Waterworld

A dolphin named Dr. Spock is in danger and NBA star Clifford Ray is the only man big enough to lend a hand. Plus, torrential rain is ripping through the Appalachians and the people of the mountain are all looking for Plan B. STORIES Just Another Day for Big Clifford Ray A dolphin named Dr. Spock is in danger and NBA star Clifford Ray is the only man big enough to lend a hand. A huge thank you to Clifford Ray https://www.instagram.com/bigcliffordray_44/ and Mary O’Herron for sharing their story with the Snap! This year, Big Cliff and Author Laynie D. Weaver https://www.layniedweaver.com/ teamed up to bring Clifford and Dr. Spock’s story to life in an illustrated Children’s book titled “Big Clifford Ray Saves The Day.” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/big-clifford-ray-saves-the-dayWant more Big Cliff? Follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bigcliffordray_44/%20 or X https://x.com/CliffordRayNBA. Produced by Bo Walsh, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff , artwork by Teo Ducot Plan B Snap Storyteller, Dr. Ray Christian, found himself trapped by the rising floodwaters of hurricane Helene, he knew he had to flee. But he also knew that meant leaving behind all of his animals, including his favorite goat. Thank you, Ray, for sharing your story with us! Ray has shared some resources for hurricane Helene recovery: The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation https://www.boonechamber.com/foundation? and The Rock https://www.therockboone.church/giving. For a world of Southern-baked personal narratives, interwoven with Black American history, listen to Ray's podcast: What's Ray Saying? https://drraychristian.com/the-podcast Produced by Anna Sussman, original score by Derek Barber Season 15 - Episode 49 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Glynn Washington?

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• 0:50Glynn Washington?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

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• 1:43Glynn Washington?

  It's like the Holy Grail or the white whale, but only for farmers. See, I'm eight years old, living with my folks, my brother, on a failing farm in the thumb of Michigan. When pops gets this wild idea, see one harvest, even if it goes well, it leaves us broke. But two harvests, two harvests in a single year, we'll be rolling in the dough. Just gotta know how to thread the needle.

• 2:16Glynn Washington?

  He tells me that you want to plant early, early but not too early. Because if you plant too early in Michigan, anything can happen. A late snow, frost, hail. Baby beans hate cold. Baby beans hate everything, but if we time it just right, we're golden. Plant early, harvest early, then plant again. That's the trick. To harvest. Simple.

• 2:46Glynn Washington?

  My question, if it's so easy, why doesn't everybody, everybody just know what we know? What do we, we know about hard work. Uh oh. My father doesn't believe in hiring farmhands like the other farmers do. Pop says, "Hard work is what I have sons for."

• 3:10Glynn Washington?

  And we have to be ready.

• 3:13Glynn Washington?

  Being ready means we have to break the soil. Early March, breaking means chopping into, breaking up soil when it's still bitter Michigan cold outside. And the ground is still frozen, not May. Like suckers who wait for the ground to soften up, not us, no.

• 3:37Glynn Washington?

  So every day, after getting off the school bus, Pop hands my brother and I a hoe. Marches us off to the field to start chopping the frozen soil. But this ain't dirt. This is concrete masquerading as dirt. It's iron. We chop, my brother and I, this dirt cement, stroke after blistering stroke, doing hard time. My blisters have blisters, chop, chop, chop. The other farmers, the ones with tractors and plows, they drive by looking at us like we're crazy because we're crazy.

• 4:20Glynn Washington?

  Chopping, chop, chop, wondering who is gonna break first, the soil or me?

• 4:29Glynn Washington?

  Finally, we break the entire field. And that's just step one, because we gotta get to planting. Pressing beans into the ground, covering them with rocky soil. Each one a little prayer, "Please, don't freeze. Please, Lord, make my father so rich we never have to do this again, please." The cold sky waits patiently until inch by inch by broken inch, we plant the entire field. The impossible accomplished. And I feel that swell of pride. Job well done.

• 5:15Glynn Washington?

  Look up to see slate gray clouds boiling, crackling, laughing.

• 5:24Glynn Washington?

  Then the sky decides she's waited long enough. And explodes like a burst dam. A river falls on us, sheet after sheet of water on our fields, on our beans, on our souls. And I don't know if I'm crying because I'm covered and wet.

• 5:50Glynn Washington?

  The next day, we survey the damage. A muddy, messy remnant of a field, months of hard work washed away.

• 6:02Glynn Washington?

  Pops.

• 6:04Glynn Washington?

  Pop still has that gleam in his eye. Boys, boys, we gonna need more seed.

• 6:21Glynn Washington?

  From KQED's Snap Studios, Snap Judgment proudly presents Water World.

• 6:30Glynn Washington?

