Fresh Starts: The Moth Radio Hour

This is the Moth Radio Aller. I'm your host, Peter Aguero.

“In this show, we are turning the spotlight to a department at the Moth that has been”

meaningfully changing lives for over a decade, the Moth's education program.

Since we first walked into a school in 2012, we worked with more than 2300 high school

in college students from New York City, from around the country and around the world. Today we're listening to some of our more recent stories. Somewhere told on stage for the first time right after the students had taken an eight-week workshop, and others got a few tries to tell him before we got to hear them again. Just in time for back-to-school, we've seen this hour fresh starts. These workshops usually start with folks sitting in a circle,

introductions, a little known fact about yourself, and then the ice starts to break before it all tumbles down, and we're ready to be vulnerable together. I used to be a classroom teacher

“about three lifetimes ago, and teachings always give me this tremendous satisfaction.”

I really missed it, and I started going to the Moth Lams in 2007, and then one day, that producer Jen Hickson asked for volunteers to teach storytelling for the Moth. I jumped on it, and I bugged Jen about it for weeks until I got on the roster. I've been teaching with the Moth out for 18 years. It's a tremendous honor, and there's a joy that comes from teaching folks how to be honest with themselves, and how to talk about it in a crystal clear way. You go into

these classrooms, and you talk to these kids, and no one's ever listened to them like this before. They haven't ever had the opportunity to get in front of people and say something from their mind without having to convince anybody of the value of what it is they're saying. Most of these kids you get in there, and they're like, I don't have any stories. There's nothing I have to say. No one's

“going to care, and by the end of that six or eight weeks or hour along, you get to spend time together,”

they figured it out. They realize that their stories have value. Their experiences are real, their theirs, and they can help themselves, and they can help others. All you got to do is start to the beginning and tell the truth. So, this hour is focused on the Moth education program, Moth EDU for sure, and so sit back and listen, no pressure. You won't be graded on your participation.

Our first story comes from R of Achica. R of a participated in the Moth Story Lab,

which is an eight-week storytelling workshop in person or virtual for high school students in New York City and around the country. She went on to tell her story at the Education Grant Slash. Here's R. I was entering high school at a progressive religious school, and it was considered progressive because there were mixed gender classes. I walked in on my first day with a brand new dress that went below my knees and a boatload of optimism.

I was really excited for this school because this was the only Jewish school in the Tri-State area that offered BC calculus. And I decided because I knew someone who did it that I was going to take BC calculus my sophomore year, and in preparation I took algebra 2

December before high school. I looked at my schedule that first day and I saw that third period

on Monday was algebra 2. The school didn't know me. I didn't know them. I'm sure it would all be okay and by Tuesday morning I'd be in a pre calculus class. You know that really annoying kid in Moth class who sits in the front row has their hands super glued in the air and doesn't let the teacher finish asking the questions before answering. I was determined to be that kid. After class I went up to my teacher and showed him my transcript. He looked at me and he said

it's my first day too. I don't know what I'm doing. They're going to have to go talk to the head of the math department. In order to find the head of the math department, I had to find the math department, which was also known as the bunker located in the basement of my school. It had no windows. No natural light. Just flickering halogen lights that cast everyone in a sickly pallor. The head of the math department looked at my grade in algebra 2 and then he looked at me and

he told me, "We'll see after your first test." That's a little unreasonable but not totally unreasonable. I got in a 102 on my first test. Wonderful. He looked at my 102 and then he looked at me and he said, "We'll see after your second test." That was 102 not enough. I didn't do as well

late in the school year. You can't take precarculus this year." I'm sorry. I thought this was ridiculous

“and my mother thought this was ridiculous so by the end of that day I was signed up for an”

online precarculus class outside of school. I sure mentioned at this point that when someone else asked the head of the math department why I couldn't take BC calculus, my sophomore year and precarculus my freshman year he explained that they didn't have enough resources for me. They did have four boys though taking advanced math at the time so I guess four is just the maximum. At the end of my freshman year of high school I returned to the bunker with my precarculus grade. He looked at my

precarculus grade and then he looked at me and then he looked at the A+ again and he looked at me and he said, "You know we have this program where you can take precarculus over the summer." I pointed to my grade and I told him I've already taken this class and he said, "No, our precarculus is different."

