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Friends, there's no doubt that this year has been challenging on every level here at The Moth, we're thankful for a vibrant moth community made of listeners like you who support confirms that storytelling is a vital source of inspiration, joy and humanity, even during the hardest of times. We're turning to you now to ask that you please remember the moth in your end of year giving if you can support the moth with a new gift of any level before December 31st. At midnight, we would be forever grateful to give simply text give moth to four one four four four.

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That's one word. Give e m o t h give moth to four one for four for your continued support will ensure that we can bring you engaging and empathy building stories on our stages and airwaves in 2021 and beyond. Until then, we wish you, your families and your communities a healthy, restful and story where the winter holiday season. From PUREX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Higson. In this hour, we're sharing stories about situations where things are not, as they seem, from purposeful deception to just coming to terms with who you are versus who you thought you were.

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We found our first storyteller, Phil Branch, at our Story Slam in Washington, D.C.. Here's a story he developed for a show in Boston where we partnered with public radio station WGBH. Here's Phil Branch.

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So my senior year in high school, I am your average all-American teenage boy interested in average all-American teenage boy, things like having a cool car and taking a hot date to the prom and designing my date's prom dress.

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I my senior year, I'm five, six, one hundred and twenty nine pounds, and this might be surprising, but I could not catch and or dribble a ball of any sort. So the fact that I had a date at all was a miracle. My girlfriend's name was Dana and she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. And we were together most of senior year. And as we got closer to senior prom, we began planning.

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And when I say we began planning, what I really mean is that I began to sketch what we were going to wear to the prom. Prom was a big deal in my family and my parents went to the prom together and several of my aunts and uncles went to the prom together. And all those pictures were up on the family wall. And I knew it was my turn and nothing could go wrong. And one day I was at home watching music videos.

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And there's this artist named Christopher Williams, who is really popular at the time. And he was this tall, gorgeous man with his great curly hair. And it was this music video called Promises Promises. And he's wearing this white Nehru collar suit and he just looks so regal and strong. And I look up at him with my 129 pound self and say, I'm going to look like that for prom. So I began sketching this suit. Now, I'm not going to completely rip off Christopher style because you can't steal another artist work.

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But I'm going to design a suit that looks kind of like his, but it has my flair. So it's all white. But the sleeves have this sort of satin material that has a sort of paisley design to it. And I use that same material for the the trim that's going to go down the pant leg and and to cover the buttons that are going to go all the way down from my neck down and your judging and, you know, to something simple and.

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And for my date, I combed through all the hottest fashion publications of the time to kind of decide where her look would be.

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And, you know, I'm in the Sears catalog and Spigel, J.C. Penney's and I finally decide that she's going to wear this mermaid dress and is going to have some of the material from my suit because my suit was the base and and she would have this sort of pink lace overlay at the top and it would be great.

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So I couldn't actually draw or so so I gave her these sketches and said, you know, go find someone who can make this. And then I took my scribble to my seamstress, my friend's mother, and said, Do you think you can make this?

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And she said, Sure, give me about a week or so and I can put it together once you give me all the fabric and the things you want. And I said, great. So the plan was in motion. So I had no idea that asking my date to accept my design for her senior prom dress was going to be problematic. And Dana was not into it at all.

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So she broke up with me now.

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I wasn't necessarily in the closet at 16 because I wasn't conscious per say that I was gay, but apparently I was so gay that I wasn't aware that designing my date's prom dress and a white suit with sort of a pink shimmer, that when I hit when I hit the light was essentially my coming out quinceañera.

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So for that whole school year where Dana was my girlfriend, it felt great to just be one of the guys. And so I feel like I had the things that other guys had and I could have this future and maybe I can get married and have this life. And it was a really powerful feeling because I hadn't had that feeling before. And when she left, it was equally powerful because it affirmed all the feelings that were starting to brew up in me that I was indeed broken.