  Because everything is about to get wet. My name is from Washington. Then go ahead, throw it ahead, please. Enjoy your beans when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 7:01Glynn Washington?

  Now then, sometimes in life, sometimes there's only one person who can get the job done. And our story begins right here in the Bay Area, the animal-themed park Marine World Africa, USA. Our park executive, Mary O'Hara, was on her way back to the office when something peculiar caught her eye. Sub-judgment.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Well, there's many things that happen at a wild animal park, but this day was particularly incredible.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I was walking out from lunch to the back gate of the park, and I witnessed one of our stake bed trucks with Marine mammal transport. It's like a gurney, but made for marine mammals. And there was a dolphin. And I'm like, oh, no, what has happened?

• 8:08Glynn Washington?

  On the truck was Marine World's most prized bottle-nosed show dolphin, Dr. Spock, all 12 feet and over 1,000 pounds of them on a gurney.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  So I instantly went down to the vet clinic to see what had happened.

• 8:23Glynn Washington?

  A three-inch bolt had gotten loose in the dolphin tank. And Dr. Spock went right for it, thinking it was some kind of treat.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  And as he swam to the top of the surface, he swallowed this bolt.

• 8:38Glynn Washington?

  As soon as the crew realized Dr. Spock swallowed the bolt, they knew they had a problem.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  They had to find out where the bolt was. If an animal, like a dolphin, swallowed that bolt, it could potentially kill him. They have to consciously breathe the blowhole.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And you can't anesthetize a dolphin. You can't do surgery on a dolphin like that. It would have been too risky.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  The only other option was to get a vet tech to reach inside through Dr. Spock's mouth and try to grab it.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  And the longest arm we had was not very long. I then went up to the president of the park's office and he was in there with the vet tech. And that's where I heard the vet tech say, we need a longer arm to reach this. Then the story began.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  I was always taller than other kids. My mom would always do, take her hand and push it in my back. And she'd say, I know you want to be like everybody else, but you're not like everybody else. And you need to walk up straight. I want you to walk proud. You have a lot to be proud of. Walk proud. And so my mom was always pushing at me to be proud that I was tall, when I just wanted to fit in. I just wanted to be like all the other kids.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  The one place young Clifford Ray didn't have to worry about fitting in was by the Union South Carolina Rivers and Creeks, where he would spend hours by himself. It was there he found his first true passion: fish.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  I was always thinking about fish. I wasn't a hunter. I just liked fish. I just thought there were so many different colors of fish. I would run around the whole Baggo Lake. I was seeing fish in the lake, thinking, man, I wonder what's the biggest fish out there? I would always think there was a 30-pounder, 20-pounder, something, you know?

• 11:02Speaker 04

  I had comic books that were, you know, different heroes.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  And Aquaman was one of my heroes because he could talk to all the fish. He could always get a herd of whales if he needed to fight for the betterment of the water. I was always fascinated by that. And I was always fascinated by, I hope they don't screw up the ocean. And then Flipper came.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  And I remember going to the movies and I said, God, is the ocean really blue? I said, God, I like to smell the dolphins, so I like to be that kid.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  You just had all these things going through your mind that you wanted. You didn't know if it was just the movie or if it was truly, the ocean was truly that big.

• 12:23Speaker 04

  Because I'd never seen the ocean, my imagination made everything that was a body of water. I thought it was the ocean. I never had a boat, but I would always think I was in a boat. And, and I would be out on the lake and I was thinking, oh, there's a dolphin. I was always thinking about dolphins, like, the dolphin's like a beautiful rainbow.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Dreaming of dolphins in the ocean were an escape from school, where Clifford couldn't hide from being tall. He just always seemed to stand out, but not in a good way.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  We used to have a dance, like on Fridays, they would always have like toward the last hour, our last class hour. They would have what they call a social hour. You always wanted to dance with somebody that you kind of had a little admiration for or whatever. And they would always look up to you like this and they'd go, "You're too tall," you know? It was like a hot knife cutting through you, you know, because you were like, "I'm not like everybody else." There was that insecurity because of how others viewed you.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Clifford kept growing past six feet and eventually sprouted all the way to six foot nine.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  I never saw the uniqueness of being tall until I went to college.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  The University of Oklahoma offered Cliff a basketball scholarship. And now for the skinny, gangly, too-tall kid?

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Girls were eager to want to dance with you and all that, you know, things that didn't happen to me when I was in school and growing up in my hometown. When I got to college, it was probably the first time that I felt it was okay to be tall.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Clifford became a star on the hardwood for Oklahoma. And in 1971, he was the third-round pick of the Chicago Bulls.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  And I decided I was going to go play in the NBA. So I went to Chicago. I did great.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  But even while in the NBA, Clifford couldn't stop thinking about dolphins.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  I always liked dolphins, so that I was always trying to figure out where I could go see them.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  On team road trips, he'd go out of his way to find local aquariums or aquatic parks.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  I was always going to those parks. You know, the team, they would get tickets for us. So we always was able to go around the shows and see them do things, perform.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Then in 1975, Clifford got traded from the Bulls to the Golden State Warriors. So he started visiting Marine World Africa, USA, where he knew he could find dolphins. And that's where he met Mary.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  So how did you and Clifford meet?

