The Moth Radio Hour: GrandSLAMS Coast to Coast

The Moth

Arts, Performing Arts

4.6 • 25.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this hour, Moth GrandSLAM stories from around the country. PTSD, a trans teen, college, eBay, prison, eye contact and the emergency room. Hosted by Jenifer Hixson, Senior Director at The Moth. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.

Storytellers: Fred Johnson, Vivienne Andersen, Pam Burrell, Steve Zimmer, Tony Cyprien, Pam Colby, Bess Stillman

Transcript

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0:00.0	From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour, I'm Jennifer Hickson. The Bolluth is true stories
0:17.5	shared with a live audience. In this hour, stories from our Grand Slams across the country,
0:22.2	which feature winners from our open-mic stories lands. Kentucky, Wisconsin, Colorado, New York,
0:28.3	California, and Minnesota, a soldier, a doctor, prisons and battlefields, and eBay. Our first
0:36.6	story is from Louisville, where we partner with Public Radio Station WFPL. This is Fred Johnson.
0:42.4	When I walked out of the Jeffersonville City jail, I knew one thing for certain, and that's my wife
0:51.5	was going to be pissed. The night before I had performed a ritual that I had done on the anniversary of
0:58.2	911, ever since I got back from Iraq in 2007. And that was a shot of bourbon for each of my three
1:06.4	most dearest fallen comrades. The first shot of bourbon was Makers Mark, and it was for Bill Wood,
1:12.1	who loved Makers Mark, Bill died in Dora, Iraq in 2005. The second shot of bourbon was Woodford
1:21.4	which is my favorite bourbon, because Joe Fenty didn't like to drink bourbon. He died on a mountain
1:26.2	top in Afghanistan in 2006. Joe was my dearest friend. And then my last shot of bourbon was
1:34.5	Basil Hayden because it's so smooth, and Freeman Gardner died so young on the streets of Amaria,
1:42.2	Baghdad in 2007. I finished my shots, and I had a couple beers, and I sit and thought, and I
1:49.0	sit to myself. I'm going to get in my car, and I'm going to drive it into the Ohio River, so I can be
1:55.0	with my dead friends in Vahala. Of course, a placement stopped me and put me in jail. That's
2:02.1	reason why I was in jail. So the next morning when I got out, I called home, and my wife answered,
2:12.6	didn't let me say a word, she said, you're going to therapy. What she didn't say, but strongly
2:19.0	inferred, is that you're going to go to therapy now, or you're never going to see me, or your
2:23.7	daughter again. My wife had long said that I had PTSD, that when I went to Iraq that I changed,
2:31.0	and when I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, that I had gotten worse. Now, my wife is a PhD
2:37.7	psychologist. She's the director of behavioral health at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in charge of
	...

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