American Dreams: The Moth Radio Hour

In this hour, stories of American Dreams—from a beauty pageant hopeful, a farmhand, and an advocate. This episode is hosted by Jon Goode. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. With the goal of becoming Miss Alabama, Alexis Barton enters her first beauty pageant. Heather Angell starts working on a farm and bonds with her bosses. Ofia Begum Ali takes on the responsibility of translating for their parents. Amena Brown's grandmother teachers her to cook... but witholds an important recipe. Podcast # 984

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 01

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, John Good. Experts say that we all have several dreams over the course of a night's sleep. Dreams that we may or may not remember, but what about the dreams that keep us up at night? The ones we create while awake? Dreams of hitting the game-winning shot, of landing that job you've wanted since you were 10, or of getting that DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour and going back to the future? Dreams realistic, far-fetched, and beyond our wildest imagination. As we approach the 250th anniversary of a nation built on the dream of a better life, on the promise of taking the tired and dispossessed, yearning to be free, and showing them the

• 1:26Speaker 01

  path to a golden door, let's hear some stories about the dreams and the dreamers that make America what it is. First up is a story from a grand slam in Birmingham, where we partner with public radio station WBHM in Alabama. Here's Alexis Barton, live at The Moth.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  They say you never forget your first time. Now, I'm not talking about that type of first time, but that's how I remember entering my very first beauty pageant. No, scholarship pageant.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Now, understand, I had never run for anything competitively in my life before. The only thing I'd won was the 4th grade spelling bee. And among my classmates, I was kind of used to coming in 2nd place. And I was nobody's performer. I threw up before every piano recital I ever had, for 10 years. Straight. But I wanted to know what it felt like to win. And to be honest, I wanted that crown, not just any crown. The Miss Alabama crown.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Now, to understand how truly delusional that was... Remember what I said about throwing up before piano recitals? But a friend who supported my delusions suggested that before I enter the Miss Alabama pageant system, that I do a pageant for practice. Unfortunately, there was a local pageant, right around the corner. We'll call it the Miss Jefferson County Legacy Jamboree Pageant. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I dashed off my application, mailed it in, and they called. "We'd love to talk to you."

• 3:39Speaker 02

  And so, I ran down to the Five Points South Library and had a little interview with the pageant committee. And they accepted me. That was a piece of cake, I thought. "She win." Till I got down to the local dance studio for the first of many pageant practices, coordinated by a local choreographer. And I sized up my competition and I realized, "Lex, you in danger, girl." Because they were prepared, they were talented, these other young ladies. They were leggy. They were...

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Confident. One of them had performed on a cruise ship as a singer.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  And here I was, a tall, awkward, ugly duckling.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Looks, eight on a good day. Dance, negative three.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  But if anything, I'm not a quitter. So I needed a graceful exit, right? And I hadn't told my parents yet that I'd signed myself and their credit cards up for this opportunity.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  So when I told them, I was shocked because they were all in. My dad turned into a madman, literally. He turned into Ron Draper. He sold every ad that I needed for the pageant program and he wrote every line of copy. My mom, Miranda Priestly, had nothing on her. Because she prepared my wardrobe like I was going to the Ebony Fashion Fair, or, for those of you who are younger, Rush Top.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  She even enlisted my aunt to design and put together my opening number outfit, a crimson organza jumpsuit with a big bow because southern girls love bows.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  And when the big night came, I whirled into the theater and I marched up to the microphone, kind of like this one, and I said, "My name is Alexis Barton and I'm a junior, majoring in English at U A B, and my motto is, it's not what you're called, it's what you answer to." And they bought it.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Just like y'all did.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  And then, I was dancing to the edge of the stage in my fitness wear and holding my eight count, like my life depended on it. Because I didn't know what an eight count was before a pageant. And then I was in my little tweed suit chewing up the scenery for my dramatic monologue because I was not going to perform on the piano. And by the time I went to change into my mother's evening gown that I had borrowed, I realized I was having fun. And I realized something else as I looked at the other girls as they changed. And I saw that they were shook. One was crying because she had missed the opening choreography steps and another was