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And I was I was hurting. But I had about 50 yards of Satan and somebody had to wear it. So. I just asked a freshman who I knew would go and things just moved along in the day before the prom, I go pick up my suit from my friend's mother's last seamstress, and I take it home and I put it on. And for the first time, I realized that you might need to be able to draw if you are going to design a suit.

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And it didn't quite work all the colors in the materials. And then one sleeve was shorter than the other. The pant legs weren't even the trim was crooked. And my mom is downstairs waiting for me to come down so she can see the suit. So I go downstairs in the suit and she does her best not to laugh in my face.

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But after a few moments she just sort of runs off in her room and just lays down the bed and like cries real tears.

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So the suit didn't work. But the next morning I say, well, maybe if I get the curly hair, it'll balance it out. Now, at the time I had what was called a Gumby cut, it was sort of like Bobby Brown ish and it was up into the side. And I was really proud of it. And I rip out a picture of Christopher Williams from a teen magazine, and I take it down to a salon in my neighborhood that I had never been in because I wasn't a lady.

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And I take it inside and I say to the stylist, can you make me look like this now? Anyone with eyes that functioned should have said, absolutely not. But she said, sure.

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So I sit down and she begins to work her magic and she puts the cream man and she's doing all this stuff and I'm just sitting there and at first I'm really excited. But then I start to feel like someone's poured acid on my head.

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And I'm confused why everyone is still singing music to the radio and reading Ebony magazines when I'm clearly dying in this salon chair. And just before I screen, the stylus runs over and rinses my scalp and it feels so good and she turns me around to the mirror.

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And I don't I don't look like Christopher Williams. I look like Shardey.

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My hair is bone straight and I am freaking out and she goes, calm down, we're not done. I said, OK. And she turns me back around and she starts putting more things in my hair and trying to do something. And then she turns me back to the mirror. And she was right. I didn't look like shit anymore.

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I looked like salt and pepper. I had this curly bob and it was awful. And I was about to cry. And she tried a few more things and nothing was working. And then she looks at me and says, This one's on the house.

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Do you know how bad your hair has to be? Forest style is not to take your money, so I just get up and I'll walk back down the street singing Push it and.

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I go to the barbershop where I should have been in the first place, and he does a little something, make me presentable enough, and I go home and put on my crooked suit and I take the freshman to the prom and we have a good enough time. A few weeks later, the prom proofs come back. The pictures and my date looks great. Props to me and.

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I look insane. The pictures weren't ordered and they weren't given out to family like we normally would do for people at prime time, and worse, I did not make it to that wall.

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I had failed at being normal again, and it was disappointing. Years later, I'm in college as my senior year and I hear from Dana again. And we hadn't talked since high school, really. And we start to reconnect. And it felt good to hear her voice. And I start to wonder if maybe we could still have something. But by this point, I kind of knew I was gay because they had been clue's.

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But I still invite her down to Virginia to visit with me and go to my senior ball in college, and she agrees.

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So she comes down and we get all dolled up and clothes that I did not design.

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And we go to the ball and have an amazing time.

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And for a fleeting moment, I wonder, could this be my life? But I'm not 16 anymore. And I know that I don't love her in that way. And I knew that I had to let her go and let that life go or that idea go. And that was really rough. But on the upside, the pictures were amazing.

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And I had the right hair and the right suit and the right date, and that picture made it up to the family wall with my parents and all my aunts and uncles. And I am smiling in that picture. But the truth is, I am terrified in that moment because it was the first time that I had told myself the truth and I wasn't certain what I was walking into after that night. And I'm scared to death. And, you know, we often talk about coming out to other people.

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But the truth is you have to come out to yourself first.

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So after all this goes down, I realized that it was OK for me to be me.

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And as it turns out, I ended up with all the things that I thought that I wasn't going to have when I became my true self. Have a wonderful husband and a home and two amazing kids that I love. And it's a beautiful life and.

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But as it turns out, that picture of my life now hasn't made it to the family wall either.

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But that's OK because I, I have my own walls now and I can hang any damn thing that I want. That was Phil Bryant. He's a husband and father of two, and he's also a film and media scholar, a college professor and a documentary filmmaker. You may have seen Searching for Shaniqua, his documentary about the impact names have on our lives now about that prom picture at the time of this recording. Phil was not able to locate the official version.

