The Moth Radio Hour: Attitude Adjustments
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To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Suzanne Rust. Attitude is everything. You've heard that from your parents, from your teachers, and from Oprah. Maybe you rolled your eyes, but deep down you know it's true. It's not always what happens to us that matters, but how we see it and how we adapt. In this episode, we'll explore those moments when you learn to look at things in a different light.

First up is Frank O'Keefe, who is the embodiment of New York tough, New York strong. He gave us this insider's peek into his career and personal evolution back in 2007 in, where else, New York City. Here's Frank. Good evening, everyone. My name is Frank O'Keefe. I am a proud member of the New York City Department of Sanitation. Thank you. You're a friendly neighborhood garbage man.

You know, everybody is aware of the fact that the police are known as New York's finest. Firefighters are known as New York's bravest. But not everybody is aware that sanitation are known as New York's strongest. And that's a title that we've earned because we remove upwards of 15,000 tons of debris a day from the sidewalks of New York. If you found a room full of grade school children, ask them what they'd like to be.

You know, you might hear someone say teacher, police officer, airplane pilot. No child envisions picking up garbage when they grow up. You know, there's been countless movies and television shows about police work and courtrooms and classrooms, and Hollywood is yet to hook up to the romance of picking up a bag and putting it in the back of the truck. You know, so how did I get here? My father was a very practical man. He was an immigrant from County Kerry, Ireland.

He worked his entire life in the press rooms of one of New York's daily newspapers. His two brothers were police officers. To him, the benefits of a city job were like capturing that leprechaun and stealing his pot of gold. And he was always after my brothers and I to take civil service exams, and we really wanted no part of it. Thirty years ago, I married my college sweetheart, and I went to work with my father in the newspaper business.

There was a substantial amount of drinking going on in those days. Matter of fact, we had a refrigerator that was always freshly stocked with cans of Schaefer beer in our locker room. And Schaefer did always live up to its jingle, the one to have when you're having more than one. My father was still always after us. And actually, after getting over the trauma of turning 30, I said, well, you know, at least he won't be bothering me anymore because now I'm finally too old to take these tests.

But a couple of years later, I get a phone call and there's pure elation in my father's voice that sanitation had just opened up filing for the next exam and there's no age requirement. I really wasn't able to share in his joy. The last thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life was coming home every day smelling like someone's garbage. And besides, I was a college graduate. I wasn't going to do this for a living. When I was in grade school, Sister Consolata always used to threaten us, "If you don't do your homework, you're going to grow up to be a garbage man."

But anyway, to keep peace, I decided I would take the test, and I put it out of my mind. Well, unfortunately, my drinking became more and more of an issue, and it got to the point where my family was jeopardized, my life was in danger, so I decided to go out and seek some help. And funny thing was, shortly after that happened, I get a letter from sanitation saying that that test you took several years before, well, your number has finally come up, and we have a job for you.

You know, I still had mixed reactions because now I'm pushing 40 and I'm wondering if I'd be able to handle this job physically at this point in my life. Plus, I really did not want to take the focus off what my real purpose was at this point in trying to stay sober. But in reality, it wasn't no-brainer because I had to change my location. I was doing most of my boozing at work anyway. So, uh...

So I took the job, and then I realized that I was getting additional health care for my family. And it was a 20-year retirement plan and an opportunity for advancement. So I said, you know what? All of a sudden, this garbage is starting to smell like money to me. But I found out that shortly after I began the job, I went to a wedding. An old buddy of mine was getting married, and we were renewing old acquaintances. And the subject came up of what it was that we were doing at this point in our lives. And I said that I worked for the city.

