You Gone Learn: The Moth Radio Hour

No, not at all. I'm so sorry for my taste.

You're all right? - Yes, exactly.

“I'm so sorry for the story, which I just understood.”

I'm so sorry for the job or the reason. - I'm sorry. I'm not so sorry for the story. - I'm sorry. With what? - I'm sorry. In the last year of the year, a love blooms on the floor. And Maggie, a young boy.

This world is much more than a big Britain. From the left hand to the right, the war star of the story, a more popular trip at the trip was the big Britain. [Music] This is the Moth radio hour.

I'm your host, John Good, and there's one thing I know to be true every day. I learned something new. Here are three things I've learned recently. Number one, not long ago, I ate at a Michelin Star restaurant. And I learned that the reason is called a Michelin Star,

because the meal costs as much as new tires. Number two, if a person in New Orleans comes up to you at three in the morning,

“on bourbon street, and asked if you want to see something, the answer is no.”

The answer is always no. And number three, all of life is a teacher, and we are but humble students. In this hour, we bring you five stories where our story tells us learning little or a big something along the way.

Our first story comes from Dan Souser.

He told this at a story slam in Boston, where we partnered with T.R. Rex in Public Radio Station, W.B.U.R. Here's Dan, live at the mall. [Applause] Thank you.

So when I graduated college, I didn't want to work. [Laughter] I just didn't want to job. So I did where I thought at the time was the smartest thing possible. [Laughter]

“And that was to go teach English in a rural town in Hungary about 30 minutes”

from Romania by myself. And yeah, I didn't know why anyone else applied for the position. [Laughter] I just thought I was a really good applicant. So I arrived there, and when I was in the car from the airport to the village,

the people at the coordinator who her name was Katso. She was explaining to me what was going on. She's like, "You're the only American, I'm hoping the village." And I was like, "Oh, that's cool. I'd love to meet a lot of different people.

Who else is going to be there?" She's like, "Oh, I'm sorry." And I'm like, "You're the only foreigner who's going to be in the village. I'm just going to be you." And 1500 Hungarians.

And I was like, "Great, you know, immersion." [Laughter] That's a hot thing. I don't speak Hungarian, so probably learn a lot. And so we get there, and I set on to my apartment, which turns out to be a small little room.

I'm going to attach to the schoolhouse where I'll be teaching. And I share a wall with the teachers, kind of like lounge, teachers lounge. And in the teachers lounge, our 40 middle-aged women who arrived about 530 in the morning, and have really, really loud conversations about, "I guess what happened the night before, or dreams they had."

[Laughter] And what happened so much happened since when they left the day before. [Laughter] So I wasn't getting a lot of sleep. And every time I left my apartment, I was just stared at.

Hungarians is not a homogeneous society. Looks wise, but it's 1500 people, and they know who the American guy is. He's here to teach. So I'm just constantly getting stairs. I feel really weird.

I feel really kind of separated.

So from my first couple of weeks, you know, I go and do the classes,

and I pretty much spend my time in my apartment, discovering the world of Hungarian beer and wine. And figuring out how to get the BBC on my TV. So I'm not feeling great about my decision at this point. But the weekend after the second week, they had a school fundraiser at the local restaurant,

It's all concrete, but they strung a bunch of flyers.

And, you know, they made it this big thing. So I went to it and caught the coordinator, quickly informed me, that I'm the guest of honor for the night. [Laughter] And so what that means, I mean, in various countries,

I'm sure it means everything's in Hungary. That means every three to six minutes. Someone will come by and do a shot with you. [Laughter] And so it's a little bit like college.

[Laughter] And so, you know, I don't want to be rude. So I do a lot of shots with different people in my role as guest of honor. So the night goes on, and I'm feeling a little more comfortable, because I'm pretty drunk.

And then the music starts. So some of my students get up and do some traditional dance while a band plays, and it's great, and we're all dancing a little bit. And then Katta turns to me and she says, "They want you to sing." [Laughter]

And I was like, "Oh, well, I'm not really a singer. I don't really sing."

“Like, "No, no, no, no, you have to sing."”

And I was like, "I have to sing." Okay, so I will. [Laughter] So I get up, I get up into the stage area, and they hand me a mic. I've got a fair amount of courage at this point just from what I've been consuming.

And so a song comes on, but just the backing track to the song comes on. And it's a little bit Armstrong's, "What a wonderful world." And I don't know how many of you listened to that song a lot in high school in college, but I didn't listen to it very much. [Laughter]

It's just busy with other stuff. So I definitely knew the tune in my head, but the words were very few and far between. But I just started into it because, you know, I had had a lot to drink at this point. So I said the colors of the rainbow are pretty in bright. [Laughter]

But not my favorite colors. But that's all right.

