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Honestly with Bari Weiss

Wisdom from a Teen and a Grandfather—60 Years Apart

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

Society & Culture, News

4.67.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over the last six months, we’ve run two essay contests in The Free Press. The first was for high schoolers; we asked them to write about a problem facing American society—and how to fix it.  The second contest was for an older generation—70 years and over—and we asked them to tell a story about an event that shaped their life and helped give them wisdom or a fresh perspective.  Today, we are thrilled to bring you the winners of both of those contests. Voices of wisdom exactly 60 years apart. First, you’ll hear 17-year-old Ruby LaRocca read her winning essay, “A Constitution for Teenage Happiness.” As you’ll hear, her happiness guide involves less phones (in fact, she doesn’t own one) and more old books, less TV and more memorizing poems. Ruby is a homeschooled senior. She told us she entered the contest because she believes in our mission of finding “the people—under the radar or in the public eye—who are telling the truth.”  Then, you’ll hear Michael Tobin—a 77-year-old psychologist living in Israel—read his winning essay, “A Love Song for Deborah.” It is about grappling with his wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and nearly giving in to despair—until he found the one thing that awakened her.  We hope you enjoy today’s episode, and that it moves, uplifts, inspires—and all of those other holiday spirit verbs. It sure did for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's that time.

0:03.0

Guess what's brewing at Starbucks?

0:05.3

You already know.

0:06.8

A dash of autumn, hints of spice with a twist of chai and pumpkin cream cold foam.

0:13.4

Wait, is that the?

0:14.5

Yep, it's the new pumpkin cream ice-chai tea latte.

0:18.6

For hot iceed and all things pumpkin spice,

0:22.3

no one does it better than Starbucks. Subject to

0:26.3

availability while stocks lost. I'm Barry Weiss and this is honestly.

0:35.0

And today we have a delightful Christmas treat for all of you.

0:42.4

This is an episode I think you'll love

0:43.7

listening to with everyone in your family. Over the last six months we've run two essay contests in the

0:49.6

free press. The first was for high schoolers. We asked young people to write about a problem facing American society and how they would fix it.

0:57.0

The second contest, which we're publishing this week, was for an older generation, 70 years and up.

1:03.7

We asked those people to tell us a story about an event that shaped their life,

1:07.8

help give them wisdom or a fresh perspective.

1:10.7

Today, we're thrilled to bring you the winners of both of those contests.

1:15.0

First, you'll hear 17-year-old Ruby Laraca read her winning essay,

1:20.0

A Constitution for Teenage Happiness.

1:22.0

As you'll hear, her happiness guide a constitution for teenage happiness.

1:22.8

As you'll hear, her happiness guide isn't what you expect

1:26.2

from a 17-year-old.

...

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