And then I steered the conversation to our children, to sports, to the weather. Because it suddenly dawned on me, I didn't really want these guys to know that I was a garbage man. You know, I was a little embarrassed and ashamed of what I was doing. And it kind of filtered down to my family, you know, my wife and my children. My wife is a successful businesswoman. She works in an executive search firm. And we both sort of decided that, you know, it would be in our best interest to let everybody think that I'm still working in a newspaper business.

you know, might be better for your career path. And I never really took the job seriously. The first day I showed up, they handed us a badge. Did anybody realize that sanitation workers carry badges? I sat there trying to think to myself, when am I going to have the opportunity to pull this badge out? I was then told that the training was going to be four weeks. I'm thinking it's going to take you four weeks to teach me how to bend over and pick up a bag and put it in the back of a truck. But actually what it is, is we operate

Many, many pieces of equipment. And most of you, I'm sure, have seen our sanitation trucks, the pride of our fleet, in the streets of New York. If you stand in front of one of these trucks, they look like they're about a lane and a half in width. If you're sitting inside driving the truck, it looks like it's eight or nine lanes in width. The first time that I had to drive this truck by myself, at the end of the shift, they needed an acetylene torch to remove my hands from the steering wheel. I was so tense. Yeah!

One of the first assignments they gave me was called MLP. I said, what exactly does that mean? Motorized Litter Patrol. I said, that really sounds like dangerous work. He said, no, no, no, no. You've got to go out and take care of conditions. I said, what kind of conditions does a garbage man take care of?

but conditions are what we call piles of debris in the street. So if anybody here does have anything on their block that they want to get rid of and you call your local garage, tell them that you have a condition and they'll respond immediately. I also had to change my lifestyle a bit because I was the type of person that was always chronically late for wherever I went. And I found out that if I was late on this job, it was going to cost me money. I was late one time and I got a verbal reprimand from my supervisor. And he told me when he finished,

that if I was late again, he was going to bang me. I said, you know, just out of curiosity, are there any alternative forms of punishment that might be available? But I found out that that was sanitationese for a written complaint. You know, I felt a little foolish, but I was actually more relieved than anything else. What I did find out though is we're not garbage men. We're sanitation workers. As a matter of fact, in true Orwellian fashion, the word garbage has been deleted from our vocabulary.

refuse, litter, debris, waste, anything but the G word because it's an embarrassing term. So be careful if you run into any of my colleagues on the street, they don't like that term. But you know what, I started taking the job as a joke. I mean, it was even to the point, I did a stint driving the mechanical sweepers, if you've ever seen those in the street. And I used to take my kids out and I used to point to this fire hydrant up in the Bronx and tell them, see, that's daddy's office over there because that's where I had to fill the thing up with water before I went out in the street.

But that all began to change around the winter of '96 when I was home on a Sunday afternoon and I got a call that there was an impending snowstorm and they needed all personnel, all hands on deck for the snowstorm. So I went to my garage. Sanitation Department of New York City is the only uniformed force on earth that picks up your garbage, cleans your streets, and also removes your snow. So I hope all of you feel blessed by that information.

Anyway, I was put on one of our pieces of snow equipment, a spreader, with a plow, and I was going up and down the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx. Visibility was horrendous, trying to cut a path of traffic. Every time I made a pass, it was snowing so heavily, it looked like I hadn't even been there before. We had 24 inches of snow that day. But by rush hour the next morning, all the main arteries into Manhattan were cleared, and the city that never sleeps was open for business. That winter was...

We had 16 consecutive snowstorms that were lined up like planes getting ready to take off at Kennedy Airport. We worked seven days a week, 24 hours a day trying to keep the city open. We would go into a coffee shop and people were offering to pick up our checks. All of a sudden we were getting treated like cops and firemen. And if you've ever been impressed by the cool efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew,

You've got to step inside a sanitation garage in the middle of a snowstorm during the changing of the shift when all the equipment has to be checked and the change of personnel because we have to do it quickly. It was controlled chaos in order that we don't lose the effect of fighting that snowstorm. It was during that winter that I kind of set up and started taking notice of, you know what, we are very important to the fabric of this city. You know, without us, none of the emergency vehicles would ever be able to get through.

People wouldn't be able to get to work. Fortunes would be lost. Lives could possibly be lost. You know, and I started really thinking about this. And I said, you know what? This is a pretty neat job after all. That St. Patrick's Day, as I marched up Fifth Avenue, we actually even started getting some positive attention from the public because they really seemed to appreciate how we kept the city afloat during that winter of 96. And I started getting more involved in the department.

going to social events, joining some of the fraternal organizations, sporting events. I would come home now and sit down at the dinner table and I'd start talking about the job to my wife and kids. They thought that I had gotten taken over by some kind of cult or something. The hell is dad talking about? My kids didn't even know what I did for a living. I never talked about it. We still had the hurdle, however, of my wife's business. We still said, you know what? We're probably still better off. You know what? No one wants to deal with anybody that does this for a living. And then the course came.

