forgiveness

Free from jail at 16, Stephanie faces a corrupt system and overcomes an inept foster parent. Stephanie calls her story “The Smartest Girl in the Jail”. We also talk about her band, her podcasts, and about how things in the system don’t seem to have changed much since she was 16.

Transcript : "Smartest Girl in the Jail" - Interview with Stephanie Hohn

Marc Moss: Welcome to the Tell Us Something podcast, I’m Marc Moss.

This week on the podcast, I sit down with Stepahnie Hohn to talk about her story “The Smartest Girl in Jail”, which she told live onstage at The Top Hat Lounge in Missoula, MT back in October of 2012.

Stephanie: I’ve just had unusual experiences or, you know, bad experiences that people would like to pretend aren’t something happening in their community.

So I kind of wanted to tell that just to be like, Hey, just so you know, like, this is, this is what’s happening, you know, here that’s, this is what it’s like for people.

Marc: The theme that night was “Forgiveness”.

We also talk about her band, her podcasts, and about how things in the system don’t seem to have changed much since she was 16.

Thank you for joining me as I take you behind the scenes at Tell Us Something — to meet the storytellers behind the stories. In each episode, I sit down with a Tell Us Something storyteller alumni. We chat about what they’ve been up to lately and about their experience sharing their story live on stage. Sometimes we get extra details about their story, and we always get to know them a little better.

Before we get to Stepanie’s story and our subsequent conversation…

We will be in-person for the first time since August 2021. We are running at 75% capacity, which allows for listeners to really spread out at The Wilma. Learn more and get your tickets at logjampresents.com

Stephanie Hohn shared her story in front of a live audience at the Top Hat Lounge in Missoula, MT on October 9th, 2012 at the Top Hat Lounge in Missoula, MT. The theme was “Forgiveness”.

Free from jail at 16, Stephanie faces a corrupt system and overcomes an inept foster parent. Stephanie calls her story “The Smartest Girl in the Jail”. Thanks for listening.

Stephanie Hohn: So, um, I got out of prison when I was 16 and I’m here to go to college. I finished two years of high school in six months because I was the smartest girl who’d ever been at that prison, which is possibly not a compliment. Um, but it’s something that the program director told me when I left. And I got out of a van with no handles on the inside.

The good food store parking lot. So I could meet my foster mom and we could have small talk for an hour and then go to my parole meeting and pretend like we met before, which worked well. I got to sit there at a table with five adults that I’d never met before, telling me all of the ways that I could go back to jail.

Most of them seem to include Maureen, not liking me or me not being able to find a job. And I came out with $5 and the clothes that I was. And I think I also maybe had chapstick, um, cause that’s what I had when I had gotten arrested and that’s what I had. And when I moved here, so worrying took me to Ross or something to pick out some clothing so that I could have something professional to wear, to try to get a job and begin paying my way as soon as possible.

Cause she didn’t want to do it. Uh, and I was sitting in the dressing room, looking at my. And I could see like, so clearly what a big hole I was in, because I didn’t know how to do any of those things. I didn’t know how to tell them what they wanted here or how to get a job, or I don’t know how to make people like me.

So I stayed in there and I cried for as long as I thought I could get away with. And then I went back out there, but eventually I, I did manage to get a job. Start going to college and all of those things. But the main problem was Maureen, because she was very unstable. Um, she’d picked me up from work. A lot of the times really smashed, tell me a bunch of strange stories and then try to take me to bars and not understand why I didn’t want to go with her and be like, no, come in don’t you want a beer?

No. Um, I’m 16 and on parole Marine, I don’t go in the bar with you. Um, and then she would cheat at pool, which is not necessary when you’re playing pool with me because I’m horrible at pool and she would still lose. And then she would try to get me to drive her car home, and I still don’t know how to drive.

And then we would go home and she would spend the entire next day in bed crying until I had to call her sister to come and take care. So it was trying to talk to my parole officer about this. And I got halfway into the story and he stops me and he looks at me and he says, Maureen is more important to us as a foster parent than you are as a kid in our program.

And if there are any problems with her and you cannot live there anymore, I’m not going to find you another placement. You can just go back. So I took that to me in, Hey, Stephanie, shut the fuck up. So I did, um, and I didn’t tell them anything else about her and it seemed like things were going okay. Um, she decided that she was going to go to AA because every time that she freaked out, it seemed like she was drinking.

So she was like, oh, maybe there’s some connection between this. Um, But when I, we were supposed to go to a movie together and she decided that she didn’t want to go or that she wanted to go out drinking with a friend from out of town. Um, she’s like, you know, I’ll pick you up after movie, just call me. Oh, good.

So you’ll be drunk then and driving you. That’s awesome. Uh, but I called her after the movie and she comes and picks me up completely smash and grabs me by the arm. Like for emphasis of shock, Stephan, Stephan, I fell in love tonight. Um, and first they used to tell me about some girl that she met at the bar that she’s going to go back and steal away from her boyfriend.

Um, no previous lesbian tendencies there, but you know, whatever. Uh, the only problem is I have to work at eight o’clock in the morning, the next day. And my work is all the way across town. So I’m a little worried. It’s like, we’re gonna, are you gonna be okay to drive me home tomorrow? Cause it’s it’s two right now.

Be to work at eight. She’s like, no, no, no, it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. Cause there’s another lady in the sheets. Me congratulate me. She actually did the finger guns. So not, I didn’t have that. I was like, oh God, you not want to see that at all. So I wake her up the next morning they got alone and she takes me to work and it seems like it’s fine.

I mean, she’s a little drunk still, but it’s like Sunday morning. There’s no other car. She asked me what she should bring me when I’m going to get off work. So I was doing a double shift. I had to go to the other store. It was like, coffee should bring me coffee. She was like, okay, let me bring you coffee.

It seems fine. I get about halfway through my shift and I get this phone call. Um, and it’s Marine just speaking really fast. And it sounds like she’s like outside or something like the phones all crackling. And she just starts like speaking all in a rush. It’s like Stephanie, Stephanie said. I have to go see my mom.

If she go see my mom right now, I was like, like, like now, now she’s like, I don’t know. I’m on the way to the airport. I’ll call you back. Click, like looking at the phone. I’m like, yeah, I’m going to jail. I am going to jail. I’m going to fail college and get fired and I’m going to go to jail. Um, so I look at the phone for like, you know, a couple of seconds decide there’s not really anything I can do about it, but it back and go back to work.

Um, I get about halfway through. And Maureen’s boss and her best friend, Jocelyn calls me and she’s like, Hey, it’s Ryan picking you up today? It’s like, I don’t think so. She’s like, yeah, me neither because her mom just called me from Indiana. And she says that she’s there. And, um, I don’t know where her car is also the dog.

Um, so yeah. What do you want to do about that? I was like, oh, well, if you could just give me a ride to work, that would be cool. Uh, so that happens. And so about a month ago I was walking down the street and I’ve run into her and we made eye contact and then couldn’t take it back. So we had to talk to each other and she, she seemed eager in a strange way to sit down and have coffee with me.

It didn’t seem like it was coming from her. So I kind of got the impression that she was on the ninth step, but, um, I sit down and I have some coffee with her and it’s about like, I thought she starts telling me about how every night in her room, she was drinking by herself and she never mentioned it to anybody.

You know, she’d had like a history of mental problems. I was like, I’m shocked. Um, but. She she’s asking me if I could forgive her, but even as she’s saying it, she’s almost taking it back. Cause she’s like, oh, I feel like I wasn’t a very good big sister to you. I’m like, oh, I like how you’re minimizing your responsibility in this situation, even as your attempt to take some sort of responsibility.

Um,

so I mean, she seemed, she seemed to need it. So, so I gave her my forgiveness, but I don’t think that it meant anything. Um, So what actually happened was, uh, she didn’t ruin my life. She actually ruined hers because a Marine was a social worker here in town and she could no longer get a job after that here.

So she had to move in with her parents and spend five years going to nursing school, which I thought was a poor career choice for somebody like her, because. Um, people die in hospitals and I don’t know how well that would work for her, but regardless, that was her, her decision. Um, after that I was kind of my parole.

Officer’s like golden girl. He got like copies of my sat scores and my college transcripts and like put them on his wall. Like there was some child’s crayon drawings or something. And we tell everyone about what a success I was is if he had been some kind of assistance to me instead of a constant hindrance, uh, I got to sit down at those meetings with the five people that I didn’t know and be asked like, well, why didn’t you tell us, why didn’t you tell us that she was so unsealed?

I did. I told you, you told me not to tell you anything else. So I didn’t, um, and I think maybe guilt was his motivating factor for trying to be nice to me after. Uh, I ran into him a while ago and he said that he mentions my story in the talks that he gives about being a parole officer as if, you know, he played some role.

Uh, something interesting that Maureen did tell me was that I’m apparently the only person who went through that program, who didn’t go back to jail, which they recognized as not a flaw in their program. But as the rest of them being worthless criminals, and I’m the only redeemable one. But I think that when you’re constantly told that you are the disposable factor in a situation that you become, that if you’re not a stronger willed person or the smartest girl in the jail.

So, you know, I guess, I guess that’s the whole.

