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Season 1, Episode 8: Liz's NonniGuest: Liz SumnerLiz is the creator of I Always Wanted To, a podcast where she interviews people doing things others long to do. You can follow Liz on Twitter at @LizSumner or @alwayswantedpod. This episode written, sound designed, produced, and hosted by Lori Mortimer.Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcastFollow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. www.MementosPodcast.comMusic Credits:"Palermo" by Trabant 33, licensed from  Epidemic Sound"Lovers At Dusk" licensed from  Soundstripe"Riviera Walk" licensed from Fesliyan Studios ASCAP IPI 792929876, 792929974    "Cold Days Ahead" by Rune Dale, licensed from Epidemic Sound"A Way to Tell" by Rune Dale, licensed from Epidemic Sound"Sage the Hunter" by Blue Dot Sessions                   "La Bottega Dei Sapori" by Medite, licensed from  Epidemic SoundMementos audio logo by Martin AustwickSound FX credits:486410__martineerok__wagon-cart-on-gravel, Freesound.org     Ziegen   Bidone  field recording    549882__guynoland__horses-pavement-then-cobblestone, Freesound.org486410__martineerok__wagon-cart-on-gravel, Freesound.org244292__ravelite__little-goat-bells, Freesound.org    ---------------------------------------------TRANSCRIPTMementos Season 1, Episode 8: Liz's Nonni[00:00:00] Lori: Mementos. Sometimes what you really keep is on the inside.[00:00:13] Liz: All the time or thinking about living in Italy, I pictured this gorgeous little Medieval town Cortona. And I imagined, okay, so we'll buy an old run-down villa and we'll rebuild it. And I got this belief in my head that because we didn't have Italian heritage that we would never belong, that it was pointless to try to think about moving to Italy, because since we didn't have family, we would never really be a part of the community.[00:00:55] That was really behind it was that nobody would help us because we, we weren't connected.[00:01:10] Lori: Welcome to Mementos. I'm Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of the show. On today's episode, my guest Liz is gonna tell us about how she and her husband moved to Italy and the memento that they found there that helped her overcome her worries about feeling like they would never belong.[00:01:33] Liz: My name is Liz Sumner, and I currently have a very boutique coaching practice. Uh, it's gotten small because I really like podcasting. And so now I consider myself a full-time podcaster. My podcast is called I Always Wanted To, and I interview people who are doing things that others long to do.[00:01:59] I didn't always want to live in, in Europe, but Michael, on the other hand, my husband, had lived in the south of France when he was in his twenties and he had done a lot of traveling. So it was more his original desire that we would move to Europe at some point.[00:02:20] Lori: In the early 2000s, Michael suggested Italy as a potential new home for them.[00:02:25] So the first step was for them to take a two-week vacation in 2002. On that trip, they did all the usual touristy stuff in the Italian capital cities. [00:02:36] Liz: At that point, we just could speak only, "Do you have a room?" and "I'm sorry, I don't eat tomatoes," and things like that. We didn't ever connect with anybody on that trip.[00:02:49] Lori: Liz was intrigued by the idea of moving to Italy. But at that point, she developed those major concerns about not ever feeling like they'd belong. But they kept researching on what it would take and what it would cost for such a move.[00:03:04] In 2005, they went on another trip. The plan this time was to be more intentional about connecting with local residents. They spent the entire first week in a tiny bed and breakfast in Orvieto. [00:03:19] Liz: And the people who ran it were so sweet. They also owned a restaurant. They kept inviting us to meals and bringing food home from the restaurant for us.[00:03:31] And I remember at one point Michael, trying to explain the electoral college system to them in, in our limited Italian. It was like the opposite of what I had felt, that, that, that we wouldn't connect with people. And we were so embraced by this couple. [00:03:55] Lori: On the next leg of the trip, they went full immersion.[00:03:59] Liz: [00:04:00] For 18 days, we did not see a single person who spoke English. But we managed, and it was really exciting and helped us -- helped me, certainly -- fall in love with this country. [00:04:16] Lori: Michael kept researching, and he found what he thought would be the perfect location for them: the Le Marche region in central Italy. The area has Renaissance and Medieval charm without the tourism and high sticker price. In the fall of 2010, they went back to Italy.[00:04:35] Liz: He surprised me on my birthday with a trip to Venice and a plan to rent a car and travel down to Le Marche and just look around, see what's what, have it be the first step in our plan to maybe someday buy something. [00:04:55] Lori: "Maybe someday" arrived a lot sooner than they expected. [00:05:02] Liz: We stopped for coffee in this little town called Pergola, and it was just something about it.[00:05:08] It's a Medieval hill town. It was built in the 1300s. And, uh, it, it had, this is lovely energy going on. And it was about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning, we were walking up and uh down the street, stopped for coffee. And we decided, okay, this is the place. This is the place where we will check out a real estate agent.[00:05:35] And we come across this agency with the name Casa Mania. The sign outside was in that party font, you know, where it looks really wacky. So we thought, okay, good. Casa Mania. This is the place. We asked if it was possible in this price range to find something. And they said, “oh yeah, sure” and started grabbing keys and taking us to see places, which we hadn't expected to do.[00:06:05] Um, the office was right at the edge of the city wall in an old building. And we just walked on cobblestone streets, uh, about two and a half blocks, through an old archway, and came across this building with a giant portone, they call it, um, the big front door. So we walk up and, and we're just dumbfounded.[00:06:47] We had never imagined what it might look like inside. We'd mostly seen churches from the inside or places that had been made up to be BnBs or something, but we'd never seen somebody's apartment building. But it was like the person who had lived there had just gone out for coffee. The house was completely furnished, with pictures and stuff on the table and stuff on the mantelpiece.[00:07:17] And it was as though somebody was gonna come home later. It hadn't been occupied for a couple of years. The, the previous owner had passed away. But the house was still completely furnished in a very old-fashioned style.[00:07:35] Lori: They fell in love with this apartment right away, even though it was the first one that they looked at. And it had some challenges, like no hot water in the kitchen.[00:07:44] Liz: This apartment was built in the 1300s. It was the palazzo of some nobleman. Our apartment was the servant's quarters. Uh, so some of our neighbors in the other apartments downstairs have much grander places with higher ceilings and fancy stuff. But this is just right for us. [00:08:07] Lori: They made an offer and negotiated the purchase. Before the closing, Liz and Michael communicated with the sellers, who were the children of the previous owner. [00:08:17] Liz: We had told them that we would be happy to accept anything they wanted to leave there. They told us that they were gonna take some stuff.[00:08:25] So we, we had no idea what we were going to find when we got there. And when we arrived, there was just about everything that we had seen.[00:08:39] I mean, they left beds, they left dressers, they left armadia. They, they left a laundry detergent. Just everything that was in a home that somebody lived in. So we spent the first couple of weeks going through closets and chests of drawers and finding stuff. In the attic, over in the corner, all covered with dust, there was a framed picture, like an old-fashioned photograph that looks to me like, like it was Italian Gothic, like Grant Wood had painted American Gothic only in Italy.[00:09:27] And uh, and there was a farmer and his wife. The farmer's wearing a hat. He has a great big mustache. The wife has a tired smile on her face. She has dark hair with the gray beginning to show. It's sort of uncertain how old she is because you can tell she's had a hard life. She might be 36. Uh, she might be 56.[00:10:11] We dusted off this picture and decided that this was Grandma and Grandpa, um, or in Italian, it would be Nonno and Nonna and, and that we were going to, to adopt them as our, our Italian relatives. We learned that this is Ferdinando and Rosa Baldelli. They would solve the problem of me not having Italian connections.[00:10:45] So we adopted them and put them on our wall. And, uh, we, we ended up having, uh, an absolutely lovely closing with the family that we bought the apartment from, but we, we hid Grandma and Grandpa when they came to look at the apartment and to see what we had done, because we didn't want them to take 'em away.[00:11:08] So ...since then they have come and they have seen that we have given them a place of honor and they don't want them. Um, but we love them.[00:11:24] I mean at first we giggled about it, but then it just sort of became, well, of course, they're looking out for us. They are our, the representation of our connection here. Um, when a new guest comes to the house, we explain who they are because Michael is a, is a portrait artist. And there are a number of other pictures of people on the wall, um, that are illustrations that, that Michael has done.[00:11:55] And, and then there's this photograph

Credits:  Guest: Jeff AylswerthHost/Producer: Lori Mortimer Music:  Prigione Eterna - Zealots                                        332697__mseq__trance-gate-a-124   - Looperman          Aurora (Original Mix)       Alleave 159184__symphoid__trance  - Looperman        396684__dbspin__party-background-chatter-real-1    -    Freesound.org      looperman-l-2234076-0205209-stars-lil-uzi-vert-type-melody   -      Looperman               

"Halloween" by Ruth. Read by Bréjean. Production, sound design, and music by Lori Mortimer.  SFX from Freesound.org:  436503__clgood__small-creature-scamper-on-wall.wav455484__jpeek345__sound-fx-mac-cheese-box-top.mp4545478__ienba__apple-fall-and-rolling.wav554312__opticaillusions__sparkly.wav420390__magdaadga__walking-the-leaves.wav ------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT Seventh grade, age 11. And it was written on 10/20 of 1932.   “Halloween” The autumn has another pleasure, for Halloween is coming soon, When through the leafless trees there shines the great October moon. The spooks all start when darkness falls, the wind howls round the house all night, But 'tis not till near the dawn that the witches take their flight. Then after a night of weird music, these spooks all scamper away, The witches and goblins and fairies go not to return for a year from that day. The only traces remaining are the scattered leaves on the ground, And apples shaken from the trees showed that these imps were around.  

