Hey, my family, we have some exciting news, one of our beloved hosts, John Goode, has just released his brand new book, Midas. He tells us that he was about halfway through writing a different book when the idea for Midas showed up in his mind and wouldn't allow him not to write it. Midas is the story of this man that bleeds gold, not metaphorically, but literally. The novel explores what this unique condition means for his relationship with his friends, family and society.

Midas also includes two brand new stories HAIN'T and Hanzi. Midas by John Good is available now on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon. Welcome to The Moth podcast, I'm your host for This Week, Kate Tellers. This week's episode is about parenting, a word that, according to Miriam Webster, is a noun, but I would certainly argue is a verb. During the summer that I was 14, my parents were getting divorced. My Aunt Mary, who sense that we could use a getaway, invited my dad, my sister and I to stay with her in her timeshare in Vermont.

It was at the top of a mountain in the Trap Family Lodge. Yes, of The Sound of Music. We drove for a half day from Pittsburgh, and when we finally got to the base of the mountain, my father pulled the car over, locked eyes with me and then my sister and said, Roll down your windows. Then he shoved the tape cued up into the deck and sang along with the voice of Julie Andrews, dialed up to 11.

The hills are alive as we made our upward climb for years.

This was our go to dad is such a dad story. But now that story reminds me of how hard my father was trying to keep his two girls happy during a really tough summer to the exuberant dads everywhere. I see you and thank you. On that note, our first story this week is from Caroline Carnally. Caroline told the story at a story slam in Boston where the theme of the night was Rhodes.

Here's Caroline Connolly live at the mark. So the distance between my hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in New York City is about 250 miles when you're 11 years old and strapped in the back seat of a Volvo station wagon with your sisters. That is enough time to be assaulted by a sibling into declared your conservative Catholic parents that you no longer believe in God.

And I honestly feel like that might be why Volvo made a way back, because it is in the literal trunk of a car and faces away from everybody else inside the car. It's like where a kidnapper might put a victim, except suburban moms were like, jump in.

It's going to be so fun. And honestly, my parents have kind of earned this right to do that to us. On this particular occasion, my mom had sacrificed her birthday to take us all to see Lucy Lawless debut in Greece on Broadway. She was the actress who played Xena the Warrior Princess. And my sisters and I were huge Xena fans and Greece fans. So this was like the greatest gift she could ever give us. And the first part of the ride was relatively unremarkable.

My mom would give us little fistfuls of Dramamine that to this day she swears her non drowsy. And I'm not going to call my mother a liar or a drug dealer on this stage. But we had some very foggy car rides as kids. But this one was pretty clear because about two hours into it, my dad is driving down the highway and he's looking for a McDonald's so that he can get a large vanilla milkshake, as he always like to do.

And my mom says to him, hey, where are the tickets when he responds with this benign what tickets? As if he has, like, no idea why we're all in the Volvo heading to New York City. And she's like the tickets.

Well, no one had the tickets because this was like 1997. Inexplicably, the only solution to this problem was to turn them around and drive all the way back to Newburyport to get the tickets for the show that night.

So by the time we start our second trip to New York City, the Dramamine has started to wear off.

And it is this. If like three feral cats had come alive in the backseat of my parent's Volvo, so my little sister suddenly bursts into tears because she's starving and my older sister suddenly remembers that I exist. And apparently my leg had shifted to her side of the way back seat, which was a crime punishable by a swift punch to the side of my head because I was smaller but no less insane.

My only recourse was to take her Nintendo game boy and hold it up and threaten to lick all of the buttons on the surface, which is gross but super effective, because she let out this blood curdling scream, which prompted my mother to whip around and issue a threat that she loved to give us at this time in our lives, which was girls, God is watching you.

And because I was in the way back-seat and separated from my mom by like an entire row, I turned around and I was like, well, good thing I don't believe in God.

Well, we pulled over really quickly after that at a McDonald's and my dad jumps out of the car because he had no interest in this portion of parenting.

And so my mom comes around to the back seat where I was, and it gets really close to my face. And she says, you better apologize for that or I am telling Sister Ruth what you said.

And if you have ever been a kid sent to Catholic school, you know, the threat of a sister is way worse than, like, whatever your mother or God could ever do to you. So I was like, I am so sorry. I love God and Jesus and like everybody up there with them. And once that was settled, we went inside the McDonald's and we found my dad finally ordering his large vanilla milkshake. And he gets us some happy meals.

And we all go out to the car and get back in. And he places his shakedown in the driver's seat and comes around to the back very calmly, as he always is, says to us, look, could you guys please just get along for the remainder of this ride?