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Remember, his family didn't order it, but he was able to dig up one where if you look hard, you can make out his white slip on loafers and light pink hoes. You can see the picture at the morgue. While you're there, you can also download the story and any of the others you hear this hour. Next up, trying to find a landline at the public swimming pool and a kid from Kentucky gets a job working just two blocks from the White House when the Moth Radio Hour returns.

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

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This is the Moth Radio Hour from Prick's, I'm Jennifer Higson. We're sharing stories of misconceptions, some accidental and some, as in the case of this next story, completely purposeful. We first met our next storyteller. Rob Lowe was here when we did a show at a media arts and education center in Appalachia called Apple Shop Live from Whitesburg, Kentucky. Here's Rabea Wazir. Having a name like Rabea in eastern Kentucky means I get asked where I'm from an awful lot and not just a simple, hey, where are you from?

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But the slow, drawn out, squinty eyed version, where are you from?

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And if I'm not feeling particularly generous, I say I'm from West Virginia, but if I am feeling generous, I say that I was born and raised in Charleston.

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But my dad is from a small mountain village in rural Pakistan, the tribal area.

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And my mom is a coal miner's daughter, a little white lady from Mount Hope.

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So basically, I'm hillbilly on both sides. In college, I coined the term Paca Latvian and I made a Facebook group for it too, using a selfie as the profile picture.

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It did not take off is very niche audience. But I loved growing up in West Virginia. But there is always this sense that you had to leave as soon as you turn 18, get to a big coast coastal city, go to college, and if you couldn't get there, then just crossing the border to Pittsburgh or Athens or Blacksburg would be good enough.

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Right. You know, to stay was to accept mediocrity.

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And it all was almost like the Ohio River was this natural demarcation between shame and glory.

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And that's probably why I was so pleased with myself when I finally got my first big girl job out of college.

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I was the national outreach coordinator for a Muslim American civil liberties organization in Washington, D.C. I loved how it looked on paper.

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I immediately updated my resume. When friends or family would ask me what I was up to, I'd say, Oh, I'm the national outreach coordinator for a Muslim American organization in Washington, D.C..

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So professional and glamorous, but in truth, the job was a lot harder than it looked, being a Muslim activist in D.C. during the Bush years didn't exactly open doors.

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I was stuffing envelopes. I was making fundraising phone calls. I was managing the internship department when there was a candlelight vigil. I was the girl heading up the craft stores trying to find candles.

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And when a windstorm hit that night, I was the person on my hands and knees desperately trying to relight the candles.

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When there was a Dubberly ceremony, I was the person that was somehow supposed to find the doves.

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But but, um. But I, you know, working there was a really awesome experience.

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It was a super diverse office. People from all over the country from different, you know, perspectives and backgrounds. We had Muslims and non-Muslims. We had immigrants and converts. We had had jobs, not had jobs. And we are all working for this really noble idea of of, you know, embracing civil rights and encouraging civic engagement.

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And it really felt like we were doing something good.

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But, you know, after about a year with the organization, I started to feel burned out, which is pretty common in the nonprofit world. And I ended up taking some time off to trying to figure out what my next step was.

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So it's October 2009, and at this point, I'm basically living in bed with my laptop and just I'm on the Internet looking at a feminist blog, just looking for something to get riled up about.

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Right. And I see our organization mentioned and I'm like, oh, great, that's awesome. Let's see what they're saying. But I start reading. And it says, The Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus has accused our organization of planting spies on Capitol Hill, which it sounds bad, but we're always getting accused of being terrorists.

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No big deal, but I keep reading and it says that a man those allegations are based on a statement by a man who infiltrated the organization in 2008, which was when I was there as an intern.

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This this was one of my guys.

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And so my heart immediately starts pounding, adrenaline starts pumping, like, who is this person?

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So I Google his name and immediately up pops a picture of one of our interns. And it wasn't just any intern, it was my intern from my department. So this is a white guy.