Bréjean finds a folder of her deceased grandmother's poetry tucked away in a closet and learns that she has a lot more in common with her "prim and proper" grandmother than she thought. Written, produced, and sound designed by Lori Mortimer.Story editing by Galen Beebe.Mementos audio logo by Martin Austwick.Music & SFXAllie Mine by Blue Dot SessionsGeorgia Overdrive by Blue Dot SessionsPastel de Nata by Blue Dot Sessions131032__klankbeeld__wind-in-tree-white-birch-01 © Klankbeeld  Freesound.orgBirds Sound Effect by BurghRecords 420390__magdaadga__walking-the-leaves  Freesound.org looperman-l-1440756-0080599-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sun-pizzicatolooperman-l-1440756-0080594-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sunlooperman-l-1440756-0080595-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sun-2looperman-l-0207475-0195342-milk-seduction.wavlooperman-l-0747210-0174488-82-bpm-acoustic-guitarFollow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcastFollow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. ----------------------------------------------TRANSCRIPT[00:00:00] LORI: Mementos sometimes what you really keep is on the inside.BRÉJEAN: I feel like I’m very different from my grandmother. But am I? She had such an image that she kept up. She was very prim and proper. You know, she had perfectly coiffed hair, and she had to have her face on, and she had to have her jewelry on. And my grandfather was buttoned down shirts, ties, jackets when you went to visit him. They were not to be seen even in private or in public when they were not wearing those, you know, what felt like uniforms of the, um, prim and properness of it all. In her home, you know, there was the matching bedroom set, and then in the dining room, the table and the, the armoire and the buffet, and the chairs, like everything was all about how it looked.It was a little three bedroom ranch. All the rooms were kind of small. But what really struck you when you went to see her was when you walked into the living room, with the green and gold furniture – ’cause that was her color scheme – right over the fireplace, was a giant picture of my grandmother. Posed, sitting there, stately, lording over this home.And that was just showing that she was really, she was the one in control of that home. And all the while she had this wild side of her that she couldn't talk about or share.[00:02:07]LORI: Welcome back to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of the show. If you’re listening for the first time, thank you. It’s great to have you here. This week, we have our first grandma episode! My guest, Bréjean, is going to tell us about a memento that’s helped her see her grandmother in an entirely new light. Just a heads up that there’s some content in this episode that’s not suitable for kids. Bréjean lives in the U.S. with her wife their cats. They’re also the parents to two adult unschooled children who have long been out of the house. Her story starts in 2012, after her mother passed away. [00:02:50]BRÉJEAN: And when that happened, I went to her house to go through her belongings. And there was like a little linen closet in the hallway.Now, this house belonged to her parents. And when her parents died, she moved into the house. So a lot of the belongings in the house were from my grandparents, Ruth and Sal. So I went through the belongings, and I went through that closet, and way on the top shelf, underneath some towels, was a brown envelope.And it said my grandmother's name on it. And it said “poetry.” And sure enough, I saw what my mother had told me many, many years ago when I was a little, that my grandmother was a poet.[00:03:37]LORI: Even though Bréjean knew her grandmother was a poet, she’d never seen any of the poetry and they never talked about it. The poems had been stored carefully and neatly, in chronological order, in an envelope and with a label that matched the way Bréjean’s grandfather stored all the important papers in that house.Her early writings when she was little were all to do with nature. And they were very, um, sort of faith based. It was a lot of mention of God in her poetry, but a lot of mention of the beauty of nature, which really spoke to me because I'm pagan. So I found my spirituality in nature, and I found that really interesting that my grandmother, as a young girl, felt the same way.[00:04:34] BRÉJEAN: February 8th, 1933, Ruth, age 12. A poem called “A Tree.”Have you ever seen anythingAs lovely as a tree?Anything more usefulOr more beautiful to see?They are messengers of God,Who sent them from aboveTo help us and remind usOf the good God and his loveAnd so we should not forgetWhen we look up and seeThe power and beauty of the LordAll revealed in a treeIsn't that wonderful? And I love that because as a pagan, one of our holidays is called Mabon, and Mabon is when we hug trees. So we go out, and everyone finds a tree in the yard and communes with it and hugs it. And I can just picture my grandmother writing this poem, sitting in her yard, looking up at the trees. And she was inspired to write a poem about them.And I just felt such a connection. ’Cause I could see myself having written exactly the same poem at her age. The mention of God, I would have expressed that differently, but the wonder and the sacredness and the spirituality was the same for me as it was for her. And in that way, I just felt like, Hey, I knew you.I knew you when you were little. I was you when you were little and I was little, and that is a really wonderful thing for me. It's almost like genetics. It's almost like we all have that in our genes, in my family. And my children do, too. Like, they're very connected to nature. So those are the ways in which we keep those connections going through our ancestors. And we don't even know that were doing it. I didn't even know that my grandmother had these interests. And there they were this whole time in an envelope in the top of her closet.There were so many years where there was no writings of hers at all. So clearly she was raising her family. She was doing all of that stuff. And then she, uh, entered the workforce later on in life. And then she rediscovered her, her love of writing. [00:07:08]LORI: In the envelope, Bréjean found poems that very much sounded like the adult version of young Ruth, with reflections on nature and family. BRÉJEAN: And then, and then I found 18 pages of an erotic poem that my grandmother wrote. Hello, grandma. [Laughter.][00:07:44]LORI: Hello, indeed. I will say that what Bréjean refers to as an erotic poem is truly porn. The poem is written in the first person. And the protagonist is an 18-year-old girl out in the workforce for the first time. BRÉJEAN:“Diary of a French Steno”I am a young stenographer. My age is just 18.And I will frankly tell you of the things I've heard and seen.The men have always called me a very pretty girl.They say my form is perfect. My mother named me Pearl. And then on we go.[00:08:23]LORI: Each stanza tells a story about how Pearl pinched, pulled, groped. Constantly sexually harassed at a series of jobs.And every time she defended herself from these assaults, she lost her job. Eventually, Pearl has had enough. And she decides at her next interview, she's gonna take control of the situation.BRÉJEAN: At last, I have decided to take things as they came,And if I lost another job, I'd have myself to blame.And then she proceeded to have this really sexual relationship with the man that’s her boss.Like, she was victimized by these men until she turned it around and said, alright, I'm gonna use this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at my sexuality as a power that I'm gonna take charge of this, you know, relationship. Kind of like, if this is gonna to happen to me anyway, I'm gonna own it.And I'm gonna take control of it.[00:09:41]LORI: The last half of the poem describes Pearl and her boss getting it on, over and over.BRÉJEAN: She goes on and on and on and on. With words for body parts that I never knew.I would never have believed that my grandmother would have written that. Especially just sort of her outward appearance being so perfect all the time. And she had this secret side of herself at a time where, certainly women could not be exploring their sexuality.[00:10:38]LORI: After the long poem, the envelope contained a short story. And that revealed another connection between Bréjean and her grandmother. BRÉJEAN: It was queer writing. You know, my grandmother wrote about, uh, experiences with other women, which I found fascinating because I'm a lesbian and both my children are queer.[00:11:03]LORI: It’s the story of a high school girl named Jan who’s exploring her sexuality with other teens.BRÉJEAN: Jan had a very explicit encounter with, with her sister named Helen. But the way that she wrote it was very much … it was like a sexual fantasy between two women. And I don't think that the incestual piece of that was the point. I think the point was -- at least that's my takeaway now -- as I'm looking at this thinking that somebody who was repressed because of her religion or her upbringing or society or whatever was happening around her, like this was a way that she could talk about having a lesbian, um, experience with somebody, in -- I don't know if I would use the word safe -- but in a way that she would understand. [00:11:59] LORI: In the envelope, along with the short story, Bréjean found an adult porn magazine from the same era. She sees a connection between the fantasy world of Ruth’s story and the material world of the magazine. [00:12:12]BRÉJEAN: I really think that my grandmother was bisexual.I feel like that magazine was my grandmother's way of being able to access images of women, naked women, who are having sex with each other, even though there were men involved. Coupled with this porn that she wrote, that was her way of being able to experience something that she wasn't able to really experience. Like this fantasy or this desire to be with other women.I mean, you could look at that m