It's your mother's birthday, after all, when he gets back in the front and he sits down right on top of that large vanilla milkshake, which causes this like explosion of dairy on the steering wheel and the windshield. And my mom and I was at an age where, like, I knew what swear words were, but I had never heard one delivered super well just yet. And so he dropped with force a slew of expletives. And I remember my sisters and I looked at each other like, did we just break dad?

And so we drove the rest of the way in silence because nobody wanted to cross him. And we get to New York City and we check into this fancy hotel my mom had booked and we go see Lucy Lawless and she's amazing. And we go back to the fancy hotel. And it's actually a pretty fabulous night in New York City for our family. Next morning, we all pile into the Volvo again and everybody is on their best behavior today. The only thing my sisters and I were complaining about was that we thought the beds at the fancy hotel were kind of itchy and we're like scratching ourselves all morning.

It would be a few hours and a couple hundred miles later before my mother realized we had all contracted lice at the hotel.

And you would think that after, like, several freezing cold lice, shampoo baths with mom and dad and these three girls, no one would want to take a road trip ever again.

But we've actually got on dozens more and we still go on them today. And my dad is in his 70s now and he still demands a vanilla milkshake on the way there and on the way back. And for whatever reason, we are all still in a Volvo station wagon.

But truthfully, we would we would have it no other way. Thanks.

That was Caroline, Caroline Connolly is a reporter who lives and works in Boston.

She enjoys horror films as well as a good romantic comedy montage when she's not telling stories, she loves to run and likes the idea of cooking. When we followed up with Caroline, she said our last family trip was a visit to the Berkshires a few years ago. Even though my sisters and I are now adults living in different cities, our mom insisted we all drive together. I spent four hours in the back seat listening to my father snore, and my mother asked if any of us thought we would be married soon.

We were, of course, in a Volvo station wagon to see some photos of Caroline and her family on their big trip to NYC. Head to our website, The Moth Mauga Extras. OK, the jig is up. I said this was a podcast themed on parenting and it's really a very niche podcast about my family obsession with Broadway as nurtured by my dad. Our next storyteller also made it to Broadway, Christopher Mongkut Torres told this at a moth story slam in New York City, where the theme of the night was home.

Here's Christopher live at the. August 2004, I'm 19, I'm at the doorway of what's going to be my new bedroom, which I'm sharing with my dad, who I haven't seen since I was two and left that of bedroom is super clean. It's got a mattress that he stole from me. On the right side is his side. That's mostly Western Union receipts, ripped up scratch off lottery cards, lots of movies all over the ground. But every night he always watch the same movie, Not Terminator, Not Die Hard, The Fiddler on the Roof.

I can't tell you why this Ecuadorian man Love fell on the roof, but he watched it every night and he would ask me, his estranged son, come watch Fiddler on the Roof with me.

And I was like, No.

Besides the fact that it's like a three and a half hour or however many hour like Saga, I at that time just didn't feel comfortable being in this very small room.

When I say small, you know, like the back of a U-Haul, like the tiny truck that you could probably afford, like small in that. So I would usually be in the living room and I would actually sleep in the living room of this apartment. So he was renting a room from this lady friend that he knew. It's actually not too far from here, like thirty ninth place in Queens Boulevard. So a couple of blocks away. And I kind of felt bad after just always saying no, that serendipitously in October same year fell on the roof was on Broadway.

Alfred Molina was playing the lead and I was like, I'll surprise him, I'll get tickets. Now, here's the thing. I have a kind of a language barrier like, yes, father son language barrier. But like my Espanol is like very moving mollo if you catch my drift.

So I told that, hey, vamos Salyer outside, let's go. And I have like a little like translation book that's like not working for me. And he's just like and whatever Spanish you're about to hear right now is like very rehearsed. Normally hooking I I'm like I said, just think it's just stay home, you know. Let's watch Fiddler on the Roof, Fiddler on the Roof. And I'm like, no, let's go. I'll pay for everything.

He's a great let's go the trip. They're super anxious.

My father likes to smoke in between the train carts of the seven train and he also likes to like, stop, not like Walkie-Talkie likes to stop and tell you a story. Imagine doing that in Times Square. So we finally get there.

But we're like super late and but like just enough to hear the opening song tradition for those who know that's like the big number. And it gives the whole story of the town and this Jewish family and. I look and I'm like, oh, man, he's going to be super excited. He's going to be more he's going to be amazing. He hasn't been saying anything since we got in. I don't really think he understood where we are.

Dead, he's asleep. Hi, my little like abandoned child, heart broken, I nudged him and he's just like, you know, being Cheverton, which.

