The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: The Hot Seat

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Aerial antics, magic tricks, and unwelcome rescue missions. In this hour, stories of momentous decisions, massive undertakings, and opportunities with no second chances. This episode is hosted by Catherine Burns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: In an attempt to be Maverick (from Top Gun), Will Mackin goes to Navy Flight School. Siegfried Tieber gets hooked on magic. Samantha Mathis goes on a mission to bring her father home.

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Hello Toronto. The moth is coming live to Corner Hall on Tuesday, September 19th for night of vibrant true stories. The main stage is the quintessential moth experience, a two-act show featuring a musical act, where the storytellers and a notable host share true personal tales without notes. Experience the night of unforgettable Moth tales as they recorded for future episodes of the Moth podcast and radio hour. Dores open at 6.30 and stories begin at 7.30. Buy tickets now at the Moth.org forward slash Toronto.

That's the moth.org forward slash Toronto. This is the moth radio hour from PRX, and I'm Catherine Burns. We sometimes can go weeks and even months, just keep it on, keep it on, without much drama or stress. But in a situation we'll arise when we need to make big decisions on the spot. Those moments of pressure and how we respond say a lot about who we are as people. So this week, stories about being in the hot seat. Our first storytellers spoke with a live performance at Benavoria Hall in Seattle, where we partner

with Seattle Arts and Lectures. Here's Will Macon, live at the mall. June, 1986. I just graduated high school. I was working in a parking lot on the Jersey Shore. And by working, I mean I was playing stick ball with my friends, surfing, when the waves were good, parking a car every now and then. And I was happy to do that for the rest of my life. Then one night I went to the movies and I saw a top gun starring Tom Cruise as Maverick, the renegade fighter pilot. And that changed everything. From that moment on,

I wanted to fly jets. And not only that, I wanted to be Maverick. So I joined ROTC, graduated college, went to US Navy Flakes School in Pensacola, Florida. And there I classed up with a group of 30 young men and women all of whom had seen Top Gun. All of whom wanted to be Maverick. But only the top three of our graduating class would fly jets. Everyone else would fly a rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong. The 30 of us emerged from ground school ranked more or less the same.

Flight phase of training was next, and here was where we'd separate the best from the best, the cream from the cream, the puppies from the small dogs. And it was critically important during this phase, which instructor was assigned to you, because your instructor graded your flights and your grades to turn into a class rank. So on the spectrum of instructors, a lieutenant, I'll call happy, was by far the coolest. Happy walked the halls of the squadron, wearing his sunglasses. His flight suit was zipped down well below regs. He would return our good morning serves

with a couple shots from his finger pistols. And whether or not he knew who he was shooting at it didn't matter. He still felt seen. On the other end of the spectrum was major small. A serial smoker with a bloodshot stare who never said a word to anyone about anything. And he seemed genuinely angry at the world. And the reason for this was probably because not less than a year prior during the

First Gulf War, Major Smol had been shot down over a wreck, and he'd been taken prisoner in torture. He'd gone from being a POW at Abu Ghraib to Pensacola, where he quickly earned a reputation not only as a merciless instructor, but one who could peer into your soul, see all your faults, and catalog the Montagrade sheet. We all knew the student a few classes ahead of ours who, after a bad flight with Major Small, was so shaken, he quit the Navy and he started selling amway. And when he invited me to his house to listen to his Ponzi scheme presentation, I went.

And I bought a big box of soap, because I didn't want the karma wheel to spin against me. So on the day of my first play, I drove into the squadron, praying for a good instructor. Park outside the hangar, I climbed stairs to the ready room, I checked the big white status board where all the days flights were listed. In the column of student names, I find mine. Next to my name, in the instructor block, was happening. And I was relieved, but my relief soon gave way to nervousness because I'd never have flown a plane before. So fast forward to the end of the runway where I'm preparing

for my first takeoff, going through my procedures. Engine gauges are all in the green, flight controls are free and clear, I adjust a rearview mirror, there's happy in the back seat smiling. You ready to go, sir? I ask, happy looks one way, and he looks the other way, and he looks back at me and says, I don't see my dad anywhere. So you can knock it off with the sir, shit. You know, happy school transfers wholesale.

