The Kid Who Built An Urban Tree House To Survive from Uncuffed

Snap Judgment

Snap Judgment and PRX

Snap, Glynn, Storytelling, Wnyc, Society & Culture/personal Journals, Performing Arts, Washington, Society & Culture/documentary, Arts/performing Arts, Music, Arts

4.8 • 11.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As kids many of us dreamt of building and playing in a tree house. For Donald Vaughn, also known as “fish”, that became his everyday reality… but it was far from a dream. Cold, hungry and all alone, Vaughn was kicked out of his house at 11 years old, and built a makeshift treehouse in order to survive. Anthony Ivy, an Uncuffed producer at Solano State prison, asked Vaughn to share his nightmare of being unloved, unkept and isolated.

Thank you, Donald Vaughn, for sharing your story! This piece comes from our friends at Uncuffed.

You can listen to KALW’s Uncuffed, for more stories produced inside California state prisons, wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow @WeAreUncuffed on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. To learn more, sign up for Uncuffed news, and support the program at www.weareuncuffed.org

Produced by Anthony Ivy, Andrew Stelzer, and Sonia Paul

Edited by Andrew Stelzer and Sonia Paul

Artwork by Teo Ducot

Uncuffed’s work in prisons is supported by the California Arts Council, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and donations from listeners. The producers fact-check content to the best of their ability. Content is approved by an information officer.

Season 14 - Episode 25

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Snap Judgment Studios
0:07.1	Hey Snap, it was a quick favor.
0:12.8	I really want to know what you think about what's happening at Snap, our storytelling
0:16.8	and everything, so we're conducting an audience survey.
0:20.2	And I would be super grateful if you could take just a few minutes to share your thoughts.
0:25.8	Visit survey.prx.org slash snap to take the survey today.
0:31.7	It's short, I promise.
0:33.5	That's survey.prx.org slash snap.
0:39.5	Thanks.
0:40.5	When I was coming to Washington, you're listening to Snap Judgment.
0:47.2	I don't know someone.
0:49.2	To really know them, you have to know something of their backstory.
0:53.5	Typically, we imagine building and playing in a tree house is something fun to do.
0:58.8	For Donald Vaughn, a tree house was the furthest thing away from something fun to do.
1:06.2	Vaughn was kicked out of his home at 11 years of age and built a makeshift tree house to survive.
1:13.0	Vaughn told his story to Anthony Ivy, a producer at UnCuffed, a storytelling project
1:18.2	made by people incarcerated inside California prisons, collaboration with KALW Radio.
1:25.2	Ivy and Vaughn are both incarcerated at Solano State Prison.
1:30.0	Snap Judgment.
1:30.7	The only thing that was scary me the most was if I was going to fall out that tree house
1:37.3	or not.
1:38.3	That was probably the main thing.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Snap Judgment and PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Snap Judgment and PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.