Hi, this is Dave Isay founder of Storycore.

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Hey folks, it's Camille Cassani, host of the Storycore podcast from NPR.

When we're in between seasons, like we are right now,

we're going to drop a story or two into your feed every now and then,

like this one.

It comes from 90-year-old Joyce Carter Mills and her daughter Mary.

They came to Storycore in Santa Monica, California,

and they talked about Mary's childhood when she was growing up in the 1960s.

Mary was an only child, but she wasn't ever lonely.

That's because their house was always filled with kids from the neighborhood.

When you were little, how was I different from the other parents in the neighborhood?

I wasn't thinking about the other parents, because you were such a perfect parent.

One memory I have of you is taking all the little kids to the beach.

You would pile us into your Ford Maverick with the black vinyl seats,

and you would say, okay, we're going to sing a song together.

And since we were all different ages and didn't know the same songs you thought,

everybody knows Christmas Carol.

...