“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”

Everyone in the place stands up in a round of applause that I've never seen before in my life.

300 people stand and start applauding me. And in that instance, I realized two things. One, I'm not a stranger in this land, I am a celebrity. [Laughter] And two, no one here speaks English.

[Laughter] At all. So then I just go for it. [Laughter] I see ninja turtles fight with nunchucks and bows.

They'll kill the food as I already know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. [Applause] Much like this, much like this. [Applause]

I feel like I'm back there right now. And I don't stop there. I hear my sister fart. We're in church. She gets in big trouble.

But I still get dessert.

“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”

[Applause] That was Dan Sucer. Dan is the editor-in-chief of Cooks Illustrated at America's Test Kitchen. I asked if he learned any Hungarian. He said yes, he did learn to say hello, which is Caesar.

He likes saying it to people he passed on the street because it always seemed to improve their mood.

But what Dan never learned were the lyrics to what a wonderful world by Louis Armstrong. [Music] Our next storyteller who's going to learn something today, I said that in my Kevin Hartboys, is coming to you from our open-my story slams in Madison, Wisconsin, where public radio station WPR is our partner.

Jin Rubin is not only a wonderful storyteller, but the regional producer of the Madison story slams.

Here's Jin, live at the mall.

So it took me climbing a glacier to get a new perspective on life. I don't know if it was the altitude or what, but it was suddenly occurred to me that my life sucked. I wasn't doing the work I wanted to do, I was still in the Midwest. I hadn't managed to get back to New York City, and I hadn't had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. And maybe it was the altitude, I don't know, but it became clear to me suddenly that the problem was that I was just too passive

that I didn't take any risks and that from this day forward, I was going to be spontaneous. So I got back home and I told my friends this, I was pretty excited about the new plan. And they said, you can't actually plan to be spontaneous.

Do you misunderstand the word, but I knew I was on to something and it was going to happen.

So fast forward a little while, I started dating someone and we were together. I don't know six months and nine months. And we were in the kind of KG stage of a relationship where I don't know how I feel about you. How do you feel about me kind of thing? And I don't know about moving with you to New York, that kind of thing.

And so I was sort of getting stuck in inertia and I had spent many years in inertia. And I was hoping not to spend more time there. And I went out for drinks with one of my very practical friends.

And I was having one of those kind of evenings you can have in your twenties where you sort of dissect your life and excruciating to tail, you know, every inch of it.

And as we were talking, she said to me and Ruth was a problem solver and I was not a problem solver.

“She said, it sounds to me like you should just propose to Matt, Matt was my boyfriend.”

And I thought about it for a minute. And I realized the only relationships I had managed to sustain for longer than four months were the unrequited ones that I had been in. And I was looking to, you know, not, you know, have a longer relationship that was recorded. And so I thought about it and I said, you know, that's a great idea because that really sounds like something a spontaneous person would do. So I'm going to propose.

And so by the time I got home, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to propose anymore. But I walked in the door and my house made hand in me the phone and it was Ruth, my practical friend, and she said, so what's your plan? And I said, well, I don't really have a plan and she said, okay, what are you doing Saturday night? And I said, well, actually, like, as luck would have it, I'm going to the movies. So I can't propose.

“And she said, well, what are you doing Friday night?”

And she got me because I had no plans. So I said, I'm going to propose to Matt. And I hung up the phone and I quickly called Matt before I chickened out and I said, pick me up on Friday, look good. And called a Italian restaurant in town made a reservation. And then it occurred to me that I had only 40s to prepare.

So on Monday, I tried on every outfit in my closet to life found in the one I look best in. Tuesday, I drove through a snowstorm to get the engagement leather jacket because I figured I had to give him something. And then Wednesday, I developed sort of my fail safe plan because I really hoped that with this new perspective on life, I was going to be bold while I did this bold thing for posing. But I also knew myself and if only one thing went wrong, I would be completely derailed. I would probably say something so self-effacing, he would have no idea that I proposed.

But I made it like a Burma shave on index cars and on each index card. I wrote one thing I loved about in color coded. And then on the last one, it said, therefore dot dot dot and that would be my cue to propose. And I really hoped I wouldn't use this. I really hoped I'd be bolder than that, but it just made me feel good knowing that it was tucked away in the leather jacket box. So then Thursday, what I do Thursday, oh Thursday, I thought about every possible answer he could give me.

I thought there were nine. And so I kind of wrote out an answer for each one. And then on Friday, I took the day off of work and I rented romantic comedies to get in the mood. And then I realized I couldn't just stick the leather jacket in my purse, so I went and dropped it off early at the restaurant. And I said, could you bring this out with the dessert? And they said, sure, what's the occasion? And so I said, well, it's his birthday. Which some of you are smarter than I was at the time.