9-11, the heroics of the police and the firefighters are without question go down in history. But you know, when it was all over, somebody had to go down and clean up that area. Wall Street was opened up within a week. All forces were down there seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You know, we still don't know what the long-term health effects are going to be to our members of having been spent so much time down there. I mean, when there are

dirty jobs or grunt work to be done, we're the ones that the city calls upon. I took my wife down there shortly after to show her what was going on down there and the devastation. And I think she really came around herself and started appreciating what it was that I did. So now that if we go out socially, someone asks what I do, she'll pipe up that my husband works for the Department of Sanitation of New York City. At this point, I would just, I'd like to really actually thank my higher power because

This job seemed to come along for me at the exact perfect moment in my life. And I'd also like to thank my father for being the persistent pain in the ass that he was and made sure that I took this test. And as far as Sister Consolata is concerned, I never really paid much attention to what she told me anyway. Thank you. That was Frank O'Keefe. Frank lives in Yonkers with Mary, who's the wife of 45 years.

Now that he's retired from the sanitation department, Frank loves to spend time with his six grandchildren and stay active. Frank has a part-time job as a docent at Yankee Stadium, and he also serves on New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee. To see some photos of Frank O'Keefe on the job, go to themoth.org. Coming up next, a family adjusts to a big change. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues. ♪

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Suzanne Rust. In this hour, stories of attitude adjustments. What happens when your partner comes to you with some very big, life-changing news? Julia Bucci shared this next story at the Moth Teacher Institute, a professional development workshop offered by our education program. Here's Julia.

So there she was, our five-year-old daughter Sophie, sitting across the table from us, looking expectantly across at us, her two moms. And we're so nervous. We don't know how we're going to be able to tell her what we've sat her down to tell her. Here's how we got here. I fell in love with Alex a lot because she was my opposite. She was really grounded. I was up in the clouds. She was really smart about people. I learned everything about human nature and psychology from books.

My books did not help me when Alex told me one day that she was going to deal with her long buried gender issues and that she was really starting to think about transitioning. I didn't take this news well. We had two young kids. We were a really happy family. We were like the neighborhood gay leave it to beaver family, and I just loved that.

So I decided, I was in a PhD program at the time, so I decided to use my vast knowledge of everything to talk Alex out of her feelings and to educate her. So we would have these conversations and they would go like this. She'd say,

"I'm suffering. I feel like I really need to change my body to match my mind." And I'd say, "Well, you're suffering because you have an insufficient understanding of the mind-body problem. And also, you're buying into binary oppositions, which I recently found out are the foundational problem of all of Western culture. And now you're just making it worse." So then she'd say, or she'd say,

I can't go on any longer like this. And I'd say, yes you can. Gender is a performance. It's socially constructed. Here's an article to read. And then Alex would stop talking for a while. She was waiting. My friends didn't know what my problem was. They said, everybody calls her sir in the grocery store anyway. What would be so different? And I said, it's just, I don't buy into it. It's philosophically, I don't buy into it. I don't understand it. One day Alex said,

finally said to me, "I need to do this. I need to transition from female to male. And I love you and I want you to come with me, even if you don't understand it." I said, "Okay, I'm coming along." But there's going to be a big problem. We're going to have a hard time telling our daughter Sophie. She's not going to understand it. Sophie, at five years old, was a major power to contend with. She was brilliant. She was smarter than the two of us combined.

Her favorite word at the time was actually. And, uh...

She was like a visiting professor from another planet doing a research study on us. And unfortunately, she shared her findings often. Alex and I, being parents was a huge deal to us. And we fell over ourselves. We were silly trying to be these great parents. And we carefully curated her life so that it was politically correct and that it was beautiful. Her life was basically one big left-wing Pottery Barn Kids catalog. LAUGHTER

And, you know, one day we would just do these things. One day we did something especially silly, and she looked up from her book and remarked, I have a feeling you two don't actually know what you're doing.