Marc: Stephanie Hohn, raised by wolves, is an activist, artist and traveler.

I caught up with Stephanie in July of 2020.

A quick warning for sensitive listeners, towards the end of our conversation, Stephanie describes assault with frank language.

Marc: Are you practicing via zoom with your band?

Stephanie: So my band all works at our shop aside from our singer, who is the sister of one of our band Pampers. And so we’ve been meeting in person because we already are around each other all day at work. Anyway, it’s like at that point we’re already pretty exposed.

So we might as well.

Marc: And are you performing?

Stephanie: We did some live streams when quarantine first started to happen for us, like when we were laid off from our jobs, but shelter in place hadn’t been put into effect. And then when shelter in place happened, we all took it pretty seriously. Everybody stayed home, you know, for that amount of time.

And then once, you know, The places that we were working at opened back up again, we were like, well, at this point we might have sold to start practicing it person. We are hoping to record an album this year. We have enough music for it, and we’re kind of ready to go on that front, but it’s just a matter of like that being something we can do.

Cause I don’t really know if people are doing that right now,

Marc: Matt. Oh,

Stephanie: well, that’s good to know.

Marc: I’m pretty sure. Yeah. And he’s, I’ve worked with him before. He’s

Stephanie: yeah, we, um, we’ve been working on some merchant. I’ve made some shirt designs and I’m screen printing those myself and stuff. So we’ve got like a lot of, a lot of things.

But

Marc: do you have your own screen printing setup or do you use?

Stephanie: I have my own right now. Yeah. I have used the Zack in the past and I think if I was going to do something. More complicated or, or trying to do a lot of shirts that I would probably use their setup. But, um, since we’re kind of doing like print to order, I just have a small setup and we’re doing simple designs and we just have three shirt colors, and three ink options.

And I mean, , I feel like, um, what I’ve been doing, it has actually been hand adding second color details myself, just with like a brown.

’cause you can do, you can do wet on wet with like a water-based ink. And so I’ll just do the whole, like, if it’s like a black shirt and I’m putting a white design on it and I wanted like some yellow accents, I’ll just do the whole thing in yellow and then the whole thing in white. And then I’ll go in and add the yellow on top of it by.

And I, I feel like that’s like been a good result, but that’s only for a few things. If I was trying to do a whole bunch, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

Marc: Right. And it’s fun too.

Stephanie: If you’re just, if you’re just kinda messing around and like having fun.

Yeah, for sure. And because I, I do the t-shirt section at my job now, it’s pretty easy for me to get blank shirts at a lower cost. So it’s not like terribly expensive on our. You know, once you have all the supplies, so hopefully, yeah. Hopefully people are into it. It’s been kind of weird. Cause I haven’t felt like it’s something that I should be promoting right now.

I mean, even like thinking about live streaming or a band practices, it’s like, we know why it’s okay for us to be meeting, but that I feel like that might be hard to communicate as like setting a bad example for other people. You know,

Marc: that makes sense. But, I mean, I’ve seen all of the band members except for the one you mentioned at the shop and you know what I mean?

It makes sense that you’re allowed

Stephanie: to get together. Yeah. I mean yeah, Claris do sister, so they obviously see each other at their house. So it’s not, yeah, there’s, there’s a, there’s a point at which it’s like, I mean, if one of us got COVID at this point, we would all have to quarantine regardless.

Marc: Where can people

Stephanie: listen? I actually have it up on streaming, right? So it’s called the spooky town radio show. And it’s, it’s on like Spotify and apple podcasts and stuff it’s available there.

Marc: So anybody could subscribe to the spooky

Stephanie: town radio show. It’s all people from. Yeah, just voice actors from here in town.

And all the fully sound effects are things that we made ourselves for the most part. So, you know, when you hear like a door shutting or whatever, those are all real sounds that we recorded to

Marc: that’s fun. Do you find yourself watching around when you are out and about recording? I’ve

Stephanie: tried a few things.

Usually there’s like a specific sound effect that I want to use. And I’ll try to like, write a scene around that. Like if I, if I get a really good like door creaking noise or something like that I also recently have come across a. Some like, you know, compilations of different sound effects for like cheesy horror movie things.

So I’ve been using that to add like background music to scenes. But a lot of it, , there’ll be like, like a dun dun duh, on a piano. And like most of the time, like we’ve actually recorded that on the piano or, you know, something like that. Right.

Marc: Yep. I mean, I I’ve started since I’ve started editing audio, I paid attention to sound more and like, Walking across a wooden floor.

That’s like a deck, a wooden deck in your bare feet versus walking across the same floor and a pair of Dansko shoes versus walking upon across the same floor in a pair of combat boots. You know, like the sound is different, even performing the same activity. And I, I think it’s fun to play with. A sense of place

Stephanie: using sound.

Yeah, we haven’t done this as much yet, but we’re hoping later to maybe go to locations and just record a lot of ambient noises to use those like background noise for different scenes, like so that if, if people are in like a convenience store to just go and record some sound in a convenience store or something, and just use that as some, as some like flavor.

But we’ll, we’ll see, like what is available it’s so it’s, it’s a horror comedy podcast. It’s based loosely off of a role-playing game called monster hearts, but

Marc: pretty nerdy

Stephanie: stuff, stuff. Yeah. I’ve been, I’ve been doing a lot of role playing games. Um, I had a D and D group for a little while that was, uh, Doing discord games and everything.

Well, both things were shut down. So we were still calling each other and doing stuff. I recently wrote a little tabletop game where you play as a shop cat.

Marc: Um, uh, are the cats in the game named after the shop? The

Stephanie: shop. As S as illustrative examples. Yeah, it’s, it’s called perfect crimes with the P P U R O

I feel like I I’ve had a little bit more time to explore like those weird little creative projects. I learned how to, sew I’ve been working on that which is something I always was interested in making clothes, but I never, you know, really sat down and like really tried to make myself do it.

Because there’s just, yeah, there’s not like. At least I don’t feel comfortable, you know, going out and doing activities that much for right now. Yeah. I’m trying, I’m trying to minimize the number of like places I’m going and things that I’m doing. And then I just have a few things, like, you know, having band practice, because I feel like.

Those are reasonable, but yeah, I’m, I’m really, I haven’t been to a restaurant. I’m probably not going to one for, you know, the rest of this year.

Marc: Right? Exactly.

Stephanie: I’m really surprised at how people are just, you know, not, not wearing masks. Not really. It seems like they just got sick of taking precautions and or if they ever did it in the first place, you know?

Marc: Right. Well, we’ll see how this winter goes. I think it’s going to be pretty, pretty brutal.

Stephanie: I. At the beginning of the year, I had signed up for a CSA share. And so I just started getting that. But I remember like when we were having, you know, some grocery store shortages and stuff, like thinking about how good it was that I signed up for that, cause it’s just a local farm.

There’s no supply chain issues at all. They’re like, you know, and it was already paid for and they were doing just fine as, you know, a small group of people on their farm. So maybe, you know, considerations like that will make people kind of pivot to more local options.

Marc: You told your story in the first year of telephoning, it was October 9th,

Stephanie: 2012. It’s definitely a long time.

Marc: It’s been a long time and that was the same night. The former owner of the top hat said goodnight and goodbye to essentially her dad. So that’s how long ago it was.

It was before the remodel. It was still a dive bar. What was that experience like for you?

Stephanie: Well I think, I mean, if you’ve listened to it, I think you can tell that I was pretty nervous. I was, you know, I was pretty young also at that time and I just had a lot of like stage, right. I was in college at the time and I guess I still have this experience, but I have it a lot.

Or I had it a lot. Then when I was talking to people my own age, that like everybody’s life experiences were so different from mine, that when I would tell stories about my life, people would legitimately like not believe me, or would think that that sounded like fake and made up. And I, I honestly. I feel like that still does happen because I’ve just had unusual experiences or, you know, bad experiences that people would like to pretend aren’t something happening in their community.

So I kind of wanted to tell that just to be like, Hey, just so you know, like, this is, this is what’s happening, you know, here that’s, this is what it’s like for people.

Marc: Yeah. I mean, I thought that’s was the power of your story. People have. Perception of our town as being liberal and we take care of everybody.

And, but no, I mean, people are expendable in the eyes of the system and you certainly were. I mean, I think that somebody in your, you even said in your story, like somebody told you, like, I’m not going to try to place you in. If Maureen disappears, you’re going right back to jail.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. His name was Brett Gordon and his, his wife was my assigned therapist, so there was no real and I was required to go to therapy.

So it’s like there was no real confidentiality which is one of the things that I think about now when people are wanting to kind of pivot more towards a more social workers and away from police is how intertwined those systems are for us. Social workers and cops who were canned in hand. I I’ve had, you know, some pretty bad experiences with caseworkers when I was a kid too.

So I don’t know if that’s like 100% going to solve all of our inequality issues.

Marc: I wonder if better training would be helpful with that

Stephanie: too, or, or them. Not as, as a meshed into the system. I mean, the main, the main issue in Montana is funding. We have some of the highest, like reported cases of child abuse of like any state it’s very high here and we have some of the lowest funding.