“After spending that summer taking precarculus I can testify that the unit circle is still the”

unit circle no matter where you learn it. I was allowed to take BC calculus my sophomore year

and for the first time in my high school math career I really felt like I was flying. I was learning

integrals. I was learning derivatives. I learned something called a Taylor series which is really cool. It's when you to have a function and then you use derivatives to approximate that function in a series and as you add them up and you add more terms to the series the closer and closer it approximates the function and it's just beautiful to watch. It's also how calculators do math. And so it really broke my heart a little when an older boy who had taken BC calculus his sophomore year

came up to me and told me that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take it your sophomore year because he got a four and I'd have to work really really really hard to get a five.

I was not interested in taking precarculus a third time so I continued on and later on that year

freshman boy asked me whether it was a good idea to take BC calculus my sophomore year and after further questioning it came out that he had actually been offered the spot and wasn't even sure whether he wanted it. Another freshman girl came up to me with the same question and I told her it was a fantastic idea and if she really was interested she should email the head of the math department. Before we both went our separate ways meet to history and her

to Hebrew she told me teasingly you better get a five which is the highest score you can get on an AP so I can take this class too. She was only joking. Later on I went to math class and I was learning integration right parts and while my math teacher was in the middle of writing out of you he all of a sudden kept his marker placed it carefully in the tray and turned around to face me. He clasped his hands together and told me if you don't get a five on this exam it'll reflect

“bad we on me and it'll reflect bad we on you. So you have to get a five. No pressure but you have to get a five.”

I did in fact get a five on the BC calculus exam. Maybe because I took algebra two twice in precarculus twice and I no longer attend that school but more importantly that freshman girl she's taking BC calculus there as a sophomore. Thank you. That was Arva Chica. She is now a university and would you believe she majors in computer science

and math. Arva still loves Pascal's triangle and a Taylor series and is a member of the university's debate team. Our next story was told by E.D. Water. We met E.D. at the Maths Story Lab here in New York. Here's E.D. at the Maths Education Grantsland in the spring of 2025. I grew up in this weird suburban neighborhood of Brooklyn perfect for Verizon commercials because the houses look like they could be anywhere and the streets look like they were made for playing

kick the can. I had four friends growing up who lived on kick the can street aka the coldest sac around the corner from my house and so all throughout elementary school I would go over there and we and we would make up games. Most of which involving eating dirt and as we got older

future. Specifically a backpack and trip around Europe that we would take the second that we graduated

“from high school. In order to fund said trip we needed funds so we came up with business ideas”

starting a famous clothing line starting a famous rock band anything that can make us lots and lots

of money. By growing up I was always more of a realist and when we were kids I was the first one to

suggest that maybe we bring the dirt eating to a gentle close and as we got older I was the first one to point out that none of us could really so never mind play a musical instrument but at 12 years old there was one business idea that I thought could take us to Europe and that was babysitting. So one day we walked around the neighborhood and we plastered flyers on every single lamp post with our 12 year old phone numbers written in block print what could go wrong and we waited and we waited

and when we waited some more and when weeks passed and we had it received a single call I was crushed

“four years later I tried again. It took until about a month before my 16th birthday for me to finally”

book my first gig the big doorway not through flyers on lamp posts but through Facebook.