So it was scary. She called Alex her Mumu. They had a really special bond, and Alex was terrified of anything hurting that bond. But Alex was the one who really knew how to talk to Sophie the best. So when it came time to have the talk, Alex was the one who did the talking. So she said, Sophie, I have something to tell you.

I have always felt more like a dad than like a mom, more male. And so I'm going to start taking some medicine and you're going to see some changes. You're going to start seeing my shoulders are going to start getting bigger, more like a dad. I'm going to start growing a beard and my voice is going to get lower over time, more like a dad. Tears started to come out from behind the little round glasses. And she had this beautiful little round face so her tears kind of came out the sides.

and Alex went and hugged her. And I said, "Oh, Sophie, I know this is hard to understand." And she said, "Actually, no. I do understand. Everybody should get to be who they are. Everybody gets to do that. It's just..." And the tears kept coming. And we waited. "It's just your voice. I don't want your voice to change. I love that voice." And in that moment, I realized

My problem wasn't philosophical. There was so much about Alex that I didn't want to change. I loved that voice too. And I also remember that I had to try to act like the parent in this situation. So I said, "Well, Sophie, here's the thing about voices. Your voice stays with you your whole life, no matter what changes you go through. So we'll always be able to hear Mumu's voice underneath the new voice, and we can listen for it together." And the tears dried, and that's what we did. The next morning,

Sophie went sledding with some neighbors, and at the top of the hill, she announced to everybody that her Mumu was taking medicine to be more like a dad, and if anyone had any questions, she was actually willing to answer them. And that was 18 years ago, and that is when I first learned something for real that I'm still trying to learn every day.

And that's when I learned that it is not necessary or even possible to understand fully the people that I love, but that it is possible and it is absolutely necessary to fully love them. Thank you. Julia Bucci is a Boston-based writer and teacher. Her current projects include a screenplay based on the story of Alex's transition, as well as a TV pilot about an androgynous trans DJ in the early days of disco.

And in case you were wondering about Sophie, yes, she is still the smartest young woman in the room and is currently a law student. I asked Julia about her initial resistance to Alex's news and how she felt about it now. She said that when she looks back, she sees how much her fear was getting in the way and holding Alex back from becoming his truer self. She adds that life is precious and she wishes she could go back in time for a redo and support Alex and his transition without hesitation, fear or doubt.

I also asked Julia what she and Alex would like people to know about men and women who are transitioning. People who are transitioning want to talk about their journeys. Go ahead and ask questions. As long as the questions are appropriate, coming from a place of sincerity and goodwill. We had so many good friends who assumed that talking about Alex's transition would offend us. Questions like, what's it been like? Or how are you doing? Or what would you like me to know are good places to start.

To see photos of Julia, Alex and their daughters Sophia and Pia, go to themoth.org. In the workplace, we can learn a lot about ourselves and our colleagues. And when uncomfortable situations arise, we can learn even more. And speaking out about those situations isn't always easy, especially when you're in a minority group in the office.

This next story from Aisha Erfan came to us through a collaboration with the Muslim Writers Workshop, and she told it at a community showcase at the Bell House in Brooklyn. And just to note, we obscure the name of Aisha's colleague for privacy. Here's Aisha live at the mall. So I work for an elected official here in New York City, and my day is a perfect blend between House of Cards and Parks and Recreation.

We are equally trying to take over the world and fight the New York City rap problem. Really, really interesting days in government. And my coworkers, there are about 55 of us, mostly former organizers and activists and folks who genuinely want to use government as a force for good. Most of us are also staunch anti-institutionalists who've suddenly found ourselves inside the very institution we hate. Ha ha ha.

So that does something to us. I was brought in as a senior advisor on racial justice issues. Lots of them in New York. And I also happen to be the cool office lefty Muslim. What does that mean? I wear really colorful hijabs. My outfits are super coordinated. I swear on occasion. It's great. It's great. I think having me around makes my coworkers feel a little bit less racist about themselves. So there's that.

I also seem to have adopted the profile of the office Muslim. So anytime there's anything where our office has to prove that they're diverse and inclusive, I'm the first person they send along the way. And the way I've tried to combat this, this pressure of representing over 1.1 billion people across the world, is every time there's a job opening, I'm bringing my folks in.