“Because I thought, well, what if he said no and then I'd be embarrassed in front of a total stranger? So that's what I did.”

So anyhow, fast forward to the meal and it's clear something is a little off because I'm not eating.

And so I and also sort of unprecedented move because I usually eat all the bread at restaurants. I said actually I want dessert. We must have dessert. So Matt goes and excuses himself because he doesn't know what's about to happen, but he knows something's about to happen. So the dessert comes out, you know, as you can imagine, the candle on the pie and it's they're singing happy birthday. And it's one of those restaurants where all the way stuff seems happy birthday. And the whole restaurant is singing happy birthday and, you know, Matt's just saying, it's not my birthday. I'm making I contact with nobody.

And then they leave and then Matt looks at me and I pull out the index cards into feet and I hand it to him and I'm like just read it. So he reads each card he gets to the therefore dot dot dot I do rise to the occasion and I do ask him if he will marry me and he does say yes right away, which is lovely, but I can't really leave it there because the problem is that I hadn't told my instinct about my new perspective.

“And my instinct has screwed me my whole life. And so I said, are you sure?”

Don't you need a little time to think about it because that was what I thought he would say, but he was sure and he didn't need any time. Thank you.

Jen Ruben recently published VR Stay 80 years in the life of a family of store and a neighborhood. She says she sure she can make you care about an appliance store you've never heard of.

If only you read it, challenge accepted Jen Ruben challenge accepted. You can find a link to VR Staying at the mall.org. Jen said her wedding was a low key outdoor fair on a human New Jersey day where she was surrounded by family friends fun and a funky customer band. Three words I never anticipated hearing in the same sentence are funky and customer band. So thank you for that Jen.

“I asked Jen if she learned to be more spontaneous as she said mostly no.”

After her break, a young girl going hit first down a slide and a lady sliding up the piano skills with a mawth radio hour continues.

The mawth radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media and wood toll Massachusetts. The world's best in the world is the best in the world. The legendary checkout of Shopify is just the shop of your website, a bit to social media and over everything. That's the music for your ear. The video is released on Wednesday with Shopify. It can be a real help to you. Start a test for one of your promotions at Shopify.de/recorder. 10.8.20g for 0.71 or 1.7g for 0.2.22g for 0.22g.

Good for all.

“This is our glass. On this American life, one thing we like is a good mystery.”

Sometimes about really big things, things here in the news, but most times the little mysteries are the best.

Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what I've never seen this happen.

I've got skirts, I've got shorts, this is true. Mysteries of every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is the month radio hour. I'm John Good. This is an hour all about learning and lessons. Our next story is from husband, part-time writer, in full time stay at home dad, Maddie Strussi. He told this at a month story slam in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station, A.C.R.W.

Here's Maddie. When I ask my daughter, I say rain, what do you do when you top over? She answers, I get back up. Rain just turned 3 in November, and she's already top of over more times than I can count. And for her, it can be incredibly frustrating. And as a parent, it can be downright heartbreaking to see. And in most ways, she's just like every other kid out there, you know, she loves space and animals and the movie frozen.

And dinosaurs and playgrounds, and there's this one playground, we go to all the time, that's got a structure that's actually shaped like a dinosaur.

And it's as amazing as it sounds. And she loves the thing.

“And other kids can run and jump all over this thing really easily. And for Rain, it's a bit of a challenge.”

Primarily, it's around doing something called a commando crawl, which is exactly what it sounds like she's on a rail boes and a belly. And she sort of drags herself from place to place. So she drags herself up the steps and over the bridge and through the tunnel. And as she's doing this, other kids are running by her and literally jumping over her. And she doesn't see anything weird about that. You know, it's not odd to her. She's just doing her thing and having a good time. And in reality, it's pretty miraculous. She's here to do any of this. She was born almost four months early via emergency c section.

And she was just over a pound when she first came into the world. And she was stone cold silent. And it was the most terrifying night of my life. And the doctors didn't want to talk about the odds of her survival at first. They said, you know, every kids, these kids are resilient. Every kid's journey is different. So trying not to pay attention to what other kids are doing and just focus on your kid. And more than once it looked like she wasn't going to be coming home at all.

And eventually after five months in intensive care, she did. And amazingly enough, she started preschool in September. And so naturally my wife and I started thinking about where should we be going to college. And we decided it would be Harvard. And I actually grew up in a town not far from Boston. So recently we took a trip back east to see some friends and some family and to show rain or future stomping grounds.