I take my feet off the brakes, we roll down the runway, we take off into the clear blue sky. I hang a right at Mobile Bay, over the woods of southern Alabama, I find an abandoned runway where I can practice my landings. In a maneuver called a touching go, I descend to pattern altitude, I lower the flaps, I lower the landing gear, I complete the landing checklist, I turn to line up with a runway, and then I control my rated descent all the way down until the wheels touch the pavement.

And then I go to full power, climb back up to pattern altitude and do it again. After 10 touching goes, fly back to the squadron and meet up with happy in the debrief room. He's eating a bag of fungans, drinking a mountain dew. Good job, dude, said. It gives me good grades. Next, six plates, go more or less the same. Playing with happy, I'm doing touch and goes, starting to feel confident, starting to feel in control, I'm getting good grades. And meanwhile, I'm climbing the ranks in my class, from 16 of 30 to 12, from 12 to 9, from 9 to 6.

And that's where I was on the night of my last flight. I drove in that night under a full moon, which was a good omen. And because I knew no one could see me, I popped my collar of my flight suit, Maverick style. I played Danger Zone on the teap deck at top volume. Park outside the hangar climb the stairs to the ready room. I checked the status board, find my name next to my name's

happy, but something was wrong. Happy's name had been crossed off. And underneath was a written major small. I folded down my collar and went to find it. I found major small in the briefing room sitting in a bitter nicotine cloud. He didn't speak a word to me during the brief or the walk out to the plane or start up or taxi. So we're on the end of the runway. I'm going through my procedures

for takeoff. Engine gauges are in the green, flight controls are free and clear just to rearview mirror. They're small in the back seat frowning. You're ready to go, sir? I ask. He doesn't answer me. Instead, he opens a canopy, puts a cigarette in his mouth and he lights it. Now to say smoking in a Navy aircraft was prohibited is an understatement. The nearest place you could legally smoke was on the other side of the hangar, across the parking lot, across the street, past the sawp off fields where the dumpsters were. And I suppose I should have asked Major Small to put a cigarette out. But instead, I asked myself, what would Maverick do? Now, I knew that Maverick was dangerous.

He busted the hard deck to shoot down Jester. He did an unauthorized fly-by of the control tower made everyone spill coffee on their uniform. You jumped up and down on Oprah's couch. So I took my feet off the brakes, rolled down the runway with major small smoke and in the back seat. Somewhere over Mobile Bay, major small flicked his first cigarette out into the night, lit a second. I found my favorite runway, descended to pattern altitude. Lower the flaps, lower the landing gear, completed the landing checklist, turned the line up with the runway like I'd done dozens of times before, but this time something fell off.

I realized far too late that I was descending way too fast. We hit the runway so hard my helmet popped off my head. Major Small's lit cigarette flew up from the back seat over my shoulder under the instrument panel, buried itself in the floorboards up by the firewall. And that's where it stayed. Burning and glowing as we literally bounced back up into the sky. So we were climbing away from the ground, I pushed my helmet back on my head. I heard major smiles because first words to me. Can you reach it?

I had a strap for my parachute. I'd manned down as far as I could, but it was no use. No sir, I said. And the silence that followed, I imagine the worst case scenario. Playing with catch fire, we'd have to bail out, parachute into the pitch black wood snag on a tree, cut myself down, break my leg when I hit the ground. I honestly didn't see another way out. But then I heard major, small voice again, calm and patient.

Here's what we're going to do. Major smile talks me through a maneuver called a 0G-Bunt. 0G meaning zero gravity, meaning weightless. And Bunt, because it's a gentle maneuver, kind of fun even, like going over a hill and a roller coaster. So imagine this, I have a throttle, and my left hand, the stick in my right,

Major Small says go to full power and pull back hard on the stick. I pull back hard enough, the skin of my face sags down. Blood starts to drain out of my head. Harder, small size. So I pull harder in my vision, my vision shrinks, and I feel pins and needles in my brain. Good, so small.