My first gig was around the corner from kick the can street so I knew the route well I walked over confidently when up the elevator confidently walked down the whole way confidently shook their hand confidently I had felt ready to take care of kids since I was a kid so I was feeling pretty confident I with goodbye I turned to the baby and then it began. The ear splitting scream and the blubbering tears her mom was probably still an elevator it had been 15 seconds

there was no way I could ask for help now that would ruin my Facebook reputation and so I waited 10 minutes 20 minutes I bounced her on my hip I cradled her in my arms the way one does to a baby so I

“have heard but nothing helped at this point she was foaming at the mouth like a James Bond villain”

clearly I was killing her and so I gave in I called her mom I was like hey any chance you're still in the neighborhood I don't really know what to do right now and she was so nice she was like don't worry girl I'm right up the block come on over and so we went on over I took the baby downstairs I asked the UPS man for help with the buttons and the straps and the mechanics of the stroller because it does not self-explanatory and we went down the block and their her mom was and

she was all hey girl and I was all hey girl and she was so nice we spent the rest of the hour talking about Brooklyn bunk bands and what the kids are up to these days but I felt like screaming how should I know how should I know what the kids are up to these days I am not a kid I am a baby sitter I thought that when I walked into that apartment I would be treated like an equal I thought that after I put the baby to sleep and her mom came home we could sip sangria and talk about tariffs

but no as soon as those two hours were up she waved a very sweet goodbye and paid me in full all thirty dollars but it was humiliating I didn't want that money it was clear she didn't take me seriously no one was ever going to take me seriously the way that I had wanted to be taken seriously so I was just gonna give up that was it right then right then no more of this but I didn't give up because the Facebook post was still up and not only was I still booking gigs but I was

raking them in and they didn't immediately start to get easier no one tells you what to do when a three-year-old puts Pesto on his penis at the dinner table but then they did start to get easier I started to babysit for some older kids and they taught me their own games robot card games and door polling and I made up some new games of my own mainly tricks to help get them to

brush their teeth on time and by the time their parents came home they were always fast asleep

somehow along the way I had become a pretty good babysitter I eventually made enough money to pay for my portion of the European backpacking trip we leave in a week the day after I graduate from high school just as we planned four weeks after that we arrived home two weeks after that I go to college in California away from my parents and those kids and their parents in the street where I first

thought knowing that I am about to go through this major transition from childhood into adulthood

“officially but it's also kind of nice being in such a liminal space I don't want to be treated”

younger than I am I never have but I also kind of don't want to be treated older than I am

when I'm babysitting and I'm reading to a kid and they're laughing and they're having a good time and they slip up and they call me mom it's super cute and it feels great because I know that I am doing an excellent job but I realized that I like to go home after that until my own mom but that had just happened thank you that was Edie Wadman Edie loves walking in prospect park and scanning the sky for pigeons flying in formation she says she no longer eats dirt and

is met more fellow herbivores than ever in her first year Pomona College she offered a bit of advice

“for her fellow babysitters never lie about knowing how to change a diaper you will not get hired back”

to see photos from Edie's trip to Vienna and the early days of her babysitting venture please visit themoth.org in a moment a journey in the woods and a game of man hunt that's when the moth radio hour continues the moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media and woods hold Massachusetts this is the moth radio hour on Peter Aguero we've been listening to stories of turning over a new

leaf and hitting the reset button this next story reminds us that sometimes starting over means bringing a piece to the past with you it comes from max tracco max told us at a grand slam at pk one in

“Brooklyn knew I live in the woods not in a fun tree house way or off the grid way but I live in”

the woods in a way that my house is right here and the woods are right here actually more like this

but I really never gave a lot of thought to them or cared much for them while besides when I

cursed them for making my wife by lag while playing Fortnite um but that's up until I found myself playing man hunt with my friends in March of 2019 and this game I don't know if you guys know what man hunt is but it's like tag on steroids and this was a particularly kind of ethereal game of man hunt surreal game of man hunt because it was a monkey's wedding which for those of you who are known as well-versed as myself and South African slang is when the sun and the rain are happening

simultaneously so I don't know if you've experienced a monkey's wedding personally let alone one in the woods but it's kind of it's beautiful it's surreal you can kind of see the rain and the sun plugging the gaps of the trees um up above and I was really just I could feel myself in the moment it felt like one of those moments where you're just present and you're having fun smiling laughing and eventually we were tired of sweaty probably pretty pretty sorry probably pretty smelly as