I'm bringing other Muslims to the table. I'm really working hard to transform the rooms I'm in, the tables I have access to. And so that's been great. I've brought in four other people and my coworkers. We've created a really warm, positive, welcoming culture most days. And so one of my favorite coworkers is this woman named

And if you look at us on the surface, we really couldn't be more different. She is in her 50s, she grew up Jewish, she's now a practicing Buddhist. I'm 29, I'm Muslim. But we, both of us, are staunch just haters of capitalism and militarism. So we bond over that all the time. And we talk about our histories in the anti-war movement. For her it was Vietnam, and for me it was the anti-Iraq war movement when, you know, I was coming of age.

And so one day a few months ago, I found myself in her office, as I often am, leaning against her door, just catching up, and she brings up the Mike Pence article that had just come out in The New Yorker about how Mike Pence doesn't dine alone with women who aren't his wife.

Now, I don't agree with Mike Pence on just about anything on the face of this earth, but this piece around interactions with people of the opposite sex, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, around a lot of really conservative Muslims, around a lot of practicing Jewish folks. So this piece resonates.

And I say, actually, like in terms of dining alone with people of the opposite sex, a lot of the folks I grew up around that I've been in school with, they abide by really similar principles. And it's not, you know, it's not seen as something that's inherently evil or like women are dirty or men are dirty. This is just the way people choose to practice their faith.

And so then I actually go on and I say, actually, I know a lot of folks who don't even shake hands in professional settings with the opposite sex. And that's their way of practicing their faith. And for the longest time, my mom, when she was entered the workforce, she didn't. And by extension, when I was like 22 years old, I didn't either until, you know, like my own views on this evolved personally. And so she stops and she turns and she looks at me and she says, anyone who doesn't shake hands with the opposite sex

never ever belongs in a managerial position. And I say, what if I told you I didn't shake hands with men? I didn't used to. What if I told you starting today I'm not going to do it anymore? And she looks at me and she says, no, but you're different. Okay. I'm different than the 1.1 billion other Muslims out there. Let's think about just the mathematical possibility of that being the case.

But what that also tells me is you haven't been around very many Muslims because this phrase I've heard consistently in a lot of my interactions with non-Muslims. And so I stop and I pause and I think, how do I even begin to unpack this statement of you're different and what that means and what pressure that puts on me? And I'm thinking of a response when another co-worker walks in and the conversation just stops right there.

And I leave the office that day and I start thinking, and I start thinking about how I had been showing up as like a Muslim American in this office space. And had I been really centering my own faith in the interactions I had been having over the course of three years with my coworkers.

And I realized that one of the daily pillars of Muslims is that you pray five times a day and you take a few minutes, you remember God, you get connected and grounded. And the way I'd been doing this really important pillar of my own faith was I'd been sneaking off into the corner bathroom, quickly washing my hands and my face, afraid someone would walk in on me. I'd be ripping off a sheet of paper towel,

running into the corner closet that hadn't been cleaned in 20 years, and praying within a span of two minutes, afraid that someone would catch me. And so I had a moment where I realized I hadn't been doing my part. And if I was performing all of these prayers by myself in a corner closet, all of these people that I had brought in with the very intention of changing the culture and making these spaces more welcoming, I was completely failing. And so I went back to my chief of staff a few days later,

And she started talking about a room that an empty room that we were converting into a maternity space for a lot of my coworkers who had recently given birth and needed lactation space. And I turned to her and I was like, Jessica, I don't know if you know, but for the last three years, I've been praying in that dirty back closet over there. And these four other people I've brought in are actually doing the exact same thing.

Can we talk about turning the space into a meditation space? So it's both a lactation space, but also we can pray in a space that's worthy of God and worthy of worship. And she looks at me and you could tell she had never thought of this before. And she whips out the floor plans for this new space and we start thinking through where everything's going to be placed.