Mementos doesn't have a new episode dropping this week, but there are a few more in production for this fall. Lori is hard at work on them and is making sure the sound design is top notch -- your patience will be rewarded, so keep watching this feed!  Thank you! -- Lori   Feathersoft by Blue Dot Sessions 

Jared meets his match in an aggressive little Senegal parrot named Cricket, who ultimately charms Jared and changes his life for the better. Jared keeps a large scarlet macaw feather as a memento of the relationships in his life that led to his becoming a "flock leader." Mementos Season 1, Episode 5: Jared's FlockGuest: Jared H.Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcastFollow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram CREDITSLori Mortimer – Host, Sound Designer, ProducerJared H. – Guest (Jared has a gaming podcast called Parrot Talk.)Galen Beebe – Story EditorAlyssa Duvak – Social MediaMusic:Kenneth Donahue for “Good Boy”Martin Austwick for the Mementos audio logo“Borough,” “Pedalrider,” “Let Go Gecko,” and “Checkered Blue” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).looperman-l-2789900-0179984-roddy-rich-x-ynba-type-looplooperman-l-1186967-0194474-piano-melody-755-abelouisTRANSCRIPTMementos Season 1, Episode 5: Jared's FlockLori: Mementos. Sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. Jared: So I, uh, I walked into Emily's family house then various in the kitchen, and he's just staring at you with these watching every movement you make. She goes and gets some, opens the cage and you know, he's, he's able to fly. He's got his feathers.They're not clipped, but he sits just on her and he just stares. He would fluff up a little bit and he puff his wings out a little bit, kind of get a little huffy at ya and he just make himself look about two or three times bigger. And it wasn't like he was looking at you more as looking through when he wanted to be aggressive.The first introduction of me and Cricket was him turning around to bite my finger and making me bleed. He was, he was a demon.[00:01:10] Lori: Welcome to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer. You know, it makes sense that people like to talk about mementos that remind them of someone who’s passed away. But it’s also nice to hear somebody talk about a memento that has deep meaning to their own personal journey. Today we’re gonna hear about a memento that's tied to that little Senegal parrot, Cricket. Cricket isn’t very big. He stands about 9 inches tall. And he weighs no more five or six ounces. But that little guy made big impact on my guest’s life. Be sure to listen all the way to the end today because I’ve dropped something special after the credits. Ok. On to the story. [00:01:54] Jared: My name is Jared. I’m from central Wisconsin, Lori: Wisconsin, huh? Guess what Jared does for a living.Jared: I make cheese. Jared: Um, yeah, I know very Wisconsinite of me. [Laughter]Lori: Also very Monty Python.Monty Python clip: Blessed are the cheese-makers! Lori: And even though Jared humored me when I barraged him with cheese-related questions, Jared: uh, I mean, Parmesan is Parmesan, no matter what, uh, acidity level.Lori: That's not what he came to talk about. [00:02:25] Jared: The object that I wanted to talk about today, which I actually brought with us, is a giant macaw tail feather. Specifically, it's a scarlet macaw feather. It has quite significant meaning to me because of the impact parrots have made in my life. The tail feather of a scarlet macaw -- some people don't really know how big they actually are -- it's actually the size of my forearm, believe it or not. Lori: Scarlet macaws are the big red and blue parrots. Like the ones you see on a pirate's shoulder. But Jared's not a pirate, mateys. He's an air force veteran, a blessed cheesemaker, and he's here to tell us about….Jared: My journey into fatherhood of, of parrots. [00:03:09] Lori: The story starts with little Cricket. About seven or eight years ago, Jared was dating a young woman named Emily.She was in college nearby. Cricket was Emily’s her pet. But he lived across the state with her parents. So she asked Jared if it would be okay if Cricket moved in with him, so that she could see him more often.Jared: I was a little naïve, just because I'm dog whisperer and a cat whisperer. Like, every animal loves me.When he actually bit me on that first go around, I was like, all right, this might be a little bit tougher than it was going to be. And, uh, I kind of took it upon myself that I was like, I was gonna make him my friend. Just simply because no animal hates me. [00:03:57] Lori: Jared's mission: Win Cricket over. Codename: Parrot persuasion.Jared: The way I had it set up was I had a long couch, and then in the corner was Cricket with his cage. And then I had a loveseat, and I would sit next to his cage. And I'd just sit there and chat with Cricket and be like, Hey buddy, what's up?I would cut up these little strips of paper, and then I'd kind of fold them in half until it became like a little scratching stick. And put it through his cage, and I'd scratch his noggin. Or I'd open the cage and I'd give him like a blackberry or a blueberry or some kind of treat.And I would slowly reinforce that, Hey, I'm not a bad guy. I'm here to make your day, buddy. I got some pretty nasty bites. ’Cause, you know, I was like, all right, I can go in for a step up. And no, not even close. Like he definitely let me have at one time. And I was like, no, he was not ready. And so, you know, that's where I got my pretty big scar on my thumb, where he tried to gnaw it off.[00:05:01]Lori: Jared built up trust with Cricket over about four or five months, but he still hadn't turned the corner. And then Jared got the flu and was home for several days in a row. Jared: And I worked very intensely with Cricket, kind of, you know, letting him out, letting him just free roam around the house. And finally, on the third day, when I was finally starting to feel a little bit better, he crawled up and sat on my shoulder. And then parrots will do this weird thing where they'll turn around, and then they'll put their head in their back, which is basically like their way of sleeping.And he ended up doing that while I was sick at home. And that was kind of like, okay, he's now my friend.[00:05:41] Lori: Cricket and Jared really bonded. And like any roommates, they learned each other's routines and their quirks. Jared: He knew little phrases. Um, I drink a lot of fizzy water, and I like, I like my sodas every once in a while. And he learned the opening of a can of soda. One day I was sitting in my bedroom, and all of a sudden I hear that [sound effect of can opening].And I’m like, Emily's not here. Wait, what? And then I, and I look out and there's Cricket, just kind of sitting there. And I'm like, all right, buddy.I would come home at night. I always worked second or third shift. He’d kind of fluff up. I'd hear him fluffing, and he'd make it a little squeak. And I’d open the door. And then he'd come on top of the cage.He would actually fly to my shoulder and hang out with me. There are countless nights where I'd be watching TV and he'd be on my shoulder. He'd be on my knee. And he would just fall asleep for like an hour or two. And I’d be like, all right, Cricket, it's actually time for you to go to bed, bud.You know, so it was, it was just the nightly relationship that we ended up having that really cemented how much I would love this little guy.[00:06:54] So I ended up kind of losing Cricket and, uh, and Emily, when she went away on an internship. Our lives were just kind of deviating in different paths.Like, I was very sad for Emily, but I was, like, very sad that I no longer had my feathery friend at home. You know, there's this bird that would just. Jared, hi, welcome. You know, Welcome home, buddy. It's like, Hey, you come over here and you fly over my shoulder. You know, we’d eat breakfast together. He'd steal a noodle off of my fork as I’m eating.This guy was a big part of my life, even when she wasn't there. So, like, the loss of a loved one, as well as the loss of a very, very close animal was just absolutely devastating.