• 15:37Speaker 02

  None of your business. No.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Um, yes. Uh, Clifford's an animal lover. Players on the team would come and bring their families. He could walk in through any gate.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  When she went to work for Marine World, I would go down there and visit. She said, "Oh, but you need to come down. You love animals so much." So I came down. I got to be around the lions and the tigers. I always liked the tigers. I was a big fan of them. Marine World's open this weekend, so come on out. This cat works every Saturday and Sunday, and then has five days a week off. Of course, he could have the whole week off if he wants to. They even named a tiger after me called Johann, because that was my nickname. Everybody knew me as Johann. So they had a baby tiger. And I got to take him home a couple of times. And he was real cool.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Clifford was a regular at Marine World. And of course, his absolute favorite attraction to visit was the dolphin show.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  I loved to go over there where they were swimming and they'd come up and you could, you know, rub their nose and they had a ski show.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  I just liked them because they were so personable. They would entertain you.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Clifford was not supposed to be in town that day in February of 1978 when Dr. Spock swallowed a three-inch bolt. The Warriors were on the road, but Clifford wasn't with them.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  I was grounded and I was at home rehabbing. I was, you know, going to physical therapy. I was getting treatment and then they finally cleared me to join the team and they were in Washington DC.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  That day, he was waiting for a car headed to the airport at the very moment Dr. Spock was on the stretcher, when Mary heard the vets say they needed a longer arm.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  I said, "Well, Clifford Ray's in town. He was nursing a little injury and he happens to be home. We could reach him."

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Clifford had the NBA's longest-measured wingspan at just over eight feet. Right before Clifford walked out of the door, his phone rang.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  I did call him and say, "Hey, this is crazy, but we need your help."

• 18:13Speaker 04

  I'm thinking that I hope I can help because they tried to do everything they could possibly do, so.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  The call with Mary was brief. All he knew was that an animal was in trouble. He did not know it was a 1,000-pound dolphin.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  I just knew that I was going to be having to do something. They wanted me to do something. I didn't know what.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Mary told him to park his car at the airport and a limo would be there to take him to Marine World. But meanwhile, Dr. Spock was strapped to a gurney and running out of time.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  When I got there, there was a guy standing there. He had a suit on and everything. And he said, "I'm here to take you to Marine World. There's a problem there and your team knows about it." The guy didn't know pretty much what was going on. I didn't want to take his word for it, so I asked to use the phone.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Clifford needed to make sure the Warriors were okay with this. This was their 1975 championship starting center we're talking about.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  The general manager said, "You're supposed to go with these guys in the limo, and they're gonna get you back to the airport, and they're gonna get you to Washington. You won't be late for the game, which is the next day."

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Turns out, not only were the Warriors cool with it, an entire plane full of people were gonna wait to take off while he went to try to save a dolphin.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  I knew what time I was supposed to be leaving. And they said, "Don't worry, they won't leave you." I just figured that how the long it was gonna take me to do this, I was still gonna have time to go directly to the plane. And so, I got in the car.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Now, after the break, can Big Cliff come through in crunch time? Stay tuned.

• 20:16Speaker 05

  At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry.

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  Radiolab: Adventures on the Edge of What We Think We Know.

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  Wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:47Glynn Washington?

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• 21:29Glynn Washington?

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• 22:15Glynn Washington?

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• 22:59Glynn Washington?

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• 23:14Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Water World episode. When last we left, an entire plane was being held for Warrior Center Clifford Ray as he was whisked off to Marine World to attempt to rescue a dolphin who had just swallowed a three-inch-long metal bolt. The clock is ticking. Snap Judgment.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Twenty minutes after being picked up at the airport, Clifford's limo pulled up to Marine World as all six-foot-nine of him emerged.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  When I got there, that's when I realized what was going on because they took me right to the medical facility. And then I saw Dr. Spock. He was on the table.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Dr. Spock was 12 feet long and secured to the gurney to keep him from moving around.

• 24:04Speaker 04

  By that time, I'd seen dolphins, not that close up, but I'd seen them close up in captivity. There's different kinds of sizes of dolphins, you know, but he was a big dolphin.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  How did he compare to you?

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Oh, I would have to say he was as long as me. Way bigger.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Did he look distressed?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Oh, no, not at all. Dolphins are really brilliant animals. He knew something was wrong with him because they took him out of the tank and they put him on a gurney and they transported him over from the tank to the medical facility.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Clifford was surrounded by two vets who were aided by four technicians.