teenage boys tend to be after they run around um so we started to head back towards my house and when I crossed the threshold that kind of marks where the woods end and my back or it begins everything rushed back to me I felt this sense of guilt and that's when I remembered the reason that we were here today and it was for my sister Scarlett Shiva who had passed 24 hours earlier and basically Shiva is when in the Jewish religion you have friends and family come and celebrate somebody's life

that passed and I felt guilty because my sister was gone but I was here happy and I had really

only seen grief portrayed in movies or books and I'd never seen it portrayed as a 10 year old running

around with his friends in the rain playing man hunt um so I was kind of out of loss I the Shiva was ending and my friends were leaving and I it started to really hit me all of these emotions so I went into the house where my mom was who's my confidant and my biggest supporter she always

with me I mean I my sister died 24 hours ago and I'm here playing man hunt with my friends smiling

“having a great time as if nothing happened and she said to me that if you let everything the”

world throws at you bigger small gets you down then you're never going to be truly happy and that

my sister Scarlett would have wanted me to be free and live for the both of us so at the time I probably said something like that stupid or just dismissed it because I wasn't really in the mood to take advice and I thought she was just a kind of helping me mask my weird coping mechanism but um I was tired so I started to walk to my room but my feet took a hold of me and they took me to my sister's room so I entered her room and now this is going to sound really weird but

each person has a distinct smell and when they're gone from the earth they're smell can still remain

and I and I smelled my sister as though she was there and I sat down on her bed and I could

feel her sitting next to me I could almost feel it and then I laid down on the pillow and I let my thoughts wander I found myself my thoughts swirling and kind of a montage like a movie montage

“of my memories that I made with her playing I could remember us throwing water balloons at each other”

in our house in Pennsylvania and I could even remember the car ride there where we thought the whole time and she made my dad kicking me out of the car um but then that's when I noticed that without all of those memories her death wouldn't have had such a profound impact on me and that their joy and pain can coexist kind of like that monkey's wedding even if it's raining the sun can still shine I let my eyes close I want to sleep and I had the best sleep in my life thank you

that was Max Tracco Max is a high school senior from Westchester New York and assumed to be Texas Longhorn he's the founder of Voyaged a nonprofit expanding access to student travel he loves telling and collecting stories and he lives with his mom and a managerie of rescue animals I had the honor of hosting the show when Max told the story it was a beautiful and cold night in Brooklyn and I was stunned by Max sophisticated and measured contemplation on grief it stayed with me

for a while I got to have a conversation with Max recently and it felt like a gift to get to sit with him just a little longer and we wanted to share it with you one of I have I'm just at a curiosity but you know when you're young you don't really have a sense of even what grief it's and as you get older you're forced to deal with it because it's part of life because I feel like you carry that with you for a long time you know yeah I mean I definitely agree with that I mean

I'd say that like it's kind of it's sad thing to say but like I feel like a lot of the time you know grief it can be like almost dormant and I mean it's not like I don't think of my sister for months but you know it's not like at this point you know it's been seven eight years and I you know it's

sad to say but I don't always think of her every day I mean obviously it's always going to

stick with you you know it can you know rear it's had a different time but and it's always with you that's for certain so even though you know my life had kind of completely change you know have been turned upside down within a day I was still kind of the same person and in a lot of ways

“my life was still the same so yeah I think it's really kind of interesting how two things can”

really be true about once and you can even feel multiple ways at once even if they're contradicting emotions so yeah I definitely think that that was kind of a big I guess if I could impart a piece of information that that would probably be you know well my story was trying to impart did you find it helpful to be able to give voice to it like because it was very specific about the story that it was about the grief and you very much stare to write the face so I guess

the real question is like did you find that to be a benefit for you yeah I think it really was

but I'd say like the most uncomfortable part to me was probably saying all that out loud because you

know I mean I'd say that I've always been like good about expressing my emotions but at the same

time it's you know difficult to even want to think about that in my own head and it was really nice to I mean I didn't go into the math program thinking that that was my story I mean I don't even fully remember how I how it came to be my story but I you know it felt very cathartic to say out loud and express myself and it was nice because it felt like more formatted than it kind of gave a structure yeah yeah gave a structure to this amorphous bunch of feeling

do you remember a moment you know anything from the workshop because it's it's fascinating like how did I even get here and it's from a series of questions that you don't even realize so like was there any moments or questions or or activities or or insights as you remember if they were