And so there just aren’t enough places for kids to go if they’re in dangerous situations. And so the. Wants to place people back with their parents, if they can justify it at all. And the number of people that I was in group homes with, or that, or that I was in, in prison with, who went back to households that were very, very clearly unsafe and were causing a lot of the problems that were supposed to be addressed by incarceration, you know, it was ridiculous.

Marc: One of the things that you did in your story that was so heartbreaking and beautiful and kind towards the end, when you were talking about, and you didn’t name the guy, but they just named it now, but you said that he talks about you and his programs and the T know as your sort of success story. And you said that as if he had any role in that and all of the rest of the.

People in the program all went back to jail and you were the only one who didn’t. And that the beautiful thing that you did was you said, you know, something about they didn’t have self enough self-awareness and then this is these, aren’t the words that you used, but they didn’t have enough self-awareness to think that maybe there was a problem with their program and it wasn’t the girls and the fact that you were just giving that love to.

Even just in that little tiny sentence was so cool.

Stephanie: Well, some of the, some of the people that I think about the most well, , if we’re talking about, you know, systemic inequality, at least half of the, of the girls that I was in prison with were native American and they’re not half the population.

And there there’s a reason for that. And it’s because of the. That things are covered on reservations. Reservations are not legally part of the state. They are part of our country, but they don’t have to abide by state laws, which means that federal law enforcement and tribal police are the only people who are able to help with issues on the reservation.

So if you get in trouble and you’re from the reservation, it’s immediately a federal. So the level, the level of incarceration that they experienced when there are problems is extremely high,

Marc: that’s so messed up.

Stephanie: And there was one girl I remember who was very clearly mentally ill. Like she had schizophrenia, she had like hallucinations that she would respond to like visual and auditory hallucinations, and she was repeatedly. Getting put in jail. I think when I was there, she was 15 and she had been there three times already.

And it was for things like minor drug offenses non-violent things when, obviously what she needed was mental health help. And instead they just kept putting her back into her household, uh, which had a lot of its own dysfunctions. And that’s, that’s just going to, or as far as I know, that was her second.

You know, the whole rest of her life when she was at least a teenager is just being on parole, getting a parole violation for some minor offense, going back to jail over and over and over again, when really what she needed was, you know, mental health support.

Marc: Yeah. I mean, that’s, I think that’s been the case for decades, right? Yeah.

You did some nervous, but you also sounded like I need you to hear this. Like that was sort of the attitude. It sounded like you were confident in that way.

Like, and you told the story in such a compelling way. And I was. So I’m still so grateful that you wanted to share it.

Stephanie: So I’m not in college now, but w when I was going to school, I wanted to do creative writing and I feel like people always wanted me to do memoir. And then also when I did it, I sort of felt like, I dunno, like a, like an object.

To them, because it’s like the things that I was was trying, the stories that I was trying to tell them were so out of the norm for them, that it didn’t, it seemed like affection. It didn’t seem like a real story that had really happened to them. Um, but I’ve been trying to work on doing that more just because of, you know, thinking about some of the different people that I was around.

Who probably never, were able to either get out of that cycle or have never , been able to tell their story because it was too hard for them to say, you know, so I don’t know but that’s hard work because it’s just, it’s upsetting, you know?

I’ve always been more interested in like speculative fiction because it’s easier for me to do, but I kind of feel like people, I don’t know, I probably have stories that it would be good for people to hear.

At the same time. So I’ve been, I’ve been trying to do more of that kind of stuff.

Marc: Beyond the nervousness of telling your story, was there anything afterwards after that event was over, did you have any buddy come up to you and say anything?

Um,

Stephanie: there was one lady, like right after I got off stage, who I think said something to me along the lines of, oh, I always wonder it’s like what, what the deal with you was? Or like, something like that. So it kind of sounded like she’d seen me around town and like noticed me or thought I was weird or something was just wondering like what, who that person is.

I found kind of like a strange comment. I was like, I don’t really know how to respond to that, but

I imagined that sh that, that, like, it made her confront whatever assumption she’d made about me. And she was like, oh, I’ve learned something. But it, I, I definitely took it as like, oh, I’ve seen you as a local weird. And I was wondering like, why is that girl dressed like that or whatever? Yeah, I definitely, I remember that one specifically.

I think that I had maybe one other person recognized me, , and like want to be my friend after that, but it was like, It was kind of a, it was kind of an odd individuals. I don’t think that really went anywhere, but well, and I don’t know, cause I, because I was a minor when all of this happened my record has been expunged and so I, I guess I.

I am open about that with people that I know well, but it’s not necessarily something that I like would open up with talking to people, like normally like on like a day-to-day basis. I’m not like, by the way I was in prison when I was a kid, like but it’s something that is definitely really present in my mind with political issues.

Like I do. I don’t know. I do consider myself. To be an ex-con, even though that’s not how I think most people perceive me or what they are that they think about that. And so I, I definitely like it’s, it’s impacted the way that I like think about all of those issues and probably will for like the rest of my life.

Marc: Sure.

Stephanie: . I mean , our whole outlook towards imprisonment I think has, has gotten worse over time for sure.

And I think. I think, I mean, hopefully, you know, this moment that we’re in right now, when people are looking at the role of police, I think the natural next step is to look at the role of prisons and to, to ask if like they’re accomplishing the goals that we claim we want them to accomplish. Um, because I think it’s at least from my experience, I don’t think anyone was helped by.

You know, I don’t, I don’t think that most of the girls that were there were truly a danger to the community. I think that they needed, they were people who were at risk at, in their homes and they didn’t have another place to put them there. Wasn’t another option for them. And that’s the say nothing of the situation, you know, of boys.

Way worse. I mean, the, in Montana, the, unless things have changed since then, they very well could have, it’s been quite awhile, but Riverside in Boulder is the girl’s prison here in Montana. And it can only hold about 20 girls, pine Hills as the boys. And it can hold 120 boys. So I’m sure that their situation is worse.

Yeah. From what I’ve heard, it’s much more violent there. So yeah, I mean, you’re taking people out of an abusive situation and putting them into a much more abusive situation. How is that going to help them improve their behavior? It’s only going to make them more likely to respond to threats with violence because that’s, those are the only tools that have.

I mean if, what we actually wanted to do, if we’re like, oh, , I’m concerned that these children are committing crimes in the community. I’ll just give you some examples of some of the, some of the crimes that people were were in there for that I personally knew there was a girl who was in there for check fraud because her mother had abandoned her and their other siblings for a second.

And so they had just, they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have anyone else to contact. So they were just writing checks to the grocery store and I’m sure for also frivolous things, but they were writing checks off of her bank account. And when her mom finally showed back up, she decided that she wanted that money back.

So she reported her daughter for this crime so that she could get, you know, restitution fees from that. And when she was done with her stay in prison, that girl was put right back.

Is that like, it’s not a real stuff. That’s true

Marc: in time of COVID, you know, sometimes the safest place for kids is in school and now they can’t go to school and they’re forced to be with their abusers for the entire.

Stephanie: Yeah. And they’re, they’re not able to receive, you know, if they’re a part of a school lunch program that’s gone now. I mean, the, the food bank has definitely been, you know, doing their best and working over time. But I definitely, when I was a kid, I had to steal food from the grocery store because my parents weren’t feeding.

Marc: That shouldn’t you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t end up in jail for that.

Stephanie: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s the problem is the problem there that something was stolen from the store or is the problem there that a 12 year old felt like they, that was the only way for them to get through.

I think it’s just easier for people to, to like, feel sympathy for younger kids, because when like a five-year-old acts out, everyone’s like pretty sure that it’s not their fault or at least like, they’re like, well, there’s probably problems at home. But when like a 14 year old is acting out, then people kind of are like annoyed by it.

And they feel like maybe this is just a bad kid. I don’t think we give kids enough, like leeway as they get older to understand that like they don’t have control of their situation. And that’s why they’re acting like that. Like when you see a, like a toddler screaming in the store, your first response is to think that like, oh, they’re over tired.

You know, whatever they, like, they don’t have control over their life. They’ve been pushed to a point that they’re acting like this, but we don’t, you know, we don’t give teenagers that same breathing room or that same like sympathy.

Marc: I see teenagers coming into the store and acting out. How do you respond to that?

Stephanie: I mean, I guess I haven’t really. Too many, like teenagers acting out in the store, there are definitely some kids shoplifting and I’ll just be really straight with them about it, where I’m like, I see what you’re doing. , I know what this looks like, and , I need you to stop doing this. That’s pretty much what I do cause I don’t have the ability to do too much more, but.

I had a, I saw a lot more of that kind of stuff. I used to work overnights at a gas station and there would be neighborhood kids that would try to come into the store and hang out, you know, at like midnight bunch of 12 year olds want to hang out in the gas station and mess around. And there was one girl in particular who would try to go up to cars outside and see.

Th they could get money from people just ask like people who were stopping to get gas, if they would give her a few dollars. And, and her, I did pull aside and I was like, do you realize how close we are to the interstate? And that no one knows where you are and that , somebody could, grab you.

If you’re out here at midnight, they know that there’s nobody paying attention to you. Do you realize how fast you would be gone? You need to seriously consider the danger that you’re putting yourself in right now.

Marc: What does she say?