• 24:49Speaker 04

  They was keeping him wet down because they can get dehydrated. They had a wet blanket over him and then they would put this cold water over him to keep his whole body wet.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  We were anxious to get the animal back in his water. That's what we were really anxious to do.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  So anyways, I came over and they said, "I think we can make this happen."

• 25:17Speaker 03

  One look at Big Clifford Ray and the vets on site thought he had just the length to help Dr. Spock.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  The head doctor for all of the marine animals, his headquarters is down in Los Angeles. So they got him on the intercom, the chief guy who has experience with everything.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  The doctor on the intercom explained to Clifford that he would need to stick his arm into Dr. Spock's throat and reach down into the stomach to try to retrieve the boat.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  The animal has two stomachs, one for storage and one for digestion.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  My job is to go through the first stomach, go through the second stomach, find the boat. If it's not facing me, to turn it over and put the sharp point on the inside of my palm. So that's gonna protect it. And once I got that boat, then all I had to do was just stand to the side and just slowly pull out.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  But Clifford only had roughly three minutes to be inside before Dr. Spock would be at risk of suffocating.

• 26:35Speaker 04

  If I didn't have that boat in my hand, then I would have had to come out within the next minute and then try it again. So he ran down all of that stuff to me over the intercom. I was thinking, "They are nuts." I'm going, "First of all, he's gonna let me do that?"

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Dolphin's teeth are two rows of sharp teeth. The mouth was open. They took two towels. They were damp. Two trainers were on either side of his mouth, covering the teeth with the towels. And they held the mouth open to make sure that it didn't, it's not going to snap closed.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Dolphin don't have the kind of teeth like a shark. So he can't come down on you because he was strapped in and he wasn't jumping around because he knew something was wrong with him, so he was subdued.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Clifford said that everyone, from his team's management to the onsite vets, seemed to think this was a safe situation.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  I think that they must have convinced them that it was totally going to be a safe thing and they had it under control or whatever. So I didn't ever think anything about it.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Those were the early days. Those were the old days when people did that kind of stuff. Nobody thought anything of it in those days. Sure, Clifford can come down. Clifford knows his body.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  I'm always curious about things and I always like to learn things about animals. So this was like a great education for me about an animal that I actually had an affi, I liked him. I loved dolphin. So no hesitations? No. I thought I was like the little kid who played a flipper, only I was an adult. So of course I was, you know, ecstatic and excited about it.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Big Cliff knew his mission as the medical techs began prepping Clifford for the procedure.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Well, they trimmed my fingernails and then I had to take off, I had a long C-shirt on there. I took off everything, then I put on scrubs. They took scissors and cut the shoulder part all the way around. So now they pulled that off and then they used lubricant. They made a little laugh when they said KY jelly.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  But before Clifford could jump into action and try to save Dr. Spock, the media entered. The medical area.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  They was all entering the room. They didn't let them in at first. Then once I was ready to do the procedure, now they let it allow everybody to film. They were right there, like this. They're all on top of, you know, everybody's trying to get their coverage. The warrior's involved, so I'm a warrior. So I'm representing my team as well as representing Marine World and, you know, sea animals.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  A few onlookers couldn't faze Big Clifford Ray. This was a man who made a living playing in front of crowds.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  I didn't even think about them people. I did think about one thing. What I needed to do to save this dolphin's life.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  As the vet was saying, you know, we have three minutes, guys. Let's get going. And sure enough, it began.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  As the doctor spoke to Clifford over the intercom, everybody was quiet.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  He was just telling me what I was going to experience. The technicians were constantly patting him down with water, keeping him damp and moist. And so there was about four of those people that were directly working physically with the dolphin, making sure he wasn't jumping or he didn't jump off the table, whatever the deal was.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  You could hear a pin drop in there. There wasn't anyone that was going to speak out except the vet and Clifford.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  With the doc on the intercom guiding his first move, Clifford inserted his hand into Dr. Spock's mouth.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  I was very cautious going in. I didn't never push. I let it move to where he wasn't tense. You could tell he was relaxed because the journey down was smooth. It wasn't like constricted. But if it's relaxed, then you're fine.

• 31:14Speaker 04

  It's easy to move through the throat area because I don't have to worry about scratching them or nothing like that. They'd already trimmed my nails, but I also had rubber gloves. So that was a pretty easy entry. As I moved down further has this throat area, now moving down into the canal that goes into the first stomach. That's when I started kind of thinking, okay, I got 2.20 seconds.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  He couldn't bite down because I went down through his throat. Most animals, they react to stress. It had to be stressful to choke him out going down his throat, right? I think he was smart enough to realize that he was being helped because he didn't flail. He didn't do anything. He just was very calm. So I was calm.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  The animal was very relaxed, remarkably so. I would not have expected that.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  As Clifford was elbows length into Dr. Spock, he moved past the larynx, the heart, and the lungs.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  He just said, "Just push through. Don't feel like you're gonna disrupt because you're protected with your gloves. And we trimmed your nails, so you're not gonna hurt anything. You're not gonna tear anything."