Next, he has me push forward on the stick. And when I do so, I lift up out of my seat weightless, sand from underneath the floorboards, rises in the cockpit, and sparkles in the starlight, and up pops the licks. And it spins little glowing orange circles right in front of my face. I like to go with the throttles and I grab the cigarette and I put it out of my hand and it burns like a son of a bitch. But I don't scream because I know that Major Small has been through worse.

No more touching goes for me that night. We fly back to the squadron and I meet up with Major Small in the debrief room. He's looking at my great sheet like it couldn't possibly contain his disgust. That was the worst landing I've ever seen, he says to me. Now keep in mind, he dejected from a burning aircraft, parachuted into enemy hands. Somehow my landing was worse than that. So he gives me the worst possible grade for landings. But then he smiles and says, but that was a great catch.

It gives me a good grade for airmanship. So even out on that flight I go into selection ranked 630. Lucky for me, the Navy needed more than 3 jet pilots that week, so I got jets, but I no longer wanted to be Maverick, because Maverick was a Hollywood hero. The dangers that he faced were made believe, whereas Major Small had survived very real danger. And now here he was teaching young people

like myself to survive it too. And I wanted to be more like him. Thank you. We'll Macon is a veteran of the US Navy. His work has appeared in the New Yorker GQ, Ten House, and the New York Times magazine. His debut collection of short stories, Bring Out The Dog, won the 2019 PIN Robert W. Bingham Prize. I ask Will if he kept in touch with Major Small. He wrote, I lost touch with Major Small after flight school,

but a Google search showed him in uniform sitting on the back of a convertible and waving to the crowd. To see a photo of Will in uniform in front of his plane at the time of the story, go to themoth.org. While there, you can call our pitchline and leave us a two-minute version of a story you'd like to tell. Please call us. I had just finished medical school and an internship in New York City. I was accepted to a residency in Atlanta, Georgia,

at Emory University. My husband and I were moving to Atlanta and at a family dinner. Before we moved, my uncle said his work colleague had a nephew who worked at Emory. And we should look him up when we get there. He wrote his name on a small piece of paper. Being a shy person, I folded up the paper and tucked it away, never meaning to look up a stranger. In the next 10 years, I got a divorce from my first husband, met a doctor at Emory, fell in love and remarried. He didn't move to Miami and had two children. One day, I decided to go through my jewelry box,

which had gotten very messy. There at the bottom of the box was a folded up piece of paper which I opened up and read. It said, when you get to Atlanta, look up Dr. Ira Braun and to my utter surprise, he was the man I married. Remember, you can tell us about your own story at themoth.org. The number to call is 877-799-Moth, or you can pitch us your story at themoth.org. Coming up, a magician and Ecuador debuts a new trick in front of a large, high stakes audience. That's when the Martha Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Catherine Burns. In this hour, we're hearing stories about people who find themselves in uncomfortable situations. Sigfried Teber told his story at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn Heights. Here's Sigfried, live at the Moth. Even after all these years, I still get a little nervous before I step on a stage. I was born a racing equator. When I turned 18, I enrolled at University for Mechanical Engineering. My father founded a textile company, so the plan was always that I would earn my degree and help

in the family business. Just a few months after enrolling at university, someone lent me a book, a thick book, a thousand and one easy-carded tricks. I read it eagerly, covered to cover, to find out that out of a thousand and one, a thousand of those tricks were not good. Most relied on convoluted mathematical principles that involved a dealing playing cards in multiple piles, adding numbers, subtracting numbers. So after all that, the result wasn't very exciting, not

very magical at all. However, there was this one trick buried in their somewhere that got my attention. So, I started to practice, practice, practice relentlessly for several weeks without ever showing it to anybody. One Sunday afternoon, I gathered my family in the living room, small family, mom, dad, brother, sister, and decided to show them this thing I had been practicing for so long. I had my sister at the Coff playing cards, and I asked her to shuffle it. I take a different deck of cards and shuffle it myself. We go through a series of steps at the end of which my sister takes a card out of her deck.

