Movement - Snap Classic

The story of a self proclaimed “drunk drag queen,” and the music that saved them. Plus, we go on an adventure underwater to visit a secret kingdom for seahorses. STORIES Movement From the podcast, Movement, we spotlight the story of a self proclaimed” drunk drag queen,” and the music that saved them. Produced by Meklit Hadero and Ian Coss. The Movement show was co-created by Julie Caine. You can find all of San Cha’s music and projects at churchofsancha.com http://churchofsancha.com/. If you want to find more stories at the crossroads of music and migration, search for “Movement with Meklit Hadero https://www.meklitmusic.com/movement,” wherever you listen! Movement is supported by The Mellon Foundation and National Geographic Society, and distributed by PRX. Under Pressure After traumatic experiences underwater, a diver falls in love with the ocean again by building a secret kingdom for seahorses. BIG thanks to Roger Hanson. Roger’s writing a children’s book, called “A Seahorse of a Different Color,” about a unique seahorse who was born different. It comes out in June. Roger has previously been covered by the LA Times https://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-col1-seahorse-pacific-california-20190709-htmlstory.html and Spectrum Channel 1 https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/orange-county/la-stories/2019/09/23/socal--seahorse-whisperer--says-species-teaches-him-about-life, which called him the “world’s foremost expert on the Pacific Seahorse.” Seahorse Update: In September, pregnant Deep Blue stopped showing up. Roger thinks he was eaten by an octopus. He’s moved any remaining octopuses in the area and resettled them elsewhere. Produced by Liz Mak, original score by Leon Moriomoto, artwork by Teo Ducot. Season 17 - Episode 29 Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. 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.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 0:48Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

• 1:55Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so, in my house, trying to feed my family. I'm not one of those planner people with the list, menu, shopping reminders. Now, in my house, figuring out what for dinner is an adventure.

• 2:11Glynn Washington?

  I get home the other day, open the fridge, take stock. Couple ears of corn, cabbage, what is this, shrimp?

• 2:21Glynn Washington?

  The mushrooms have maybe one more day in them, and I think these are peppers. Tiny bit of leftover chicken. It's a random assortment of what have you, but the clock is ticking. Everybody's hungry, so I figure it's time.

• 2:39Glynn Washington?

  You see, every culture has a version of throw everything in the pot. In Japan, it's called okonomiyaki. And the best way to describe it, and this is not a fair description, but the best way to describe it is as a savory pancake. Mix up some batter, throw whatever in, pour it on a hot griddle, flip it over, top it with a little sauce, and voila! Okonomiyaki. Never, ever the same thing twice, but crazy as it sounds, I promise you, 98% of the time, it is delicious. And today on Snap, we're mixing it up.

• 3:23Glynn Washington?

  Chop and stir it for a brand-new flavor you've never tasted before. Snap Judgment probably presents Movement.

• 3:33Glynn Washington?

  My name's Lee Washington. Well, Glenn, you said it works 98% of the time. What about that other 2%? That, my friends, is what pizza's for when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 4:03Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so I have a friend who is an artist in every sense of the word. TED Talks, sublime, music albums, storyteller, fashionista, that is her. Born with a spotlight. And what I love so much is that she points that light toward people and stories that would otherwise go unnoticed and unremarked. Today, we're featuring a story from Acleat Hadero, from a podcast movement which lives on the edge of story and migration and music. I think you're gonna dig it. In today's episode, it chronicles the story of another artist, Sancho, that I think is about to become one of your favorite artists as well.

• 4:47Glynn Washington?

  Snap judgment.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Can you tell us about your name, Sancho?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  And what it means and why you chose it?

• 4:59Speaker 03

  So Sancho, as one word, means mistress.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  But her artist name is two words, Sancho.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  I separated it because I wanted it to be like a saint, like San Francisco. And I wrote the name down and it was just something that like struck me. Because if you call someone a Sancho, it's basically like calling her a [BLEEP] or something.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  It's really derogatory and I was like, I wouldn't call myself that. And then also thinking about how like the role that saints play, and especially in Mexico, like sometimes people go to them for very specific things. Like, this is the saint that helps us cross the border. That's the one by my mom's town. You know, like you go to them for something.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  With the name Sancho, it was like, people would come to me for something.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  And what would they come to you for?

• 5:56Speaker 03

  For the drama.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Hey!