• 6:47Speaker 02

  crying because her boyfriend hadn't shown up for the pageant and one was crying because she had a new pimple that they didn't have concealer for. And I realized that we weren't all that different. We were all swans, growing into our wings, paddling furiously, trying not to make fools of ourselves. And I went back out for that final question and I could take a deep breath, like I'm doing now, and relax. And I found my parents' eyes in the audience and locked on them and I realized that I had always been a princess to them.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  So when they called the top 10 and my name was included, I wasn't really surprised. I had as good a chance as anyone else I knew by then. And then it was top 7, top 5, top 2, and it was me and one other girl standing there under the hot light like this one. And my hope, my heart thundered in my chest and it rose up in my throat and then all of a sudden, "Run her up." Me? An audible gasp went across the crowd, or so my mom says, but let's face it, she's biased.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  And as I took my roses and stepped back into the shadows so the queen could be crowned, I didn't stop smiling, even though, you know, I did have Vaseline on my teeth, but really, it was because I knew that, in the words of James Baldwin, "My crown had already been bought and paid for. I just had to put it on." And there was a silver lining because I was named Miss Photogenic, which came with a year's worth of free hairstyling, so technically, I did get a new crown twice a month for a whole year. [laughter] And I consider that a big win because I was a broke college student.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  And now, when I'm on stages like that, well, like this one, and I want to run and throw up offstage, I look around and I remember that everybody else is nervous too. And that this is just practice. We're all practicing. Thank you.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  That was Alexis Barton. Alexis is an award-winning journalist and writer based in Birmingham, Alabama. She is The Moth Birmingham's first Story Slam winner, and I know this because I was blessed to be hosting that night.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Alexis's work has appeared in The Washington Post Magazine, Southern Living, and was cited in the Best American Essays 2023. Early in her story, Alexis said that her dream of being Miss Alabama was delusional. But I think it was the great philosopher and prophet Seal that once said, "No, we're never going to survive unless we get a little crazy."

• 9:59Speaker 01

  And we're definitely not going to get our hair done for free twice a month for a year without chasing our dreams. That is for sure. That is for sure, my friends.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  In a moment, a city girl learns how to farm and a daughter must become a fierce advocate for her parents, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 10:39Speaker 04

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• 13:06Speaker 01

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm John Good. Our next story was told by Heather Angel at one of our open mic story slams in Boston, where we partner with public radio station WBUR. Here's Heather.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  So the summer after my freshman year in college, I got a job as a farmhand. And it was 2001 and I was 19-years-old. And a couple that were my new bosses, they were in their mid-60s by the time I walked up their driveway in New Hampshire, and they'd been farming for 14-hours a day for 40-years. And the husband would soon and forever become affectionately known to me simply as "The Old Man." And he would wear a different canvas hat every day, perched, kinda like a bird, on his bald head. And he had like a muddled brow, a furrowed brow, and like two watery blue eyes. And he, um, his parents were French-Canadian, and so he had learned a little bit of French.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  And he also spoke with a pretty good Boston accent, but it was so slow that it almost had like a Down East vibe. And that was the year that Christina Aguilera's single "Lady Marmalade" came out on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Um, and he would walk around the farm, singing "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" He was mouthy, um, he was charming, and he was nobody's fool. And I soon learned that farming was really hard. The first week I worked there, he made me unload a trailer-load of 50-pound bags of soil, twice. We would be so dirty sometimes, when, at the end of the day, that I'd have to take

• 14:54Speaker 05

  off my clothes and hose off in the driveway before my mom would let me come into the house. I almost, I thought I was gonna die in his barn. The hay was so thick in the air, that it would get into your lungs, and it would like cut any exposed skin and be in your hair, and you'd find it like the whole rest of the day. And, uh, nobody understood why I loved it so much. And the farm became really like a part of my, my life as I went on. And it was so different from the life that I was leading otherwise. I was going to school in Chicago. And so every summer I would come home to the farm and every, you know, year I'd go back to school where I'd stay up till 2 a.m.

• 15:38Speaker 05

  And then at the farm I'd get up at 6 a.m. But I got to do really cool stuff too. Like I used to plant different varieties of pumpkins and they had names like Cinderella and Jack Be Little and Racer and they all sounded like bedtime stories. And my life couldn't have been different, more different than when I went back to school. I was a sophomore during the September 11th attacks and I got really influenced by these Jesuit priests who talked a lot about nonviolence and peacemaking. And I went to teach-ins for the Iraq war. I rode all night to go to protests on buses. And when I came back to the farm, I realized that the old man did not share my views.