[00:07:55] When Cricket and Emily kind of left, I was by myself. It was kind of my transition from, from Emily and Cricket to, uh, this feathery void that I had in my soul. And so a gentleman had a scarlet macaw who needed a new home. She was a beautiful sassy macaw. I visited her about three times, and I almost adopted her, but she just would've been too big for my tiny little apartment. Lori: On one of the visits, Scarlet's owner gave Jared one of her tail feathers. And that feather is the memento he's talking about today. [00:08:18] Jared: The reason why I kept the feather was it was kind of like a nice little introduction into being a flock leader, is what I call myself. And that was kind of like my first step into the world of parrots by myself.Emily and I were very, very close. We had a hardcore relationship, you know, over parrots and, and my love for parrots and how I took care of Cricket. When I transitioned into, um, going off on my own, it kind of reminded me of taking that first step to where I was reaching out, trying to, trying to find a flock of my own. [00:09:20] Lori: Bonding with Cricket and visiting Scarlet really sealed the deal for Jared. He left the nest and set out to find his flock. Jared: I ended up adopting an old man by the name of Harley. Uh, then I, you know, he was looking sad. So I was like, all right, I've got to get the young buck for the old bull, you know, rejuvenate him a little bit.That's where Mr. Blue Nibbles the Third came into play. That is actually his official name, Mr. Blue Nibbles the Third. Blue ’cause he's blue. Nibbles cause he nibbles on everything. And the Third, because he's my third parrot. Lori: Unfortunately, Harley started having seizures and eventually passed away.Jared: Blue had this like sad, sad Panda look on his face one day. And I was just like, all right, I need to get you a new buddy. Now I've got my two best friends, a sun conure by the name of Helios and a blue monk parrot by the name of Mr. Blue Nibbles the Third. Lori: Like any pets, Bl

Cherie inherits a stack of 33 letters, written by her grandfather, who died during the Korean War, and who Cherie's family never talked about. Before receiving the letters, she knew almost nothing about him. She hadn't even seen a picture of him. But the letters unveil who he was and the fateful decisions he made that affected not only his life but still affect her life today. Larry Hood’s page on the Korean War Project website. (While talking with Cherie, I misspoke and called it the Korean War Memorial website. It's the Korean War Project. My apologies to the folks there!)Season 1, Episode 4: Crystal's LettersGuest: Cherie Louise TurnerVisit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcastFollow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. CREDITS:Lori Mortimer – Host, Sound Designer, ProducerCherie Turner – GuestCharles Gustine – Voice ActorGalen Beebe – Story Editor Alyssa Duvak – Social MediaMusic: Micolai by Blue Dot SessionsLooperman: looperman-l-1186967-0179585-piano-melody-654-abelouislooperman-l-2431466-0230476-sunset-piano-melodylooperman-l-4487063-0257366-lofi-piano-really-chilllooperman-l-2392682-0213471-classic-mellow-piano--------------------TRANSCRIPTMementos Episode S1:E4Cherie’s Letters[00:00:00]CHERIE: One of the reasons that he was so aggressive about putting himself in danger is because he just wanted to get back home. And that was his fastest way to get back home. And it ended up doing the very thing that made it, this short track, which is that it was super, super dangerous and you're at risk of dying.And that's what happened.LORI: Welcome to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer. If you listened to the last episode, Crystal’s Hymn, you’ll know that it was a story about a grandfather. Today’s episode is also about a grandfather, but the two episodes could not be more different. In this episode, my guest is going to tell us about a grandfather who she knew nothing about until just a few years ago.Cherie has been able to bring back to life, in a sense, her grandfather, who died many years ago and who had been lost to the sands of time. And she learned that he made some fateful decisions a long time ago that not only affected him but also still affect her life today.[00:01:30]CHERIE: My name is Cherie Louise Turner. And I’m originally from Goleta, California, which is near Santa Barbara.LORI: Cherie’s story starts in 2010, when she got a phone call from her aunt. CHERIE: She informed me that my grandmother had passed, after several bouts of cancer. And she had left me some things in her will. Which I was very surprised about because I really hadn’t spoken much to her um, in probably over 20 years. [00:02:00]So I received this stack of 33 letters that my grandfather, Larry Hood, had written to my grandmother while he was in the Army and then when he went off to the Korean War.Before I got these letters -- I got them when I was 40 years old -- I really didn’t think much of my grandfather. Or I didn’t give him much thought. I had maybe known that he died in a war. I wasn't even ever clear on which war it was.He went into the Army on the 4th of April, 1951, and he died on June 29th, 1952. He wasn't even overseas for but a few months. So by the time I was cognizant of this missing person, he'd been gone for such a long time, and nobody really talked about him because my grandmother had already been married -- remarried -- twice.And so this was my first opportunity to learn anything about him.[00:03:03]LORI: One by one, these letters unveil the pieces of Larry’s life story.Most of them are written to Cherie’s grandmother Mary and to Cherie’s father Gary, who was just little at the time. He was between 4 and 5 years of age. And yes, this family has rhyming names: Larry and Mary, and their son Gary.In the letters, Larry talks about his everyday life in the Army. They start when he was in training camp in California, and then take him to a stop to Japan and then on to the front lines in North Korea.[00:03:30]CHERIE: I don't know how he ended up in the Army. I don't get the sense that he was real gung-ho about it. I think he probably got enlisted. And from all of the letters, all he wanted to do was come back home.LORI: You can tell that Larry was especially focused on getting home sooner rather than later. CHARLES (as LARRY):Dear Mary and Gary,Tomorrow morning at 3 a.m, I leave by ship for Korea. I get 20 percent more pay in Korea and the full G.I. Bil. The way the rotation system is now workin’, I will get home twice as fast as I would if I stayed here in Japan.CHERIE: The other thing about these, coming from the Army, is there are just some basic things that you miss. You know, you miss your family. Every single letter, he writes, tell Gary I love him, tell him how much I miss him.LORI: He didn’t just miss them, he stayed in communication and supported them. He stayed in communication and supported them. He asked how they were, and he followed up on the things they told him in their letters to him. And he expressed a lot of concern about Mary's well-being.[00:04:47]CHARLES (as LARRY):You say for me to take care of myself. It sounds like you're the one who should take it easy.Your mother wrote me you only weigh a hundred two pounds. So, gal, you better get on the ball and start taking your shots again. Especially now that the windy season is startin’. You're going to blow away if you don't.So honey, write me what you're doin’ because sometimes I wonder and worry about you.[00:05:24]LORI: Through the letters, Cherie got a surprise about her grandparents' relationship, which makes Larry's support of Mary even more remarkable. CHERIE: He and my grandmother had been divorced before he went to war. They got married when they were 17 years old. So they were children. And when you look at the dates it seems pretty obvious that they got married because she got pregnant.[00:05:45]But he’s just so sweet to her the whole time, and he talks about how she would always be very special to him.CHARLES (as LARRY):You'll always mean a lot more to me than just an ex-wife because we were together and did too much to ever forget. Even if it wasn't for the fact that Gary is part of us both.So, baby doll, take care of yourself, and tell Gary that I never stop thinking of him. And naturally, when I think of him, I also think of you.[00:06:27]LORI: You know, not surprisingly, Cherie has opened and read through these letters many times since she got them. But one time, not that long ago, she found something new when she was trying to put one of the letters back in its envelope.CHERIE: The envelope felt kind of heavy after I took the letter out and I just, I kind of gave it a second thought, but not much. And then I was reading through the letter, and I go to put it back, and it won't go in very well. And I realize that there are two photographs in here.They’re the only photos I've ever seen of this man. Which is just kind of miraculous to me.[00:07:00]LORI: Think about that. She’d never even seen a picture of her grandfather before. And when Cherie saw these photos, she was struck by just how young he was. CHERIE: In my mind, he’s an old person. But he died when he was 23.LORI: The photos also captured the bleakness of his surroundings and what he was living through while stationed in North Korea.CHERIE: Of course they’re black and white, so like, there’s no color to them. And you can see it's a very desolate landscape where he is.And you can see hills. Um, there’s a lot of rocks. There are no trees whatsoever. And here they are guarding this post.CHARLES (as LARRY):Except for the guard duty, half the night, we don't have hardly anything to do, but every so often we have to go on patrols of the Chinese lines to see where and what they are doing. Goin’ on those patrols, I can't say I like too well. As far as I'm concerned, they can stay on their hill, and we'll stay on ours.It gets me that so many fellas have to get hurt and go through so much just to take one of these worthless hills. I just hope I get outta here before too many more months because every week seems like a month itself.