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Yes, the drama. Let me tell you what I mean by that. On stage, Sancha is a revelation in rhinestones, fur and feathers, with plenty of dewy blue eyeshadow to boot. Her roots as a San Francisco drag queen show up in this bountiful costuming. And then underneath it all, Sancha's love of ranchera, in its full complexity, shines through. My name is Matvit, and this is Movement: Music and Migration, remixed.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  My parents are both from rural Mexico. They don't have an education further than sixth grade. But then they did all their sacraments. They're baptized, they're confirmed, they did their first communion, they got married. So the catechism is there. So they're taught by the church.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  And rancheras really affirm those beliefs, of monogamy, of the way your family's supposed to be, the way you're supposed to love with your entire heart, or else you die. That person is for you, and they belong to you forever. And if you don't have them, your life is miserable.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  And having lived a different life in San Francisco, and being queer, and not identifying with that, made it scary to go back into those tropes.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  So I was wondering if you could tell us about your auntie's farm and your rediscovery of Ranchera?

• 8:30Speaker 03

  So the farm is the farm that my mom grew up on with her 12 siblings. So it's my grandparents' farm and, and this aunt that's there, my tia Luz, is the only one that didn't get married in the family. And so she worked the farm the longest. Out of 12 kids, there were seven girls. The men, as soon as they were 16, wanted to come to the US to make money. So that left the women at home to do the men's jobs.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  The farm had like 25 cows. So that was a twice a day kind of thing. So it was at 5:00 AM, they had to milk them, and at 3:00 PM. And so my mom said that like half of them would do the house chores and then the other half would do all the men's chores and then they would switch, you know?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  So everyone could do everything?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, everyone could do everything.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  So I started going to Mexico when I was two. I think my mom was undocumented for the first, like, until I was like six or something. So we'd go every two years and she'd come back on her own during those times and leave us with an aunt or something. So yeah, so the farm, I remember the bath being like a room with a big rock on it that you'd sit on and you'd have to heat up water and stuff like that. And there's, like, the oldest room in the house is made out of adobe. And so it's always like, oh, where's this thing? They're like, el cuarto de adobe, you know? The adobe room.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  And it used to have like one of those old ovens that you had to fire with like wood. And my aunt was like, I don't want that anymore. It's too much of a mess. And sometimes like I'll go to like one of these fancy pizza spots with the oven and I, like, it's that same smell.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Sometimes I think like, how far back do any of us have to go before you reach the farmers?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Right?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  It's like, it's not that long for anybody.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Not that long, no.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  So you started going to the farm when you were two?

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  And you returned a few years ago in a kind of transformational way.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was gonna be my 27th birthday. And at that time, I think I was getting tired of, of working so much in the bay and not having anything to eat, you know, like, it was just, it was a lot of work for nothing. And I was like, I don't see how this would get better. I just want to do music, you know? And I was like, it's about to be my Saturn return and I, I need a change. And my mom, at one point, like a couple of months before that, had joked that I should just go keep my aunt company on the farm because she was by herself.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  And I was like, oh, you just want me to be reformed and like, you know?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Reformed? What is reformed?

• 11:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, because I was basically a drunk drag queen. So she was like, when are you gonna get better and not be so crazy? And so she thought she could send me to basically a reform school with my aunt. And then I was like, actually, that's not a bad idea. That would be like a, a writing retreat or something.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  And, and when I was into the idea, she was not into it.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  What? What? She, she flipped? She changed?

• 12:21Speaker 03

  She flipped.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Why?

• 12:23Speaker 03

  All of a sudden, Mexico was dangerous and...

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Well, that, that's interesting.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  But I, at that point, I was like, oh, that's not a bad idea. I should go to my aunt. And my friend actually bought me my plane ticket. So I like, went to Mexico City for a couple of days, partied, because it was my 27th birthday. And then I took a bus from there to my aunt's farm. It's like a nine hour bus ride.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Woo!