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He's from southwestern Virginia.

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And he always seemed really mild mannered and hard working, even though he was a particularly bright.

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But you said that he was a convert to Islam and I had offered to introduce him to my mom.

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So it says the article says that not only is he making these statements, but he's putting out a book published by WorldNet Daily.

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And if you don't know World, that Daily is the same website that said Obama was a secretly gay Muslim terrorist who was building FEMA concentration camps like that is a level of journalistic integrity that we're dealing with here.

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So I am freaking out, he said.

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Because if there's a book that means there are crazies reading the book and the harassment is going to start, right. It's happening. So I call my family and friends. I lock down social media and I start checking the doors and windows like double checking, triple checking at night. And almost immediately it hits national news.

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Right. Fox News starts promoting the book. And the crazy thing is that the big reveal they these spies on Capitol Hill was referencing a program to help Muslim students get internships on the Hill, which is perfectly normal. Everybody does that in D.C. So but because we're Muslims and doing it, it was suddenly nefarious and scary.

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And thankfully, we had a lot of big name journalists and politicians that stood up for us. My parents, by the way, thought it was hilarious.

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They are like, you have enemies like these, you're really somebody. And they bought two copies of the book.

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Don't give the money, but but I feel so I still felt so stupid, like all these weird behaviors that I didn't catch or just dismiss suddenly made sense.

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He was wearing a body camera and constantly filming us.

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And somebody else had mentioned, oh, he really loves shredding documents, which was a really boring task assigned to the interns, it was like, OK, Mike, he's not that bright. He just needs some time to turn off his brain.

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It didn't occur to me that he was just taking boxes of paper and putting them in his car.

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You know, I I felt so exposed and scared and I I couldn't get his face out of my head and I remember going into just ordinary public spaces and starting to feel uneasy, you know, working with a Muslim American organization and kind of hardened me to the idea that these right wing crazies thought I was part of a global terrorist network.

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But I figured, you know, if they just got to know me and got to know all of us, they would understand how silly that is. We're just ordinary people.

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But this guy knew me and he still thought I was the enemy.

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So, you know, I was really struggling to try to just minimize the stuff and move on, but that's that's the trouble with this kind of crime, because you don't want to allow these people to have any kind of emotional sway over you, because if they do, they win. But to ignore the harm they've caused is to let them off the hook.

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Had already been considering going to law school, but now being a lawyer felt like some kind of armor and I had two choices in front of me, like I could stay in D.C. and study international law or I could go back home.

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And my friends were completely baffled, like I had just been attacked by the right wing fringe. Why would I go back to one of the reddest parts of the country?

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But for me, it wasn't a matter of red states or blue states. It was this continued faith that if people knew me and I can make connections, I can make a difference. In Kentucky and West Virginia, I had these I was part of these beautiful and intimate communities and I had deep and long lasting relationships. And there's strength and power in that. As a kid, I thought that in order to succeed, I had to leave, but it became increasingly apparent, apparent that in order to become the person I wanted to be and do the work I was called to do, I had to go home.

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That spring, I submitted my application to the University of Kentucky and I decided to continue to have faith in people, but I still had my own documents.

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That was Rabea was there these days, she works for the Appalachian Citizen's Law Center, representing coal miners seeking federal black lung benefits. She says the term pain collection still hasn't quite caught on and adds for the book. Suffice it to say, it's out of print. Our next storyteller, Jean Liebeck, is a tried and true New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. We met her at a story slam in Manhattan where we partnered with public radio station WNYC.

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Here's Jeanne. I'm walking up Lee Avenue in Brooklyn, and it's a really cold, windy day, but still Lee Avenue is crowded and it's busy men wearing large fur hats and black coats to their ankles. They walk in groups holding prayer books, ice down. As I pass them, they ignore me. Women wearing turbans are hats placed carefully on quaffed wigs, black coats, Metcalf beige stockings and flat shoes. They walk very, very quickly, pushing baby carriages, a trail of five or six kids running to keep up with them, all dressed exactly alike.