• 32:35Speaker 04

  Once he went, ran through what I'm to feel or expect, he would say, "Okay, you're gonna feel this." And he goes, "Okay, where are you? What do you feel?" And I said, "Well, I'm in the stomach. I feel like I'm in the stomach area." He said, "Okay, now keep moving down."

• 32:56Speaker 03

  But Big Cliff wasn't feeling any metal bolt.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  It wasn't lodged in his throat. It was already successfully passed through his stomach into the second stomach to be broken down.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  So are you feeling around blindly, kind of just hoping to get?

• 33:13Speaker 04

  I'm not blind. I'm in a channel.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  It's like when you're on a boat. If you stay within the green and the red, you're probably never gonna get stuck. But if you get on the backside of that green or on the backside of that red, you'll likely run aground somewhere. So that's pretty much how I viewed the whole concept. I was on the inside of the lining. You understand what I'm saying? So you're not on the outside where you can feel the intestinal, the stomach area. I was on the inside because I went down the passageway.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  There, deep within Dr. Spock's stomach, Clifford was entranced.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  It made me think of all kinds of things. It made me think of what a baby feels like when she's in a mom's womb and all that. You know, the remarkable things about the inside of a woman's stomach or whatever. I thought about all kinds of stuff. It was warm and damp, but not like cold damp. I went out nude for catfish, so this was not that big a deal to me.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Fish guts were nothing new to Big Cliff, but his arm was beginning to disappear inside Dr. Spock.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  I was praying that I had enough length. I knew I could get through the first stomach because it just seemed not that big of a deal. But an extra few feet, two or three feet, was I gonna be able to get down far enough to get to that second stomach to retrieve the boat?

• 35:00Speaker 02

  He was really brave to put his entire arm. He was all the way up this animal's stomach. I would have been scared doing it. And he just came in like he did this every day.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Soon Clifford Ray and Dr. Spock were chin to chin.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  That was very intimate, close. That's more than just patting a dolphin or rubbing his head or his nose or throwing a ball to him and he throws it back. Everything I'd done with them was playful. This was more of a serious scenario where the dolphin knew something was wrong because he wasn't in the water. So it was a little different scenario for both of us.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  He said, "Okay, now keep moving downward. Try to go all the way up to your neck because that's going to put you on the inside of the second stomach."

• 36:03Speaker 03

  As Clifford approached the second stomach, he was also playing against the clock.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  I was running out of time. Two minutes and whatever seconds it was, I was down to the wire on that.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  It was about two and a half minutes in when the vet said, "We've got about one minute left. Come on, get ready here to get out. You got to start removing your arm."

• 36:32Speaker 04

  You know, you say you had two minutes, you know, and don't panic, it's no big deal. If you can't get it, if you can't get it and spin it around, then we'll just come out and we'll try it again.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  Clifford didn't want to try it again. He wanted to knock it out here and now.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Once I got through the second stomach, I just immediately started kneading around and all of a sudden I felt the boat itself. So now I've moved it into my hand and I said, "Okay, I got to take the sharp point and put it here this way. All I got to do is to try to turn it around." And so that's what I was able to do.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  And that's when we heard Clifford say, "I got it."