And one evening we said, we're going to go for a walk. And so we put rain into our gate trainer. And a gate trainer is a assisted walking device where it's got wheels and a bar that she holds on to when you strap her into it for additional support.

And it basically allows her to practice walking upright without falling over.

And when she's in this thing, she stands out from the crowd in it. But, you know, she doesn't care that she stands out. And other kids don't seem to care, a lot of them don't even notice it. But other adults, and I've noticed mostly parents, they notice it when she's in it. And when they see it, they see her cerebral palsy and they see her disability and they see her is different.

And they often have this look of pity in their eyes. And as a parent, it drives me nuts as I have the hardest times with it. So we go out into the city and we end up in the north end of the city, which is the oldest part of the city. And it's one of the most beautiful parts of the city. And it's got these really charming narrow streets and it's got this beautiful cobblestone. But the cobblestone presents this real challenge for rain.

And you know, her gay dreams getting caught up on it has taken us forever to get anywhere. And she's getting really frustrated.

“And I have this moment where I think, how is she going to live in this city when she gets older?”

And how is she possibly going to be able to go to Harvard? And on top of that, the streets are packed with people. It's a really nice night. And I can see people staring at her and they have that familiar looking their eyes. And I start to just get really pissed off. And I want to grab people. And I want to say, like, do you have any idea who this kid is?

You know, how hard she's fought just to be here?

You know, she spent the first two months of her life on a ventilator.

And she's had five major operations. And she's had two infections that literally almost killed her. And that was in the first five months of her life. So please, don't look at this kid with pity because she doesn't need it. She's already stronger than all of us.

But, you know, it truths the lead. It hurts to see people looking at your kid like this. And we get through the evening and the trip ends. And we come back to Los Angeles. And I'm still feeling a bit down about how that walk in Boston went.

But Rene, you know, she doesn't care about that. She wants to go to that playground. So we go. And we get there. And she crawls up the steps. And she crawls across the bridge.

And through the tunnel. And normally, she would turn around and come back to me. And tonight, she decides she's going to do something different. She sort of looks over a shoulder at me and flashes a little smile. And she decides that she's going to go down the slide by herself for the first time.

And, no, no, that. She's going to go face first. And before I can get over there, she goes. And I can tell by the looks on other parents' faces that it has not been a graceful descent. So I go, I go, run it over there.

And she's at the foot of the slide. And she's just, she's a mess. She's got dirt in her face and wood chips in her hair. And she's whaling. And I'm like, oh, man.

But she's whaling with laughter. And she just thinks it's the funniest things she's ever done. And she looks up for me. And she says, Dad, I toppled over. I'll get back up.

And I just start. I'm beaming with pride at this moment.

“And I think back to what the doctor said when she was first born.”

And I'm thinking, man, this is resilient. And her journey is her own journey. And our journey together as a family. It might not be a typical one, but that's a good thing. And I just need to stop focusing on the looks that people are giving her.

And I need to focus on the things that she can achieve. And in this moment, I think about the rest of her life. And the life she's going to lead and the adventure she's going to have. And the passion's going to walk. And at this moment, it feels wide open to me.

And you know, that path may or may not lead her to Harvard.

Thank you.

“That was Maddie Strussky, coming to you from Los Angeles.”

When Maddie told that story, he had just received rain's diagnosis.

He said that telling it was therapeutic and helped him confront unprocessed feelings. Maddie says rain is doing really well these days. She's graduated from her gate trainers. And now gets around mostly using a wheelchair or a walker. I asked him if he's told her about Harvard.

He said yes. And she's into the idea of going. So long as it doesn't interfere with her dreams of seeing on Broadway, becoming a famous author or owning a horse farm. And of course I asked Maddie what he learned from rain.

He says she teaches him that it's okay for things to be hard. It's okay to be frustrated. It's even okay to fall flat on your face. Because all of those things happen, whether you have a disability or not.

To see photos of Maddie and his daughter rain, go to theMoth.org. [Music] Dion Herari, our next storyteller, comes to you all the way from Sydney, Australia.

“This is where host typically do a very poor crocodile than the impression.”

I will refrain this time. The end told this story at a city-stories land where we partnered with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ABC, RN, here's Dion, live at the mall. [Applause] It's September 2014.

I'm sitting in a room with about 100 other people, and I'm about to do my first ever piano recital. A few months beforehand I decided to take up piano lessons again. I hadn't actually had a lesson for 30 years,

but I've always loved playing piano.

I'm not particularly good at playing piano. I'm not terrible at it either. It's just something that I really enjoy. I have to immerse myself in it because I have to try very hard. It's one of the few times that I'm totally present in the moment,

and weird things can happen. I can hear my kids talking to me, but apparently I can't talk and play at the same time. I just can't possibly answer them until I get to the end-beaten stuff. I decided I was going to take some lessons,

“because I wanted to get better at doing some stuff.”