“really helpful in the in the workshop? Honestly I think there might have been one from you that”

kind of stuck with me what like when I was telling it the this is maybe the dress for her soul when we'd first night you okay but I remember like the story was pretty final but I for some reason wasn't saying like my sister Scarlet's name and I mean I didn't even realize that I wasn't saying her name but I feel like when I put it in for me it felt kind of honestly really good to say her name because when you kind of say someone's name it feels more like you know if they're kind

of living or even if they're not living they're still their memory is still living. If there was something in your story there's something that didn't fit and you'd love people to know something about Scarlet or you and Scarlet? I mean there's a ton of things that come to mind but the first thing that kind of comes to mind which is kind of silly but all of the bickering we did even like even as young kids we would literally bicker so much that on one of our family trips

for my dad jokingly obviously uh told me to go out of the car and then he said that he was gonna leave me at the gas station like all they were all like that was how much we were fighting

“but I always remember then right after you would make up we were like really best friends and”

even though we were young I always like could tell or anything and I just felt myself around her.

That's beautiful man thank you so much for sharing. Max Troco everyone. In a moment we had into a bumpy senior year and then to the start of law school when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Peter Aguero. There's an embroidered sampler at my desk at home with a sort of mantra on it I came to with my therapist Nadine. It says I resent that I have to accept this.

“This pretty much sums up the way I believe we can make it through this maddening and beautiful”

world. With that in mind here's Hope Guzzle. Hope told her story at a final share after a three-day Moth workshop with four-domal students learning to tell their own stories so they can better tell the stories about it. Here's Hope. In June of 2024 I was diagnosed with stage four killle and cancer which was really in convenient because I was supposed to be starting law school in August. It had been my lifelong dream to

go to law school and I'd already delay it once my junior year of college I was diagnosed with stage three-calling cancer and I had to push my LSAT setting back and I just could not go through that again. So I said okay I will fly home to beautiful sunny Tampa Florida get my colon removed and then we will figure out what kind of treatment I could get. The doctor presented me with two potential paths either I could get chemotherapy and radiation which would be incredibly invasive and was the

more traditional approach but some people in my situation could be eligible for a pretty revolutionary

form of immunotherapy offered up in New York City conveniently where I was planning to go to law school. So after I recovered kind of from surgery my mother my grandfather and I flew up to New York met with my genius amazing doctor doctor sirsac over MSK and was cleared to go to law school. I was not only cleared of the treatment but was cleared to completely live my life normally. She just suggested that maybe I lay back a little relax and maybe take law school a little bit

the treatment was working all should be fine. I took her words of advice paid my obscene amount

“of money to Fordham and decided to ignore everything she told me. I decided I was going to be”

killer. I wasn't going to talk to anyone. I was going to work 80 hours a week. I was going to live and breathe the law and when I wasn't doing that I was in a local podcast. So suffice to say I was really fun to hang out around. I in doing so I made myself incredibly sick. I would be studying nonstop so I wouldn't sleep and I really needed to sleep with a treatment and then I'd get really bad brain fog and then I would get back to studying or I would be throwing up and then I would

be in the bathroom for hours and I would think oh my god I missed that time I could have been studying. That was all I could think. So I would say up later and then the brain fog would get more. You get the idea. It really wasn't great but I continued on like that until finals. I put my everything and do it. I cared so much about these grades. For those of you who aren't law school,

“first year grades are really shown to be the end all be all. They're so important to people. So”