• 37:24Speaker 04

  So, once I did that, then I closed my thumb down. So now, that sharp point no longer can be a fact of jagging or grabbing something and puncturing the lining. The lining of the dolphin's stomach is of such a thing that if it gets punctured, it affects the whole system. Meaning breathing and everything, water getting in, all that. Now, I'm just thinking about turning it over and getting out as quick as I can, because I already was almost running out of time. Once I got the boat, then all I had to do was just stand to the side and just slowly pull it out.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Everybody has to remain calm, because he was pulling it out of the stomach.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Before the procedure, the vets had warned Clifford about how Dr. Spock would likely react once his throat was cleared.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  They said, "Just know that he's gonna regurgitate when you come out of his throat." And so, I already had made my mind that whenever I retrieved it, got it out, I was gonna stand to the side and them guys that were nosy, they were gonna get a dish full of regurgitated fish. All the guys that were like, "Huh," they got a whole spew. Everybody kinda laughed about it, it was pretty funny, actually.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  It was as gooey as you can get, you know? It's a dolphin's stomach, so there's a lot of fish.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  With the bolt now out of him, Dr. Spock was returned back to the pool, just as good as new. But his eyes were still on Big Cliff.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  He was fine, once we put him back in the water, he was great. He came up to me, without the handlers telling him to come up, you know, he'd give them signals and all that. He just came up. I walked around the side and he followed me around, slowly.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  I imagine he was pretty relieved. That was fine objecting and pushing down through this area.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Who knows what would have had to happen if he hadn't got it. But we don't think like that. We're positive people. We knew we could do it. We knew we could do it. The fact that he was able to help us this way was just spectacular. That's where I realized just how brave he was. To jump in a car, come down, help an animal that we needed help with. And he did it. That's all she wrote.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  But Clifford still had a flight to catch and a plane full of people waiting for him to board.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  I washed off and everything and I got dressed and I got back in the limousine. I didn't ride in that many limousines, so it was kind of nice.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  In the back of the limo on the way to the airport, Big Cliff couldn't believe what he just experienced.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  I felt like I had accomplished something. And I felt like it was something that I never dreamed that I would actually... I would have never dreamed I would do something like that in my lifetime, really. I don't think anybody would think of that. My dad would always tell us that when you go through life, you're going to experience some unusual things. So I just figured it was one of those things that my dad talked about.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  When he arrived at SFO, the limo drove straight through security and dropped Big Cliff off right on the tarmac.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  When I got on the plane and I was in first class, I sat down in my seat and I was actually relaxed. I was on the inside and this lady said, "Well, you can sit on the outside. I'll sit on the inside." And I kind of looked at her and she said, "So you're the one that's got us waiting?" And I was like, "Yeah."

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Clifford ended up telling the woman in the seat next to him the whole story of what happened earlier with Dr. Spock.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  She said, "That was an awful nice thing you did." She goes, "You're probably the only person in the world that's ever done anything like this." And I was like, I never really thought about it right then. And the lady that was sitting next to me was Elizabeth Taylor. She had these mesmerizing eyes. They were like, I don't know how to describe it. Like Medusa, her eyes were mesmerizing. Elizabeth Taylor's eyes were.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  The hypnotic beauty that pulls you in and doesn't let you go.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  And she was a really nice lady. So it was an interesting trip.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Shortly after saving Dr. Spock, Marine World awarded Clifford Ray with the actual bolt he pulled out of the dolphin's stomach and had it bronzed and put on a plaque that Clifford gave to his dad. And as for Dr. Spock?

• 42:42Speaker 04

  And Dr. Spock, I visited him all the time. I would go over there by myself. He always come up. He was always aware of me. He'd just come up and he'll walk up on the water like that, or he would come up and put his flipper out, or, you know, just stuff that he would do if he was doing a show, maybe. But I was in there by myself, so it wasn't like I was giving him any commands. I didn't know if these were things that they trained him to do or if this was just natural. And I, I felt like it was natural. That's when I realized that dolphins really were, they're

• 43:22Speaker 04

  pretty spiritual animals, I think. When I watched Flipper for the first time, I, I saw how that little boy interacted with the dolphin that he's found and, you know, I just felt like we had a connection. I didn't have to respond to him. He always responded to me from that point on. He was always aware of me.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Was there much eye?

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Did you see in his eyes?

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Just saw that he recognized me and he, I thought he recognized it in the way that this guy helped me.

• 44:27Glynn Washington?

  Big, big, big, big thanks to Clifford Ray and Mary O'Hara for sharing their story at the SNAP. After a 10-year professional playing career in the NBA, Clifford spent the last three decades in the league as an assistant coach and consultant. And this year, Big Cliff and author Laney D. Weaver teamed up to bring Clifford and Dr. Spock's story to life in an illustrated children's book called Big Clifford Ray Saves the Day. You can find the link to the book, as well as all things social media for Big Cliff, on our webpage, snapjudgment.org. The original score for that story is by Dirk Swartzoff. It was produced by Beau Walsh.

• 45:21Glynn Washington?

  After the break, we're on the ground with Hurricane Helene. Stay tuned.