[00:08:18]CHERIE: He talks about how they do live in tents, and it snows. You know, they were digging into the snow in the hillside to get themselves into a warmer situation. That was just for insulation. Because it was so freezing cold. He said it would take them about an hour in the morning to put their boots on because everything was frozen.CHARLES (as LARRY):More guys have left here because of pneumonia or frozen hands or feet than those who have gotten wounded or shot. I got frostbite in January, and my knees are still bothering me from the cold that has set in them.I’ll be home sometime this summer. I’ll have at least 30 days’ leave, which I’m going to spend at the beach. The sun will feel so good after havin’ spent the winter here.[00:09:13]LORI: After getting frostbite and suffering with the lingering effects, Larry makes a fateful, but consistent, decision.CHARLES (as LARRY):I could have gotten off the front lines because of it, but I would have been moved to a rear area where I would have to stay twice as long.[00:09:33]CHERIE: I, I have a lot of respect for the military and the things that they do. But when you’re reading about a single person’s existence and their experiences, it also can make you feel like, here was this man who was full of life, and he didn’t come back. And it really does make you wonder, was that life worth losing? LORI: The letters are kind of an extended family, treasure trove for Cherie because she learned that other family members were very supportive of Larry while he was overseas. One set of the letters are to Bernice and Ted Boyd. CHERIE: And I can only surmise that Bernice and Ted were my grandmother's parents, so my great-grandparents.I'm just putting this together because he sent a bunch of letters to these people, and it sounds like they took care of my father a lot. And that lets you know how fractured my

Crystal Chandler finds the perfect memento of her grandfather, a former Seventh Day Adventist preacher, to bring with her when she moves to New York. Season 1, Episode 3: Crystal's HymnGuest: Crystal ChandlerCrystal Chandler runs a media production company that highlights the underrepresented voices in society while providing production opportunities for young people of color to gain hands-on media experience.You can follow Crystal on social media @TheCrystalLens. You can can learn more about her work and production company at www.TheCrystalLens.com.Original music composed by Nate Sharples.Sound FX, Foley, and mixing by Kenneth Donahue.Story editing by Galen Beebe.Produced and hosted by Lori Mortimer."Victory in Praise" by Cast of Characters; licensed from Soundstripe. Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcastFollow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] Mementos … sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. CRYSTAL: About a year ago, I'm moving to New York, and I want something of my grandfather’s. Like, I need to have something other than just a picture to remember him by. And I go back to my childhood home. My mom and my grandmother still lived there, and they had really cleaned out a good portion of his stuff at that point.[00:00:31] And mind you, he's passed for about seven, eight years at this point. And so I'm looking in the closets, and I'm looking past this plastic bag with like this gray thing in it. And I'm thinking, oh, it's just some, like, I don't know, like rain jacket, like, like, let me find something, you know, more of substance. And I keep passing it.[00:00:47] I'm pushing the bag to the left. And to the right. And just looking around it. As soon as I'm about to leave, I think, okay, let me go look one more time. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it was God or the universe or what, but something told me to open up that plastic bag. And I just thought, like, this is worth a million dollars.[00:01:14] I couldn't have found anything better than this.[00:01:25] LORI: Welcome back to Mementos. I'm Lori Mortimer, and I am so happy to return, finally, with some new episodes after an almost two-year hiatus. That's one reason this is a happy tune.[00:01:44] But the real reason is because of the story my guest Crystal has to tell us today. It has moments of sadness. But ultimately it's about deep love and bonds between a grandfather and his granddaughter. [00:02:00] What's more joyful than that?[00:02:05] I'll step out of the way now and let Crystal get back to telling us what she found in that plastic bag.[00:02:19] My name is Crystal Chandler. I currently live in New York City, and I'm originally from Boston. My grandfather's name was Aubrey Prescott Williams, and he was born in Barbados in the 1920s, I want to say. And he went to England and then eventually came to the United States and settled in Cambridge, where his mother was living.[00:02:43] He was a pastor in Barbados, and then I'm not sure if he preached when he was in England, but he definitely preached when he got to United States. And he was a pastor at Cambridge Seventh Day Adventist Church.[00:02:59] Growing up, I didn't get to enjoy him as a pastor, but I got to enjoy, you know, all of the years of his, his pastoring through his sleep. So my grandfather used to sing in his sleep and sing full choruses, full hymns. He would sing soprano. He would sing the tenor. He would sing the bass and he would sing the piano part and the violin and the trumpet part.[00:03:24] I mean, he was just a one-man band in his sleep. I mean, fully dead asleep, but he was singing his heart away.[00:03:35] I remember my cousin and I, sometimes we would laugh or peek and see what was going on, but it was just grandpa singing in his sleep. [00:04:01] When he passed, I actually had his blanket. And I kept it with me, and I just never wanted to let it go. Until my apartment caught on fire. We didn't actually lose anything. Like, the fire didn't catch my things on fire. It's just that the entire apartment smelled like smoke, and it's really hard to get smoke out of any type of fabric.[00:04:24] And so I think in the process of getting rid of things, you know, maybe a roommate of mine tossed it out by accident. And so now I go back to, again, to my childhood home. And so I'm looking in the closets, and something told me to open up that plastic bag. And I open it, and it’s his pastor’s robe. And I just thought I hit the jackpot.[00:04:49] I mean, it still smells like him. It has his name in it, on the tag, on the inside. And I can really still just feel his energy in here, even though I didn't actually get to see him actually wear it. But his spirit is all throughout every fiber of this pastor’s robe.[00:05:15] So my grandfather was definitely not only the rock, but I'd say the super-glue of our family. And after his passing, you could definitely tell the difference. For me, he was always that person I could run to when I was upset or even if I had good news or I just wanted to relax. I would just sit there and watch TV with him.[00:05:37] But specifically, a lot of times, my mom and I would get into, like, arguments and I would grab the key for upstairs and I would run out and run upstairs, and he would just hold me.[00:05:51] And there's something really warm and loving and just safe about being in your grandfather's arms, despite his trembling from the Parkinson's and whatever other ailments he was going through. It really didn't matter because I could just feel his love throughout all of it.[00:06:19] So from a really early age, you know, my mom had to work nine to five. And so who's home when I get home from school at 2:30 in the afternoon? My grandparents. And my grandfather was just really good at math. So we would sit there at the dining room table and he would help me with my homework. And he was also a historian and had all these random facts in his head.[00:06:41] So I think you definitely get a different type of relationship when your grandparents live at home with you. And specifically when they end up being your caretakers. You know, even on the weekends, sometimes I just wanted to go up and hang out with my grandpa, just, just because.[00:07:06] When I was young -- elementary school age, I'd say -- I knew that he had Parkinson's, but I don't think I could comprehend exactly what was going to happen to him over the years.[00:07:21] One of the first memories that I had was he actually fell in the backyard. My cousin and I, we had our bikes out there, and he wanted to ride a bike. And so he hopped on our bike. And I just remember watching him from the back window on the second floor. And we're like, oh, grandpa's on the bike and not thinking much of it.[00:07:44] And so he fell over because he couldn't peddle on our bikes. And I remember running over, running downstairs, busting through all the doors and just running to him and making sure he was okay. That was probably the first time that I realized, okay, like this, this disease is something. And it's something that he's gonna need some help with.