Rest of the show sleeping, he really woke up for, like, if I were a rich man, he loved that song. And there is this one song, I think maybe if anybody knows it, but if you love me, my husband's asking the wife if you love me and she's just like you're an idiot, more or less, because, like, I've been with you for, like, 20 some odd years. Where you going? To ask my question?

But he keeps asking. So Marlina, Alfred Molina, when he was doing this, he just kind of took these really long beats in asking this question. And in one of those really long beats, mind, you were like in the balcony because that's all I could afford, looking at CUNY tuition and it's super quiet. And suddenly I hear, what do you love me? And my dad says the line.

And I was like, oh, that's cool. And people around us started laughing. But like in a really quiet theater, like how everyone's quiet right now, like it's really loud and you laugh.

And so Alfred Molina, like, looked in our direction and like my father, who like for me was like the Latin Paul Bunyan of my life, like Shrunk and Molina just like continues with the song.

The show's over. I will say this much. We did cry both at that far from the home I love, I think is one of the songs. So we're outside. He's taking a photo with the big poster, you know, TV, his arms are big up in the air. And then I hear from the backstage door like some rookies, I turn around and like I'm new to Broadway and I grew grow up with theater, but I'm like, oh, I think people get signatures from these people like that.

Let's go do this. You know, my dad's just like me, who I was like I said, I like this. Go home. I was like, why? And I figure or maybe he's scared. Maybe he's embarrassed. I grab him by his sleeve like he's my kid. And I'm like, Hey, Mr. Molina, you know, we love your show. My dad. I'm like, right, dad. Like, my dad loves the movies the first time he's seen this live.

And my dad's like. Shaking his head and is like, oh, that's that's beautiful.

And then I recount what happened in the balcony and he didn't laugh, but then he, like, he's got a big, thick eyebrows.

I feel like he just moved me with them and he just looks at my father. He's like, is that true? Did you say my line? And my dad, like, shakes his head. Yes. And he takes this huge army. He puts on his shoulder and like, he grabs my dad.

And William is a tall dude. It's a good job. You made your Broadway debut. Congratulations.

Way to go. My dad's a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grab him. He's like, don't want to take a photo. And I'm like, OK, cool, take the photo. We're on our way home and my dad is just enamored with this photo and he just keeps just looking at it and I kind of figure it out in my own interpretation like, oh you're this dude in this story. This is the first time I had ever seen it, just a man far away from his family and he's trying to hold it together.

At this point. Me and my dad are trying to figure out who we are to each other. And I tell him all this. He doesn't understand a word of it, but he just says, good night. This is a good night. He goes in between the train cars, he smoking in the cigarette. He looks like the Fiddler on the Roof because it's like In the Shadows is returning the Queensboro Plaza.

And then when we get home, like I actually that and I was the first time I slept in the room with him together. That was Christopher Manko Torres, Christopher is an Ecuadorian American playwright, teaching artist and live storyteller. Born and bred in Queens, New York, he first practiced creative writing while pretending to study for his forensic psychology degree. He since founded Fail Better NYC, a BIPAC centered artist community where he produces and hosts a monthly storytelling workshop show Faile Better Story Time.

We followed up with Christopher about his relationship with his father. Now here's Christopher. I wish I could tell you the follow up is that we have more nights like that, that we remain connected and I really wish we did, but it feels insincere and not what storytelling is for me. If I gave some sweet button at the end, you see him and I haven't spoken in a year, the most I can say that feels like a realistic follow up is that my relationship with my father is in itself like I fell on the roof at least to how to be explains it all.

Those are hard. I figure sounds are just as difficult. Relationships between the estranged father and son has felt like a pretty high roof to me. Um, I'm not sure even till now if him and I know how to keep our balance. But we tried and now we've fallen off that roof. So hearing from the moth about my gesture of love from that night, especially when I've been thinking a lot about him these days, feels like a sign.

And I am very big on signs. Um, I haven't been sure how to start the conversation with him after not talking with him for this long, but maybe I can present this gesture to him, repackaged that our first story together, it's going to be shared with the world and maybe that can help us try again and keep that balance. That was Christopher Manko Torres to see photos of Christopher, his father and Alfred Molina go to the moth gorga extras.

There is no one way to parent. There is no one way to show love to a parent. There is no one way to love anyone in my family, though it often includes a sing along. It's September 2020 and for many of us we're kicking off a school year like we've never seen before. Are we crying? We're crying. This is hard. Parenting is hard, but we are learning a verb together. OK, all right, kiddos, we're going to say it one, two, three, can we say it together to have a story worthy?

We let's try again.

Ready?

Have a story where the week that was Kate Tillers and her children, Kate Tellers as a storyteller, host and director of Mavericks at The Moth. 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 podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth podcast is presented by the Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public at Sorg.