On the Water: Linda Grosser and Jon Goode
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This autumn, fall for Moth Stories as we travel across the globe for our mainstages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows from New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more. The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth mainstage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful, unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection.

To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon.

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Kate Tellers, Senior Director and your host for this episode. I am notorious for my obsession with sitting close to any body of water, much to the dismay of my husband, because due to this and tides, he has had his glasses, his phone, and the majority of our romantic oceanside dinner in Thailand swept away forever. Still, I always pull up close whenever I can.

So much happens around water. And in this episode, we're diving into the deep end with stories about the push and pull, the power and promise of the water. First up, we have Linda Grosser. She told this at a Boston Story Slam where the theme of the night was, appropriately, water. Here's Linda live at the Moth. So I'm in Burlington, Vermont.

and I'm about to, I'm heading out for a run on the bike path where it turns into the causeway out onto Lake Champlain, and it's cold and miserable, but I am desperate to shake off this anxiety that I have because I have to sleep on this boat tonight. So I am not far from where my friends are, where I'm staying, and I'd been coming up there quite a lot,

mostly right after I had left the family home and left my husband of 25 years. And going to Vermont became like a respite because I had such tension, you know, keeping the secret of my marriage that was failing. And in Vermont, I could sit on their porch, look at the water, just relax and breathe.

So this trip, I'm actually taking a sailing course where I'm going to be spending the entire week living on board this boat. And I have claustrophobia. Six o'clock, I suck it up and I head on down to the harbor. I go in and these couple of guys are scurrying around, picking up these parcels with overflowing groceries. We trudge out to the boat. It's dark and rainy.

We shove everything away. Right away, I say, "Guys, it's okay. I am going to sleep in the saloon tonight." That's the middle area that's between the cabins and the ceiling is a little bit higher, so I'm hopeful. And I crawl into the sleeping bag. The next time I open my eyes, I slept through the night. I was so happy and the sun was shining.

So meanwhile, I really didn't ask a whole lot of questions about this trip. So I am on this boat, me and these two middle-aged men. The other student is Dennis. He's a chef from Toronto. And right off, he starts making these lewd comments. But I am ignoring Dennis because the other guy is tall and lean and his looks...

and his competence on the boat was the most ridiculously sexy combination that I could possibly imagine. His name was Errol. So every morning we would have some kind of lesson, navigation, trimming the sails, and then we would go out and we would sail for the whole afternoon.

in the wind and the sun and we would find a quiet cove to anchor at night. I felt such freedom that I hadn't felt in a long time. So it was maybe the third night and we're out on the deck, the three of us, and it's cold. Errol grabs a blanket and throws it over him and me. And then we're holding hands and my body

My body is responding. So Dennis had discreetly gone below, and in quite short order, Errol and I had gone below into his tiny cabin, which, by the way, the walls are about as thick as a sheet. He is fumbling for a condom.

which he promptly loses. And I hear, "Oh crap, that was the only one I had." And I say, "I don't care." And he says, "Aren't you worried about getting pregnant?" And I'm thinking, "He has no idea how old I am." That sex was the first time

in at least five years and 25 years since I had had sex with a man other than my husband. It was a week of adventure. I mean the physicality of learning how to handle this boat and the absolute magic of traveling and living on the water

and reconnecting with feelings that had been shut down after a lot of not-so-happy years in my marriage. That was a week I reclaimed my life. Thank you.

That was Linda Grosser. She told us that stories give meaning to life and she loves to share this gift by teaching and producing shows. Linda is also a travel photographer, taking pictures ever since visiting relatives in Europe at age 15, armed with her Brownie Instamatic.

She's nourished by nature, the outdoors, music and movement, sailing, cycling, drumming, dancing, lives in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, and has two adult sons. You can see her photos on Instagram at Linda Takes PIX.

Learning to swim is a significant and sometimes terrifying rite of passage for many of us. When my sister was four, she refused to jump off the side of the pool into the water. Absolutely refused. Her swim teacher, my parents, everyone was giving up. But I knew her weakness because I shared it.

Our parents were notoriously strict about letting us load up at the swimming pool snack bar. So I stole some change from my dad's coin cup. Sorry, dad. And bribed her with a fat frog popsicle. Success. Now an adult, she's taken up open water swimming in the Atlantic. No bribe necessary. Up next, we've got a story about sinking or swimming. John Good told this at a Charlottesville main stage where he was the host for the evening. Here's John live at the mall. So...

In my senior year of high school, I had settled on and was accepted to the college of my choice. It was a beautiful college in the Shenandoah Valley. And you may ask yourself, was it the beautiful campus or the rigorous academic track that attracted me to the school? It was neither. It was an event called Black Freshman Weekend. Today, I think it's called African American Prospective Weekend. But back then, Black Freshman Weekend. It was black. It was beautiful. I needed to be where it was.

So I went and told my father that I'd been accepted to the school. He says, "That's wonderful. That's amazing. All you have to do now is pay for it." So in high school, I had about a 3.2 GPA, which is a decent GPA, but they don't really give scholarships for 3.2s. For instance, our valedictorian, she had a 4.9. She had a 4.9 on a scale that I was told only went to 4. So I was like, "What are you taking classes in the future? What's going on here? How is it even possible?"