And so I go home that night, and the next day I pick out my favorite prayer rug that I'd been using to pray at home, and it's beautiful. It's royal blue. It has golden embroidery. There are minarets all over. I brought it into the office, and a few weeks later, as it came time for prayer, it was the ussr prayer, which is the evening prayer, I gathered my four other coworkers, and instead of putting the prayer rug out horizontally, as we usually do for one person, we laid it out

Instead of vertically, we laid it out horizontally so it could fit more people and the four of us prayed together. These days, Aisha Irfan is leading into the digital nomad life and splitting her time between New York and San Francisco. She works on Airbnb's public policy team, leading their legislative work across much of the West Coast. When I first started at The Moth, I heard Aisha tell her story in a small rehearsal room. What she had to say really struck me and has stayed with me on a very personal level.

As open-minded and empathetic as I like to think that I was, her story made me realize that actually I had some things that I needed to rethink and reflect on, and I did. That's the power of moth stories. They make you pause, reflect, open your mind, maybe even change your mind. Aisha's story raises so many important issues, so I want to hear more from her.

Your relationship with your friend in the office is very interesting. I think that many of us have friends who we assume are on the same page with us because our politics align. But then when we talk, we can actually discover that there can be huge differences of opinion and often painfully different ones. I really want to know, how did you feel when she made that comment to you? I think just in shock. I think just in shock.

To me, it was such a gross generalization of an entire sub-community. I think for, you know, I'd worked in this office for years. My friend and I had what I assumed was a really good relationship. We aligned on so many of our progressive politics.

And it takes me back to just knowing that even if someone's on the right side, like you have, you need to take your time to get to know them better and dig into those opinions. And oftentimes they'll just completely catch you off guard. We need folks who are actually actively thinking through how they're perpetuating harm.

harm in large ways and small. And I think, you know, particularly as a Muslim American woman who grew up right out, you know, in the days after 9-11, who came of age in those days, we assumed being anti-war was enough, right? I think that's what it was for me. It's like, okay, you're anti-war, you're anti-military, but how can we perpetuate those harms in the smaller day-to-day interactions? It has become okay to not be explicitly, you

Islamophobic or racist or sexist, but it really brought out for me how the smaller ways in which we perpetuate those isms that we claim to want to disrupt. What happened to that friendship in the end?

She is someone I look up to in various ways for her involvement in larger things, in older things. And there's still a lot of work to be done. So I think if I saw her on the street, I'd be excited. I'd be glad to see her. But is she someone I would allow to get extremely close or really bring all my walls down with? That's probably a no.

You're in a new job now, and I want to know, are you still rolling in as the, as you call yourself, the cool lefty Muslim? What does that mean for you now? Yeah, I would say it's been really, really interesting. I am a few years out from that role. I'm in a new role. I'm still one of very, very few Muslims. I put a lot less pressure on myself. I think the world is

itself can be incredibly harmful in the ways in which it expects marginalized folks to show up constantly for themselves, for others to constantly be on guard to be like, how do we make this world a better place? I think I've gotten better at kind of dispersing that responsibility to those around me. Allyship is everyone's work.

showing up for Muslims is everyone's work. And sometimes the most we can do is just be really true to ourselves and make sure we're looking out for ourselves and our own mental health. That was Aisha Irfan. To see a photo of Aisha at The Moth, go to themoth.org. Coming up next, scenes from a great night in Harlem. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues. ♪

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the public radio exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Suzanne Rust. And in this episode, we're sharing stories about attitude adjustments. Our final story takes place on the streets of Harlem on an epic night back on November 4th, 2008.

Appropriately, Maxie Jones told this story on a Moth main stage at Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem, where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth. Here's Maxie. My father, Maxie Jones Sr., came to Harlem in the 1950s from Prentiss, Mississippi. And I remember one time when he took me down there for a visit. We were driving down the main street in Prentiss.

And up ahead we saw at the traffic light the Ku Klux Klan were handing out flyers to the drivers. They were handing the flyers only to the white drivers. They were in full KKK garb. They had the hoods, the gowns, everything. As we drew closer to them, the better you could see their eyes rolling around in those little holes in the hoods. I had only seen them on TV prior to that. It's a lot different in person.