• 16:21Speaker 05

  I was, we were both Catholic and I had been introduced to this really radical, peacenik, kind of outside the bounds of the norms Catholicism. And he was a New Hampshire Republican, so. And he would say like really kind of intense revenge stuff. And I would pause and look at him and I would say, "I can never remember which gospel that's in. Is it Matthew or Mark?" And I, we liked to have fun with each other. And the farm really became like medicine to me in his fields. My life at home was not great at that time. My dad had died a few years earlier unexpectedly.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  And my sisters and I weren't really getting along. My family had moved to a much smaller house and I used to sleep on a cot on the porch. And I didn't really feel like anybody at home really liked me that much. But when I came to the farm, they were always glad to see me. It was sort of like a sober, daytime, dirtier version of Cheers, you know?

• 17:24Speaker 05

  And I knew that when I came back from school, you know, I'd always have a job at the farm and I started selling Christmas trees for them in the winter. And my college friends soon realized that the old man was more than just my boss. He was something else. And he and his wife, never anyone I called the old lady, too much respect for her for that. Not that there's anything wrong with old ladies, but... They kind of became like my surrogate grandparents. And I would come back from the farm and, you know, visit them even after I stopped working there. I can't remember when they stopped paying me, but at some point, I just would come and work. And that continued on in my life. And one time I was visiting them, by this time I was in my early 30s. And his wife looked at me across the table

• 18:06Speaker 05

  of the farm kitchen, middle of winter, and said... More like, it was a question, but it was a statement. "You even ever met a guy you wanted to marry?" And I took a deep breath and I said, "Well, I don't really date guys anymore." And the old man nodded and said, "I knew it." And he had this like self-satisfied smirk, you know? And then he said, "Well, don't expect me to walk you down the aisle at your wedding." And we'd never discussed that.

• 18:51Speaker 05

  But he knew if anybody was ever gonna walk me down the aisle at my wedding, I would want it to be him. So I gave him the cold shoulder for a few months. And then his daughter, who started calling me her little sister some point in the early aughts, found out what happened and read him the riot act. And he called me, he's like, "I'm sorry, you know, I'll walk you down the aisle at your wedding if you ever need me to." And then, pretty soon, he invited my girlfriend to the famous farm Christmas parties.

• 19:19Speaker 05

  And it carried on like that. And they sold the farm in their mid-eighties. And they retired to a condo where they grew tomatoes on their porch. And if you've ever loved a ninety-year-old as these years went on, you know, you hold on to every moment. You know that like you can feel the moments passing. And he would leave me these long, kind of sarcastic missives, voicemails with his lyrical voice, like asking me, "Where the hell have I been?" You know? And I saved all of them. I listened to a bunch of them today. And a few months ago, his daughter called me and told me that the end was near. He'd been sick for a while. So I took the back road to the hospital and drove past the old farm.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  And the last gasps of autumn were turning the fields like this dull gold. And everybody was there. And by that point, nobody was like, "Why is that old farm hand here?" Like, I was part of the family. And the nurse that night was, her family friends owned a farm. And she said, "Everybody's out picking today because the frost is coming tonight," you know? And it gave us all this sense of urgency, but also this sense of peace. And the next morning, I woke up before sunrise and took my dog outside. And the frost had come in the night, like silent and crisp. And I knew he was gone before I even got the call. He was a really good farmer till the end. He knew when it was done. And the night before at the hospital, right before I left, I gave him a kiss on the forehead.

• 20:44Speaker 05

  He had these big, meaty hands that I held. And I said, "Hayes in the barn, old man. The field is empty. I'll meet you there. Thank you."

• 21:04Speaker 01

  That was Heather Angell. My goodness. Listen, I can't speak for anyone else, but that last line, "Hayes in the barn, old man. The field is empty. I'll meet you there." That left me in the most reverential and joyous of tears. That is the stuff dreams are made of. Words that touch our souls, that move our heart and that stir our emotions.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Heather Angell is a proud New Englander and lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog Sampson. She has worked as a farmhand, a summer camp director, and a freelance snow shoveler. She is now a high school teacher and healthcare chaplain. Heather enjoys public libraries, a proper cup of tea, and being the fun aunt. Heather still keeps in touch with the old man's wife and his family. After living in the city for over a decade, she and her wife bought a house near her hometown. It's across the street from a farm. She told us, "I think about the old man every day. I keep a picture of him in the visor of my car, and I still go to call him and then remember that I can't.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  I'm also so grateful for him that a decision to walk up a driveway looking for a job when I was 19 gave me such an incredible and unique relationship." Our next story comes from Ophia Begum-Ali. We met Ophia through the Moth Education Program, which brings personal storytelling to high school and college students and educators around the country.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  The Moth EDU brainstorm stories and gives participants the tools and guidance they need to tell them. We loved Ophia's stories so much, we asked them to tell it on our main stage. In Charlottesville, Virginia, hey, listen, I'm from Virginia. It's the VA all day, two up, two down. We told it in Charlottesville would be partnered with the Paramount Theater. Here is Ophia.

