Welcome.

To the Moth Podcast. I'm Kate Tellers, Senior Director and your host for this episode. I am notorious for my obsession with sitting close to any body of water, much to the dismay of my husband because due to this and tides, he has had his glasses, his phone, and the majority of our romantic, oceanside dinner in Thailand, swept away forever. Still, I always pull up close whenever I can. So much happens around water. And in this episode, we're diving into the deep end with stories about the push and pull, the power and promise of the water. First up, we have Linda Grocer. She told this at a Boston Story Slam where the theme of the night was, appropriately, water. Here's Linda, live at the Moth.

So I'm in Burlington, Vermont, and I'm heading out for a run on the bike path, where it turns into the causeway out onto Lake Champlain and it's cold and miserable. But I am desperate to shake off this anxiety that I have because I have to sleep on this boat tonight. I am not far from where my friends are, where I'm staying. I'd been coming up there quite a lot, mostly right after I had left the family home and left my husband of 25 years. Going to Vermont became like a respite because I had such tension, keeping the secret of my marriage that was failing. In Vermont, I could sit on their porch, look at the water, just relax and breathe. This trip, I'm actually taking a sailing course where I'm going to be spending the entire week living on board this boat and I have claustrophobia. Six o'clock, I suck it up and I head on down to the harbor. I go in and these couple of guys are scurrying around, picking up these parcels with overflowing groceries. We trudge out to the boat. It's dark and rainy. We shove everything away. Right away, I say, Guys, it's okay.

I am going to sleep in the saloon tonight. That's the middle area that's between the cabins and the ceiling is a little bit higher, so I'm hopeful. And I crawl into the sleeping bag. The next time I opened my eyes, I slept through the night. I was so happy and the sun was shining. Meanwhile, I really didn't ask a whole lot of questions about this trip, so II am on this boat, me and these two middle-aged men. The other student is Dennis. He's a chef from Toronto. Right off, he starts making these leude comments. But I am ignoring Dennis because the other guy is tall and lean. (audience laughter).

(audience laughter) (audience laughter).

And his looks and his competence on the boat was the most ridiculously sexy combination that I could possibly imagine. His name was Erol. So every morning we would have some lesson, navigation, trimming the sails, and then we would go out and we would sail for the whole afternoon in the wind and the sun, and we would find a quiet cove to anchor at night. I felt such freedom that I hadn't felt in a long time. It was maybe the third night, and we're out on the deck, the three of us, and it's cold. Erol grabs a blanket and throws it over him and me. And then we're holding hands. And my bodyMy body is responding. So, Dennis had discreetly gone below, and in quite short order, Erol and I had gone below into his tiny cabin, which, by the way, the walls are about as thick as a sheet. He is fumbling for a condom, which he promptly loses. And I hear, Oh, crap, that was the only one I had. And I say, I don't care. And he says, Aren't you worried about getting pregnant? I'm thinking he has no idea how old I am.

That sex was the first time in at least five years and 25 years since I had had sex with a man other than my husband. It was a week of adventure. I mean, the physicality of learning how to handle this boat and the absolute magic of traveling and living on the water and reconnecting with feelings that had been shut down after a lot of not so happy years in my marriage. That was a week I reclaimed my life. Thank you. That was.

Linda Grocer. She told us that stories give meaning to life, and she loves to share this gift by teaching and producing shows. Linda is also a travel photographer, taking pictures ever since visiting relatives in Europe at age 15, armed with her brownie, systematic. She's nourished by nature, the outdoors, music, and movement, sailing, cycling, drumming, dancing, lives in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, and has two adult sons. You can see her photos on Instagram at lindatakes. Pix. Learning to swim is a significant and sometimes terrifying rite of passage for many of us. When my sister was four, she refused to jump off the side of the pool into the water. Absolutely refused. Her swim teacher, my parents, everyone was giving up. But I knew her weakness because I shared it. Our parents were notoriously strict about letting us load up at the swimming pool snack bar. So I stole some change from my dad's coin cup, sorry, dad, and bribed her with a fat frog popsicle. Success. Now an adult, she's taken up open water swimming in the Atlantic. No bribe necessary. Up next, we've got a story about sinking or swimming. John Good told this at a Charlottesville mainstage where he was the host for the evening.

Here's John, live at the mall.

So in my senior year of high school, I had settled on and accepted to the College of my Choice. It was a beautiful college in the Shannon Dole Valley. And you may ask yourself, was it the beautiful campus or the rigorous academic tract that attracted me to the school? It was neither. It was an event called Black Freshman Weekend. Today, I think it's called African-American Prospective Weekend, but back then, Black Freshman Weekend. It was black. It was beautiful. I needed to be where it was. I went and told my father that I'd been accepted to the school. He says, That's wonderful. That's amazing. All you have to do now is pay for it. In high school, I had about a 3.2 GPA, which is a decent GPA, but they don't really give scholarships for 3.2s. For instance, our valedictorian, she had a 4.9. She had a 4.9 on a scale that I was told only went to four. I was like, What are you taking classes in the future? What's going on here? How is it even possible? I was somewhat anxious about my chances of going to black freshman weekend or going to college.