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then the first kind of month was really hard. Because my aunt, like, they're still really religious. And at that time, it was like September. And they take the towns vidhin. And they take like this doll in like a glass case. And they take her to all the different farms. So my aunt was following her around to the different farms and praying like three rosaries a night, having mass on each farm.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  And at that time, when I got there, I had like lavender hair. I had no eyebrows. And I still had all my clothes that I wore as a little club kid in San Francisco.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  So you stood out a little bit.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Big old platform shoes.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  And my aunt would say things like, you know, that they kind of insinuated that I was in a bad place. Or, you know, things like that. So I had such a rough time in the beginning with her. Because she never left the town. So she has these ideas of like how things are supposed to be. And doesn't actually have experience with like dating anybody even, you know? Like she's lived a very sheltered life. So she didn't know what I was, like didn't know, understand me, you know? But then we also have like, have always had like a really good relationship. So at a certain point, like it, it just like shifted to where we could talk about things.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Like we'd sit and have coffee at lunch and then like we'd come out understanding each other a lot more, you know?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  What changed? What do you think that shift was between the kind of distance between you and the coming together?

• 14:42Speaker 03

  I don't know. It just, it started happening just naturally like. And I think that she was appreciating the fact that I would help her around the house. And we'd come together for telenovelas and, you know, mutual things that we liked together.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  And then we would talk about really honestly about things like maybe even more honestly than I would talk to my mom. You know, like people calling me a witch. Or saying that I was crazy. And I'd be like, you're here and you see me every single day. Like, what kind of brujerias do you think that I'm doing?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  And I found more acceptance with her than I have found with queer communities.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  At times, you know?

• 15:27Speaker 03

  And so like, people are ignorant no matter what, you know? And my aunt really helped me see that, even though she's sheltered and has lived a different life, I could find acceptance with her and understanding.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  That's beautiful.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  And how did rancheras figure into that? Was that part of the telenovelas and the things that you could share with each other?

• 15:51Speaker 03

  It wasn't. It was like, I went there to write these songs that I had had before. I had Logic on my computer, had this microphone. And my aunt would hear these songs as I was working on them. And she'd be like, you came here with like, torn clothes. You don't have any money. You're sad. Obviously, whatever you were doing is not working out.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Don't hold back on you.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Don't hold back. Yeah, right?

• 16:25Speaker 03

  And she was like, um, you should start singing rancheras. Like, and, and I was like, no, I've never been able to sing rancheras. Like, I didn't think that I had the capability, like, the vocal capability, you know? And I was like, watch. I'll show you. I can't do this, but I'll show you.

• 17:13Glynn Washington?

  You're gonna wanna hear what comes next. It is not what you think.

• 17:19Glynn Washington?

  See you, Chas.

• 17:52Speaker 04

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• 18:37Speaker 04

  Get started at betterment.com or download the app.

• 18:54Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the movement episode. When last we left, with one click of an iPod, Sancha is about to push open the door to the world of ranchera music and step inside.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  I took her iPod with the little circle and was looking through songs. And then she would listen to the, the radio every day. And I, I heard Bellerin Frante doing Historia del Amor. And I was like, oh, this song is gorgeous.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  So I just was like picking songs and then she also gave me requests like, "Do this song, it makes me think of your grandparents." And I was like, "I'm gonna record it all for you," and I had a CD burner.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  And I did that for her and as soon as I did that, she started trading it around like, "Oh, the priest wants a CD." "Oh, your uncles in the US want a CD." And then when people would come over, she'd be like, "Where's the guitar? Bring the guitar."

• 20:15Speaker 03

  And I was like, "Oh, I guess I could do this convincingly."

• 20:35Speaker 03

  And while I was doing it, I was like, "Let me remake these little trumpet sounds with synthesizers and whatever I have with me." I think that was my moment of like seeing the darkness, like where I come from, you know, like all the repression, like that's the birthplace of it, you know, of all the things I'm afraid of, all the things I'm taught I'm supposed to be. The rancheras kind of represent that too, but then I could do it in a way that's mine.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  In reality, like even if we're queer, like you still feel that love that's so intense that like you're gonna die if you don't have it. Or when you're heartbroken, you think you're just gonna absolutely like drop dead.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  So it's like, it's all the same feelings and they all come from the same place and we're more alike than we want to think, you know?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  So how did you end up coming back to the US?

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Well, my mom went to Mexico and she was like, she really convinced me. She was like, you need to come back and stop ignoring the things that you're running away from. And specifically taxes. Like, the reality started seeping in that even on the farm and in the town, like, to send songs to people and share things would take days.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  No, uploads and like wifi speeds and stuff, yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  And at one point, I had this fantasy that I would just stay on the farm and teach kids music and, you know, like, things that I, they're not me, you know, but I had that little fantasy. And then the reality started seeping in that I wasn't going to be happy doing that, you know, and that I really wanted my music to travel. And I was like, oh, I do need to come back. And I had friends living in LA and they were, they were like, we'll make it really easy for you. And it was just, I, I never thought about moving to LA, but since they made it really easy for me, I was like, okay, I'll try this out.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  And it became home like instantly.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Really?