Stephanie: She kind of like scoffed, you know, I think because when you’re in a survival situation, you’re like, well, I know this is dangerous, but this is, what I need right now.

But I didn’t see her doing it again, at least when I was working there. So hopefully she found some better options, but I was like, I, I know that there isn’t help for you. If I call the police, they’re not going to help that person. I don’t think there’s any community support for that person. She’s going to have to figure out how to help herself.

So I don’t know. Usually I just kind of, yeah. I mean, I don’t really think there’s anybody who can help those kids. I don’t know who to direct them to. I’ll I’ll I can do is like give them personal advice.

Marc: Do you ever weigh in with any of these opinions at places like. City council meetings or when they asked for public comment, you can type up an email or whatever and say, look, this has been my experience.

Or do you think that’s just not, it’s not worth it.

Stephanie: I guess I haven’t. I mean, I don’t really,

I don’t really know, like the. The, the, like the first issue is funding. For sure. We do not fund these services, you know, and people are happy to donate to like the Watson children’s home because it’s it’s children. But as you get older, they’re less inclined to want to help you. One of the big problems with finding placements for kids that have already been in trouble is that there are a lot harsher requirements to foster.

A kid that’s been in jail. You can’t have any other children in the home, for example. And I think it’s called something different. I, I think when I was doing it, it was called guide homes, but it might be different, but there, yeah, there aren’t like, there aren’t an adequate number of foster parents.

There’s not an adequate amount of funding for group homes. There’s like a lot more drug rehabs than there are any other types of shelters. Like every time. I got in trouble because I would say because I had an abusive home life, the, the amount of times that the cops were called to our house, because there was like physical fighting going on was probably dozens of times.

And I would just temporarily, you know, be in a group home for a little bit. And then they’d put me back with my mom and it just happened over and over again until eventually things escalated to a point. They put me in jail. And every one of those incidences, in my opinion, was a self-defense situation for me, where I did not initiate the physical altercation.

But in the state of Montana, it’s not illegal to hit your child with an open. That’s considered corporal punishment and it’s legal. So if your parents are like slapping you in the face and you hit them back, you did not defend yourself. That’s assault

as, as a really absurd example. Uh, one time I was being fish hooked, like I, my mom was dragging me across the floor by my face, and I bit her thumb because it was in my mouth and I got a ticket for my.

I got an assault ticket for doing that and it’s like, I was being assaulted when that happened. So I like, I really feel like the whole, the whole system, you know, is so. It’s so messed up that I don’t really, I mean, you’d have, you’d have to completely

restructure.

Yeah. And people would have to consider it a priority and they’d have to, you know, I, I think that would be definitely like a step once people started considering, you know, their, their opinion toward incarceration injury. But yeah, I mean, there, there are whole towns, like deer lodge that are just based off of their prison.

That’s what everybody in that town does. So like that’s where all of their income comes from. So where are those people going to really question like their only source of income or is it easier for them to just decide that everybody who’s in that jail now

is there in Ohio? That’s how he feels. If you’re in prison, you did something to deserve to be there.

And I’m just like, dad, that is not true. You know?

Well, like 100% of people in jail definitely didn’t do it. Like that’s. I mean, even if you just like, think about regular statistics of anything, 100% of something, it’s not, it can’t possibly be. There’s, there’s gotta be at least one person, not one little outlier who didn’t do it. And it’s, it’s exponentially more than one person.

But even if we agree that the, every person who’s in prison committed the crime that they’re in prison for, we still, if our goal is to, to have people who have committed crimes reintegrate into society. And, and like be normal, productive members of it. We are not achieving that.

Marc: And so what’s the answer we don’t have.

I mean, there’s, we can’t solve this now. You and I can’t anyway, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m I mean, hopefully as people start to consider what role does. Should have in our society that they can also then look at like what role prison should have, because if you, if you don’t have police arresting as many people you’re still gonna have in your community, there are going to be people that are committing crimes,

There already are people that commit crimes that there really aren’t any consequences for. I mean, you know, sexual assault is the first thing that comes to my mind as far as people who, I mean, I know I can think of like probably five or six people just in the community, off the top of my head that have never received any, you know, any justice.

Marc: Yeah. And then that’s a whole new conversation to talk about why people don’t report and when they do report the victim blaming that happens and the retraumatization of the person who reports.

Stephanie: Yeah. The, the lack of testing, like the really low, like amount of punishment that people receive, even if they are convicted.

Yeah, I mean a whole, a whole other bag of worms, but there I, yeah, I don’t think that I don’t think that the police are effective at their stated goal. And I don’t even know if those goals need to be achieved, but we would have to build. Whole other institutions to deal with these issues and it could be done, but people would have to want to do it like collectively, that would have to be a priority for everyone to think.

Okay. When there’s a homeless guy on my property, you know, Spain gin for money, I want him to leave, but I don’t want to call the cops. Who do I. You know, and there are like homeless outreach things, but they don’t have very much funding. So we would have to, we would have to want to help, you know, the prov relo increase their staff so that they’d have somebody to come do that we would have to increase what shelters, so that people who had been drinking would have a place to sleep, regardless, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Each one of these things, you know, there are other systems. That could probably more effectively help them, but we would have to prioritize doing that. Cause the, I mean, every, every situation, every dangerous situation is, is a cop, the correct person to come deal with this, or could somebody else do a better

Marc: job, somebody with different and better training for the state of situation.

Stephanie: Yeah, you shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be getting the same person to come take care of a dangerous dog in your yard that you would call. If you were sexually assaulted, that you would call, if there’s a homeless guy that you would call, if your house got broken into, those are not the same problems and they can’t all be solved by the same tool.

Marc: is there anything else that you want to say about your story before we.

Stephanie: Um, well, if people like it, I’m, I’m glad that they heard that. I would say that I was an outlier, at least as far as my like, ability to like react the way that they want you to, to that situation. Cause I, I think a lot of people, if they were suddenly left on their own, you know, as. I don’t think they would just keep going to work.

Right. Which is what I did. They would probably freak out and, and it definitely occurred to me like, well, I’ve been told that if this, if there’s any problem, I’ll just go back to jail. So now that there’s been a problem, like I think a lot of people would just freak out at that point. Cause they already know that no one’s going to help them.

That’s been their experience that no one will help them. So I’m not, I’m not surprised that all the other people that they put in that situation had a bad outcome. Like they were set up to have that bad outcome. And I don’t really know that that situation has changed to my, to my knowledge. There hasn’t been, you know, any changes to those programs, but.

Marc: Most people would freak out in the same circumstance. How did you not freak out? How did you keep moving forward?

Stephanie: Well, I mean, I have really, I don’t, I don’t know if I want to say that I haven’t respected authority, but I like from the, like, I didn’t have babysitters after I was four. And so for the majority of my life, I’ve been pretty responsible.

My own safety and, you know, taking care of whatever I needed to do on my own. And so I think that like, that’s always been, my approach is like I have to solve this problem. Without generally thinking that like an adult would help me or I should be asking for permission from somebody. That was just my default.

And so it didn’t really occur to me at the time. You know, to tell anybody about what was going on or to ask somebody about it. I just continued to do what I’d been doing, because that was already the plan that I had in place. And I was like, well, I have no control over what she does or what they do about this.

But maybe if I just like continue doing what I’m doing. Everything won’t totally fall apart. Or if they do decide to like, put me back in jail, at least maybe like my boss will still give me a good recommendation or something like that. I don’t know. I like, I didn’t, I was like, I don’t have control over what they do.

So I’m just going to keep, keep doing what my original plan was and hopefully it’ll work out. But I got told that things, that I was the plants that I was making, weren’t going to work out and. I like basically made them work out through force of will, like over and over in the course of being in the system.

So I think I was kind of used to that being the outcome. When I first went to Riverside, which is the girls jail, their plan was that when I was done being there, that I would go back to living with my mom and that I would go back to high school and. Just with like the amount that, that situation had escalated over the last couple of years, I was like, if I go back to living there, like someone’s going to die.

Like it’s getting to the point where I feel like it’s going to like go somewhere really bad. So I was like, I can’t, I can’t do it. I can’t go back there. So what do I need to do to not go back? So I stopped communicating with my parents about. I yeah. At 16, I was like, I’m not going to, if I like refuse to have a relationship with her and I refused to talk to her and I’m extremely uncooperative with that, they’ll have to find, you know, their placement.

And then I basically did a year and a half of schoolwork while I was there so that I could graduate. And they told me from the beginning were like, you’re not going to be able to get enough credits to graduate. And. You’re you’re going to have to go back with my mom. Neither one of those things happened because I like made them not happen.

So I don’t know. I think like you just have to, whatever, like your goal is, like, you just have to focus on that above what anyone else is telling you, because. They’re probably they’re wrong if you like, if you dedicate everything towards one thing you can accomplish, I’m Stephanie

Marc: Hall and everybody

thank you so much for spending the time with me this afternoon.

Stephanie: Yeah, I have a band. I have a radio drama. I have a podcast where I review horse books. Yeah,

it’s called pasture med time.

Marc: Um, man, I love that about you, that you like puns as much as I do.

