went out. I wasn't really that worried until I heard on the radio that there was this massive black out affecting the entire Northeast, and that some suspected terrorism. Like many New Yorkers, I'd lived through 9-11, and I wasn't sure that I could stomach that again.

Plus, I had this boyfriend, Dave, who was working in a skyscraper on Wall Street, not to unlike the Twin Towers. So immediately, I got on the phone and I dialed his work number, but the call didn't go through. At this point, I would have called his cell phone, but Dave had this theory that having a cell phone made you accessible to others 24-7 in essence,

making you society's slave. So he didn't have one. So I found myself alternating between hating my fucking boyfriend's fucking guts for not having a fucking cell phone. The fuck is wrong with this guy? And then, he has one now. And then praying to God that my fucking boyfriend was alive.

I knew that the wise thing to do was just sit at home and wait there in case he came there or called, but I was just too antsy for that. So I started taking walks in my East Village neighborhood. First just short little johns around the block. I was just too antsy for that, so I started taking walks in my East Village neighborhood. First just short little johns around the block, but every time I passed by in front of my building, and I didn't see him, my heart sank deeper and deeper into my stomach, so it took longer and longer walks in the heat.

And I thought about Dave and me. I was 27. Dave was 31, and we were each other's first major relationship. We came from these families where our parents communicated by either ignoring each other, or cheating on each other, or screaming at each other, or beating the crap out of each other. So we didn't really have any background knowledge as to how a healthy relationship should work. We were terrified of commitment.

I mean, we'd been together for a year and a half, but we dated like we were in high school, seeing each other maybe once or twice a week. We didn't have keys to each other's places. We didn't leave toothbrushes over. We said I love you, but there was always a catch in our voice, like, I know you could fuck me over at any point. So I'm really not gonna get too invested in this, okay?

And what good had it done me? If he was dead, then I had just been a year and a half of my life keeping someone at arm's length rather than just being happy. Sweat was starting to pull under my breast and I was getting that film, the women know what I'm talking about, and I was getting that film that you get on your skin

in New York in the summer. So it's time to go home. And when I rounded the corner that last time, there he was, sitting on my stoop looking more adorable than ever. He stood up and we ran to each other, like in the movies, and we hugged fiercely. And then we did something we'd never done before. We just gazed lovingly into each other's eyes.

It was our most intimate act to date. And then I heard his story. When the power went out, he wasn't taking any chances. He went down 30 flights of stairs rather than risking the elevator. And then he walked 20 blocks to my apartment in the heat and a suit because the subway wasn't working and because he was as worried about me as I was about him. We were both too giddy to just sit still so we just kept walking all around the city and Little by little we got the full report that it was not terrorism just a blackout, you know

shop owners were handing out free food rather than letting it rot people were just drinking beers outside We saw this guy roller-blading down the street, buck naked. And everywhere you look to New Yorkers, these jaded New Yorkers were shit-eating grins on their faces. Night started to fall, we headed to Tompkins Square Park, and there were bonfires and drum circles and people camping out in the grass.

We wove through the crowd, stopping intermittently to just make out or dance, holding hands so tightly, the sweat dripped from our fingers. And then I had this idea that we should look up at the sky and I was right. There amidst the black ghosts, the buildings, we could see the stars in New York City. And on that night you could even see Mars. We headed back to my apartment, my bedroom faced the street on the first floor. So normally that meant that I kept my window and my curtain shut tight, but that night I just opened them up wide to the world.

We lie in bed listening to the voices of the passers-by and typically conversations were loud, drunken, obnoxious, but that night everyone whispered, as if everything were sacred. We had absolutely the best sex of our lives to date. Just been some good time since. And then we just passed out in that inky darkness. A year later, we were living together in Brooklyn, but Dave brought me back to that stoop to propose to me. Cause it was there that we learned a really important lesson.

Happiness is terrifying, because it's so unpredictable. You never know when it's just gonna come crashing around you, like those two towers did that one day. But if you don't give in to those sweet moments that can happen at random, then life really isn't worth living anyway. Thank you. That was Randy Scads. Randy is a middle school language arts teacher and storyteller based in Louisville, Kentucky.

She loves competing in story slams and is slogging her way through writing a memoir for New York City years. Randy also produces a storytelling show and podcast called Double Edge Stories, with her husband, David Sershok. Together, there are co-parents to two story worthy kids. To see some photos of Randy and Dave from their time in New York City, head to our website, themoth.org. That's all for this week.

We hope these stories reminded you that no matter where you choose to spend your days, in the city, the country, or somewhere in between, there's magic to be found. Until next time, from all of us here at the Moth, have a story worthy week. Jody Powell is a producer on the Moth's main stage and story slam teams. Jody also directs and teaches with our community and education teams. and the The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bulls, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina, Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Branding Grant, Inga, Glodowski, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by story tellers. 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 PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio

more public at prx.org.