I take a card out of my deck. We pause for dramatic effect. I ask her to show her card to everybody. It's the two of clubs. I show my card to everybody. It's the two-off clubs. I show my card to everybody, it's also the two-off clubs. A perfect match. Now, it's a decent card trick. However, I was so familiar with the mechanisms, all the steps involved in this card trick that it wasn't that exciting to me anymore. My family, they freak out. I didn't see that coming.

I freak out at their freaking out and I was hooked. I fell in love with magic. Now, most people who decide to devote their lives to this, starting magic at an early age. Many kids have an uncle who pulls a quarter from behind their ear. That's their first exposure to magic. Other kids receive a magic set for the holidays. There was an influential figure in the art of magic who, late in life life was still performing. He would introduce himself by saying,

well, what evening, ladies and gentlemen, I am 78 years of age. I've been studying magic for the last 72. I wasted the first six years of my life. And even though I stumbled upon magic when I was 19 relatively late in life, I never felt like I wasted all those years. I was just ecstatic that I found something that resonated so deeply with me. Now a few months after that performance in my parents' living room, I also met the

person who would become my first mentor. Equatorial is a tiny country, only 13 million people still to this day. The magic community is practically nonexistent. So I had the extreme good fortune of meeting this person who was extremely knowledgeable, very well read, wise beyond his years. And he was also very generous and very kind, always willing to share his knowledge. So my first mentor taught me many magic tricks and techniques. He taught me all about the psychology of deception, the real secrets of magic. But most importantly, he taught

me to care about magic. He led me to understand that magic is an unconventional art form, most people don't experience very often. So, it's not unlikely that whenever I step on a stage as a magician, there might be more than a few individuals out there for whom this will be the first and last time experiencing magic in their whole life. So it feels like a great responsibility. It's on me to impress upon them that magic is an art form with great potential. Thanks to my mentor, that is the way I always approach magic. Now, fast forward five years into the future.

I graduate from university. I get my degree in mechanical engineering. I gather my family in the living room again. I tell them I want to do card tricks for a living. My parents were furious. My mother was furious. My father was deeply disappointed. His heart was broken.

Both of them felt that I had betrayed him. However, they knew, they understood and appreciated how interested I was in magic. So eventually they saw that and essentially they told me, well, we're happy, if you're happy, I was extremely happy. They since then still until this day they have been extremely supportive. So I get into magic full time. Also, it's important to mention that through these five years, when I had been going to a university to get my degree in mechanical engineering,

I had already started to be hired to perform at private parties and corporate events. So at this point, after five years or that of that, the idea of becoming a full-time professional magician didn't sound that far-fetched. One way or another, a few months after I get into magic full-time, I am hired for a big gig. A pharmaceutical company was holding a fancy cocktail party for some of their top clients and executives. They wanted entertainment, so they hired me as an magician. It was a big deal because I was doing magic full-time now.

It was a very well paid gig, and of course, I wanted to leave them with a good impression. Hopefully, the world was spread. They would even hire me again. And at the time, I had been experimenting with this tradition, where I would enter the stage, holding a cup full of coffee. I would cover it with my hand, I would turn the whole thing upside down, and remove my hand to reveal that the coffee had vanished. My mentor planted this idea in my mind.

Early on, the amateur practices until they can't get it right. The professional practices until they can't get it wrong. I was a professional magician now, so I was practicing even more diligently. The coffee trick relies on a small mechanism hidden in the cup and as light of hand manoeuvre that activates the mechanism contains the coffee and creates the illusion that it has vanished.

I have practiced every single part of that relentlessly. I knew it inside out. I had even performed this illusion for many audiences to great success. So they diocured to me. What if instead of simply covering the cup of coffee with my hand, what if I were to place it over someone's head? And I would turn the cap upside down to reveal that the coffee had vanished.