• 23:21Speaker 06

  I keep a paper boat on my desk. It's signed and dated July 2025. And my father folded it when he was in the emergency room. And by the time he made that boat, I have been translating for my mom and dad most of my life. And the first time this responsibility falls on my shoulders, I am about 10 years old. And I am wearing a mustard yellow velour tracksuit with Little Princess written across the chest. Nothing says ready for court like rhinestones and anxiety. My mother and I take the E train to the Queens Criminal Court, and we hold the same cold metapole in silence.

• 24:05Speaker 06

  And we hold on like it's the only thing that's keeping us from falling apart. And in the courtroom, the fluorescent lights make everyone seem more miserable than they already feel. It's the first time I see my brother in handcuffs, and his lawyer walks up to us, and she starts talking really fast. The translation back and forth is a bit slow, because I am translating from Ciletti to English and English to Ciletti, except I can't find the word for "bailment." The closest translation I can come up with is "he stays in jail unless we come up with the money for the judge."

• 24:46Speaker 06

  Now, I don't understand the criminal legal system, but I do understand my brother is not coming home. So I cut her off, and I say, "Look, lady, I am only 10 years old, and my mother doesn't understand what you're saying." So she squats down so her eyes meet mine, and this time, in a softer voice, she explains where my brother's going, what is bail, and how much we have to pay. And I just nod, as if I am comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life. In that moment, I learned a rule: If I don't stand up for my mom and dad, no one else will.

• 25:29Speaker 06

  But the truth is, I don't want this role. I want to sink into my couch, and I want to watch Saturday morning cartoons with a giant bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because everyone knows the milk is the main event.

• 25:45Speaker 06

  Instead, my weekends are filled with doctor's appointments, visiting a juvenile jail, and translating adult problems. My childhood felt less like a playground, and more like jury duty.

• 25:59Speaker 06

  At school, kids would talk about Disneyland and Six Flags, and I want something to add without killing the vibe. But nobody wants to listen to stories about correction officers yelling at my mother to remove her burka. So I stay quiet.

• 26:17Speaker 06

  My family is from Bangladesh, so that means I speak Sylheti at home, English at school, and survival in between. My parents never sit me down and explain the Bill of Rights, but they teach me the rules of survival in Queens.

• 26:35Speaker 06

  My mother teaches me how to move without asking for permission, and my father teaches me how to fight without raising my voice. And those lessons follow me into every room I walk into.

• 26:50Speaker 06

  Twenty years later, I am at my legal internship, and they hand me an assignment on something called an outlay hearing. And I go all in until it makes sense, because behind the case law is a 19-year-old kid looking at prison time.

• 27:08Speaker 06

  Then, I get a call from my niece.

• 27:12Speaker 06

  She tells me that my father's in the emergency room, and he's diagnosed with cancer.

• 27:19Speaker 06

  I don't know what kind, how bad it is, or how much time we have together. So I go to the hospital to get the full story.

• 27:30Speaker 06

  And when I'm on the R train, I replay everything my niece told me.

• 27:35Speaker 06

  When the doctor spoke to my dad, it's all in English. No one bothers to call an interpreter. And I know my father. He nods his head the way immigrants do when the sounds feel familiar, but the meaning never lands. He catches words like his name and his birthday and hopes the rest will work itself out. And I hope that he misunderstood the diagnosis, or maybe we caught it early. But the truth is, I am terrified that this one time I am not there to translate is a moment everything falls apart.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  So at the hospital, I wait hours for updates. Visiting hours end, and nothing changes.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  So I leave the hospital, and I start working on the assignment.

• 28:31Speaker 06

  It felt safer to work on a legal memo than to imagine a life without my father.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  And I don't sleep. The next morning, I set an alarm to call the hospital every hour. And every hour, the nurse gives me the same response. "The doctor will call you." But that call never comes.