• 45:33Speaker 01

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• 46:06Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to our Water World episode. My name's Glen Washington. And when Hurricane Helene raged through North Carolina, we watched in horrors waters rose up to destroy homes, towns, livelihoods, the people. The first thing we did once the storm passed was to call our good friend and longtime Snap storyteller, Ray Christian, to see how he and his family were doing.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Hello? Hey, Ray, it's Hannah. Hey, Anne. How you doing? Doing my best. Where are you right now? Western North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near the town of Boone, North Carolina. So, tell me what happened from the beginning? Yeah, I don't know where you were, or when you moved, where? Okay, so we saw the news that a storm was coming. But we don't, these are not the kind of issues that came about don't occur in the mountains. Oh, so we were at home. And I remember that it rained most of the day. But then it rained really hard during the night.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Torrential, you couldn't, you couldn't step out on a porch. It was like buckets of water, you know? It was that clearly different. The feel of it was different, heavy. And the creeks beside the house sounded like a freight train. The sun came up, it was like from a little creek, there was a river beside my house. And river in front, a river on the side, just rushing water, bringing boulders with it. The bridge leading to the house was gone. Just all kind of rocks and stuff. Yeah, were you under evacuation? Before then? Nah, I didn't hear anything like that. No, no, no. It was like instantaneous.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  You know, with no warnings. Uh, most of the people didn't get any of that. And if you knew, you couldn't have told nobody because the cell phone towers were out, the radio station was down, uh, was underwater. So we ain't get like no local broadcast nor nothing. We all dumbfounded. You know, looking at the road twisted and broken, the bridges gone. Couple people on the other side of now what's a river, you know, like trapped over there, a couple older people. Uh, the asphalt, duh. The road was peeled up like it was paper, like it just like nothing. It didn't even, or broken all the bridges, you know, mudslides, little small mudslides.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  We didn't sleep, or I didn't sleep for at least two days.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  I knew that we couldn't stay there. You got rivers on the side of your house where they shouldn't be. That my thinking is, that's an avalanche about to happen. Rocks and boulders rolling, you know, a, a, a twenty-five pound rock hit you. Or, you know, bust a hole right through your car and take it away.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  So at some point outside, man, we need to get the hell out of here, you know? The more I was looking at the road, I knew I couldn't come back.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  And I was looking at the animals and I, I was thinking, how am I gonna feed them? You know, I'm not gonna be able to get back here. I couldn't bring, bring them with me. And I didn't want to just leave them. But it's kind of well understood, you wanna give the animals a chance to do it on their own. If you can't take them, let them loose.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  You know, give them a chance. And, uh, and their instinct will kick in and they should try to be sinking higher, sinking higher ground. What animals did you have that you turned? Goats, chickens, ducks.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Probably one of my favorite goats that I have now is Brownie.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  I've had her a couple of years, she had a baby. One of my favorite goats. Very friendly, very friendly. Walked right up to you, kissed you. Really lovable. So many goats are not. You can't, you can't touch them, they don't wanna be touched, or handled. But she did.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  I mean, it's supposed to show favorites, man. She survived a lot. We had a really hard winter, so I, I lost several goats. Brownie survived that. She survived the, the disease. She was pregnant. And she kidded, she had a baby. And, uh, had a difficult time getting her to really nurse the babies. And usually, what, what I had been advised to do by friends in the valley who keep goats and sheep was that if they fail to wanna nurse, then that's not a goat that's worth keeping. You get rid of them.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  But I didn't.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  When we were leaving the house, you know, the, it was, the wind was blowing hard and it was raining. So, I made that decision, I took all the food that we had left and I busted bags open, I poured it out there for them. And basically just opened it up to let them go, because I knew, I already knew that they would probably seek higher ground on their own. And I couldn't do anything for them. But I just opened up the gate all the way.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  You know goats got funny eyes. Rubbed her head. I gotta let y'all go. And, uh, it broke my heart to do that. I looked at Brown and told her, "I'll see you the next time. You know what to do. Go. We gotta go." Me and my wife, we took a small backpack because it was already hard to walk on that terrain and we started our walkout. So you're not just walking straight across, you know, a field. You gotta maneuver around barbed wire and other debris, you know, that's in the mud.

• 52:25Speaker 06

  And what was your plan? Where do you think you were gonna go?

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Well, at that point, it was trying to get out of that, you know, and get close to town. As we were walking, trying to make our way out, you could see appliances, CPAP machines, furniture, and clothes everywhere. Clothes in the top of trees, blankets, doll babies, uh, stuffed toys. Walking out was scary because you, there was no way of knowing what was around the next turn.

• 53:00Speaker 06

  What town were you trying to reach?

• 53:03Speaker 03

  Boone. Couldn't get there because all the roads leading there were, were destroyed and impassable. You couldn't, you couldn't reach it. And a lot of the smaller towns are nonexistent now. What was happening at this point is other people are doing that same thing, you know? It's like this kind of, I don't know, you, you think about people in some, uh, now I think about footage I seen of Germans at the, in the World War II that were walking through rubble, you know? We're all in it together. I mean, that's when you start having people like, people informally creating some kind of chain of water and food and stuff.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  The road is being worked on just by local people. Ain't no government. I'm talking about like country folks with tractors or a backhoe and it's like somebody got a truck, they'll fill it up with all the bottled water they can get and they'll get to another point in the road and somebody will take it from them. That little corner store out in the country has become another hub where people are dropping off anything they got.

• 54:10Speaker 06

  What was the name of that store?