Stephanie: Well, my, my friend Melanie is a, is a big horse book fan. She’s been a horse girl, her whole life. And I am not a horse girl. Although now people think that I am because I have this and they send me horse things, but essentially she has all of her childhood horse books, like the things that she was reading when she was like nine, and then I read them and.

I’m like, Melanie, did you realize this book is just about domestic violence? She’s like now what?

Marc: I was just, I’m just going to subscribe as soon as we hang up, I want to be present with you right now, but I’m out to pasture. What does

Stephanie: that, is that what it’s past your bedtime, past your

Marc: bedtime. So their horse, their children’s horse bedtimes. That you, you deconstruct them.

Stephanie: Yeah. I just read the last the last season we read the full unicorns of ballon or series, and now we’re doing some like one shot horse books.

We also did a one episode on black lives matter and the protest horses, there’s been a lot of people that have been bringing their horses to protest.

The Compton Cowboys. There’s the fleet street writers’ club there’s nonstop writers in Houston and, um, Brianna noble, who I think a lot of people have seen pictures of her in Oakland with her, her horse Dapper Dan, I think the most interesting thing about all of those is like the immense level of training that an animal like that would require to be in a.

Every one of those people that you see bringing their horses to a protest, just like put in so much work and time for them to be able to be in that environment. It’s really impressive.

Marc: Thank you, Stephanie. I will talk to you again soon. I hope and stay safe out there.

Stephanie: I’ve just had unusual experiences or, you know, bad experiences that people would like to pretend aren’t something happening in their community.

So I kind of wanted to tell that just to be like, Hey, just so you know, like, this is, this is what’s happening, you know, here that’s, this is what it’s like for people.

Marc: Thanks, Stephanie. And thank *you* for listening today.

Though I was unable to find the podcasts that Stephanie hosts, for links to some of the podcasts she mentions in our conversation, head over to tellussomething.org

Next week, I catch up with Jim Beyer

Jim Beyer: Oh, it was the Sturgis adventure. Yes.

Marc: “Message from God”.

Jim: “Message from God.” Yeah. Yeah, because I practiced that for a week. while driving around Montana, I just tell it to myself over and over and over again so that it, , would be, um, shortened and, um, , yeah, nearer to perfect. So.”

Marc: Tune in for his story, and our conversation, on the next Tell Us Something podcast.

Thanks to Cash for Junkers, who provided the music for the podcast. Find them at cashforjunkersband.com

I am so excited to tell you that the next in-person Tell Us Something storytelling event will be March 30 at The Wilma.

The theme is “Stone Soup”. 7 storytellers will share their true personal story without notes on the theme “Stone Soup”.

We are running at 75% capacity, which allows for listeners to really spread out at The Wilma. Learn more and get your tickets at logjampresents.com

Thanks to our in-kind sponsors:

Joyce Gibbs: Hi, it’s Joyce from Joy!ce of Tile. If you need tile work done, give me a shout. I specialize in custom tile installations. Learn more and see some examples of my work at joyceoftile.com.

Gabriel Silverman: Hey, this is Gabe from Gecko Designs. We’re proud to sponsor Tell Us Something. Learn more at geckodesigns.com.

Missoula Broadcasting Company including the family of ESPN radio, The Trail 103.3, Jack FM and my favorite place to find a dance party while driving U104.5

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And Missoulaevents.net

Podcast production by me, Marc Moss.

To learn more about Tell Us Something, please visit tellussomething.org.

Stories of an American tourist’s encounter with the secret police in 1970s Iran, overcoming hate in the grocery store, An Eastern African girl’s first experience in America and an American tourist in Paris just trying to find some relief.
Marc Moss hosts Tell Us Something Radio, in which you'll hear four stories recorded during live Tell Us Something events held in Missoula. The stories in this program include a young Jewish boy struggling to please his father, a second-generation immigrant who takes his family to a lake in Michigan as a result of a family story, an important discovery in the basement of the New York City Public Library and a theatre director whose car breaks down on a mountain pass during a time of great chaos. This special Father’s Day edition of Tell Us Something Radio features stories about fathers and sons shared by your community -- regular everyday Montanans with a story to share. Stories were recorded in front of a live audience. Steven Begleiter “My Father and Football” (June 2015) Alex Alviar - "Invisible Scripts (June 2015) Ed Stalling “A Gift For Dad” (February 2015) David Mills-Lowe “Fixing Windmills” (or) “Saying Goodbye to Dad” (May 2012)
In this week's podcast, you'll hear a forgiveness story about a young student’s misbehavior, a young woman’s survival story, the kindness of strangers on a train and a lifetime of love stories.

Transcript : Didn't See That Coming (part 1)