It would be the exact same trick that I was so familiar with, but it would be much more dramatic. So the night of the big gig arrived, a rice corporate, a fancy cocktail party for this pharmaceutical company. DMC announces my name. I walk onto the stage, cap of coffee in my hand, and I see this woman in the first row. Bigs my long hair face.

I think she will be perfect for this. I approach. I look her in the eye, and I ask her, I think she will be perfect for this. I approach, I look her in the eye and I ask her, do you trust me? Still with a big smile on her face, she says she does. So I hold the cup of coffee over her head, I look at the audience, I pause for dramatic effect. I turn the cup upside down. The coffee doesn't vanish.

Instead, it goes all over her beautiful white dress. I freeze, she freezes. The audience gasps. Not in a good way. I stood there without moving a muscle for four or five seconds that felt like an eternity. Without saying a word, I ran out of the other room. Straight to the bathroom, I grabbed as many paper towels as I could from this tiny little paper towel dispenser.

When I had a good bunch, I go back to the room, this poor woman, soaking wet, was exactly where I had left her. She had a move of muscle. I can't hear the paper towels and try to add her an apology. This person, this angel sent from heaven, still with a big smile on her face. Looks at me, she tells me she understands, she knows it was an accident.

Accidents happen, the show must go on. So I fumble up quarterly through the next 15 minutes of the performance, eventually I'm finally able to calm down, collect myself, and bring the show to a somewhat successful conclusion. Most people actually seem to enjoy it. The next day, I send this poor woman a big bouquet of flowers, a handwritten note, she replies with an email, we talk still to this day, she still became my friend. It's been 10 years, a little over 10 years, since the coffee incident. And for the longest time, just thinking about that experience

would make me cringe. However, I've learned too, at this point, I've learned too, understand and even laugh about it. Even after all this time, and by the way, I'm glad to report that still to this day, I'm still a full-time professional magician. I've never had a real job in my entire life. Even after all this time, I still get a little nervous before I step on a stage.

With time, I've come to understand that that nervousness comes out of care and excitement for what I do. Ever since that first performance in my parents' living room, for me, magic has always been an excuse for human interaction. It's a reason to reach out to friends, family, or strangers, ask them for a few minutes of their precious time and attention and attempt to share with them something all of us can share and celebrate together. That said, sometimes that nervousness and excitement turn into anxiety, fear and doubt creep in.

And when that happens, I think to myself, what is the worst, the absolute worst? That could ever happen. I think back to that day, and it's quite comforting to think that the worst, the absolute worst that could ever happen already happened and I survived. Sigfried Teber is a Los Angeles-based performer and sleight of hand magician. In 2015, Sigfried had lined the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is actually the largest arts festival in the world. I've seen his show, it's called Seasaw, and it is a mind-blowing delight.

Time out called it the best magic show in New York City. He recently was invited to be a part of Pin and Teller Fool Us, a TV show where the duo invites musicians to do tricks, and then Pin and Teller try to figure out how the trick is done. And yes, Sigfried did fool them. You can watch on YouTube. I asked Sigfried to reach out to the lovely woman on whom he spilled coffee to see what she remembers about that night. She writes, the unexpected situation made the event more memorable event for everyone. It's certainly made it more memorable for me.

We all had a great time then, and we can all laugh about it now. I'm sure glad to be a part of SIGFREED STORY, and I'm glad that he's part of mine. Coming up, a woman is pushed to the limit while trying to help her elderly father. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Maw radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Katherine Burns. We're hearing stories about people who found themselves in the hot seat. Our final story this hour was recorded at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn. On the same ninth at Sigvied told his story. For decades, I've loved the work of actress Samantha Mathis. It was so excited when she agreed to tell a story. Here's Samantha, live at the mall.