They gave a flyer to the driver in front of us and said, "Here you go, ma'am. White Power." Then they looked at us, and I was scared because I was wondering what they were going to say to us. But they didn't say anything. They just walked right past, went to the car behind us, and said, "Here you go, sir. White Power." And as we drove off, I asked my father, I said, "Dad, how could they do that in broad daylight just like that, right in front of us?" My father said, "Maxie, just sit still and keep quiet."

And I felt that he should be angry like I was angry. But for him, it was just normal. My father never talked about politics to me. And I don't even know if he ever voted. The only thing he ever said to me about politics was, "Shit." Because that's how he started off everything. He said, "Shit. It don't matter who the president is. They ain't gonna do nothing for us no way."

And I understood why he felt that way because he grew up in the world where in politics, black folks just didn't matter. When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me, "Maxie, you could be anything you want to be." She said, "Shoot, you could be the president of the United States if you want to." And I never really believed it. I thought that what she was really saying was, "You could try to be the president and you'll land somewhere." When I was about 10 years old, I remember when Nixon beat McGovern in the presidential election.

by what seemed like just a few votes. And the next day, my social studies teacher came in and she said, "I can't believe he won. I just can't believe it. If more people had come out to vote, he wouldn't have won that election." And it was from her that I learned that people don't show up to vote just to put someone into office. You show up to vote also to keep somebody out. The year I turned 18 just happened to be an election year. And I voted that year because I was excited.

even though my candidate didn't win. And ever since then, I've never missed an opportunity. In 2007, my father passed away. And right about that time, I started hearing about this senator from Illinois named Barack Obama who threw his hat in the ring for the presidency. Now, my first thought was that was one of those situations where I know I'm not going to win, but at least we could get people used to the idea of a black man being president.

Now I know what my father would say, he would go, "Shit, you ain't gonna see no black president in your lifetime." And based on that, I thought, "Ain't no way this guy's gonna win." On election day 2008, I had to be to work at 8 o'clock that morning. And I heard the polls opened up at 6 o'clock, so I got up early so I could be the first one down there. It was at Gladys Hampton Houses right there on St. Nicholas Avenue. So I got up and I went there and I was shocked to find the place was crowded already.

People had been lined up from early to vote and it's not like any other election where you just standing in line waiting to vote. People were celebrating and everybody was talking like they knew each other. One guy had his kids with him. He was like, "I brought my kids for this historic moment." And there was this other lady who said, "This is one time I made sure to get out to vote." But for me, it was just business.

The reason I was voting was to make sure that if Barack Obama didn't win, it wasn't going to be because I didn't vote. It took me about an hour and 15 minutes and then I was on my way to work. And I called my friend Cheryl because it was her birthday. And when I called her, she said, "Maxie, guess what? I just had the best birthday gift ever." I said, "What is that?" She says, "I just voted for a black man for the presidency on my birthday." And I said, "Well, good." Then when I hung up the phone, I said,

but at least she got to vote for him. Then I went to work and while I was at work all my co-workers were talking about making sure they got out to vote and people were actually asking for time off so that they could make sure that they had time to vote before they go going home and everywhere I turned people were talking about voting and after a while I actually started to feel some hope. I said hmm maybe this guy Obama could win this election

So when I got home that evening, the first thing I did was turn on my TV. And I looked and I was like, oh, shoot, this dude is winning. So I stayed glued to my set after that. Now, normally, whenever I vote, I just wait till the next morning to find out what the results are. But this time I wanted to know right away. So I called my friend Martin. I said, Martin, when do we find out who won the election? He laughed at me and said, dude, 11 o'clock.

So I said, "Alright." I was sitting and watching, and then I dozed off to sleep. And I woke up to chants of, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" And I was looking at the TV, and they were showing this huge crowd in Washington, D.C. Then they showed this huge crowd in Chicago, Illinois. And then they showed this huge crowd in Harlem. And I was like, "Harlem? I ain't seen no crowd in Harlem. Where's that crowd?"

Now, two doors from my apartment, there was a Barack Obama campaign office. So I said, "Well, maybe they're out there." So I decided to go outside and see. Now, by this time, I had on a pair of sweats that I only wear to bed, but I figured no one's going to notice. When I got outside, there was nobody there. So I said, "Well, nobody's here. Maybe they're on 125th Street." When I got to 125th Street, I looked west. I saw nothing.