00:08
welcome to tell us something
00:10
every tell us something event is focused
00:12
on a theme
00:15
tonight’s theme is didn’t see that
00:17
coming
00:20
aaron parrott is a professor of english
00:23
at the university of providence
00:25
he and his most recent book he he
00:29
has his
00:32
he’s an author and his most recent book
00:36
is maple and lead it’s a collection of
00:39
short stories with woodcuts by seth
00:41
robey
00:42
he also runs the territorial press in
00:44
helena montana
00:45
devoted to fine letter press editions of
00:48
handcrafted montana literature
00:50
please welcome aaron parrott i used to
00:53
be a really bad kid
00:56
uh and worse than that i hung out with a
00:59
lot of other really bad
01:00
kids and in eighth grade
01:04
it was sort of this perfect storm of
01:06
badness
01:07
and that we all ended up in the same
01:09
eighth grade homeroom and worse than
01:12
that the regular teacher
01:14
about a third of the way through the
01:15
year
01:17
i think she got sick or there was a
01:19
death in the family or something and she
01:20
left and so we got a substitute teacher
01:22
for the rest of the year
01:26
you can already see where this is going
01:30
um and we just treated this
01:33
poor teacher horribly miss
01:36
porzig was her name uh
01:40
and two things i remember really vividly
01:42
my friend rod storley
01:45
i think we all got into chewing
01:46
copenhagen around this time
01:48
and her strategy was the the worst kid
01:50
in the class she would put behind her
01:52
at her desk facing the rest of the class
01:56
but then she couldn’t see what that
01:57
person was doing
01:59
and so he’s sitting at her desk chewing
02:01
copenhagen and opening the drawers and
02:03
spitting into the drawers told you we
02:06
were bad
02:08
um and i ended up in the principal’s
02:11
office
02:12
because i think i discovered william
02:14
burroughs around this time also
02:17
and i would sit in my in my desk and
02:20
just
02:20
shake like this and say i need a fix i
02:22
need a fix
02:24
and so i ended up in the principal’s
02:26
office
02:28
but the thing was we go to the
02:29
principal’s office and the principal
02:30
says so what’s he doing
02:32
and then my teacher says i need
02:36
and it was so goddamn funny seeing my
02:38
teacher do this
02:39
but of course i laughed but the
02:42
principal didn’t think that was very
02:43
funny
02:45
and the really ironic thing is i don’t
02:47
remember what punishment i got
02:49
i do remember he called my parents and
02:50
that was probably
02:52
punishment enough but i don’t recall
02:56
what the punishment was relative to the
02:58
class
02:59
and that was really the last i
03:03
remembered of the class
03:04
those two highlights and then i went on
03:07
to high school
03:08
and became an even worse person
03:13
but then my biggest crime there was i
03:15
just skipped school a lot
03:17
and finally i got expelled or i was
03:20
about to be expelled
03:21
and instead of kicking me out i tried
03:23
the project for alternative learning
03:26
which changed my life it really
03:29
turned me around in the following way
03:32
the first day i went into this
03:33
project for alternative learning it was
03:35
on the may at the may butler
03:36
center on rodney street i sit in the
03:40
principal’s office there
03:41
and he says well what do you want to
03:43
what do you want to learn
03:45
and because i was kind of a smart ass i
03:48
said philosophy
03:50
and he said well we we don’t teach that
03:52
here but let me enroll you down at
03:54
carroll college
03:56
and he got on the phone and literally 10
03:58
minutes later i was signed up for
04:00
classes at carroll college
04:03
the the most important one and the one i
04:06
really remember was
04:09
i think it was an ethics class or survey
04:11
of philosophy with dr barry first
04:14
and i loved it he he was a great teacher
04:17
and apparently i was a great student you
04:20
know 16 years old in a juvenile
04:22
delinquent at helen high but
04:24
put me in the right atmosphere and
04:26
suddenly i turned around and
04:28
i remember he invited me to his house
04:31
for dinner
04:33
you know i’m 16 or 17 years old and just
04:36
was amazed that you know somebody was
04:39
taking me this seriously
04:41
so my girlfriend and i go to
04:44
to his house and knock on the door
04:49
and the woman that answers the door is
04:51
my eighth grade teacher
04:58
but she was very gracious and invited us
05:00
in and we had a great dinner
05:02
great conversation and at the end of the
05:05
night i think i fumbled some
05:08
some muttered apology for what i’ve done
05:10
in eighth grade
05:12
and to her credit she just said oh
05:15
i don’t think it’s as bad as you
05:17
remember and you seem pretty bored back
05:20
then i’m glad to see that you’ve
05:21
turned it around and found something
05:24
that interests you
05:26
and i guess this story is really about
05:29
forgiveness but also the power of a good
05:31
teacher
05:34
elizabeth rivard grew up in a very large
05:37
family in buffalo new york
05:40
she fell in love with stories at the
05:42
family dining room table
05:44
where they were a regular occurrence
05:48
being one of the youngest siblings she
05:50
was mostly a listener
05:52
her family still shares stories when
05:54
they get together
05:56
it’s one of their favorite things to do
05:58
they’ve got some doozies
06:02
elizabeth has changed the names of some
06:04
of the characters in her story
06:06
a quick warning for some of our
06:08
sensitive listeners
06:10
victoria’s story addresses sexual abuse
06:13
with frank language please welcome
06:16
elizabeth rivard
06:17
oh sorry welcome elizabeth
06:22
as mark told you i’m from a large family
06:25
it’s a large catholic family you know
06:28
usually it’s catholic or mormon
06:30
so um
06:34
i was born in 1962 and i have
06:38
three older brothers six older sisters
06:42
and a little brother who’s five years
06:44
younger than me
06:46
so when i was growing up it was the 60s
06:50
early 70s for this
06:53
story and um
06:56
my older siblings were teenagers
07:00
and my brothers were eligible for the
07:03
draft
07:04
but luckily they had high draft numbers
07:08
um and they were all good liberals
07:12
and out protesting the vietnam war
07:16
occasionally getting arrested and
07:19
on friday nights my parents like to go
07:22
out they played bridge and belonged to a
07:24
bridge club so they would go out on
07:26
friday nights
07:28
and my siblings would put the colored
07:30
light bulbs in
07:32
and have parties at our house
07:35
with music and dancing and drinking and
07:38
getting stoned and
07:39
occasionally tripping and while they
07:42
were babysitting
07:43
me and my little brother and a few of
07:45
the other siblings and whatnot
07:47
so this is this is the environment that
07:49
i grew up in
07:52
it was a great family loving family but
07:55
there was a lot
07:56
going on and not only that but my
08:01
grandmother lived with us so that
08:02
at for a period of years there there
08:05
were 14 people living in our house with
08:07
one and a half bathrooms
08:10
and i was the lucky one that got to
08:12
share a bedroom
08:13
with my grandmother and she was
08:17
going blind from glaucoma and
08:21
senile and not only that
08:25
she suffered from depression um
08:29
after her husband had died a number of
08:31
years before
08:34
and twice she had attempted suicide
08:37
while we
08:37
shared a room together one time
08:41
she slit her wrist and another time she
08:43
overdosed on sleeping pills
08:46
and i do have some vague memories of
08:49
that
08:52
so it was frightening for me
08:56
um so
08:59
fast forward to when i’m about 11 years
09:01
old
09:03
and there was a neighbor an older
09:06
gentleman
09:06
who was a gentleman i used that word
09:08
loosely but
09:10
he was a world war ii veteran and
09:13
he used to sit out on his porch and
09:16
sometimes myself or two of my
09:18
girlfriends
09:20
sharon and julie for this story uh
09:25
we would go on the porch and talk to him
09:27
and
09:28
he would ask us to go and get the
09:30
newspaper for him or a
09:32
quart of milk or something we would go
09:34
to the store for him and he’d give us a
09:37
a quarter or whatever and we would buy
09:39
candy and in those days you could
09:41
get a decent amount of candy for a
09:43
quarter
09:45
and then we started going in his house
09:49
and cleaning for him sometimes
09:52
the house was
09:56
pretty dank the shades were always drawn
09:59
so it was kind of dark in there
10:02
and i remember the furniture being kind
10:04
of sparse
10:05
and there were no pictures i can
10:08
remember
10:09
on the walls but he was kind of fun
10:13
because he would let us smoke his
10:16
cigarettes
10:18
um he had penthouse forum
10:22
magazines there which i don’t know if
10:24
it’s even still made but
10:26
it’s about the size of a reader’s digest
10:30
and i don’t recall there being pictures
10:33
in it but
10:34
um there were dirty stories
10:37
and so we would read the dirty stories
10:40
and some of them were just ridiculous i
10:42
i do remember one specifically i think
10:45
it was one a reader submitted
10:49
and the reader had an ant farm and
10:52
he was sleeping and he woke up and
10:54
having the wet dream of his life and the
10:56
ants had all gotten out and were
10:58
crawling
11:03
so i think even at the time i thought
11:07
that was ridiculous
11:10
but anyway you know things kind of
11:14
progressed
11:15
and um
11:18
at some point he started touching us
11:22
and exposing himself to us
11:25
and we were not always all there at the
11:27
same time you know there could be
11:29
different configurations of the three of
11:31
us there
11:34
um and this went on for about a year or
11:37
a year and a half
11:38
and um you know got a little more
11:43
intense as things progressed and
11:47
um i was going to catholic school at the
11:49
time like i said i was about 11 and so i
11:52
was in about sixth grade
11:54
um so
11:57
[Music]
11:58
i knew that this was wrong and i
12:01
shouldn’t be doing it
12:02
but you know i was a kid and i think i
12:05
had curiosity
12:07
i um maybe some of it felt good
12:10
i was getting some attention which i
12:12
wasn’t really getting at home
12:14
so much because there was so much going
12:16
on with the older kids
12:20
but at a point i just i couldn’t do it
12:22
anymore because i was just
12:24
so anxious and i ended up
12:28
growing up to be an anxious young adult
12:31
i had some anxiety and depression i
12:33
think i you know i functioned quite
12:36
normally i went to school i had friends
12:38
i went out but on the
12:39
inside i i really struggled
12:42
a lot i had a lot of shame and guilt
12:47
and i felt like i had a big secret
12:50
that i just could never tell anyone i
12:53
didn’t tell anyone in my family i was so
12:56
ashamed and i just thought god nobody’s
12:59
nobody would understand nobody’s been
13:01
through this this is just really bad
13:03
what you know and he was eating me up
13:07
inside
13:09
to be quite honest and um