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Shops lined both sides of Lee Avenue. In the two years that I've lived in this Hasidic community of East Williamsburg, I've never shopped in these stores, not even the bakery with the smell of sweet bread baking and the black and white cookies in the window.

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I feel like a foreigner here. I'm Jewish, but I don't feel the connection here. The language is Yiddish. I walk past words I don't understand and signs I can't read. I'm on my way to the Metropolitan Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue. It's an all woman swim this morning and I'm really excited looking forward to it.

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I've made a promise to myself that even though it is really cold out, today's the day I start my exercise routine and a woman swim is the best.

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I walk into the locker room, it's empty. I quickly squeeze in. I have to squeeze because I need a lot of weight into my black Speedo bathing suit kind of stuff myself. Then I pull on my pink Speedo bathing cap, pink and green goggles on my head. I take a quick shower, I'm ready. I open the door to the pool there.

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There are women everywhere, everywhere they are walking around the pool.

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They're sitting on the edge of the pool. They're laughing and they are talking. They're in the pool wall-to-wall in the pool, floating and singing and bobbing. There are women with arms extended, floating pregnant women back and forth. And I suddenly I there's no lanes, nobody's in lanes. And they are not wearing bathing suits. They're wearing turbans and they're wearing dresses zipped to their collarbone, down to their knees. And I am so naked in my black Speedo bathing suit with my pinky.

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So I think I could be invisible, I could be invisible. And I'm just going to scurry over to this little corner that I saw and slip myself in. And so I slipped myself. I'm kind of hovering there thinking what to do, what to do. Lap swimming is out of the question and I'll just I'll just be invisible. Maybe I'll hoist myself out too hard. And there's a woman swimming right towards me and she's coming. And don't come to me.

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Don't come to me. She comes to me and she goes, Hi, I'm Lily. She has the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. I say, I'm Jean. She says, Welcome. This is your first time. I go, yeah. She goes and she takes me and, you know, she takes in my goggles in my head. She lets just. You want to swim. You want to swim. I go. Yeah, she's will swim.

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You can swim. Yeah. Right. I look out at all these women in the pool like really is. Yes you go just go. We're going to let you swim. Go, bubble up. Go. So I went and I swam and all of these women, they got out of my way with their dresses billowing like parachutes in the water. And then I did another lap and another lap. And each time these women got out of my way and and so I finally I did like fifteen laps and I stopped and and kind of made her way towards me.

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And she said, How is your swim? And I said, it was it was wonderful. And she said, you must come back. And I said, you know, I wasn't going to come. It was so cold. And she was oh, and she holds that her arms.

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And I know now she's. Come, come, come. So I'm laying on her arms and I'm the first I'm like really, really stiff. And then I just kind of relax and she goes, see how warm the water is and look and I look. And for the first time I see this guy like that covered the entire length of the pool. And he says, see, the light always comes in. And later in the locker room, I catch the eye of of a woman across from me.

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And we both start laughing. And I think I wonder if she was one of the women that, you know, kept swimming out of my way. And I really wanted to talk to her. I know she really wanted to talk to me. But, you know, I, I don't speak Yiddish and she doesn't speak English. But, you know, she she pointed to herself and she said, Tova. And I pointed. Myself and I said, Jean, and then as we're leaving the locker room, she found me and she kind of grabbed my hand and mustering up like all her courage.

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And I just could see her mustering up all the courage to say the only English word she knew to me. And she looked at me and she said, Jean.

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If you see something, say something. And I said, Towfigh, yes, if you see something, say something.

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And and I knew, I knew, I knew that that I wasn't going to take the train home, that I was going to walk back down the avenue and I was going to go into the bakery and I was going to buy some black and white cookies. Thank you.

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That was Gene Liebeck, Gene was an educator in the New York City school system, grades K through six for 31 years, and then an assistant principal for four. She said that after that first visit to the pool, she didn't have the same feeling of alienation.