• 28:57Speaker 06

  By the time I submit my assignment, my exhaustion turns into anger. And at first, I feel helpless. But then I realized, I've been doing this my whole life.

• 29:11Speaker 06

  And then I pull out my phone, and I start Googling hospital policies. I start throwing out words like duty of care and patient rights, like I am starring in a reboot of Ally McBeal.

• 29:26Speaker 06

  I'm not an expert, but I'm exactly who my father needs me to be.

• 29:32Speaker 06

  So I go back to the hospital to visit my father and to speak with the patient advocate. And I am careful not to lose my temper around him. And I explain everything, from the silence to the language barrier. And all this man did was send one message to my father's entire care team.

• 29:55Speaker 06

  And that's when things started changing.

• 29:59Speaker 06

  They finally call an interpreter, and it's someone who speaks my father's language.

• 30:05Speaker 06

  And for the first time, my father understands what is happening to his body.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  And for the first time, he has a voice in his treatment plan.

• 30:16Speaker 06

  The doctors also call me regularly, and they explain the diagnosis and the next steps. And I have nothing left to say. And that's when the doctor pauses and asks, "How are you feeling?"

• 30:36Speaker 06

  For a moment, I imagine myself punching him in the face and yelling, "How the fuck do you think I feel?"

• 30:45Speaker 06

  But instead, I just breathe. Because this time, I choose to be the advocate.

• 30:54Speaker 06

  But here's the thing I never saw coming. Advocacy gave me something unexpected: moments to bond with my mom and dad.

• 31:05Speaker 06

  These moments weren't just about paperwork or appointments anymore. They were real conversations about their dreams and their fears and things they never said out loud.

• 31:17Speaker 06

  As a kid, I would zone out while my parents were running errands. I would tap the buttons on my Game Boy or feed my Tamagotchi. Meanwhile, my parents were just trying to hold everything together.

• 31:31Speaker 06

  They never understood what it meant for me when I would miss school and fall behind on my assignments.

• 31:40Speaker 06

  And I never understood what it meant to leave a community that knew how to hold them up and start over in a country that never spoke their language.

• 31:52Speaker 06

  One afternoon in the hospital, I asked my father about his favorite memory of school. And he tells me that he dropped out in the 3rd grade after his dad died. And like me, he carried his family on his back when he was just a kid.

• 32:09Speaker 06

  He smiles and says, "I liked making paper crafts." So I rip off a piece of paper and I say, "Show me."

• 32:19Speaker 06

  He carefully folds the creases until it forms into a paper boat, and I pretend I don't know, so he can take the lead.

• 32:27Speaker 06

  And when he's done, I ask him to sign it. And he forgets the date. And the advocate in me will never allow him to skip that detail. So I remind him, "Never sign your name without the date next to it, to avoid any legal issues and avoid being duped."

• 32:50Speaker 06

  Now, if I can explain or translate my father's annoyance with me, it would probably be, "Even on my deathbed, you're giving me legal advice."

• 33:02Speaker 06

  He hands the paper boat back to me. And that paper boat sits on my desk. It is evidence that being heard can change everything.

• 33:14Speaker 06

  And it takes me years to realize this, but every single time I was translating for my mom and dad, I was also translating myself, trying to find my place in their world and mine. And that's still my job now. I make sentences sit up straight.

• 33:34Speaker 06

  Paper may sink in water, but words, if we make them strong enough, they can carry us. Thank you.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  That was Ophia Begum Ali. Ophia was born and raised in Queens, New York. They are currently pursuing a Juris Doctor at the City University of New York's School of Law. Over the past decade, they have developed a deep understanding of America's criminal legal system. When not drowning in coursework, they love taking their cat on walks, eating through Queens and Brooklyn, and capturing New York's beauty and chaos through photography. For the record, any story that begins with a mustard-yellow velour tracksuit and ends with advocacy and love is speaking my language.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Have you ever felt like you have a story that you'd like to tell us? If so, you can pitch us a story right on our site, themoth.org.