I was putting that pressure on myself. You don't get your grades back until December. So I got to relax. When I came home my mom said I'm so happy to see you. Let's get that cancer appointment set up with your doctor and I was like oh yeah that's not that's not great but we'll go do that. So I get to relax. We fly up in January. I quickly learned that the day that I'm used my doctor is the same day that I get my one-ail grades back. This was devastating. I went from

being kind of anxious at the appointment to super anxious about the grades like that was all I could focus on. It was pretty ridiculous. My mom says with me we take the cab over from my apartment the west side over to the upper east to go meet with my doctor. She walks in. Huge smile on her face. She says the treatment is working so well. It's amazing. My mom's crying. I'm crying. She's crying. It was wonderful. My mom and I decide to go celebrate with some over-priced light Italian

fair over at Santa Cruz and yeah we walk in. We have the warm wood paneling. We go sit down. I sit on this weird kind of velvet booth where I'm just picking at my $50 really mediocre. Pasta surrounded by the weirdest people ever when my group chat starts blowing up saying oh my god one-ail grades completely dropped. So I go to the bathroom. It was cold and that should have been a sign. I checked my phone and guys agreed to really bad. They were really bad. I don't mean like oh my god

I always had a 4.0 and I have a 3.7. How am I going to know? That's not what I'm talking about. They

were a deliciously bad. And I just break down. I almost start off. I'm so upset but I you know splash some water on my face and go out back to my mom. She can tell I'm a little upset. She knows me pretty well and I'm also horrible hiding my emotions. And then she asked me what's wrong and I say well mom to be honest like the treatment stuff that's the great but my grades were like

“pretty bad and I tell her this and she looks at me and she goes are you fucking kidding me?”

You just found out that you aren't going to die and this is what you're worried about. Some like slightly below average grades give me a break and I knew she was right. I felt like I was dying which is crazy because I literally just found out that I wasn't. But yeah I just realized I couldn't control any of my emotions. So I say wow I'm being a psycho about right now. I really should be acting like this. So I decide maybe I can't control how I feel in this moment but maybe

I should try to act like a normal person moving forward. So I do some crazy stuff. I start talking to people and I meet like the read that I actually like which is really exciting and law school. I start going on walks occasionally. I call my family members even the really annoying ones. And I start to actually feel a little better. And this recovery of sorts wasn't perfectly linear. I definitely had moments where I kind of went back to the behavior that I was mirroring before

but I was better and I was getting better. And the grades actually got better which was really exciting. And the more I've leaned into work life balance throughout the duration of my treatment,

the better my outcomes have been. So while I would never say I would exact I was grateful for

having had cancer because that would be a big fat lie. I am grateful for what it taught me about balancing success and life. I can still go after these big lofty goals while making sure and prioritizing having a bigger and more beautiful life. Thank you.

Freedom Law. She is excited to share that her treatment is wrapping up very soon. To celebrate

“and thank her amazing medical team, she'll be running the New York City marathon in November”

to raise money for Fred's team. The official running team at Memorial Sloan Catering

to support cancer research. She's never run before but this feels like a fantastic way to start.

Our final story is told by Andrew McGill. Andrew told this at the education main stage Matinee where once a year we invite schools to join us for two class periods in the morning to enjoy a live storytelling show. There's a DJ playing when they walk in. The lights are low. There's free merch. Andrew, who is about to share his story, was the host of the event. Here's Andrew live at the Moss Education Main Stage Matinee. I realized in high school my report

card never really matched who I was like the comments on my report card never matched who I was. It was like talks too much in class. I was like yeah I'll just tell him my boy on why Naruto is the best ninja. Has the ability to do better? I'm like yeah but you call me on a bad day. Truly needs to improve their work ethic to reach their full potential. Okay maybe okay maybe to comment was a little was right and when I was planning my senior

year schedule in the 11th grade I told my guidance counselor hey I'll do whatever I'm over school