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She continued to swim and it changed her relationship with the community and ultimately with the neighborhood. She made friends and started shopping on Lee Avenue and she even found a favorite restaurant for a nosh after a swim. When we return, a woman thinks she sees a dancing sheep in Ireland and a man visits lower Manhattan on September 12th, 2001, in search of his brother. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange PUREX Doug.

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You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from Prick's, I'm Jennifer Higson. This hour, stories involving second looks. This next story comes to us from Dublin, where we held a mock Grandslam story competition in 2015. Michael Devlin took the prize for this tale. He talks pretty fast, but please keep up with him. Here's Michael. So there I was driving down 911 with my female companion, and I don't know if you know the 911, but it's the main road between Dublin and Wexford and are two landmarks on that motorway, both of which are pubs.

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One is going to be open to it's called Jack White's. And we're fast approaching the beehive when all of a sudden my female companion bursts into laughter, spontaneous, uncontrollable laughter. And I know I'm not the funniest man in the world, but I do have my moments. Well, that certainly wasn't one of them because I wasn't even talking. So. So eventually when she finally composed herself. So come on, share the joke. And she pointed to a field we just passed and she said, see that field in the field we just passed?

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There was a sheep dancing.

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And and I said, a dancing sheep, really? I said, wasn't ballroom. I can tell you because Cantabile will be very unusual. And she said, No, no, no, really. There was a sheep dancing. She was lying on his back with his feet in the air and he was waving them back and forth to give you some margrave, a disco or something. And they said, yeah, I said, you know what that means?

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Because I heard it somewhere before. I said, that means he is in grave danger or more precisely, she is in grave danger because what happens is a long season. The female, she used to get big and heavy and sometimes when they lay down, they can inadvertently flip over and they're in grave danger because they can't eat. But they're also very distressed and they're prone to predators, particularly foxes. And as I'm explaining this, there's a voice in my head saying, do not get involved, keep on driving.

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This is your problem. But then I know that's not possible because there's another side of my personality which is intent on saving the world and everybody in it. And it's honest telling me to turn the car and turn it around now. So I go as far as the beehive and I turn around and then I drive 10 kilometres in the wrong direction trying to cross the motorway. So I cross the motorway. I'm on the way back here.

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And then the first problem presents itself, which is to say that I'm looking for a sheep in the field in County Wicklow, the sheep everywhere. And I don't mean to cause offence when I say this, but to me, once you've looked pretty much the same as the most.

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So I'm driving along Corcoran for about ten minutes and I stop the car and we get to the field. And that's true enough. There's sheep in the field, but this time it's a totally rigid like this. And I think, oh my God, please don't tell me I'm too late. So I stopped the car when the brakes got out here, the hazards and look and I'm solving the situation and I'm not like in this. I'm not like in this one bit because I'm a city boy.

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And what we have on our hands is most definitely a rural situation, so.

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So I, I turn I turn to my female companion and emotions are to stay at the car. I said this could be dangerous. Baby, I'm going in.

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So I hop over up over the brush fire, over a barbed wire fence, down an embankment, over to electric fences. And as I'm doing this, the sheep in the fields start to walk away in the different in the distance except for the horn sheep and this little sheep bodies. And I'm so amazed and impressed by this because sheep are timid and placid little creatures. And here they are. They've overcome the fear to stand by their fallen comrade. I think this is amazing.

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These must be like the sheep equivalent of the Marines, you know. No, no man gets left behind. In Canada, they got buggered off, too. So that was not there out the window. So I'm moving closer and it's just me and the sheep lying there with his feet in the air. And I got to tell you, you really don't know what thoughts are going to go through your mind until you're faced with a sheep spread eagle before you.

[00:36:58]

And the first part of my mind was, please, God, don't let anybody see this because it just looks so wrong.

[00:37:04]

And the second thought is, is this thing going to attack me because I know you never heard of anybody being attacked and killed by a sheep. It's not up there with, like, grizzly bear attacks and shark attacks. I get what this thing is it. And I've never cornered a sheep before, so I don't know. I gonna happen. And they do have teeth, you know, not big sharp canines, but nonetheless, I and the sheep are scared and I'm scared and it's debatable as to which was more frightening.