• 23:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Say more about that. What was it that made it home?

• 23:27Speaker 03

  It was just like, everything, like, I felt like in the Bay, nobody understood the intersectionality of all the things that I was doing. And in LA, it's like, we've been doing this for years.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Decades.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Girl, welcome home.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Oh, you mean punk and cumbia? Like, that's been done.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  So it was, yeah, it was really refreshing.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  So when my parents started hearing the rancheras, they cried.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Really?

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. But they also-

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Because they felt, because they felt what? What were they tears of?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  I think like, oh, maybe she does have something and we've just been ignoring it, you know? And I even had this moment where I, I did a music festival in San Jose and my parents went to see me for the first time. And at that, that time I had like nine bandmates or something and they all went with me. I got an Airbnb for half of them and half of them stayed with my parents. And my mom made food that night and she stayed up till 4am with us. And we were all just singing rancheras the whole time, boleros, like songs that they knew.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  They'd request songs and we'd just like play the chords for them and they would sing. And like, it became this like big melting pot of like cultures and worlds. Cause it's all like, my bandmates were all queer and super gay and like trans and, you know, my parents being from this very traditional background, like experiencing joy with all of us, you know? And you know, sometimes like with the rancheras, I'll add the screaming, I'll add like the high drama and things like that. But you know, when I'm at my parents' house, I'm at my parents' house and it's for them, you know?

• 25:44Speaker 03

  It doesn't become a performance for me. It's like, this is for you guys, this is my gift to you guys. Like, I might not be everything that you wanted me to be, but I understand you, you know? And I understand your needs and I also understand that I'm something that you never would have imagined, you know? And I feel like that was probably the moment where my parents were like, oh, she's not gonna stop. This is- This is her thing that she's gonna keep pursuing forever.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  There's a song I released that I actually wrote on the farm. And I, so it was a demo for a long time. And I had named it Hijo Prodigo, the prodigal son. Then when I started sending it out to people, they started calling it Oveja Negra, which is black sheep.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  The song is about like being on the farm and knowing that, I always cry. That, like, I'm not what my mother would have wanted.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  And acknowledging that, like, my mom prays every day that I'd be good and be okay, even when I've been in places that are really dark. And, and feeling like the, you know, when I went to the farm, I was the prodigal son. Like, I came back to them.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  And how much they celebrate me now.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  So, the song is about returning to them, but returning as myself.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Le pide a ofesa, omeja negra.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Le pides tu, Dios, que un día yo sea normal.

• 28:53Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you. This story was produced by Macleit Hadero and Ian Cosse as part of their podcast Movement. The show was co-created by Julie Caine. You can find all of Sancha's music and projects at churchofsancha.com. We'll have it at snapjudgment.org. If you want to find more stories at the crossroads of music and migration, search for Movement with Macleit Hadero wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 29:32Glynn Washington?

  Now, after the break, we're going to an underwater world made of dreams. For real. When Snap Judgment continues, stay tuned.

• 30:25Glynn Washington?

  From Snap Judgments, Orbiting Hollows Justice, you're listening to Snap Judgment. My name is Lynn Washington, and now, we're gonna take you somewhere where you've probably never been before. Snap producer Liz Mack has a story.

• 30:39Speaker 05

  What are you doing right now?

• 30:41Speaker 06

  Just suiting up. Camera, this'll be yours. When you get underwater, just turn it like this. Okay. If you lose it, I'll find it, don't worry. Not today, another day.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  So you got your slate, you got your flashlight, got your air.

• 31:02Speaker 06

  I have my pencils.

• 31:05Speaker 05

  Got your underwater camera.

• 31:06Speaker 06

  Yep. Here's my extra pencils. We have to get this down to a fine science. Bingo, we're ready.

• 31:18Speaker 05

  For years, Roger Hanson has been building a secret underwater kingdom, a few yards away from a busy street in Long Beach. Today, he's taking me there, to see it up close.