Then I looked east towards Seventh Avenue and I saw these bright lights and this huge crowd. So I said, "I wonder if that's the crowd on TV?" So I went over there to see and as I approached Seventh Avenue, there was this huge stage set up and celebrities were on the stage talking to the crowd and they had the crowd chanting, "Yes we can! Yes we can!"

And when I got there, I saw this huge jumbotron set up and it was showing up-to-the-minute coverage of the election. And every time it showed Barack winning in another state, the crowd cheered, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" The police were trying to keep the traffic moving on 125th Street, but it was almost impossible because people were jumping out of their cars, screaming, "Obama!"

I saw one of my neighbors, Lisa, and I went over to say hi and she just started crying. She said, "I can't believe this. I can't believe it." And I said, "What?" She said, "A black man is about to be president of the United States." And the moment she said that, the crowd just erupted. And I turned around to see what was going on. And the jumbotron said, "Barack Obama elected 44th president of the United States." And right then, a total stranger just hugged me.

Saying, "We did it! We did it! We did it!" And then next thing you know, another stranger hugged me. And we were jumping up and down going, "We did it! We did it! We did it!" And then suddenly, I thought, "We did it!" I wonder what my father would think about this. And at that moment, a tear started rolling down my face. And I had to step aside outside of the crowd. And I said, "Well, Dad, I'm sorry. It didn't happen in your lifetime. But thank goodness, it's happening in mine."

Just then, my cell phone rang and it was my friend Kelly. She said, "Maxie, where you at?" I said, "I'm on 125th Street. Come here, let's have a drink." And she came and met me. She said, "Okay, where we going?" And I said, "Let's go to Lenox Lounge." And we started walking to the Lenox Lounge and we passed by the Lenox Avenue subway station and people were coming up in droves off the subway onto 125th Street and they were just hugging people. Everybody was just hugging each other.

I must have hugged about 50 more strangers. Then we got to the Lenox Lounge and as soon as I stepped in the door, a man pushed me in and slammed the door behind me and said, "That's it, we're at capacity." The place was packed. It had young people, old people, black people, white people, rich and poor. Everybody was in there just celebrating, having a great time. People were dressed up in formal wear and I had on my pajama sweats.

And all of a sudden, a hush came over the whole room when Obama came out to make his acceptance speech. And even though I was listening to the speech, I was looking around the room and everybody was just captivated and hanging on to his every word. And then suddenly he said, "Change has come!" The whole room erupted again. And then when all the celebration was over,

I stepped back out onto Lenox Avenue and people were still all in the streets. Cars were blowing their horn trying to get through. I turned and I saw a Dixieland band coming toward me. So I started walking home across 125th Street. The sun was coming up. A crew was dismantling the stage, taking down a jumbotron. I stepped into a bodega and picked up the newspaper, tucked it under my arm and went on home. When I got home,

I found I had left my door unlocked. The TV was still on, the lights were still on. And I sat down and I said, did this really just happen? Is a black man really the president of the United States? Was that a Dixieland band? I took the newspaper and went to set it down on the coffee table. And I read the headline for the very first time. And it said, change has come. And I said, yes, it has. Thank you.

That was Maxie Jones. Maxie discovered storytelling in 2014 after hearing the moth on the radio. He threw his name in the hat at a story slam in Detroit and since then has told more than 100 stories on stages across the country. He lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, where he helps young people from Detroit find summer jobs. ♪

Maxie's favorite moment from that night was all the love and hugging going on in Harlem. He thinks he must have hugged over 50 strangers. And he said that because his dad never shared his views, he makes sure to talk about politics with his sons. He said if they ask him a question about something on the news, he tries to give them the most comprehensive response that he can think of. To see photos of Maxie with his two sons, go to themoth.org.

That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Suzanne Rust, who also hosted the hour. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer, Emily Couch. These stories were directed by Catherine Burns, Jody Powell, and Meg Bowles. Additional education program coaching by Lauren Gonzalez and Julian Goldhagen.

The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Ginesse, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cloutier, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions, Michael Hedges, Omid Shabani, and Yasemin Shahosseini, and Madesky Martin and Wood.

We received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.