Years ago when I first had lessons, it was all about scales and practice, and it was a really horrible experience. This time around I had a young teacher called Tim, who was in his early 20s,

and he used to come to my place,

and he never once asked me to do a scale,

and he didn't really care whether I'd practised or not. He was really relaxed and just warmly encouraging. I felt that Tim got me. We had a thing going on there. A few months into it,

when he said to me, "Look, I'm having a piano recital for my students at the end of the year, and I'm just wondering if you'd like to be part of it." I was like, "Yes, sure." A lot of the students are kind of younger students, but there are some older students there as well,

and I said, "Look, that's not a problem. I'd love to do it." And sensing that he had a live one there, he said, "Well, would you like to do two pieces?" And I'm like, "You're not a problem." So I taught some of my friends that I was doing this recital,

and they all said to me, "Wow, you're so brave." Which I'm older enough to know is, "Code for, are you completely out of your mind?" But I thought, "Well, what can go wrong?" And I've got the music in front of me. I'll practice, it'll be fine.

Sometimes you've got to put yourself out there and just go for it. Unfortunately, the lead-up to the recital was not quite what I'd hoped it would be, and things got ridiculously busy at work, and I had to travel,

and I was nowhere near a piano for the three weeks before the recital. And it was sort of sub-optimal preparation, but I was confident there on the day in September, that I could just wing it. It would be fine.

A adrenaline would kick in and it'd all be good. And so I rock up to the venue, and it's this beautiful room in Melbourne University. It's this old building built in 1888, and it's sunshine streaming in,

and there's kind of these stained glass windows. And I'm sitting there, and I've got my son, Dylan, who was 11 at the time. He's sitting next to me as my wingman.

And we kind of watch as everyone comes in. And, you know, it's him and said that they were going to be younger students, but I sort of figured that they were going to be high school students. Most of them were five or six, and I was kind of wedged in between

three blind mice and Mary had a little lamb, but that was sort of okay, because I figured this would really make me shine. Anyhow, so you know, we get up, and the kids get up, and they start doing their pieces.

And I don't want to be mean, but there are a bit ordinary. (audience laughs) But the audience was full of love. Like they were clapping like nobody's business,

And then it was my turn to get up,

and so I get up there, and I start playing, and I'm still feeling really good. And I get about five or six bars in, and I make this massive error,

and I just froze. I actually had no idea how to recover from this position. And that was when I noticed that all this light is streaming in, and it's flaring off the plastic pockets where my music's in,

and I can't possibly play in these conditions, and so I stop, and I pull out the music and put it in front, and start again, like an old person who has no embarrassment, Jane.

(audience laughs) And I start playing, and my whole time my head's just going, "I don't go too fast, don't go too fast." And so I play so ridiculously slowly,

that I've totally lost all my timing, and it's just appalling. The whole thing is the worst experience of my entire life,

and I cannot wait till it's finally over,

and I get to the end of the page, and I'm like, "Thank God." Until I realized that there was a second one, and I had to go through it all again. And I finish it,

and I'm like, "Oh God, you know, I just want to get back to my seat." And I've got to be fair, the audience were very warm with their applause, but by now I knew that they were a really unreliable audience, 'cause they had clapped a little Johnny,

and Johnny was shit out, let's be honest. (audience laughs) And so I get back to my seat, and Dill is sitting there, and he looks at me full of love,

and he goes, "Oh, mum, you are great." (audience gasps) And for a moment, I really believed him. (audience laughs) Until I recognized that he was using exactly the same voice

that I use when he or his brother has done something completely lame,

“and the only thing between them and a shattered ego”

are the kind words that I've got to say. Now, the worst part of this story is that I actually was so mortified that I stopped playing piano for five years. And it was only a few months ago

that I sat down again, and I just thought to myself, "What the hell was I thinking? I love playing piano.

I've never wanted to perform.

I just want to do it for me. I just want to do it as the background to what my kids are doing. And it makes me happy and I'm pretty sure the dog enjoys it.

(audience laughs) That's it. Thank you. (audience cheers) (audience applauds) That was writer and corporate communications expert, Dillon Harari.

Dillon lives in Melbourne, Australia with her sons Liam and Dillon, and their family dog Nala, who remains steadfastly and different Dillon's piano playing.

(gentle piano music) I loved hearing the lesson of Dillon's story, that there are things that we will find, lose, and then have an even greater appreciation for

when we discover them again. (gentle piano music) The most produces hundreds of events each year, and the stories I told by people like you,

“what are some of the lessons you've learned in your life?”