• 31:31Speaker 06

  And this is an official night dive, because it's by science, it's after sunset officially.

• 31:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 31:37Speaker 06

  So, this is a night dive. You have to go by the rules.

• 31:42Speaker 05

  Roger actually carries a logbook with him everywhere, recording dates and times.

• 31:48Speaker 06

  We can winter mask up in the water tonight, which we should.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  After this dive we're about to take, he'll pick up his pen and his colored pencils, and add one more dive at the bottom of a long list. All right, any last words? What's the plan?

• 32:04Speaker 06

  We're gonna go down to number seven and see if we can find deep blue. That's our best chance. And yours is gonna be eight twenty-one, we're gonna try.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  We're going to a world that Roger finds both quiet and calm. He's taking me to see what he considers to be his underwater family. And while I'm his dive partner today, his story really starts with his favorite dive partner, Mike.

• 32:45Speaker 06

  Mike and I, we were both just about like twins.

• 32:53Speaker 06

  The reason we were best friends, especially underwater, was we both knew where the other guy was. All we'd have to do is go eight feet to the left because we know he would be there.

• 33:03Speaker 05

  Back in the day, Roger and Mike dove constantly.

• 33:07Speaker 06

  A hundred times a year. For 30 years, I've averaged 221 dives, every year, average. Yeah, I could call him up in the middle of the night and go, "Hey, it's snowing. Want to go scuba diving?" He goes, "Sure." And so we kept doing things that were on the edge, dumb, but we would have so much fun doing it.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  It was a sunny day in May when Roger and Mike were out on Geneva Lake, diving for the millionth time together.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  They were on their boat when they heard a call over the radio.

• 33:44Speaker 06

  Mayday, mayday, we have a diver down. Are there any experienced divers on the lake?

• 33:58Speaker 05

  A young man was lost somewhere under the water. The mayday callers were asking for any experienced divers to help find him, more than 90 feet under the lake's surface. They joined the search and rescue mission, and Roger dove down. First 10 feet, then 20, then 90.

• 34:22Speaker 06

  It was like wading through molasses. My chest was very tight, breathing it, like every muscle was just really stiff. So I was trying to avoid fixating on anything other than

• 34:36Speaker 06

  The normal sequence that I would do underwater, checking all my gauges.

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Roger remembers feeling the pressure on his body underwater. And then he remembers the pressure he felt from above.

• 34:53Speaker 06

  Can we save them? Do we get them before they get too much brain damage?

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Roger couldn't find the missing young man, but some other divers did. Roger remembers watching as they pulled him out of the lake.

• 35:08Speaker 06

  I assumed that he was gonna be okay. People were cutting away the suit.

• 35:15Speaker 06

  My friend immediately started to do mouth to mouth. I was in shock, just staring. We did not find out till later in the day that he didn't make it.

• 35:28Speaker 06

  He was 19 years old.

• 35:36Speaker 06

  My friend Mike was a physician. We talked about what happened and, you know, he was already in the 99.9 percentile for safety to start with. So he, you know, kept speaking about, I did everything right. I did, kind of wanting to orally hear a check mark by each one. I did that, I did this, I did that, you know? That he had done everything he could do.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  That night, Roger took out his logbook. And like he did every day he was out in the water, he recorded that day's dive. But instead of marking start time and end time.

• 36:19Speaker 06

  I have a picture drawn of that day, you know? It's not very descriptive, but it's there. And I don't have his name. I just had where it was. It just shows a person laying there without any facial features.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  After the incident on the naval lake, for Roger and Mike, scuba diving became less of a hobby and more of a mission.

• 36:46Speaker 06

  I became an instructor because of it. That day, matter of fact.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  The two of them began learning about rescue diving together.

• 36:54Speaker 06

  I said to myself, I'm going to train people so this doesn't happen again.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  It was eight years later when something did happen.

• 37:04Speaker 05

  One morning, Roger woke up in a panic.

• 37:12Speaker 06

  I just woke up one day and said, something's wrong. Something's wrong. I just knew. And I called the police department. I said, would you go out and check on my friend? And he wasn't there.

• 37:28Speaker 06

  And about a day after I had called, they found his vehicle parked over along the coast.

• 37:36Speaker 06

  And his boat was gone, and they never found the boat. The only thing they ever found was his scuba tank. And it floated clear across the other side of one of the Great Lakes.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  And while they searched and searched for Mike's body in the water, they came up empty.