[00:37:28]

So I'm thinking in the interest of, you know, my safety on the sheep dignity, I should stay away from either end. I go round and I take a deep breath and I bend down and I grab two handfuls of all and I lift with all my weight on the sheep, which turns out to be about 90 percent wool flips up and it lands on the feet.

[00:37:44]

And I'm standing there and I feel this like just the power, the strength of like some Superman, some some superhuman. And I'm thinking, you know, maybe I should wear my underpants on the outside of my trousers.

[00:37:55]

From that day forward, you know, I maybe get a An in the back to indicate my newfound superhero status. But yes, would have to be made out of all, because after all, I'd only say the sheep and I'm thinking the sheep is walking in the distance and then it stops and taunts affects me. And as we look into each other's eyes, I feel that I feel the connection because we both know that I've just saved his life. And then we turn away and we walk away back to our previous existence.

[00:38:18]

She to take a place in the flock and me to take my place in the human race. And I don't look back. I can't look back because I know she's walking out of my life.

[00:38:29]

And I know things will never be the same again, because this may be just one small sheep for mankind, but it was one giant sheep for me. That was Michael Devlin, patron saint of sheep. He's a husband and father of two who loves swimming in the sea and studying Gaelic. When I first talked to Michael, I thought for sure he must be a comedian or something, but he isn't. He actually works in shipping. So he's one of those hilarious co-workers you come across in life who make the day fly by.

[00:39:04]

Every office should have one. If there is a hilarious person in your life, please convince them to pitch us, set them off. We all need to laugh and it's your duty to help facilitate do not hug your funny person all to yourself. Your witty co-worker and neighbor mail carrier dog walker needs your encouragement. Have them leave a pitch right on our Web site, the mock dog. Or they can give us a call at eight seven seven seven nine nine Motty each month.

[00:39:40]

That's eight seven seven seven nine nine six six eight four. We listen to them all and we look forward to laughing. And now a caution that our next story is quite serious. Jim Jaconi gives tours at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. MOTHE director Larry Rosen took one of his tours and chatted with him afterwards. Jim shared a personal story and Larry said that story needs to be told at the mass. Eventually, it happened at a New York City grand slam.

[00:40:16]

Here's Jim Jaconi. Some of the experts on TV were saying that the way that the Twin Towers were constructed. And the manner in which they collapsed. There was bound to be void's. And inside those voids was a potential to find survivors. My family and I hung on those words. My older brother, Joe Joseph Michael Jaconi. Had an office on the third floor of the North Tower. And he had gone to work early that Tuesday morning. And he was missing.

[00:40:59]

And we were going out of our minds. I immediately tried to gain access, but was turned away again and again because ultimately too many people. Well, volunteering had become too chaotic. After a couple of days, a buddy of mine called, he was a firefighter up in Harlem and he told me to meet him at his firehouse. And I dressed in his bunker gear and me, him and another firefighter. Drove on our way down to ground zero.

[00:41:32]

When we got down below Canal Street, we started encountering checkpoints. He the military police personnel with automatic weapons, but once they saw we were all dressed as firefighters, they waved us right through. We parked all the way on the east side, the guy that drove was afraid that we would be blocked in by more emergency vehicles and we walked blocks and blocks west.

[00:42:01]

We were about a block away from the start of the debris field when. I used to think of myself as somebody who can handle pretty much anything thrown at me. And I thought I had prepared myself for what I was walking into. But I became sick. After I regained my composure, we walked into the pile. There are no words. There's no pictures. There is no way to accurately describe what I saw. What I heard. I smelled.

[00:42:50]

And I have no rescue and recovery training whatsoever. But I saw no void. It was apocalyptic. My buddy said he wanted to try and meet up with the other guys from his firehouse that were working on the west side of the pile. We were all the way on the east. We found the best way to go around was we went down a side street. And the side door of an adjacent building and we went into the either the cellar or the sub cellars because all the main floors were damaged.