We'd love to hear them in really any personal story that matters to you. You can record your pitch right on our site, or call 877-799-Moth. That's 877-799-6684.

The best pitches are developed for Moth shows all around the world. In a moment, a story of tragedy, community, and determination when the Moth radio hour continues.

(gentle piano music) The Moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (gentle piano music) The American Dream,

we all have a version of it. The notion that where you begin has nothing to do with where you end up, that anything is possible. Run for office, live off the grid, hit a homer,

throw robots, teach goat yoga, anything. This spring, the Moth Mainstage is traveling to cities around the country with stories of the American Dream. Doesn't even exist anymore? For who?

“What happens when that dream is dashed or deferred?”

And what happens when the dream is fulfilled? Let's come together and listen to people telling true personal stories of their very own American dreams. Experience the Moth Mainstage Live. Find a sitting near you at the Moth.org/mainstage.

(gentle piano music) You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm John Good. In this hour we've been hearing stories where the tellers went some and learned some.

Our last story is from a man who dared against all odds to do what no one else would. And I had the honor of hosting the night he told his story. This Burnell Kotlin,

live at the Moth Mainstage in New Orleans.

I had a wonderful childhood growing up here

“in New Orleans, in the Lower Night Ward.”

Maybe about 15 minutes from where we're standing. I don't know everybody think they had the best parents in the world. So did I. I liked a lot from my mother, as well as from my father. My father was out to renew her.

He had a barber shop in the Trimmy area, not too far from here. It was the community help. Everybody hung out at my dad's barber shop. He supported everybody. One day my dad was cutting this drug deal.

I hate it. And another drug dealer walked. I came to the shop or rifle. Don't deal with it. And he shot the guy.

That was in my dad's chair. And the guy had died. And he told them that the guy told my dad, "Do you didn't see nothing? You don't know nothing.

You better not see anything." Then he walked out. Now my dad couldn't easily look the way he said. I didn't see nothing when the police came. But my dad made a sacrifice.

He decided to do the right thing. And he wanted to testify. They offered my dad protective custody. He told him no. So that's for it.

My dad was supposed to go and testify at court. And he stepped out front of his house. They did it right by. And he killed my dad. The day he was supposed to testify.

That they devastated me and my family. And my entire community. It changed my whole life. I ended up joining the military. And I became a military police soldier.

And I did the whole time in Germany. If all places, it's practically sick of dodge. I was over there. I was over there long enough to learn the language. I did everything.

That a police officer was supposed to do. And not supposed to do. I seen a lot of bad things. But it wasn't all bad. I even helped deliver the baby.

So that was fine. It was fine. But something inside of me was still missing. And I didn't do the whole time. I ended up coming back home.

And I went straight back to Lord Nightwood. And it was fine. I found a great job. I was a manager at McDonald's. I bought my first house.

I used my very home loan. The body house in the Lord Nightwood. It's in 2001. The thought I was going to live happily ever after. I had 48 wonderful neighbors.

Like I said, it's about 2001 and 2005. Everybody know what was coming in 2005. I saw it on the news. I didn't pay no attention to it. The day before Katrina hit New Orleans.

I was at work. And I gave away all of the food at McDonald's. I gave away everything. And I actually went home and went to sleep. My mom kept calling my phone.

She called me a good 12, 13 times. I know what all the phone calls.

But I finally picked it up.

And my mom's. I have never. My mom sounded like this. I remember exactly what she said. She said son.

You was not born for a hurricane Betsy. So you don't know nothing about a hurricane. You spent your entire entire life in the military in Germany. She said, please, please come and evacuate with me. I didn't want to do it at first.

I said, what about my brother Kevin? She said Kevin is not going to go. But I want you to come.

“So I remember grabbing two pairs of pants in a shirt.”

And I went to grab one of my mom's. And we normally would take six hours to go from here to Folk Park. It took us 18 hours. Because the whole city was evacuating. We're not going to a shelter in Folk Park.

Once we got there, something never thought I would see again.

They gave me another army card. So we all went to sleep and we woke up the next morning. And it was like about maybe a good 65 or 70 of us around. It's one little bit of small TV in the shelter. And we watched the city of New Orleans go underwater.

Everybody cried. I stepped away and went outside and tried to maintain my composure. It's best I could. I don't know. FEMA came in and they sent everybody everywhere.

I'm going to New York and then he sent me to San Antonio, Texas. I still was missing New Orleans. I know a lot of police officers. So I was able to go back to New Orleans because there wasn't letting anybody in the Lord Nightwood. But I was able to go back and then he snuck me in there.