• 34:48Speaker 07

  I was in the car with my Irish twin, my older sister, in our sleek Ford Tempo 1984 on her way to a medical school interview. It was my dream to go to medical school, but we had no one medical in our family, so I wasn't sure if it was real. Just a dream, reality, who knew? But there we were, driving to the medical school interview, and the car broke down, the amazing Ford Tempo broke down. She said, "I'm gonna get you to that interview." So I'm not sure how, because we're stuck on the side of the road, and in comes a huge semi parks right in front of us, and my sister jumps out and goes to talk to the semi-driver, and then motions me to come back and to also come into the truck with the semi-driver. So, dream, death, dream, death. I'm not sure where we're going here, but for some reason that day, I wore this outfit

• 35:32Speaker 07

  of a long tapestry skirt. I don't know, like an English professor, in a sweater jacket, I don't know. Fashion is not my forte. So, in I jump, in the car, in the semi, and I ask the gentleman his name. He says, "They call me Sneaky Snake." Okay, where are you headed? He said, "The State Pen." I said, "Okay." I turned around and there's a bed behind me full of carnival stuffed snakes. And I say, "Okay." So he said, "Here, we gotta get you to an interview." I said, "Oh, yes, please." So he drops us off at the next exit. I get to the interview. In the interview, they ask me, "Any recent challenges that you've had?" And I said, "Well, our car broke down, sneaky snake, interview, here we are." And so from now on, as a doc,

• 36:17Speaker 07

  when I have a patient who's a trucker, I always thank them for making my dreams come true.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Remember, you can pitch us online at themoth.org, where you can also share these stories or others from the Moth archive.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  In a moment, a woman learns the secret of her grandmother's cooking when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 37:00Speaker 07

  I don't know if it's the memory of getting new clothes for back to school, but when fall comes around, I get excited about shopping. I bought a thick, black cotton sweater, the perfect transitional piece, and I'm also eyeing some corduroy pants, a suede tote, and a sharp trench coat. Because Quince gets it all right: style, comfort, and affordability. Quince offers luxury quality at accessible prices, including cashmere sweaters that start at just $50. They cut out unnecessary retail middlemen and partner directly with ethical factories, saving you 50% to 80% compared to similar brands. They also carry down jackets, fine jewelry, and luxury bath essentials. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order

• 37:45Speaker 07

  and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was The Moth. It's the best way to support the show.

• 37:58Speaker 07

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• 38:43Speaker 07

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• 39:02Speaker 01

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm John Good. Our final story comes from Amina Brown, who toed it at a main stage in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where we partnered with the Zeitarian Theater. Here's Amina, live at the Moth.

• 39:22Speaker 07

  There are two reasons I needed to get in my grandma's kitchen. One, to keep her recipes. Two, to catch a man. When I was a little girl, my grandma's kitchen was this magical place, and it didn't matter whether it was your birthday, or a holiday, or just a regular old Sunday, she'd say, "Baby, what kind of cake you want?" And I'd tell her, "Grandma, I want chocolate." And then I'd run outside to play, and I never actually stayed in the kitchen to see what she was doing in there. I just figured she's probably clapping her hands like LeBron James in the middle of a basketball game, all flour and glitter and abracadabra hands.

• 40:06Speaker 07

  All I know is, when I came inside from playing, there was a feast. Fried chicken, collard greens, biscuits, and cake. And after the whole meal was over, my grandma would take that leftover fried chicken, set it over to the side. She'd take the cake, set it to the side, slice it, wrap each slice individually in wax paper, tape it closed, and then she'd grab an empty shoebox, line it with paper towels, half fried chicken, half chocolate cake, and each family got their own box to go home with. Maybe an hour into your journey, in the car, on a bus, in a train, you'd lift the lid

• 40:48Speaker 07

  of that box and feel like heaven was singing back to you, which is why as a grown woman I needed to return to my grandma's kitchen. My dating life, it wasn't going so well. And some of the old southern women said, "Maybe it ain't going well 'cause you can't cook." And I resent the implication. I could cook, I could make spaghetti and meatloaf and tuna fish. Is tuna fish cooking? I went to my grandma and I said, "Grandma, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I'm not gonna get there like this. You need to teach me all the things you know."

• 41:30Speaker 07

  She clapped her hands like she does when she gets really excited. And then she looked at me real serious, and I knew we were about to get to work. First assignment, collard greens. I'm there in my grandma's kitchen, we're hip to hip. There are no written recipes for any of this, so I'm just there in the kitchen. With her trying to catch some tips and suggestions and take the best notes I can. We start with these big collard green leaves on the stem. Soak them in salt water. She takes me through each step of the process. How you gotta cut the leaves off the stem and roll them up just right. Cut them into one inch pieces so they have that perfect bite.