When my father announced that he was going to move to Guatemala, that he was going to buy a brand new SUV and drive from Tucson, Arizona to Guatemala City down the Pan American Highway with a real game plan, just to see what he could get up to, I knew this would not end well. What version of bad I didn't know, but never in my wildest, did I think that it would end up with me sort of kind of kidnapping my father? My dad and I had a complicated relationship, my parents split up when I was two, I loved my father. I greatly admired his accomplishments.

He was my favorite person to talk to about politics. But I never really felt that unconditional love. He was difficult. He loved to provoke you. And he loved his scotch and cigarettes. So now he was 70, and he was in need of his fourth act. So off he went to Guatemala, the land of eternal spring, he loved to say.

And he made a life there. He found an apartment conveniently located above what became his watering hole, Shakespeare's bar. He had his own stool. It was like his cheers. They called him Senior Dondon. And you know, it worked for a while. We tried to support him in making this decision to live in Guatemala. That's where he wanted to be the rest of his life. And he never wanted to come back to the United States.

Never mind that that meant he would miss out on, big milestone moments in his kids' lives. Wedding, graduation, my Broadway debut. But there was always some reason he couldn't come back. And so we went to him. And for 14 years, I tried to go down once a year. And it was stressful, having him 2,000 miles away, aging, and things started to go wrong. He was aging, and it became kind of like whack-a-mole. He would get sick,

and one of us would have to run down there to be with him while he was in the hospital but you know we loved him and we do anything for him even if it was a it was a giant pain in the ass. And then when he was 83 he got really sick for like the third time he went into the hospital. My brother called to find out what was going on. And my dad said he was fine. He was just waiting for them to come get him on the border of Oklahoma and Kansas. Yeah, he didn't know where he was. And when he got home from the hospital, he was left alone for 10 minutes and promptly keeled over and fell on his head. So he was no longer safe there. We couldn't let him stay there anymore. Even his caretakers, Mary

and Mario didn't feel like they could handle this anymore. So we had to bring him home. So the question was, how? Well, he couldn't fly commercial anymore. He didn't know who he was now half the time. He was dealing with incontinence issues. He couldn't go 15 minutes without a cigarette. So it was decided we get a Medevac plane. That's a plane for medical emergencies. The question became who would escort him back? And I volunteered for duty.

I went down on a Friday and I had less than 24 hours to figure out how to get him on this plane, but how? How to get him on the plane? He said he never wanted to come back to the United States. And I had to get him on this plane. I mean, he was in danger there at this point. We needed him to come back and find out what was going on with his health.

And we'd paid a lot of money for this plane. And it was non-refundable. And it was not refundable. So failure was not an option. I called my brother on the way to the airport and I said, how am I gonna get dad on this plane? What if he says no? And he said, well you're an actress, you'll think of something.

I said, yeah, I'm not really an improv girl. I'm used to having a script. And I can't exactly say to him, hey, daddy, we think you're losing your marbles, so you need to come with me right now and get on this plane. And he said, well, tell someone, tell him someone gave you a private plane. I don't really have friends with private planes,

but I thought, okay, I can work with this. Come on, Mathis, figure it out. When I got there, I didn't really know who would be waiting for me. I walked into his bedroom and I said, hey, Dad, it's Samantha. And he said, hey, babe, he was so tiny, he was so fragile, this man who had loomed so large in my life for better or worse. I launched into my story, hey daddy, so guess what? I came down because the TV show I'm on, they found out that you haven't met your grandchildren. This was actually true.

He hadn't met my brother's children. And so get this. They have given me a private plane to take you and me back to Pittsburgh tomorrow to meet your grandchildren. Pretty fancy, huh? I paused and he didn't call bullshit, so I kept going. So tomorrow, you and I are getting on this private plane and they're even sending a private car with a bed in it, ambulance, so that you can be, you know,

comfortably driven to the airport when we meet that plane, which will meet us tomorrow at noon. It was like one of those moments in a western. My dad loved westerns. When the two guys, the cowboys have their hands on their guns and they're both staring each other down waiting to see who will blink first. And I said, fancy, huh? And he said, yeah, that sounds neat. I have to go to the bathroom. And I thought, okay, well, he seems to be buying it, and if he's not, he's not fighting it.