I don't know if you've seen nature shows where they talk about how sharks can smell blood in the water. Well, military recruiters can smell anxiousness in high school hallways much the same way. The next thing I knew, there was a Marine Corps recruiter parade resting in front of my locker, and he said, Hello, Jonathan. I was like, What a Madam Cleo Marine Corps, a psychic madness is this? How do you even know my name? He said that he had seen my ASVAB scores. The ASVAB is an aptitude test that lets recruiters know your capabilities in the military service. He said they were very high. He said, I had 85 out of 99. As he continued to talk, I began to think about the fact that my father, he had been a staff sergeant in the army. I had a brother that had enlisted in the army. I had a sister that had served. Here I was being invited to join this rich tradition of military service in my family. Not just that, they went in the army. I was being invited to join the Marines, the toughest of the tough. And just as I'm having that thought, he tells me about the GI build and how that can help me get to Black freshman weekend.

And then he asks, he says, Do you know smoke and bean? And now to you, that might sound like some delicious beans, like something you can get at the soul-food joint. Or it could sound like something to do with legumes and marijuana. But no, smoke and bean were two guys that I went to high school with. I was like, Of course, I know smoke and bean. He said, They're going down to Marine Corps boot camp. You can all go together. That was it. I was sold. That's how I found myself on Paris Island, South Carolina, training to become a United States Marine. All right, I accept that. There are certain markers you have to hit in boot camp to graduate. The first is you have to pass the physical fitness test. I was a young man. I played basketball every day. I was in good shape, so I passed the physical fitness test. Hoorah. The second thing you have to pass is the rifle range. Listen, no one has ever confused me with Wild Bill Hickok, but I hit it enough times. I passed the rifle range. The third thing is you have to pass a thing known as basic warrior training.

I was 18. I was basic. I wanted to be a warrior. I was trainable. I passed BWT. And the last thing is the swim qualification. Exactly. I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, as I said, in this neighborhood, Oak Grove, Belmont, Blackwell, inner city. One person from that neighborhood, fantastic, glad you made it. Never went to the river. I never went to the river. We had a pool, though. The pool was about seven blocks from my house. I would go down to the pool every other day, every two or three days. Like all the other kids, I would just stand in the water because there were too many kids in the pool to actually swim. So we would just stand there and talk. It was like a Black kid soup. It was like a ghetto gospacho. It was refreshing, but not very informative. We never learned to swim. On the first day of the swim quad, it's just a sea of white faces. But on the second day, that's the day for everyone who failed and it was nothing but inner city black kids. That's all there was on the second day. And when you don't know how to swim, what they do in the Marine Corps is they teach you a version of the backstroke, which makes it look like you're having an actual stroke.

It's not very good. So the Marine Corps Swim Qaw, you have to jump off a 15-foot tower and swim halfway across an Olympic size pool. And you get four chances to do this. And if you don't do it in four chances, then you're sent home. So I failed the first day. I failed the second day. I failed the third day. Here we are on the fourth day. Now, Smoking Bean, they weren't there. I don't know what happened to them, but they were not there for the last day of the Swim Qaw. I'm standing there and I'm somewhat nervous because I'm thinking, if I don't make it, I'll have to go home and face my dad and face my siblings. I'm up on the tower and I'm about to jump. I pull my pockets inside out, hoping that as I jump, maybe the air will go up my leg and fill the pockets and it will serve as a flotation device. Just so you know, that doesn't work. I jumped off, I hit the water, I went down, I surfaced, and I immediately began to drown. The swimming instructor, he jumped in, he grabs me, he pulls me to the side, and he says, Get in line.

Then he jumps back in the water because everyone is drowning. Everyone is drowning. I'm happy to be alive and I'm feeling somewhat sad. Then I look over and I noticed that there are two lines. There's a line for people who failed and there's a line for people who passed. And his instruction was to get in line. So I got in the line for people who passed. Because one thing they teach in the Marine Corps, it is to follow orders. And this is how I passed the swim court, became a Marine, and I got to go to black freshman weekend. Thank you. So a few years later, I ran into one of my drill instructors, Staff Sergeant Baxter. We had a good laugh about boot camp. I told him how I passed the swim quad. He thought it was hilarious. I told him that I had learned some things since. Number one, I had learned how to swim. It still looks like I'm having a medical event, but I can do it. Number two, I told him that I've learned that sometimes getting what you want is just about getting in the right line. Thank you all for listening to that story right there.

That was John Good. John is an Emmy-nominated writer, raised in Richmond, Virginia, and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2022, he won a Gold American Advertising Award, a Silver Telly Award, and was nominated for his second Pro Max. He has written a collection of poetry and short stories titled Conduit and a novel entitled Midas, both available wherever you get your books. John is the current host of The Moth Atlanta, and you can find him on Instagram @jongood. That has an E on the end of it. That's it for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope your week is a splash.

Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, senior director at The Moth, and co-author of their fourth book, How to Tell a Story. Her story, but also bring cheese, is featured in The Moth's All these wonders, true stories about facing the unknown. And her writing has appeared on McSweeney's and The New Yorker. This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Janes, Sarah-Jane-Johnson, and me, Mark Sallinger. The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bulls, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluchay, Suzanne Rest, Brandon Grant Walker, LeAnne Gully, and Aldie Kaza. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth. Org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX. Org.