And I went where my house used to be. My house was here on his foundation. And Katrina took a complete office foundation and set it in a middle of the streets.

“I remember going back to where my bed was.”

I remember where I had pictures. I remember where I had a TV. I don't have any pictures of my grandparents. I know they look like a peer, but having it physically was all gone.

I had to be honest with you. I cried.

“I cried because this losing everything and having started over.”

I don't wish that on anybody. But FEMA gave me a FEMA trailer and I was able to rebuild my personal house. I went from having 48 wonderful neighbors even still today. I have three neighbors. That's even today.

I only have three neighbors in the Lord Nightwood about 15 minutes from here. After I got my personal house together. I drove up and down the Lord Nightwood. I noticed we didn't have anything. The closest grocery store that we have in the Lord Nightwood.

It's Walmart in the next city. I called up all the big box stores. I called Walmart. I called Win Dix. I called Rouses and I begged them to come to bring a supermarket to the Lord Nightwood.

And I'm embarrassed because it's the first time I've heard this.

They all told me they did not come back because the Lord Nightwood. It's a full desert. I didn't know what the hell a full desert was. So I called up the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And it said that's a lack of grocery store within a 3-5 mile radius of a certain area.

So as it was since, they're not going to do anything about it. I am. I drove up and down the Lord Nightwood. And I came across this building on Caffin in Galvest. And it was a horrible building.

They have no roof up there. They didn't have no walls. It was bad.

“Because Katrina debris was up to this high.”

This smells. It was horrible. Some walking out through this here. And everybody else, it was this a ragly building. To me, I saw people shopping.

I saw a grocery store. I immediately ran to my house. I grabbed Keisha my other half. It's my wife. And I brought it back to the store.

And I said, Keisha, I want to open up a grocery store. We don't have any. I want to do something about it. She looked around. And she said, yes.

I was extremely happy. So I ran it grabbed my mom. So I brought my mom's over. And I tore the exact same thing. I just told my wife.

My mom would say, hell, no. [laughter] But I brought up my friends over there. I told me no. But to me, when someone tells me no,

that's not a limitation on me. That's a limitation on him. I just started to do it anyway. So Keisha and I, we work every day. We're scrubbing the walls.

We got rid of all the Katrina debris. All the mold. And what we do is put up windows. We're just going at it. We work for about two years straight.

Then one day we showed up.

“And that this big old orange note on the decided a building.”

And I grabbed it. And I opened up the note. And it was a cold enforcement fine from the city of New Orleans. And they're going to give me a $17,000 fine. Because the building wasn't in compliance.

Knees to say, I was angry. I was totally livid. I was pissed off because I'm trying my best to open up a grocery store. And everywhere else in the city, everybody's partying. Everybody's partying.

Everybody's partying. Everybody's partying. Everybody's good to go. But not us in a low night board. So I decided to fight.

I went to court. And it took us a whole year. And it constantly told us no. If you don't pay the fine, go take your building. You don't pay the fine, go take your building.

And I didn't know what to do. At that time, Mitch Landry was the mayor. He had an open forum for anybody to come and talk to him. So it was saying this long, long, long line. I was in the back of the line.

And they had people up there complaining about all kinds of stupid things. One lady was complaining. They had too many of Katrina mosquitoes in the air and all kinds of John. I was angry. I got a real problem.

So by time I got up to the microphone. I didn't know what the mayor was going to tell me. He was going to tell me to shut up. I'd go home. I'd get out of whatever.

But I told the mayor, I said, sir. My name is Bernie Alcottland.

I want to open up the first and only grocery store in the lower night board.

The whole crowd went rowdy. They teared me on. Everybody was happy. But I said, but wait, there's more. I went in my front pocket.

And I pulled out the fine. I said, sir, I can't go any further. Because you slapped me with a $17,000 fine. How can I finish living out my dreams? I've opened up the first grocery store and have to pay this fine.

They booed him bad. I felt bad for him. So the mayor called me up to him. And he said, "Bernel, give me a chance. I promise you.

I promise you. I will take care of you." So he held the saying out of help. My hand out said, "Sir, please don't let this be a political promise. Please mean this here."

He said, "Trust me. I will." So I went back to work. I checked their saying spot every day for two weeks. Nothing.

But it finally came in the meal.

Mayor Ms. Lanjue honored his promise. And when he opened when I opened that letter and it read, all the files was forgiven. It was like, "My degross. My birthday in Christmas.

All the same time." I was so happy to have you there.

So we fast forward.

“I said, "By three, maybe another four years.”

Before we finally was able to open up.

I had invited them over. We had the ribbon cut in ceremony. It was a beautiful day. We had Burrish Turbinda. The sun was the hot rainbows.