So that night I didn't get any sleep, and in the morning morning I was nervous but had the calm of someone going into combat. And his caretakers, Mary and Mario were wrecked. I kept grabbing them in the hallway going, you've got this, you've got this. And dad, he was cranky and slow but still on board. So we got him dressed and into his wheelchair and downstairs to the lobby of the apartment building and then the ambulance got lost. And we waited for five minutes and 10 and then 20 and I started texting the company like where are you and they're like we're lost and I'm like I know. And and my dad I just he was sitting there and he was being patient, but I started to get so anxious that he was going to flip out,

that he was gonna say, you know what, I don't wanna do this, I don't wanna go. In fact, I don't believe you, I think you're lying to me. This woman is taking me against my will. So we asked for a cigarette and I gave it to him. And then I remembered I had in my bag a jelly jar of whiskey

for my father because I didn't know if he could go eight hours without a drink. So I gave my dad a cocktail. Sweet Jesus, it had been 40 minutes. And I'm racking my brain how to keep him calm. And then I think music, my dad loves Frank Sinatra. So I pulled out my cell phone and I hit speaker and now it came, come fly with me, let's fly,

let's fly away. I was like, daddy, this is gonna be so cool, we're gonna get on that plane and it's gonna be a cool private plane and then we're just gonna get to Pittsburgh and you're gonna meet your grandchildren and I was just tap dancing like mad to keep him from realizing this was an

elaborate ruse. Finally, the ambulance came and we said goodbye to his caretaker, Mary which was sort of terrible. She loved my father. We were both weeping but trying to keep it together in front of my father. And, you know, I don't know if he didn't know. He wasn't a dumb guy. So we got to the airplane. It was small. It had a gurney in it. And they strapped my father in and hooked him up to a heart monitor.

And then my dad asked for a cigarette. And I was like, yeah, no, dad. No, we're on an airplane. You can't have a cigarette. And the nurse said, yeah, no, dad, no, we're on an airplane. You can't have a cigarette. And the nurse said, no, sir, there's an oxygen tank here. That wouldn't be safe. And he said, I understand that, but I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette.

I want a cigarette. And I looked up to the front of the cabin, and there was a minibar in the Medevac. And so I asked him, could you hand me a straw, please? the cabin and there was a mini bar in the MetaVac. So I asked him, could you hand me a straw please? And could I borrow your scissors and I took the straw and I cut it in half and I took a long drag on it. And I said, here you go daddy, here's a cigarette.

And he said thanks. And it worked. It did for a couple of minutes. But then he said, no, it's gone out. And the nurse, I could have kissed him. He pulled out a small flashlight and he lit the end of the cigarette. And my dad said, thanks. And again, it worked for like, I don't know, two or three minutes. There was peace. And the plane took off. And then he said, no, it's gone out. It's not working. It's not working. It's not working. And I looked up at that

mini-bar and I said, excuse me, could I have a cup with a glass of ice? And they said, sure. And I said, thanks. And I reached into my bag and I pulled out that jelly jar. Still half full of whiskey. And I made myself a really stiff drink. When we landed in Pittsburgh, two flights and eight hours later, I walked off the plane straight into my brother's arms and I just, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, We found a nursing home forum with a memory care unit. He wasn't quite there yet, and I'll never forget. They told us to put his name and all of his belongings. So we got Sharpie, Indelebrating Pens, and my brother,

and I sat there putting my dad's initials into his t-shirts and his underwear. And it was awful. I felt so guilty, putting him in this place, but what choice did I have? None of us were capable of giving him the care he needed. I was now a shell of a human being. I hadn't been home in like a month,

and my dog wasn't doing well, nor was my relationship, and I said, daddy, I need to go home. I'll be home, I'll be back in like a week or so. And then I told him I loved him very much and I would see him soon. Four days later, I was sleeping and I woke up. Why'd I wake at four in the morning? And I didn't know why.