[00:08:09] At first, he could pretty, pretty much still get around on his own. And then it turned into, okay, like he needs someone to kinda like hold his arm, you know, when we walk around. Not a problem, but still pretty mobile. And then it kind of turned into, okay, well now you need a walker, you know? And then it turned into, okay, like either you have to take the walker or someone has to be with you because we don't want you walking without it.[00:08:35] Sometimes when he was eating, his jaw would lock up, and there'd be food in his mouth. And you know, your number one goal is to get that food out of his mouth or to unlock his jaw. And I remember having to learn from my mom and my aunt, just how to massage his, his jaw and his cheek so that it would actually loosen up because it was such a choking hazard for him to be sitting there with food in his mouth.[00:09:08] You could see in his eyes, he would want to talk. And, you know, he was still very alert, very aware, but his body wasn't doing what he wanted it to do. And I think how children can communicate is such a big thing because the moments when his jaw was locked, we could communicate through our eyes. You know, it's an unspoken type of communication that you can't just develop with anyone. It's, it's a special type of communication that you just can't recreate.[00:09:43] I don't think my grandfather ever verbally got upset about the disease that I can remember. But I could see it. I could see it in his eyes. I could see it in his attempts to open a pickle jar or his attempts to change the channel on the remote and his thumb can't get the button to press. And so I think I saw it in those ways where he would attempt to do something and he wasn't able to do.[00:10:17] There was never a thought that crossed my mind that said, oh, okay, we need to put you in a nursing home. I actually, I don't know. I just thought, I always thought it was a little strange to just kind of have your grandparents in a nursing home. You know, it's like they raised you. And so now it's their time that they need help.[00:10:36] And so you return the favor, you know? And so I grew up putting my grandpa to bed. You know, he started off putting me to bed, and then I ended up putting him to bed. I remember I was downstairs in my part of the house, and I was watching, Finding Nemo. And I went upstairs to help grandpa, you know, eat his food.[00:11:02] And I want to say that he was doing okay. Like, he wasn't in a bad spot where he couldn't eat by himself. And I told him, okay, grandpa, just sit here at the dining room table. I'll be right back, I’ll be right back. [00:11:19] And it's late in the evening, and I was so tired. I just remember I was so tired. And I went back downstairs, and I fell asleep. And I woke up

Mementos is returning in September 2021 with new episodes. In this update, you'll hear a clip of the first episode that will drop just after Labor Day. Subscribe now or set a reminder to check MementosPodcast.com the week of Labor Day. TRANSCRIPTEpisode Title: Coming Back in September! Date published: 7/25/21 LORI: Hey there, I’m Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of Mementos. After a brief hiatus – brief being defined as, say, 23 months (it sounds shorter if you say it in months) – Mementos is coming back this September with brand new episodes.  Here’s the opening to the first episode you’ll hear this fall. It drops in September, just after Labor Day.  CRYSTAL: About a year ago, I'm moving to New York, and I want something of my grandfather's. Like, I need to have something other than just a picture to remember him by. And I go back to my childhood home. My mom and my grandmother still lived there, and they had really cleaned out a good portion of his stuff at that point. And mind you, he's passed for about seven, eight years at this point.  And so I'm looking in the closets, and I'm looking past this plastic bag with like this gray thing in it. And I'm thinking, Oh, it's just some like, I don't know, like rain jacket. Like, like, let me find something, you know, more of substance. And I keep passing it. I'm pushing the bag to the left and to the right and just looking around it. As soon as I'm about to leave, I think, Okay, let me go look one more time. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it was God or the universe or what, but something told me to open up that plastic bag. And I just thought, like, this is worth a million dollars. I couldn't have found anything better than this. LORI:  What did Crystal find in the closet? I dunno. You’ll just have wait until September to find out.  Hit Subscribe in your favorite podcast app, or set a reminder to check MementosPodcast.com just after Labor Day. See you in September.  Mementos audio logo is by Martin Austwick. And the song today was by Blue Dot Sessions. Thank you both. 

Editorial advice provided by Ariana Martinez -- thank you, Ariana! Music:"This Our Home" by Blue Dot Sessions"Spring Cleaning" by Blue Dot Sessions"When the Guests Have Left" by Blue Dot Sessions"Egomaniacal Pluck Melody" by FJX via Looperman.com"Bebop intro in C" via Looperman.comTRANSCRIPTMementos Season 1: Episode 2: A T-Shirt Hug from DadLori: Welcome back to Mementos, where we talk to people about the personal meaning and deeper stories behind the items they keep. Lori: I’m your host, Lori Mortimer, and I’m excited to bring you Episode 2.Lori: On this episode, we’re gonna switch gears and talk about a handmade gift. Lori: Handmade gifts connect the maker with the recipient. Both people are represented in the final piece. Lori: My husband – let’s call him Steve -- really enjoyed making toys for our kids when they were little. He hand carved and painted them Star Trek phasers (from the original series – for you nerds out there). He made them swords. He carved them little totems to wear after we watched the movie Brother Bear. Lori: And he even made them canoe paddles. We had gotten a canoe and the standard paddles that came with it were way too long for them. They were just unwieldy, and that frustrated them. So instead of just buying kid-sized paddles, my husband, Steve, bought two pieces of wood and used this hand-scrapy tool that had belonged to his grandfather, who was a carpenter. And he slowly and deliberately carved them kid-sized canoe paddles. Like the apocryphal story of Michelangelo chipping away at the stone until David just emerged, Steve scraped away and chipped away at the wood until the paddles that were inside were revealed. Lori: Okay, so maybe that’s a bit much, but you know what I mean. When Steve made those paddles, he brought three generations.Lori: Behind every handmade gift is an expression of love. It takes a lot of time and it takes intention -- and especially in today’s click-and-buy world -- it takes commitment to make something for someone else. Lori: Today, you’ll hear from a woman who encapsulated her relationship with and love for her dad in a hand-stitched t-shirt. she brought it with her to my house one sunny Sunday afternoon last winter.Karen: I'm Karen Krolak. I'm an interdisciplinary artist, and most recently I've been working on a project called The Dictionary of Negative Space that looks at where we don't have words for things that relate to mourning and loss and healing after trauma.Karen: I've come with a periwinkle blue T-shirt that has in it a hand-stitched eagle that's been reverse appliquéd. Lori:Karen found the shirt as a do-it-yourself kit on a clothing designer’s website. Karen: It dawned on me that it was something I could make for my dad that he would actually wear. Originally the kit was made with a white overall shirt, and the background you would kind of choose the color on. But when I called the company to say, “I'm making this for my dad, and my dad spills things constantly on his shirts. Is it possible to do this in a darker color?” They had actually suggested that I do it in in blues.Karen: It's the first thing that I ever had sewed the entire garment.Karen: I first began on the appliqué part of just sewing around all the pieces of the eagle. And I was really aware of how many stitches each little section took. And I began thinking as I was putting in each of the stitches of memories of my dad and time that we spent together and both things that kind of drive me crazy about him and things that I had not thought about in a while that we did together.Karen: You know it has all of these little knots that are the talons. And I had decided that that's what it was going to do for the foot there because I figured that would be a good place to place all the things that kind of drove me crazy about him, was to be like I’ll just knot those up and put them in there. Karen: And I really kind of made a conscious choice to make sure that when I was stitching on it that I would be thinking about him and thinking about our relationship.Lori:Karen was drawn to the eagle design because eagles are sort of a Krolak family insignia.Karen: I made it an eagle actually because when we were kids my younger brother had been asked in school what religion our family was. And he had told the teacher he didn't know what religion meant. Karen: So she had said, “Well, where do you go on either Sunday or Saturday every week?” And his answer was, “The cheese store?” Because there is a really great cheese counter that my dad would spend a lot of his Saturday afternoons at. Karen: And so she had sent him with the assignment to go home and find out overnight.Karen: And then the next morning at the bus stop with my dad -- my dad was a very, very