• 37:58Speaker 06

  So I went to his house, you know?

• 38:01Speaker 06

  Go into his bedroom and see his slippers laying sideways in the bed. You almost could see the contour of his body impressed into the mattress and the pillow. It was like it was a negative.

• 38:19Speaker 06

  And do you know where that doctor is, who's my best friend? Do you know where he is? Lost on the bottom of Lake Michigan. That's where he is right now.

• 38:33Speaker 06

  How's it affect me?

• 38:36Speaker 06

  It just shattered me, shattered me. He was my best friend.

• 38:48Speaker 06

  We went and had, we had a big ceremony at a place we used to dive.

• 38:55Speaker 05

  It was a quarry where Roger and Mike had found a safe, deep underwater, years ago. They liked to practice there.

• 39:05Speaker 06

  We got together, about 40 of his various friends. It's like we were in a big circle, and down by the shore, and we each just took a minute to say something nice about our friend. And we took some of his trophies that were at his home, and they were long, tall, gold figurines on the top.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  And a handful of them went down to the water in their diving suits, holding onto Mike's trophies.

• 39:39Speaker 06

  And we took them down to leave them in an area where the ice was as a memory.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  Roger and his friends planted the trophies deep into the sand.

• 39:54Speaker 06

  I've reviewed in my mind what I felt like would have been his final minutes and things, and I've thought about it a lot of times, and, oh, let's move on.

• 40:19Speaker 05

  After Mike's death, Roger lost his appetite for diving. He went from going hundreds of times a year to...

• 40:25Speaker 06

  16. I kept track. I didn't hardly dive at all because I was so upset that my best friend passed diving. It lost its luster.

• 40:42Speaker 05

  So first, I want to ask you, you know, like 20 years ago, did you ever think that you would be, could you ever have imagined yourself as like a custodian of seahorses?

• 40:52Speaker 06

  Never, ever, no. I didn't even know they hardly existed 20 years ago. No way.

• 41:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. All right, any last words? What's the plan?

• 41:07Speaker 06

  We're gonna go down to number seven and see if we can find people. That's our best chance.

• 41:15Speaker 05

  Today, 14 years later, Roger's back in the water.

• 41:20Speaker 06

  Today I did seven dives.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  Because now, he has new friends to dive with.

• 41:25Speaker 06

  They're cute, they're sweet, they're nice, and they model the kind of behavior that humans should model.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  He met the first one on January 30, 2016.

• 41:44Speaker 06

  And I saw an orange seahorse swim by. I knew that's not normal. At first, I thought someone must have probably just throw it out of a fish tank. Well, I followed it because I was totally curious.

• 42:01Speaker 05

  He started coming back, a couple times a week, to try and find the orange seahorse again, and to see if there were any more.

• 42:07Speaker 06

  I started to see more seahorses coming to the area. They'd just pass by, kind of checking things out. Ended up seeing about 16 different seahorses.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  He even started to recognize some of them by their coloring.

• 42:22Speaker 06

  I followed one, who I named Solomon, who, after I studied my photography and learned more, he was actually a girl.

• 42:31Speaker 05

  His underwater life was coming back to him, and he'd get into his wet suit and strap on his air tank more and more to visit his new friends.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  The seahorses are like your best friend pet.

• 42:46Speaker 05

  But as the days got shorter and cooler, and Roger was still visiting his new seahorse friends, he had a kind of terrifying thought.

• 42:54Speaker 06

  The first winter, I thought, they're all gonna leave. These rare creatures that everybody thought was fantastic.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  He got more protective of them.

• 43:04Speaker 06

  I measured the area. I put yellow, plastic tent stakes down in front of tent areas with numbers on them, so I could keep track of who was going where. Then I had to land Seahorse 102 to identify each seahorse, which I can do.

• 43:26Speaker 06

  We're submerging and going through fields of tall, green, thick eel grass. Below the eel grass, we'll run into our first biome with sticks and palm fronds and pine branches. And then we'll take our light and shine in there to see if anybody is home. And if not, we'll move down another 15 feet across some bare sand areas to the next.