“and she's like you need to take a 645 class a sociology class can you do it? I was like of course I”

can do it. She said are you sure? I said yeah who's the teacher? And she said it's Mr. Bonavita. I said the D. She said yeah. I said the guy who takes people's hats off their head because it's against school policy. She said yeah that's the one. I was like the guy who wears sandals and jeans all throughout the year. That's my teacher. I was like this is going to be a breeze. So I remember starting senior year 645 I walk into class and yes it was early. So I get into the

building and I'm sitting down in class and Mr. Bonavita is like this class is going to be fun but it is going to be a hard class. You need to show up to class the past and I was like I cool whatever and he said look around everybody look around and we looked around and it was like not everyone here is going to make it to the end of this semester and I was like hard we going die what was happening here. He's like no this class starts at 645 and not a lot of people

are going to make it. You need the commitment, the effort, the time. I was like yeah whatever man I got you and for the next two weeks I did not make it to that 645 class folks. I was late every day and like I said he was a Dean so I would like be hiding in the lunch room when I'd see him walk by and he'd be like yo Andrew you're 6 for your black you can't hide. Why are you trying to hide from me and he called me over and he said hey you're going to fail this class if you don't show up

“to class you need to show up to this class and I was like I would ever. So the next day”

I was like 15 minutes late but I showed up to class I got into class and he had these turn tables set up and I was like oh what's going on yeah those are the sociology class and I go sit down and I asked one of my friends I was like oh what is he doing he's like yo he's a DJ I was like he's a teacher and a DJ I was like the deal he's not paying anybody money and he proceeded to

tell us that history doesn't always repeat itself but it does often rhyme

and then he mixed single ladies into Jackson 5 I want you back and it blew my mind for a bit I was like what and he explained to us like yo this is the this is what history it rhymes and it and it does these beats and I'm gonna explain it with my my job I'm a DJ when I don't teach and it literally blew my mind and I was like yo this is actually insane and from that I was hooked on class and I never missed a day I mean some days I'd be a little late but you know he taught us

we use Dave Chappelle's Clayton Biggs me to talk about racism we did the widest kids you know to talk about Abraham Lincoln and all all of his history and all his life at the end of the year I actually got into his historyography class and we got to go to DC and we got to talk to one of the senators a civil rights activist John Lewis and he told us you got to get into the

right trouble and I was like yo this is amazing and at the end of the year I said hey Mr. Bonavino

to class a lot I'm not gonna trust you with that like I'm if I did I'm it's a DJing is a gift

what I'm gonna give you is a gift and I I don't want you to take it for granted because this gift can take you anywhere and I was like hi man so I went home and I thought about all the stuff we learned in class I thought about I was like you know let me just ride a letter I was

“like that's what they do on government right when something's bad you just ride a letter to Congress”

we do something so I wrote him a letter put it in his mailbox and he didn't say anything to me and like a couple days before you know we've got to graduate and he says hey I'm gonna take you on and you're going to you know I'm gonna give you a little internship and figure it out and it's been 15 years and I'm a DJ now I'm a Dean and I'm really thankful for the gift that Mr. Bonavino gave me. Andrew McGill is a high school English teacher

stand-up comic and storyteller born and raised in Brooklyn, New York Andrew's been DJing for over 15 years and still works with Mr. B every week he still enjoys and plays that mix he's taught

a bunch of kids that mix but it is never as good as it was with Mr. B to see photos of Andrew and Mr.

B DJing go to themoth.org

“Do you have a story of your own fresh start? You can pitch us your story by recording it right”

on our site. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. It was stuck in California in the 1970s, a conservative suburban town that used to be an agricultural mecca, Leonard Roney was a kid you wore pink button up rocks first to class and third grade and he was teased relentlessly it really didn't help but he was gentle and kind. After class one day my third grade teacher misses bump as handed out blue flyers announcing

little league trouts to all the boys in our class. So I went up to her desk after class and I asked if I could have a flyer. I mean she very firmly said no it would just for the boys and when I pressed her she told me she didn't have any more flyers and I should go home. The extra blue