So I was somewhat anxious about my chances of going to Black Freshman Weekend, of going to college. And I don't know if you've seen nature shows where they talk about how sharks can smell blood in the water. Well, military recruiters can smell anxiousness in high school hallways much the same way. So the next thing I knew there was a Marine Corps recruiter parade resting in front of my locker and he said, "Hello, Jonathan." And I was like, "What kind of Madame Cleo Marine Corps psychic madness is this? How do you even know my name?"

And he said that he'd seen my ASVAB scores, and the ASVAB is an aptitude test that lets recruiters know, you know, your capabilities in the military service. He said they were very high. He said I had an 85 out of 99.

And as he continued to talk, I began to think about the fact that my father, he had been a staff sergeant in the Army. I had a brother that had enlisted in the Army. I had a sister that had served. And here I was being invited to join this rich tradition of military service in my family. And not just that, they were in the Army. I was being invited to join the Marines, the toughest of the tough. And just as I'm having that thought, he tells me about the GI Bill and how that can help me get to Black Freshman Weekend.

And then he asked, he says, "Do you know smoke and bean?" And now, to you that might sound like some delicious beans, like something you can get at the soul food joint. Or it could sound like something to do with legumes and marijuana. But no, smoke and bean were two guys that I went to high school with. And I was like, "Of course I know smoke and bean." He said, "They're going down to Marine Corps boot camp. You can all go together."

And that was it, I was sold. And that's how I found myself on Parris Island, South Carolina, training to become a United States Marine. All right, I accept, I accept. So there are certain markers you have to hit in boot camp to graduate. The first is you have to pass the physical fitness test. I was a young man, I played basketball every day, I was in good shape, so I passed the physical fitness test. Hoorah! The second thing you have to pass

is the rifle range. Listen, no one has ever confused me with Wild Bill Hickok, but I hit it enough times, I passed the rifle range. The third thing is you have to pass a thing known as basic warrior training. I was 18, I was basic, I wanted to be a warrior, I was trainable, I passed BWT. And the last thing is the swim qualification. Exactly.

So I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, as I said, in this neighborhood, Oak Grove, Bellmead, Blackwell, inner city. One person from that neighborhood, fantastic, glad you made it, and I never went to the river. So we had a pool, though. The pool was about seven blocks from my house. So I would go down to the pool every other day, every two or three days, and like all the other kids, I would just stand in the water because there were too many kids in the pool to actually swim.

So we would just stand there and talk. It was like a black kid soup, you know. It was like a ghetto gazpacho, right? It was refreshing but not very informative. So we never learned to swim. So on the first day of the swim qual, it's just a sea of white faces, right? But on the second day, that's the day for everyone who failed, and it was nothing but inner-city black kids. That's all there was on the second day.

And when you don't know how to swim, what they do in the Marine Corps is they teach you like a version of the backstroke, which makes it look like you're having an actual stroke. It's not very good. So the Marine Corps swim qual, you have to jump off a 15-foot tower and swim halfway across an Olympic-sized pool. And you get four chances to do this. And if you don't do it in four chances, then you're sent home. So I failed the first day. I failed the second day. I failed the third day. Here we are on the fourth day.

Now, Smoke and Bean, they weren't there. I don't know what happened to them, but they were not there for the last day of the swim call. And I'm standing there, and I'm somewhat nervous because I'm thinking, like, if I don't make it, I'll have to go home and face my dad and face my siblings. So I'm up on the tower, and I'm about to jump. I pull my pockets inside out, hoping that as I jump, maybe the air will go up my leg and fill the pockets, and it will serve as a flotation device. Just so you know, that doesn't work.

So I jumped off, I hit the water, I went down, I surfaced, and I immediately began to drown. So the swimming instructor, he jumped in, he grabs me, he pulls me to the side, and he says, "Get in line." Then he jumps back in the water because everyone is drowning. Everyone is drowning. So I'm happy to be alive, and I'm feeling somewhat, you know, somewhat sad. And then I look over, and I notice that there are two lines. There's a line for people who failed,

And there's a line for people who passed. And his instruction was to get in line. So I got in the line for people who passed. Because one thing they teach you in the Marine Corps, it is to follow orders. And this is how I passed the swim call, became a Marine, and I got to go to Black Freshman Weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So a few years later, I ran into one of my drill instructor staff, Sergeant Baxter. We had a good laugh about boot camp. I told him how I passed the swim qual. He thought it was hilarious. And I told him that I had learned some things since. Number one, I had learned how to swim. It still looks like I'm having a medical event, but I can do it. And number two, I told him that I've learned that sometimes getting what you want is just about getting in the right line. Thank y'all for listening to that story right there.

That was John Good. John is an Emmy-nominated writer raised in Richmond, Virginia, and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2022, he won a Gold American Advertising Award, a Silver Telly Award, and was nominated for his second Pro Max. He has written a collection of poetry and short stories titled Conduit, and a novel entitled Midas, both available wherever you get your books. John is the current host of The Moth Atlanta, and you can find him on Instagram at John Good. That has an E on the end of it.

That's it for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope your week is a splash. Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, senior director at The Moth, and co-author of their fourth book, How to Tell a Story. Her story, but also Brink She's, is featured in The Moth's All These Wonders, true stories about facing the unknown. And her writing has appeared on McSweeney's and The New Yorker.

This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Ginesse, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leanne Gulley, and Aldi Casa. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

The Moth Podcast is presented by PeerX, the public radio exchange. Helping make public radio more public at peerx.org.