from PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show,

and today we'll hear about lessons our parents teach us, whether they mean to or not.

Our first storyteller is Bridgette Davis. She told her story at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Detroit, Michigan, where The Moth was presented by Michigan Radio.

Here's Bridgette Davis live at the Moth was presented by Michigan radio. Here's Brigette Davis, live at the

moth. I was in my first grade class one day, and I had just shown my teacher, Ms. Miller,

an assignment. We had to color paper petals, cut them out, and paste them onto a picture of a flower.

And as I'm returning to my seat, Miss Miller stops me, and she says,

You sure do have a lot of shoes.

The week before, she had asked me what my father did for a living, and I said he doesn't

work. And she said, well, what does your mother do? And I froze. I knew I could not tell her

that. My mom was in the numbers, which was a lot like today's lottery, except that it was

underground, and it really existed for decades before the state basically took it over.

My mom was a numbers runner.

That means that every day, except Sunday,

she would take people's bets on three-digit numbers,

collect their money when they didn't win,

pay out their winnings when they did,

and profit from the difference. And the thing is, the numbers was wildly popular.

It generated millions of dollars in every major city in the country.

And so you can imagine that a lot of that money circulated through the black community. And those dollars turned over many, many times.

I mean, numbers money helped to provide services that black folks desperately needed.

It really helped with launching small businesses and providing college scholarships,

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