13:14
i even thought about suicide a couple
13:17
you know when i was really feeling down
13:20
that
13:20
i mean luckily i never attempted it or
13:23
anything but that’s
13:24
just the angst that it caused me it was
13:27
like all my emotions were
13:29
tied up in a big ball and i couldn’t
13:33
understand
13:35
them it was only until many years later
13:39
that i
13:39
started to work out the knots of that
13:43
ball
13:43
and and you know
13:47
separate out my emotions and and learn
13:50
to deal with them
13:51
but um
13:54
i was about 21 when i
13:57
one morning i i had an apartment with
14:00
some other friends
14:01
and i woke up one morning
14:05
and while i was in that in between state
14:08
of sleep and wakefulness
14:10
i had this like a voice
14:13
and it was like in my right ear
14:17
and it said all the beauty of the world
14:19
can be found in the human heart
14:23
and it was absolutely a profound
14:26
experience for me i mean it
14:30
came with a flood of feeling and it
14:33
at the time it felt like jesus was
14:35
whispering that in my ear
14:39
and it just totally warmed me and
14:43
because i was i was able to see beauty
14:45
around me in the world you know i would
14:48
ride my bike over the peace bridge to
14:51
canada to the beaches up there by myself
14:53
or
14:54
ride down to the waterfront downtown or
14:58
appreciate the flowers and people’s
15:01
yards and
15:02
whatever but i couldn’t see any beauty
15:04
in myself
15:05
i was just so knotted up with shame and
15:10
guilt
15:12
so it was a bomb for my soul
15:16
you know all the beauty of the world can
15:18
be found in the human heart it was just
15:20
profound like wow
15:21
that’s that’s in me and that’s in
15:24
in everyone and that was the beginning
15:29
of my healing journey
15:32
so thank you for listening
15:35
chelsea rice moved to montana in 2011 to
15:39
join her partner
15:40
and within a year was diagnosed with a
15:42
rare and aggressive bladder cancer
15:45
it was then that she this is
15:48
not what i’m supposed to be reading i’m
15:51
giving away the story
15:53
oh no that’s not true this is what she
15:54
gave me
15:59
she’s an advocate for cancer patients
16:01
teens and misfits is a lover of arts and
16:03
literature
16:04
and writes nonfiction she believes in
16:06
resilience is a survivor and is also a
16:09
crazy bird lady
16:10
please welcome chelsea rice in 2012
16:16
as mark said i was diagnosed with a rare
16:19
and aggressive bladder cancer
16:22
it was october and in the weeks before
16:26
my partner and i had been sitting in the
16:28
capital rotunda
16:30
watching a buddhist monk tap out
16:33
a mandala made of sand and we were there
16:37
for
16:37
multiple days in a row watching this
16:39
beautiful process
16:40
unfold and i’m sure that i don’t
16:45
i’m sure that there was a intention that
16:48
was set for that particular mandala
16:50
perhaps it was compassion but for me i
16:53
just kept thinking
16:55
about impermanence over and over and
16:58
over again
17:01
one of those days we were up there was
17:02
october 5th
17:05
and we were just about a 15th
17:09
dates are really hard to remember when
17:10
you’re about to learn you have cancer
17:14
and we went to go see a urologist over
17:18
at st
17:19
peter’s um
17:23
that day it was a friday at about 4 30
17:27
p.m right before my 35th birthday
17:31
about two weeks before and when a doctor
17:34
tells you to come in on a friday at 4 30
17:36
p.m
17:38
beware
17:42
so from what i remember there was
17:46
my partner and i sitting and waiting and
17:48
i already knew that this was going to be
17:49
a cancer diagnosis but
17:51
when she pulled up the pilogram which is
17:54
basically a
17:54
black and white x-ray that just pulls
17:57
out
17:58
one system of the body and this was my
18:01
kidneys
18:02
my ureters and my bladder and she pulls
18:05
it up on her computer
18:07
and my partner charlie who i’ve been
18:10
with at that time for about
18:12
a decade is sitting next to me
18:16
and before she can even start talking
18:18
about the system as a whole
18:20
i already can see the lump
18:23
the tumor on the side of my bladder and
18:25
everything just
18:26
goes dead silent kind of like charlie
18:29
brown’s teacher
18:29
just but i can
18:33
feel the only thing i can feel is my
18:35
partner’s hand holding my thigh
18:37
just kind of lightly tapping keeping me
18:39
present for
18:41
at least a little bit
18:44
i remember sitting in the parking lot
18:47
after that diagnosis
18:49
thinking how do i go home
18:52
and call my parents how do i
18:55
how do we and i think i even said to my
18:57
partner charlie how does somebody get
18:59
this
19:00
diagnosis and then get in a car and
19:02
drive home
19:04
like how do you do that so i did
19:07
sit on the back porch that day and i
19:09
called my parents and told them
19:10
and delivered this terrible news i think
19:13
what was even more terrible is that the
19:15
bladder cancer
19:16
was a rare cancer that only two percent
19:20
of the diagnoses
19:21
in the united states are the other
19:24
98 are commonly related to
19:29
lifestyle drinking smoking
19:33
working in chemical factories mine was
19:35
due to environmental toxins
19:38
arsenic in groundwater
19:41
that’s a different story though so in
19:44
order to determine a treatment
19:46
for my bladder cancer nobody here has
19:49
the skill really and there are no
19:52
studies to determine how you would treat
19:55
squamous cell carcinoma of the bladder
20:00
so we had to go to a tertiary
20:02
institution
20:04
and what we decided that fall was
20:07
to go over to the mayo clinic what eva
20:10
enzler calls
20:11
cancer town it’s okay you can laugh
20:15
cancer is kind of funny
20:21
we at the time i was teaching part-time
20:23
as an adjunct professor between helena
20:25
college and carroll college
20:26
my partner is a high school teacher so
20:29
we were
20:30
totally making lots of money
20:36
and i was fresh out of graduate school
20:38
so i did not have insurance
20:40
and this is 2012. so
20:44
we didn’t have a whole lot of money so
20:46
we drove on a month after the diagnosis
20:49
we drove up to haver on a frosty
20:52
november day
20:53
to catch the train to rochester
20:57
however have you all been to the haver
21:00
train station it’s
21:03
one room i don’t think this really
21:06
exists but i think that there’s like a
21:08
dilapidated um phone booth on the
21:11
outside maybe by the turning tracks
21:13
yeah and it’s like a clapboard
21:16
exciting that’s all weathered there’s
21:19
like one person who shows up for 30
21:20
minutes and then leaves
21:22
when the train comes in when you depart
21:25
so my partner and i get on the train
21:27
and um you know it boards about midday
21:31
so you drive through
21:32
you go through the night on the train
21:33
and i don’t know if any of you have
21:35
ridden a train lately
21:37
it’s just barely a step above riding a
21:39
greyhound
21:41
just barely it’s cold
21:44
it’s really cold when you if you have a
21:47
seat near the window and you lean up
21:48
against it you can feel the winter
21:50
coming through the vents and against
21:52
your face and
21:54
lots of families in bulk ride with lots
21:56
of kids
21:57
and so it often looks like there’s the
21:59
kids have been like
22:00
licking the glass and then like rubbing
22:04
their snot on it
22:06
it’s pretty spectacular for a sick
22:09
person
22:10
so when we got on i um happened to see
22:13
where the conductors would sit we were
22:14
in the very back train car
22:16
and i noticed that they had lysol wipes
22:18
so i kind of stole a couple
22:20
and like took them to my chair and wiped
22:22
things down i was terrified when your
22:24
immune system is compromised everything
22:26
is scary
22:27
um you know we drove through the night
22:30
and
22:32
it was a solemn ride
22:35
those seats are really uncomfortable
22:37
they don’t go back all the way
22:38
you kind of sit you know scrunched up
22:42
there’s people like yelling there’s
22:44
people getting drunk it’s very noisy
22:46
lots of clamor
22:47
and all i can remember passing through
22:49
the night was going through williston
22:51
and north dakota and seeing the oil
22:54
fields on the horizon
22:56
and they’re really beautiful
22:59
it’s hard to say that but they’re like
23:02
little
23:02
candle wicks like staggered at different
23:05
levels along the horizon they’re
23:06
beautiful
23:08
and the workers from williston were on
23:10
the train with us and i mean
23:11
i’m a liberal i’m crazy liberal of
23:14
course i have a
23:15
same-sex partner um
23:18
and you know i’m pretty just i’m pretty
23:20
concerned about uh
23:22
fracking and oil fields and the workers
23:25
were so pleasant and they were so kind
23:28
and they had these
23:28
really even-keeled conversations with us
23:31
and
23:31
they were just riding the train back to
23:33
their cities
23:35
just trying to feed their families and
23:36
it was really a profound moment talking
23:39
to them
23:40
that night my partner and i had to
23:44
wanted to eat dinner in the dining car
23:45
and if you’ve ever ridden an amtrak
23:47
train
23:48
you don’t get to just sit with you and
23:50
your person they fill the seats up
23:53
and so we sat on one side in the dining
23:56
car
23:57
and amtrak food is very cliche it was
23:59
like pieces
24:01
farmed salmon with like a stick of
24:03
poorly steamed broccoli over it
24:05
you know it was very bland food it
24:08
looked good but it was pretty bland
24:10
but before we started to eat these two
24:12
people they were bringing these two
24:14
people to us
24:15
and i’m not gonna lie again with a
24:18
little bit of judginess
24:19
um there was a tall disheveled looking
24:22
man wearing like
24:24
outdoor gear and a smaller
24:27
woman of some asian
24:30
descent with a gold cross around her
24:34
neck
24:35
and i was like oh man i might have even
24:38
leaned into my partner and said boy
24:40
this is going to be an interesting
24:42
dinner
24:44
and they came and they sat down and
24:46
quite honestly again i don’t
24:48
remember what we talked about it was all
24:49
very superficial
24:51
um but i do remember that
24:54
she had on this really bright floral
24:57
print with like a cardigan and he had on
24:59
a blue columbia coat
25:02
and um it was pleasant we had a great
25:05
meal
25:06
and right at the end he said
25:09
you know what what are you guys doing
25:11
why are you going to minnesota
25:14
i said oh you know i have cancer we’re
25:17
going over there to get another opinion
25:18
and find out what the treatment is
25:20
and she was just immediately like
25:22
empathetic
25:23
and softened oh my god we went
25:26
we went through something similar he you
25:28
know he had prostate cancer
25:30
and you know it was so hard and we just
25:33
will be praying about you we’ll be
25:34
thinking about you and
25:36
you know we’ll our hearts are with you
25:39
and we kind of just tided up dinner and
25:42
said thank you
25:43
and went our separate ways and charlie
25:46