And I got back to sleep. And at six, my sister called and she said that daddy had died at 4am. And I thought that there was a woman that had been across the hall from my dad in that nursing home, and she wailed the better part of every single day. And I'd seen her grown son coming out of the room one day and I pulled him aside to ask him what the quality of care was like there, which was, you know, they were under saft and overworked. And I asked him how long she had been there,

and he said 15 years. I was so sad that my dad had died. We'd only had him back in the States for like five weeks. He did get to meet his grandchildren. But I was also relieved that we wouldn't have to go through 15 years of a long, slow descent into my father losing his mind. Three months later, we had our father cremated, and three months later, we went to Guatemala. We brought him back. We had a party at Shakespeare's Bar. They pulled his stool out and everybody came and had a cocktail

in his honor. And then my brother and my sister and I went up into the mountains to this beautiful lake that my father loved so much. And we got on a boat and we spread his ashes. And we said goodbye. From fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. Samantha Mathis has been an actress since the age of 16. She's appeared on stage at Second Stage Theatre and Best Welles' Mate Believe, and can be seen on the Showtime TV series Billions. I have love getting to know Samantha, and she has a huge heart. As you heard, her father dedicated himself to public service, and she takes after him. She has a rescue dog whom she found been volunteering with the world's central kitchen in the Bahamas

after her cane Dorian. She's also spent over 10 years in service to her union, SAG-AFTRA, as a board and committee member. I get you up there where the air is rarefied. I thought I'd take us out by sharing my own story of finding myself in the hot seat. It was the bottom of the ninth in the championship game of the seven and eight year old division of the Alexander city Alabama powder puff league.

And as usual, I was warming the bench. I had not expected it to turn out this way. When I'd signed up, it had honestly been with visions of Grandeur. I pictured myself catching flyballs, throwing perfect pitches, hitting the ball out of the field, and sailing around the bases just sliding to home just in time to win the game for my team. But from the very first practice, things went horribly wrong. It became abundantly clear that I had no talent whatsoever for softball. I couldn't

throw and I couldn't catch because I'd always close my eyes at the last minute and the ball would just bounce off my mitt and roll away. After a few practices my goal went from being the star player to just getting through the season without my entire team hating my guts. So I found myself in our last game of the season at the bottom of the ninth, the bases were loaded and we were one run behind. And oh no, I was up to bat. My heart pounded and I began to panic. It was like an after-school special. The moment I dreamed about when I signed up, I had become my nightmare. To make matters worse, I glanced to my left and saw Kelly or star-hitter.

No doubt Kelly could hit the ball if only I wasn't blocking her from home plate. The crowd began stomping the stands for the next hitter and my coach was waving at me to come on. But then I suddenly remembered something. That very morning, my tooth had been a little loose. Not a lot loose mind you, but a little loose. There was only one thing to do. I reached into my mouth and grabbed my tooth firmly and twisted. Hard. Blood poured out of my mouth.

It hurt a lot, but I didn't care. As the assistant coach dragged me off to the medic, I could see Kelly, cool as a cucumber, making her way to home plate. From the medical tent, my face sandbagged in ice, I heard the crack of the bat as Kelly hit the winning home run, sending all the girls in and winning the championship for our team. After the game we went out to celebrate, and Kelly got to wear a crown since she had hit the winning home run. And I sat in the corner sipping a milkshake completely relieved, but also secretly pleased, because I knew it was really me who had won that game.

That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. This episode of The Maw 3D O-hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Katherine Burns, who also hosted and directed the stories. Co-producer, Vicki Merrick, associate producer, Emily Couch. The rest of the Maw's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Jones, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluche, Leanne Gully, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our pitch came in from Lynn Nadel.

Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Dan Romer and Ben Zitlin, Galt McDermott, Frank Sinatra, and Harroomi Hosono. We receive support from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX for more about our podcast for information on pitching us your own story and everything else go to our website themoth.org you