• 42:13Speaker 07

  We make my grandma's amazing collard greens. But now I gotta go back to my first apartment kitchen with its old granite countertops that I was really proud of and try to make these collard greens by myself. So I do. And I put together a little tasting dish. Take it back over to my grandma. She tasted and she says, "Now, baby, I think you got the texture right, but it's a little salty." I go back over a period of weeks and I try this until finally I hand her that tasting dish. And when it comes back to me, there are no collard greens left in it. She had no notes for me, which means I have graduated.

• 42:56Speaker 07

  I can move on to my next dish. I mean, I got a lot to learn. I gotta make the mac and cheese and the candy yams, the cabbage and the rutabagas. So we do this over a period of a few months until I finally learn all the dishes. Then I meet a man. Things get serious with him. And so I say it's time for me to make my grandma's food for him. I make him this meal and several months later, he proposed to me. Which means grandma's magic, it really does work. My boyfriend becomes my fiance, becomes my husband.

• 43:40Speaker 07

  We buy our first home and my mother-in-law gifts me the perfect symbol of a southern woman's domesticity. The standing KitchenAid mixer. It doesn't matter if you use it. It's just supposed to sit there on your counter so other people can be jealous of you.

• 44:02Speaker 07

  But me, I wanted to use mine. So I called my grandma and I said, "Grandma, I'm turning 35. This is what I want for my birthday. I want you to come to my house. Let's break open this KitchenAid mixer. Teach me how to bake your cakes. You taught me how to make everything except your cakes." She says, "Baby, let me check my schedule." Changes the subject, hangs up the phone. I wait a week. I call back again. "Hey, Grandma, I just wanted to touch base about this again because my birthday's coming up and I thought maybe you could come to my house. We could bake a cake together." She said, "Now, Mina, that was so long ago.

• 44:44Speaker 07

  I don't even know if I remember how to bake those cakes anymore." Changes the subject and hangs up the phone again.

• 44:54Speaker 07

  I wait one more week. I call her back. "Grandma, hey, my birthday's coming up, like, right here and I thought, I thought we could come to an agreement about you coming to my house, baking a cake." She says, "Mina, I got to tell you something.

• 45:11Speaker 07

  Now, I know you thought I made those cakes from scratch.

• 45:19Speaker 07

  But, Mina, I was, I was using a box mix.

• 45:26Speaker 07

  And I don't know if you've ever heard the sound of your childhood deflating. But this is what it sounds like because, no, not, not my grandma. My, my grandma has no use for a cake mix. My grandma surely gets the eggs directly from the chickens. I mean, surely, when my grandma needs flour, she threshes the wheat herself. No.

• 45:51Speaker 07

  My grandmother does not need a cake mix." She said, "And, baby, I don't even know if they make that mix I used to use anymore." Starts Googling "small batch cake mix, North Carolina" because that's where my grandma's from. I said, "Well, Grandma, you don't even remember what it was called?" She said, "Well, baby, they used to call it Superma." And I don't know if you have southern grandparents, but when you do, sometimes they say things to you and then the consonants just disappear at the end of the things they say. And you're left there to decipher what is being said to you. And she keeps repeating it. And I don't understand what she's saying. And she said, "Baby, you don't understand me." I said, "Grandma, I don't know what you're talking about."

• 46:36Speaker 07

  She said, "Baby, you spell it S U P E R M O I S T." "Super moist."

• 46:51Speaker 07

  And I said, "Grandma, you think they don't make Betty Crocker's super moist anymore?"

• 47:00Speaker 07

  I said, "Grandma, now, I know you don't watch The Walking Dead, but if you did, you would know that when they go in that one abandoned grocery store to get formula for that one baby, you know what's still on the aisle, Grandma? Betty Crocker's super moist." "Grandma, did you know you could drive into rural America, pull up to any gas station, and you know what's gonna be sitting there? On the aisle, Grandma? Betty Crocker's super moist." "They're never gonna stop making it. It's gonna survive the zombie apocalypse, Grandma." "Look, let's not worry about this. Can you just come to my house and bake a cake?" She agrees. We're back in the kitchen together, hip to hip.