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Plan B. That's the name of the store? Yeah, Plan B, because before you, before you can go into town, this your last chance to get something. Well, that's amazing. There were several points along that, and we're thinking, uh, maybe, maybe, maybe we need to get back to the house. But, you know, we were committed. Couple people were coming back saying, definitely you can't go across here. Another point came when a guy in a four wheeler came by. You know, Matt, you know, coming through the rubble or whatnot.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  And, uh, we hitched a ride with him. Like you guys climbed on the back four wheeler? Yeah. And he took us to the point, Plan B, and my daughter picked us up from there.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  She lives in town, uh. In Boone? Actually, like, up on a hill, in Boone.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  When me and my wife got to my daughter's house, we were tired and exhausted, both of us, we were just, we were so sleepy. And my daughter was trying to make us comfortable as possible, and her children, my grandchildren, they wanted to play. And we really didn't talk about this on much with them, but inside my head, I was feeling stressed. I, I really was feeling stressed about getting back to the animals, but every time the kids would see me in that mood, they would ask, and I would change the subject, but I really wanted to leave, but we were so tired. It didn't take us long to pass out. So, one of the first things I did the next day, when I got up early in the morning,

• 55:53Speaker 03

  was try to make my way back, so I could check on the animals.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  So then, how did you get back home?

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Kind of the same process of getting a ride to a ride. And slowly, slowly made my ass down through the valley.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  As I was walking up the road to the house to see what was left, I turned on the curve on the road and I could see that the roof of the house above the tree line was still there. That was a good thing. I could see the fence where I kept the animals in. I didn't see any at all. I could see the front of the house. It was still there. All had looked as good. But now I'm wondering about the animals. And initially, I don't see any. And as I got closer, the two black and white goats just ran out, being closely followed

• 56:57Speaker 03

  by a whole flock of chickens and ducks and guinea birds. But now I'm wondering, you know, where is Brownie? And at the same time, I'm thinking, I should be thankful. I got all these animals. I see a few chickens. Few animals are missing, but where is Brownie? And I started thinking to myself that she probably didn't make it. I was fortunate that I have these. And I continued to walk up the road and still didn't see Brownie. And all of a sudden, she walked from behind the barn, and then she ran up. And it was

• 57:41Speaker 03

  unimaginable. I was unimaginably happy. Then the others came out and they were, you know, making noises. Bah, bah. They trot, you know. Goat's got a funny way of walking.

• 57:57Speaker 06

  Did it look like she'd been through a hurricane, or no?

• 58:00Speaker 03

  No. No, no, no, no, no. She was... Brownie was looking in good shape. It was like she had got shampooed and went to a beauty shop or something. Eyelashes did look kinda extra good. I knew there were bigger things to think about. And I know the Appalachia's got a long way to go. I know there's a lot more work to be done. But right then and there, just sitting with Brownie and rubbing on her head and rubbing her mouth, I'm gonna give myself just this moment.

• 58:40Speaker 06

  Thanks for talking with us today, Ray. I know you're swamped, but we're thinking about you and let us know if you need anything.

• 58:47Speaker 07

  Good stuff, good stuff. All right. I'm just here on this mountain right now. I ain't going nowhere.

• 58:52Speaker 06

  Okay, okay, you got it.

• 58:54Speaker 07

  All right, thanks. Bye-bye.

• 58:56Speaker 06

  Okay, bye.

• 59:03Glynn Washington?

  Thanks so much to Dr. Ray Christian. Even weeks out, it is hard to put into words the extent of the devastation in areas of North Carolina. Ray's busy trying to haul away all the damaged furniture from his home and help his neighbors as well. And if you want to help the victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, check out our website for some information that Ray has found. SnapJudgment.org. The original score was by Derek Barber. This piece was produced by Anna Sussman.

• 59:40Glynn Washington?

  Yes. If you missed even a moment, know that a brand-new package of wonder and delight drops on Snap Judgment Storytelling Podcast each and every week for free. Let the people rejoice. Entry to Snap Studios can be solely accessed by a mysterious magical door that moves around the KQED building of its own accord. There is no lock. There is no key. The doors swing open only if your heart is pure. Snap is brought to you by the team that is able to come and go through this Snap Judgment door at will, except for the producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, because the door only allows entry to the pure of heart.

• 1:00:25Glynn Washington?

  Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McSey Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goria, John Facil, Shayna Shealy, Teo DeCott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, and Regina Barriaco.

• 1:00:40Glynn Washington?

  And this is not the news, no way this is the news. In fact, even after devastation rained down from the sky, you could scramble to the top of the nearest mountain, get one bar on your phone and call your friends at Snap to let them know you're all right. Thank you, Raymond Christian, sending you and your neighbors' love and light. Do that and you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is P R X.