bright man who was a computer scientist, and he had this ability to kind of see worlds that we can't even begin to imagine. And my younger brother looked up and said, you know, “Dad what religion are we?” And he looked at him and he said, “Son you're an eagle!”Karen: And he got on the bus totally happy, having no idea that eagle was not on anybody's list of world religions, and went into the school. And when the teacher asked him, he was so excited, you know, “We're eagles!” Karen: And then he wound up in the principal's office, and my mom got this crazy phone call. When she got there, and he was talking about eagles, she had no idea what he was talking about, and it became kind of a big family joke that whenever anyone asked what we were, we were eagles.Lori: But when Karen gave the shirt to her dad… Karen: The first thing that he said when he looked at it was, “Oh, it's a crow, for Krolak!”Karen:It was typical of the way that my father and I know that there is kind of a code to what we've done but just aren't connecting.Lori: Karen’s dad was unique in many ways.For example, he was a pioneer in computer science, and he was one of the first computer science teachers.Karen: He was a tenured professor by the time he was 27, and trained many of the people who went off to go work for NASA and for Microsoft and for Apple. His fingerprints go everywhere within the tech industry.Lori: He was wicked smaht, but that doesn’t paint the full picture. From how he showed up for the first date with Karen’s mom, two hours late ….Karen: … wearing two different shoes―one was a sneaker, one was a dress shoe―two different socks. A pair of cutoff camouflage pants that were way too big for him that he had belted with a piece of rope, and he had put on his best dress shirt. He had just mis-buttoned it.Lori:  … to his interpretation of religion …Karen:  You’re an eagle!Lori: … to his quirky household collections …`Karen:  …24 snapping turtles, a pink alligator, a bird, two snakes, and this kayakLori: Pat Krolak marched to his own beat, and family life reflected that.Karen:  There were three of us. My older brother Patrick, who was about 18 months older than I am. And then my younger brother, who is five years younger than I am and seven years younger than Patrick.Karen: My dad was a very playful person in a lot of ways. So as a little kid, he was fantastic because his imagination was going all directions. He also didn't seem to have a lot of the same understandings of what should be possible for kids to do or not do. And was someone who enjoyed getting messy. Like, at a time when a lot of dads didn't get on the ground with their kids and do things, he was always the type who would be in his suit, in the sandbox with us and, you know, running around the backyard.Karen: And our dinner table was constantly filled with people talking about ideas. And my dad loved to argue, so he would always take kind of a contrarian point of view to get people thinking out of the box.Karen: And he was notorious for bringing home anyone who needed a meal on campus. They could be a visiting professor. They could be a student. They could just be somebody who was taking a tour on the campus. They would be at our house at the dinner table.Karen: And as kids we were invited to the table, and as long as we had something related to what was going on to say, we were encouraged to share.Lori: And there were family vacations, too.Karen: My mom would name them the great American pottery tour or the great American yarn tour.Lori: In August of 2012, Karen’s older brother Patrick joined their parents for one more vacation.Karen: And because Patrick had gotten really interested in genealogy that year, they had gone on the great American cemetery tour.Lori: Karen and her husband had sold their condo and were living temporarily with their friend Nicole. One evening, they were driving in Boston, headed to a party, when Nicole called.Karen: And Nicole said, “There are some policemen that are here that want to talk to you.” And she said, “They won't get on the phone. You need to come back.”Karen:  And then my younger brother called. And I said, “Has something happened to dad?”Karen: And I figured, of anyone, you know my dad was 72 and wasn't in the best of health, something had happened to him,Karen: And he said, “They're all gone.Karen: All of them.”Lori: Karen’s parents and brother Patrick were killed in a head-on collision when an SUV crossed into their lane.Karen: You see television shows where people just begin screaming, and you don't realize, like, that's there because you just begin screaming. I just remember having this moment of hearing this screaming and thinking, “Well who's doing that?” And realizing it's me.Karen: They just left on what seemed like a reasonable trip and then we never saw them again.Karen: We now have three bodies that need to be transported back to two different places where families are going to be gathering. There are now literally hundreds of people that need to be notified. Karen: And I don't know how any of this works. Like, we don't have a religion, we don't have a funeral home, we don't have cemetery plots, we don't have anything.Karen: But I also know that the first thing that I thought of was, like, my dad had better not be wearing that shirt. Because I really want that shirt now. Like, I real

Funkybutt clip courtesy of Juli Berg and Candace Corelli.Music by Blue Dot Sessions and UltraCat, via a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. Songs used: "A Palace of Cedar" and "Scalloped" (Blue Dot Sessions) and Disco High (UltraCat)"This is Roller Skating" by The Roller Skating Foundation of America (public domain, Mark 1)Roller skating rink ambient sounds from SoundSnap (www.soundsnap.com). TRANSCRIPTIs there this one thing that you can't throw away or wish you hadn't thrown because it had some kind of meaning for you that was connected to another person or an experience?Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about here on Mementos – so thank you for joining me, Lori Mortimer, your host, on this first episode.We’re going to explore the personal meaning and deeper stories behind the items people keep. What makes an ordinary item a memento?Not collectibles, but individual items that are really containers of meaning. Items that hold memories, they hold stories, emotions, and sometimes raise questions that will never, ever be answered.The idea for this podcast sprouted after my mother died and I had to empty her house.About three days before Habitat for Humanity was coming to take what was left, I came across one particular item that threw me for a loop.What I found was something that had belonged to my mom when she was an adolescent and which I didn't know she owned. At that point, I’d already cleaned out every closet, every cabinet, every kitchen drawer. I had looked in every pocket of every coat and every pair of pants and every skirt. I had literally touched every item inside the house and had had decided its fate.So I started working in the garage.And I was digging in this back corner underneath the stairs to the garage attic. So I had I pulled out the shop vac, and I found my brother’s old chain saw in there. And Behind that, I found my dad's old manual typewriter, and that was a pretty cool thing to find.And then I saw this wooden box. It wasn’t very big, maybe a foot by a foot square, maybe about 8 inches tall.I crouched down to move further under the stair with that sloping ceiling.So I reached and I grabbed it by its handle, and I slid it toward me across the floor. It was just covered in dust, and near the handle, it had a brass latch on the front.I honestly had no idea what was in it. I had never seen this box before.It was clearly old, because nothing comes in a wooden box like that anymore.So I brushed away the dust and I opened it up.And inside was a pair of white leather roller skates.And they had wooden wheels and wooden stoppers on the front.And I just didn’t know my mother owned these.At this point, I had found a lot of personal things. I mean, but this … there was sobbing.There was wailing. There was snot. I mean, I just lost it.But why? I mean, it’s roller skates.I think it was a lot of things, right? I think it was, you know, she had only just died a couple of months earlier. And there was then all the pressure to go through everything, to sell the house, and to get rid of so much personal stuff.But I really think that what I saw when I looked in that box was that the person who died wasn't a 74-year-old woman. It was my grandmother's daughter.I think that's what hit me. My grandmother’s only child just passed away. And my grandmother most likely gave her those skates.My grandfather died in 1944, when my mother was 2 and a half. And my grandmother, who had to find a job immediately, started working two weeks later. But she made very little money.On Fridays, all she had left was a nickel to take the bus to work. And she needed her paycheck, so that at the end of the day, she had bus fair back home.So these roller skates must have been an extravagance for the only child of a single mother.She was, of course, a child I never knew. So the roller skates are like this connection to my parent as a child who I could have never known as a child.When I saw the roller skates, I imagined the teenage version of her. I had also just recently found a picture of her