• 47:45Speaker 07

  I tell her, "I wanna make a pineapple cake." I find a from-scratch recipe the closest to what I can think her cake would've tasted like. We get in the kitchen together. She starts remembering some things. How you've gotta gently take your cake layer out of the cake pan. How you gotta poke holes in that middle layer so your pineapple sauce will soak through just right. She teaches me how to make an egg white frosting. And we make a really delicious and really ugly cake. The ugly part was a me thing, not a her. I don't know how to frost a cake. Which is why, when my grandma turned 85, all of us have to gather together. Her kids, her grandkids, her great-grandkids.

• 48:29Speaker 07

  We all gather together in a big, old beach house. And now, I'm the one in the family who cooks all the food that she taught me how to make. So I slide up to her and I say, "Grandma, what kinda cake you want?"

• 48:45Speaker 07

  And she said, "Now, baby, you know I want a chocolate cake. I want yellow cake with chocolate frosting." And I said, "You gonna get that cake and that cake is gonna be super moist."

• 48:57Speaker 07

  I get in the kitchen, I've cooked all my things. The cake is my last thing to make. And as I'm stirring up this box mix, I'm just thinking, I'm one of the older grandchildren. Maybe she started this cake mix thing for the younger kids. Not for me. I bake that cake and take a little corner off to taste it and yes, tastes exactly like my childhood. And she tells me, "An older woman in the church told her, 'Use the cake mix, but make your frosting from scratch. That's how you'll fool 'em.'" And she did. The whole family was like...

• 49:35Speaker 07

  So after this meal, after we feast, we sit around soaking her in, asking her all the questions we can think to ask. So I say, "Grandma, who was the deal with the shoebox? And the fried chicken and the cake? Why'd you do that?" She said, "Oh, I did that because it's what my parents did for me during segregation. In case we took a trip somewhere and there wasn't a safe place to stop, we made food to keep our family safe." She said, "I did it for my children during Jim Crow. In case we took a trip and there wasn't a safe place to stop, I made that food to keep our family safe." She said, "I did it for you grandchildren,

• 50:19Speaker 07

  'cause I want you to get home safe too." And then I thought, there's my grandma, making magic again. Taking injustice, taking a painful history, and pouring love in all the places she could get it. Which is why when it's time for my cousins to leave, when they say, "They gotta leave early, they gotta head back to work." I mean, I gotta keep the tradition going. I gotta take that cake, slice it, wrap it in wax paper, tape it closed. I gotta hope that cake and wax paper can somehow be a prayer, that my cousins will get home safe too.

• 51:03Speaker 07

  And all these years later, I still got my KitchenAid mixer.

• 51:08Speaker 07

  I'm still married to that man. We've been married for 14 years.

• 51:16Speaker 07

  My grandma's 93 years old and she is still telling us what to do.

• 51:26Speaker 07

  And I'm always gonna be grateful for my grandma, for the magic of her kitchen, and of course, for a small batch, rare to find, little-known cake mix called Betty Crocker's. Super moist. Thank you.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Amena Brown is a spoken-word poet, author, and performing artist whose work interweaves keeping it real storytelling, rhyme, and humor. A proud graduate of Spelman College, Amina is the author of the comedic essay collection, "Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl." You gotta love that title. You gotta love that title. And it is out right now. It is also our sincere hope that she invites us over for Thanksgiving dinner this year.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Amina's grandma is turning 94 this year and was in the audience at the Atlanta Mainstage, where Amina closed the show with this story. After the event was over, audience members lined up to take pictures with her grandma like she was a celebrity. And she absolutely is. She absolutely is, friends. Every year, Amina makes sure her grandma gets yellow cake with chocolate frosting that is super moist. To see photos of Amina and her grandma, or Heather and the old man, and to find out more about them and all of our storytellers, go to themoth.org.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  You can share these stories or others from The Moth archive. There are Moth events year-round. You can find a show near you and come out and tell a story. The Moth can be found on all major social media platforms.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  That's it for this episode. We hope that you keep dreaming, that your wildest dreams come true, and that you will join us next time.

• 53:34Speaker 03

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was hosted by John Good. John is a regular host for The Moth, an Emmy winner, a spoken word poet, and John and Barbara's boy. The show was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Michelle Jalowski. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Chloe Salmon and Kate Tellers. Additional grand slam coaching by Jennifer Hickson and education program coaching by Jonathan Cabral. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Kluch, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricio Urenia.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  Special thanks to unlikely collaborators for their support of The Moth education program. Our pitch came in from Dr. Mary Rensel from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions and Stellwagen Symphonet. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.