It was a picture perfect day. Everybody showed up. I was blown away. It just touched my heart. There's one particular lady though at my grand opening.

That really blew my mind. The elderly lady Ms. Williamson. She came in and she had a chair. She sat down right by my front corner. And she was there for like about three hours.

So I went over to I said, "Man, why are you here? You're okay." And she had tears in her eyes. She said, "I've been here for a month since right after Katrina."

And she said, "She never thought that we have a grocery store in the lower night board."

And she asked, "We're not going to kick out." She said, "No, no, you're fine." So she stayed there. And she was extremely happy. She was extremely happy.

We used to do this here four days a week. The demand is so high. I met my store seven days a week. Because it's nothing else back there. But what we're doing.

We also opened up several other businesses in that same strip. Believe it or not, I now have a barbershop. So I'm hoping. Well, thank you. I have a grocery store, a snowball stand,

the barbershop, and a laundry mat, all in this one building. So now people don't have to catch three. I'm going to set it again, three city buses. They can walk to my building just to get some fresh fruit and vegetables. So wherever you are from, trust me when I say this,

I appreciate and value everything. Because they go from 48 neighbors down to three. Or it's bad. That's still today. Like you see, you don't believe me, come to the lower night board.

Because it's a totally different world. And that's like about 15 minutes from here. So I just just taught me a lot of very, very important lessons to don't take nothing for granted. I appreciate and value everything that you have.

Because having to lose everything. I don't wish that on anybody. And I also find out what my purpose is. My purpose is service.

“And that's why I was able to easily go from serving our country”

to serving my community. And I did it with no problem. Because like I said, I'm hoping that you all can find your purpose and life. Because I found my asiness. It's wonderful.

And I'm enjoying this here. And I want to tell everybody, thank you all for giving me a chance to tell my story and thank you for listening. [Applause] Burnell Kotlin is a US veteran.

I lifelong New Orleans and the owner of Burnell's lower night board market on the corner of Kaffin and Galvez in New Orleans. This is the market for a poor boy. I haircut. A game of chess.

Or to just say hello. I had the pleasure of talking to Burnell recently to see how he's doing. In 2005, Katrina devastated New Orleans. In 16 years later, within days of when Katrina hit, I'd hit. So what thought to me motions were you dealing with knowing

another huge storm was coming? That immediately brought me back. And of course, everybody went back to say, "My set of Katrina." So how did you and your family and your friends,

your community and your store? How did you weather the storm? It was extremely hard. It was extremely hard because when the power went out, and you could see all the wind and the rain,

the trees was going knocking down, trash and debris was going everywhere. That was horrible. That was horrible. I don't wish that on anybody.

So through Katrina and Ida,

“what have you learned about community, your community?”

People at the Lower Night Ward are resilient. They came back after Hurricane Katrina and said, "Hey, this is my home. I am going to rebuild. You have to stand strong.

You can't let nothing slow you down or stop you. That's my motto. No matter what, I have to be here for my community." Is your grocery store slash, barbershop, slash, 100 Mac, is that still the only one in the Lower Night?

Yes, I'm still the only business in the Lower Night Ward since 2005. What would you like to see happen as far as development in the Lower Night? And how can people help you?

First, that's a beautiful question of glad that you asked that question.

I would love to see my hometown simple, simply catch up with the rest of the city.

And as far as anybody that would like to to help, whether it's, you know, one of the big box stores on down to a person with no big heart. I'm easy to work with.

“If you want to come down and grab a shovel in the hammer”

and help, they put the second floor up.

Please come on down. If you want to donate, please come on down. If you want to sing good to put on the shelves, because there's no rush for people to go. All right.

Thank you so much, man. For coming off and doing this, for just sharing your story, man.

“It has been an inspiration since the first time I heard it.”

That was Burnel Kotlin.

To see photos of Burnel and his incredible store,

go to the malls.org. Well, we've all learned a few things in this hour. I learned, I must do the things I love, even if only the dog and I appreciate them. That I will fall down, but I must get up and tackle life my own way.

And last but not least, I learned that I am indeed the one I've been waiting for.

What did you learn today?

Tell us a story about it.

“That's it for this episode of The Moth for You Hour.”

We hope you'll join us next time. This episode of The Moth for You Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, Sarah Austen-Geness, who also directed the stories, and John Good, who hosted the show.

Co-producer is Fiky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The rest of the Moth's leadership team include Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Telly's Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluchay, Susan Russ, Brandon Grant,

Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and all the Kaza. Most stories are true as remembered in a firm by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast music, production support, from Davy Sumner.

We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 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 everything else good to our website, TheMoth.org. [BLANK_AUDIO]