“flyers I felt put back in her desk. Anyways, I immediately tried to think of a boy who might not”

want his flyer and I remembered Leonard Roney. I ran to catch up to him and I asked her to flyer and he gave it to me. Even though I didn't know how to play, I went to the tryouts one cool Saturday morning and stood in the day grass. It dozens and dozens of eight nine-year-old boys waiting to try out. The male coaches stood watching us with their clipboards and we lined up to run drill after drill. Even though I flumbled along I didn't know how to play. It was the best day

of my life. A week later I got a call from my new coach Mary Sprojette and I got instructions for our first practice. It turns out how was good at baseball and I became one of the best players in our league. I hit the first ball over the fence and I was nominated by the entire league to our all-start team in my last year. Those years were full of teasing and harassment and dignity around being the only girls who have played in our league that I just didn't care. Every bit of practice

drilling hours and a hot sense of always fun. I just couldn't get enough but none of it would have

been possible without Metaroni. I hope he hears the story one day and he reaches out so I can think to myself that crunched up blue flyers stuffed at the bottom of his book bag was like "Willu Wonk" as goal and pick it to me. It was a lifeline. Without Metaroni I would have missed the first shoe love of my life baseball. Here comes another pitch. When I graduated from college in 2004 my dad's graduation gift was a dad daughter trip

of my choice anywhere in the world. I chose Athens but as usual he did what he wanted to book us a 10-day fishing trip in Argentina instead. My dad is an outdoorsy Republican card carrying member of the NRA where as I am an indoorsy queer card carrying member of the ACLU. My stomach sank as I remembered other dad daughter trips hauling antlers up mountains and silently suffering through his heavy-handed lessons about hunting and fishing techniques. A month later we're in a

creek in Argentina and I'm crying behind my sunglasses as my dad yells at me critiquing my pathetic cast and then out of nowhere he says you know who was really good at that your grandpa. I flashed to my only memory of my dad crying when I was 10 years old my grandpa had died

and he broke down and sobbed and these two images of my dad crying and this memory of now

in the creek fuse together and I realized my dad doesn't just want to give me a trip to Athens. He wants to give me his family legacy and I don't fall in love with fly fishing that day and my dad still doesn't understand me but I understand him.

“Remember you can pitch us online at theMoth.org where you can also share these stories or others”

from the Moth archive and by tickets the Moth story telling events in your area through our website

TheMoth.org. There are moth events year round and you can find a show near you and come out and tell the story the Moth can be found on all major social media platforms. I just want to say at Moth EDU we've got an unmatched group of instructors with passion and care for their students for their stories and somehow for creating detailed lesson plans.

“If you're listening to this and you're an EDU instructor pass their present”

thank you for all your work it wouldn't be possible without you.

That's it for this episode of TheMoth Radio Hour. We hope you're joining us next time and that's the story from TheMoth. This episode of TheMoth Radio Hour was hosted by Peter Aguero and produced by me J. Allison and Jodi Powell who also directed the stories in the show co-producer is Vicky Merrick,

“Associate Producer Emily Couch. The stories were coached by Melissa Brown, Jonathan Cabral,”

Melody Konsei, and Julian Goldhagen. Education program instruction by Hannah Allen, Amy Blumberg, Zoe Laiese, Ingrid Romero, Delila Saleh, Darius Sharpe, and Meow-Tuberty. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Marina Cloche, Sarah Austin, Genes, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinali, Caledonia, Karen's Kate Teller, Susanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Eurena. Special thanks to unlikely collaborators for their

support of the Moth Education program and to honor Stern for her help on this episode. Our pitches are from Brandy Bernazani and San Francisco and Francis Southwick Davis in Brooklyn, New York. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the story tellers. Our theme music is by the drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound, Stellwagon Simphanette, and Blutot Sessions. podcast music production support from Davy Sumner.

The Moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole Massage Uses. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including Executive Producer Leah Ries Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and to learn all about the Moth Go to our website, TheMoth.org.