[00:43:27]

And the buildings were all pretty much city blocks long, so we walked the distance of the building on the ground and we came up on the other staircase across the street and down again and again. Multiple times I saw written on the wall these, please. Usually from firefighters. Begging for any information for one of their friends who is still missing. Sometimes written in soot with their fingers. We ought to let me ultimately came out. At the base of the atrium of the Winter Garden building.

[00:44:10]

When the garden building was an iconic, beautiful atrium and it was completely destroyed. We climbed out onto the pile and we worked on the bucket brigade. Later on, my friend said, let's go back to the firehouse. I'm pretty sure he picked up on the fact that I was. Completely and totally defeated. We had become separated from the guy that drove us and there was no transportation, but a cop offered to give us a ride as far as Midtown.

[00:44:59]

Before I got in the car, I called my dad. And I told them I was sorry. And I said, no way Joe is coming home. The cop dropped us off on 40 Second Street, and I don't remember what avenue, in fact, I remember stepping up onto the sidewalk to try to get my bearings. And a couple walked in front of me with a young boy and I noticed the man did a double take when he spotted me.

[00:45:36]

And he stopped and he turned and he stood in front of me and he started to extend his hand and even before I could shake his hand. He fell forward and hugged me. He started to cry. And he said, I'm sorry for the loss of your brother's. He thought I was a firefighter. It's amazing to me. When you realize. How many thoughts can fire off in your brain? The blink of an eye and a fraction of a second.

[00:46:25]

In that millisecond. I understood that that man needed to cry. In that millisecond. I felt horrible. Horrible guilt. In that same millisecond, I reasoned it was OK. Because he used the word. Brother. Thank you very much. That was Jim Jaconi. He lives in Long Island with his wife and two dogs and has three grown children. I called Jim while he was driving between jobs. He's a plumber. I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to share about the story at mothe Grandslam.

[00:47:23]

Storytellers only have five minutes, so he had to make a lot of choices about what to include. I do remember some things that emotionally stood out to me regarding that day and, you know, even working into the story and it was. I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to put it, but I do remember when I went into the firehouse, when I was before I changed into his bunker gear, you know, it was you know, it's like my eight year old Ginny's dream to, you know, be a firefighter.

[00:47:58]

And here I was sitting in the. In the firehouse, putting on this gear, and I was you know, it was almost like a Superman outfit and I felt, I guess, being raised Roman Catholic, I'm I'm born with guilt, but I felt horrible guilt also for feeling anything but, you know, shock and grief. I felt, you know, I I was embarrassed of myself for feeling anything exciting, you know, because I was putting on this uniform, I was transforming myself into a firefighter.

[00:48:37]

It's just it was on a small level. But I. I distinctly remember the. How intense were you and your brother close as little kids, what's your age different? Well, no, there was there was three years between us. We were not particularly close, especially in our teen years. In fact, fist fights, I remember when we became adults, and especially when we started families, we became very close and I guess we matured into each other and we were respected each other as adults and our families, our kids became extremely close and they are still to this day.

[00:49:20]

So we were really close, you know, as little kids here as brothers, but as we got into adolescence and teenage years, we were not close and then we did become close, thank God.

[00:49:39]

That was Jim Jaconi talking about his brother, Joseph Michael Jaconi. Jim has been a mentor at Tuesday's children for the past 13 years and a mentor for two brothers who lost their father on 9/11. As I mentioned, he leads tours around the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

[00:50:03]

That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour, we hope you'll join us next time. Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show, along with Larry Rosen.

[00:50:33]

The rest of the mall's directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sara Habermann, Sarah Austin Ginés and Meg Bolls production support from Emily Couch and Julia Purcell. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the drift. Other music in this hour from Boombox Blue Dot Sessions, Worn Body, The Klezmatics, the Bothy Band and Todd Sickels.

[00:50:59]

You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Viki Merrick and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, all three hours presented by the Public Radio Exchange PUREX Dog for more about our podcast. For information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our Web site, Darmouth Dog.