as an adolescent, which I imagined to be of the same vintage as the skates.It's like she's totally doofy in this picture. It’s like her eyes are closed, and she's got this big goofy smile. And so I picture that girl in those roller skates at the roller rink in the 1950s wearing a poodle skirt with a white blouse with a little scarf around her neck.Male voice: This is roller skating, America's favorite fun sport, a wholesome year-round recreation. Teenagers rate it tops for exciting fun and for wholesome recreation. Wholesome sport for all ages. Wholesome, outdoor fun, wholesome, wholesome, wholesome.We are convinced that on the American scene, one of the most potent ways of attaining fitness is by well administered.Lori: Huh. I wonder what he's going to say.Male voice: WholesomeLori: Yep.Male voice: Healthy sport.Lori: But I roller skated in the 70s, and it's different in the 70s. We're talking roller disco, we're talking shaking your booty, we’re talking tight pants, guys, with the shirts unbuttoned all the way down to their navel. Roller disco was a thing.My friend Juli even made an homage to roller disco with her senior project in film school.It's called Funkybutt. The tragic story of an aging one-hit-wonder roller disco queen.My mom’s roller skates really got me thinking about these sort of parallel experiences that my mother and I had decades apart. And like parallel lines, they kind of went along the same path, but our streams never crossed.I remember what it was like to be a 13- or 14-year-old girl going roller skating, and that feeling of, oh, thank God, it's all-skate. It's not couples’ skate, it’s not guys’ choice. Where I have to stand there like a big dork with pimples and sweaty palms feeling all awkward, probably smelly too, and wondering if some boy who I didn't even know was gonna come by with his sweaty hand and ask me to skate.And then you've got that issue of, like, how do I hold hands? Is it like gonna be like that interlocking finger handhold? What are we doing here?I wonder if my mother had similar experiences when she went skating. Was she also a dork standing there waiting for some boy to pick her?I mean, who … who thought this was a good idea?When I think of roller skating, I think of the most awkward and least confident period of my life. And like a lot of people, I am okay with mostly burying memories of my adolescent social life. You won’t find me keeping my old roller skates.But my mom kept hers. For about 60 years.My mother had a few catchphrases. She’d say things like, “If it had teeth, it would bite you.” “Because I said so.”And this uncomfortable nugget:“Herpes is forever.”One of her other catchphrases was, “I'm not your friend, I'm your mother.”And what that meant was, at least to me, there were just certain subjects or conversations we wouldn't broach. There were certain opinions or thoughts or experiences I was just never going to be able to share.And that kinda makes sense for big topics or for difficult topics to talk about.But roller skating? She had told me she used to roller skate in our basement when my older brother and I were little. That’s how young she was when she was already married and living in the suburbs with two kids.I mean, did your mom roller skate in the basement?I’m thinking she was wearing those white roller skates, too. Which if you think about it, would have been only 9 or 10 years old at the time.I have no memories of seeing her skating. And I have no memories of skating with her. I also did roller skate. We just never went skating together.One of the things that struck me about finding her roller skates was they had already made the cut and followed my mother three times in her life. Once when she got married and moved in with my dad. Once a couple of years later when they bought our house.And then once again, over 40 years later, after my father died and when she sold the house and moved into the last house she owned. I helped her clean out the old house, and I never saw these skates. She remembered them. She brought them with her to the new house.Did she keep them because they reminded her of her mom? Did she keep them because they connected her to her best friend growing up, who she must have skated with? Did she keep them because she remembered skating in our basement when she was a young mother? I have no idea.So the skates, I guess, are kind of like my connection to my mom when she was a young girl. They’re attached to memories. They're not my memories. They’re her memories. It's like I'm keeping her memories, which I don't even know anything about, alive.Remember, folks, herpes is forever, but not our moms.Next time on Mementos, we’re going to hear from Karen Krolak. SHe's gonna tell us about the handmade item that connects her and her dad and why it's so important that she holds on to it. Music in this episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions and UltraCat under a Creative Commons attribution license.Funkybutt clip courtesy of my OG, Juli Berg, and Candace Correlli.If you like what you heard in this episode, there’s more to come. Just click that little subscribe button on your podcast player so you don’t miss a thing. There are so many people to recognize and thank for this podcast's existence.  First of course is my husband, Steve. Steve, you're my everything. Thank you. There’s also the community and staff at the PRX Podcast Garage. It all started there two years ago last August and I haven't looked back.It’s safe to say that without the amazingly supportive Boston audio community, I would have never gotten this far. We'll see you next time on Mementos.Mom:Hi there. Happy birthday. Sorry I didn't get you earlier, but I was at a conference, so I will try you later because I do want to talk to you on your birthday. But it's a beautiful day in New Jersey, just like that day 50 years ago when you were born. So I hope you're having a good day, doing something that you want to do, and having fun. And know that I love you, honey. Bye bye.Lori: I love you too, Mom. Bye. 

Welcome to Mementos, a podcast about the stories behind the objects that evoke memories, connections, emotions. What turns an ordinary object -- a necklace, a t-shirt, a letter -- into a memento? Well, let's talk to people and find out.  Appearing in this episode:Lori Mortimer, hostCherie TurnerHoma Sarabi DaumaisKaren KrolakSteve Nelson Music by Poddington Bear, Creative Commons Attribution License:"Caravan""Window Shopping"TRANSCRIPT [00:00:03] Lori: Hi I'm Lori, and I've made a little podcast. It's called Mementos. In each episode, we're gonna capture the deeper story behind someone's cherished possession. [00:00:14] If you think about, it a memento could be anything. [00:00:17]Karen: It's a periwinkle blue, hand-stitched t-shirt. I made it for my dad, actually. And I remember when I put it on thinking that it felt like this, this hug at a time when you really want to hug from your dad. [00:00:31]Lori: Sometimes they’re like time machines zapping us back to another moment and place. [00:00:37]Homa: It was super shiny. It was the shiniest thing in the store. And I saw this necklace and was like, this is definitely magical. This should have some magic in it. [00:00:48]Lori: Or they can connect us to someone new. [00:00:51]Cherie: I received this stack of 33 letters. In his own words, these are his stories about what's going on in his life. It made me feel like I had a grandfather. [00:01:04]Lori: Here's a question for you. Steve: Mmmmhmm. Lori: The house is on fire. Steve: Mmmhmm. Lori: The people and the pets are out. Steve: Right. [00:01:11]Lori: We've grabbed life's essentials. Basically our cell phones and laptops. Steve: Okay. [00:01:15] Lori: You've got 30 seconds. What are you willing to run back inside for? [00:01:22]Steve: Maybe the needlework that my mom made. The Frank Lloyd Wright styled one. She's still alive, but it's kind of the top of her game in terms of what she did with it. But also at the stage she's at in life, with her vision and her fine motor skills, there aren't going to be any more. That's something I never want to lose. I always want to have hanging on the wall somewhere. [00:01:47]Lori: Little piece of mom. Steve: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:51]Homa: I think I will always keep it because it's something that my grandma and I went through together. I have brought it to the United States with me. I've kept this necklace and brought it all over to oceans. [00:02:06]Cherie: Yeah, it brought him to life for me. And nobody else had done that. And the fact that he got to do that? That was really special. [00:02:17]Karen: I keep thinking it has to make it through the rest of my life with me. So I try and save it for days when, like, I know I'm doing something that is really challenging or that I need some extra belief in myself for or I know I just could use some reassurance from my dad. [00:02:35]Lori: You know, when it comes to mementos, sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. Lori: The first episode will be ready in early October. So subscribe now on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And join me on social media at mementos podcast. And if you want to learn more about each episode, check out mementos podcast dot com. [00:03:03]Lori: Music provided by Poddington Bear under a Creative Commons Attribution license.   0bKEdqCm6KNdaRgLWOqy