• 43:50Speaker 05

  If you dive down underwater with Roger, you'll see that he's constructed a sprawling complex of 10 different biomes, which are kind of like different neighborhoods in this massive world he's made for his seahorses. Each section is marked with yellow stakes and filled with sticks planted into the seafloor so seahorses can latch their tails onto them, like the way that land horses do at an old-timey hitching post. From there, they'll swim up sideways and into the palm fronds that Roger's planted, knowing that seahorses need a place to hide.

• 44:20Speaker 06

  A little deeper to an area called the redwood forest, which is made up of 1,500 sticks stuck in the sand that run along the shoreline underneath these homemade beds.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  Right now, there are four seahorse friends who have stayed behind this whole time. Basheba's tall and orange. When we pass by her, Roger takes my hand so I can pet her back.

• 44:58Speaker 06

  But sheba, I've seen like 833 times. So do you think she knows me? She's very cute. She can get any man she wants, okay? Is she a black widow, I wonder? Because her husbands keep getting rubbed off.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Then there's C.D. Street, her boyfriend.

• 45:16Speaker 06

  C.D. Street's new. He's only been here, I've only seen him 21 times. He's just that 5 1/2 inch guy who's got a 10 1/2 inch long girlfriend. He looks kind of like an 18-year-old dating a 45-year-old. I'm not judging.

• 45:31Speaker 05

  And Deep Blue, who's more petite.

• 45:33Speaker 06

  Deep Blue, he's a boy. He's often pregnant. He's pretty chill. He doesn't mind you coming around as long as you understand that when he's had enough of you, he's going to rotate around on his stick.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  And then, of course, there's Daphne, the loner.

• 45:48Speaker 06

  Daphne is this wild card. She's way different of a seahorse, I'll tell you. Usually I see her about 40% of the time when I go.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  Roger does everything he can to keep his seahorse kingdom safe from harm.

• 46:01Speaker 06

  Compared to our outside world, where we have such terrible things happening as people hurting other people, you don't see that underwater, ever. You know, things may have to eat because they have to eat, but they don't just kill to kill.

• 46:18Speaker 05

  He knows that there's always the threat that his seahorses could be eaten by another creature, or that they could die of old age.

• 46:28Speaker 06

  Well, I know the time's gonna come where this rare experience that I've been blessed to have will end. This spring, Basheba and Daphne, two of the four seahorses, are four. They don't look like they're slowing down, but I would like to find out what happens in this last chapter. I'm sort of in my last chapter too, so...

• 46:55Speaker 06

  And then we would scuba down, come back up.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  The very first time I met Roger, he told me he was a C minus on land, and Mensa level genius underwater.

• 47:05Speaker 06

  And we do that after 20 minutes so we don't scare the seahorses. Take a break, talk, and then go again, and see who has moved or who's gone where.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  That's because, he says, there's something about being underwater that makes him feel safe, at peace.

• 47:20Speaker 06

  Underwater, it is quiet. It is a quiet world. It's a slowed-down pace. You see all different kinds of things. You feel differently because of a difference in pressure that's on you. It doesn't hurt at all.

• 48:05Glynn Washington?

  Now recently, Pregnant Deep Blue stopped showing up. Roger thinks he was eaten by an octopus. So he smoothed any remaining octopuses in the area and resettled them elsewhere. It's good thinking. Thanks so much to Roger Hanson and keep an eye out for his forthcoming children's book, It's a Seahorse of a Different Color. And to find out more about Roger and his work, along with photos of his seahorses, go online, snapjudgment.org. The original score for that story was by Leon Morimoto and was produced by Liz Matt.

• 49:13Glynn Washington?

  Now then, you know tis the season. Let me tell you a secret. None of your friends, your spouses, your family, none of them want any more plastic junk. Instead, let them know you care with the gift of story. Send them your favorite episode of the Snap Judgment Podcast, Ho, Ho, Ho! It's a compliment to them. They are good taste, superior intellect, and a winning smile. Stories galore. Available right now at snapjudgment.org. On Team Snap, the union-represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51.

• 49:58Glynn Washington?

  Snap is brought to you by the team that always looks on the bright side, except for the uber loser, Mr. Mark Ristich. He's not fooled because he knows his enemies lurk everywhere.

• 50:15Glynn Washington?

  There's Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Eximé, and Regina Badiaco.

• 50:38Glynn Washington?

  And of course, this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, it's been around in circles, hoping to find enlightenment. And when you wake up after hitting your head on the floor, you would still, even then, not be as far away from the news as this is. But friends, this is PRX.