and i we went to the back of the train
25:48
and
25:49
sat down and kind of tried to cozy up
25:51
with those flimsy little amtrak blankets
25:53
and
25:53
get cozy and about an hour passed and
25:57
then we see the two of these people
26:00
walking towards us
26:02
they’re like oh my god we’ve been all
26:04
over this train looking for you
26:06
and trains you know amtrak trains are
26:08
too level
26:09
right you have like upstairs and
26:10
downstairs so these people
26:13
they’re you know they’re up and down
26:15
they’re looking all over for us they
26:16
have their own room
26:18
lucky them you can get a room on an
26:21
amtrak train get one
26:23
but they walk up and say
26:26
you know we just wanted to come see you
26:28
and give you a hug and wish you well
26:29
again and
26:30
we’re like oh thank you you know we got
26:32
up and we gave him big hugs
26:34
and while we were in full embrace both
26:36
of us
26:38
one of the the man shoved something into
26:41
my partner’s
26:42
pocket and the woman shoved something
26:44
into my hand
26:45
and we both pulled back from the hug and
26:48
we knew they had given us money
26:50
i mean it was very clear that they had
26:52
shoved money into our hands
26:54
and we were like oh gosh no no we don’t
26:57
need this we don’t need this at all
26:58
thank you very much
26:59
you know we tried to turn it down once
27:01
right
27:04
generously just once because we really
27:06
we were in a bad spot
27:08
um but no no no
27:11
please take it they said and so we
27:13
thanked them and said we really
27:14
appreciate it you know this is going to
27:16
be a hard time
27:17
off they went and we sat down and
27:20
looked in our pockets and i had two
27:22
hundred dollars in cash and my partner
27:24
had
27:25
a three hundred dollar check in her
27:26
pocket
27:29
um that was one of my first experiences
27:33
during my cancer journey with strangers
27:35
reaching out to us and giving us way
27:36
more than we even thought
27:38
was possible i later because the address
27:42
was on her
27:43
check wrote her thank you card and sent
27:46
it off to seattle where they lived
27:48
and i don’t remember her name and it
27:50
doesn’t matter
27:52
she sent a note back that basically said
27:55
we are so happy to have been able to
27:57
provide for you and you do not have to
27:59
keep up this relationship because of it
28:02
and we wish you well
28:05
[Applause]
28:07
bob yost’s regular daytime career has
28:10
been working with taxes in indiana
28:13
oregon and montana nighttime gib
28:16
gay gigs were spent playing the drums in
28:20
in bands brand x
28:23
jack daniels sodbusters and the last
28:26
resort
28:27
his greatest joys come from his family
28:29
and raising three kids
28:31
please welcome bob yost
28:37
god i love that woman rebecca
28:41
we have great sex
28:45
we do have bizarre arguments
28:48
but really do have great kids i would
28:51
say they are
28:53
they’re very beautifully unique
28:58
as is their mother rebecca she couldn’t
29:00
be here tonight
29:01
she’s an oregon i’ve been married
29:05
38 years
29:10
pretty amazing um i first met rebecca
29:13
and i didn’t actually meet her
29:15
we were both state employees
29:18
and i was sitting just on the other side
29:20
of the cubicle from her
29:22
she was on the other side of the wall i
29:24
could hear her talking
29:27
and she was talking about the new guy
29:30
who had just started work me
29:34
and and it was not very flattering
29:37
whatsoever um
29:41
but just hearing that voice i was so
29:43
intrigued
29:45
she had no i mean there was no filter
29:48
whatsoever
29:49
in whatever she said i learned more
29:52
about my co-workers and my boss
29:55
than i ever would of meeting them
30:01
that was a monday
30:05
the saturday before
30:08
susan who worked downstairs in the same
30:11
department
30:13
she had lived with her parents all her
30:16
life
30:17
that saturday morning she moved into my
30:19
tiny
30:20
little duplex apartment
30:24
that saturday afternoon we were married
30:29
by a pentecostal preacher
30:33
and it was also her
30:36
dad um it was surprising her mom dad got
30:40
that wedding together pretty fast
30:41
we were in a big uh big ceremony
30:44
a lot like this beautiful building and
30:47
just to give you an idea about it
30:49
the four groomsmen and myself
30:53
we are dressed and i’m not exaggerating
30:57
shoe to this
31:00
head to toe in matching rittle
31:04
outfits
31:08
and i was drunker than a skunk
31:12
i mean to the wall because i did not
31:15
love her
31:18
that next saturday in my tiny little
31:21
duplex apartment the phone rings
31:24
now this is way back before any kind of
31:27
cell phone
31:28
you know facts all that stuff right i
31:31
didn’t even
31:32
have an answering machine so my one and
31:35
only
31:36
landline which is attached to the
31:38
kitchen wall
31:40
rings i still love it so funny when you
31:44
think of those old phones right
31:46
rotary it had two
31:49
real metal bells in it with a ringer in
31:51
between
31:54
so i pick it up hello is susan there
31:57
it’s a female voice i say no i’m sorry
32:00
she’s not
32:02
oh is this her husband why yes it is
32:06
oh i hear congratulations are in order
32:10
you’re a newlywed i say thank you very
32:14
much
32:15
she says well this is the nurse from dr
32:19
middleton’s office the tests
32:22
are still all negative
32:26
susan is not pregnant
32:30
yeah i’m an idiot i didn’t see that
32:31
coming i married her because she told me
32:33
she was pregnant
32:35
that evening i was to meet her of course
32:37
her parents
32:39
at her house i show up now this is all
32:42
kind of foggy now
32:45
but i do remember going in the kitchen
32:47
and they’re there with susan i take the
32:48
ring off i set it on the kitchen table
32:50
some things were said
32:52
because it’s come to known i guess they
32:54
knew
32:56
but i didn’t as i am leaving
33:01
susan chases me down
33:04
she goes i can’t believe you did that
33:07
you ruined my mom’s dinner
33:15
needless to say that marriage lasted a
33:17
legal
33:18
90 days
33:21
i’m going back to that little duplex
33:23
apartment to pick up my stuff
33:24
and my brother and my dad come with me
33:26
and my brother he pulls it up and he
33:28
goes
33:29
he’s packing a nine millimeter he goes
33:32
you know just in case we have some
33:34
trouble
33:37
okay george we’re not gonna have any
33:39
trouble
33:40
get inside lo behold there are a few
33:42
things missing
33:43
but thank goodness my pride and joys are
33:46
there i had a
33:48
a big old magnavox tv and it was in a
33:51
wood cabinet man
33:53
and my stereo component system oh god i
33:56
love that thing
33:57
and my brother had made a whole wood
33:59
cabinet you know whole
34:01
records components my turntable you know
34:05
big speakers susan
34:08
had taken a can of spray paint and it
34:10
was
34:13
over everything classic i can laugh
34:16
about it now
34:17
um so we got our stuff loaded up
34:20
and my dad turns to me and god bless you
34:23
dad i love you
34:24
you know that um he turns to me now my
34:28
dad
34:29
loves a a good phrase like you know god
34:32
damn it yeah god damn it
34:34
and he’d use the hell word you know but
34:36
he turns to me and he goes
34:39
that’s the most expensive you’ll
34:41
ever have
34:47
now i will tell you
34:51
that is the only time never again ever
34:54
in my 90-year life with my dad that i
34:56
ever heard him use the f
34:57
word no i didn’t see that coming i’ll
35:00
tell you that um
35:03
fast forward susan out of my life
35:06
luckily rebecca we got married outdoors
35:10
underneath the woods it was glorious
35:12
just perfect wonderful
35:16
day and as i tell this story
35:20
i’m very lucky i’ve had the love of some
35:22
really
35:23
great women in my life for sure
35:28
we got to i got in the car one day
35:32
drove 1750 miles
35:35
from east to west right you know where i
35:36
ended up the mitchell building down next
35:39
to the capitol
35:40
because i had a job interview
35:44
took the interview took the written test
35:46
i did not get the job
35:48
okay two weeks later though another job
35:51
opens up in the same area with the same
35:53
supervisor
35:55
so i got to do it by phone and fax got
35:57
the job
35:58
we’re moving to hell in the montana
36:02
it was glorious pack up the uhaul
36:05
get here and we ran it for a while ended
36:08
up buying five acres out on bird’s eye
36:10
right
36:11
loved it little old trailer that first
36:14
winter
36:14
it hit a 40 below i mean it was 40 below
36:17
and i came into town tonight and i saw
36:20
the ak cafe whatever it’s alaskan cafe
36:22
used to be the red roof cafe remember
36:24
that and they used to have fresh eggs i
36:26
know why because when i used to go to
36:27
breakfast there
36:28
they would serve up a platter of the
36:29
biggest greasy fresh eggs because the
36:31
chickens were right outside the window
36:33
in a pen
36:34
and you know if my wife said hey i’m
36:36
going shopping
36:37
back then it was great oh honey were you
36:39
going
36:41
where was it if you’d been around here a
36:42
while it was the mall or kmart that was
36:45
it
36:45
there was nothing else here loved it
36:48
experience in helena
36:49
was actually a joy i’ll have to say are
36:52
there state employees here tonight
36:55
retired cool yeah i mean because i i’m
36:59
actually one of those
37:01
look at that yeah i so both of those
37:03
women
37:04
i met as state employees so i always
37:07
think that’s
37:08
kind of an interesting you know sidebar
37:10
to it
37:11
and i have to admit that first winter we
37:13
were in a little trailer and i was
37:14
feeding that red stove like crazy
37:16
you know keeping the pipes from freezing
37:18
i think that was my first inclination
37:20
that rebecca probably was not going to
37:22
like montana winners
37:25
at that point so anyway i’m going to
37:27
fast forward to like about chapter 99
37:29
out of all this stuff
37:32
great thing is wonderful kids
37:36
raising them all see them go off
37:40
they’ve done really well for themselves
37:43
and it’s been really nice
37:47
my wife goes you know what we love that
37:49
oregon coast don’t we and i go yeah it’s
37:51
really nice because we go out there to
37:52
visit
37:52
i want to retire there i go that’s cool
37:54
you know i do you know i got
37:56
i gotta wait till retirement health
37:58
insurance oh my god i gotta keep working
38:00
she goes i don’t care i go okay it’s one
38:03
of those yes dear
38:04
um so i go yep we find a little place
38:07
over there she loves it
38:09
and i mean blood sweat and tears we’re
38:10
tearing up stuff out the thing tore off
38:12
walls took out cabinets
38:15
remodeled a bunch of it i mean
38:18
oh gosh all new windows all new
38:20
appliances
38:22
got back had taken the lap what i hope
38:24
was the last 20-foot u-haul
38:27
back from there right because now i live
38:29
in missoula checking the u-haul in
38:32
sunday evening i get a text from her
38:36
i figures for sure it’s going to say oh
38:39
are you out shoveling snow
38:41
because i’m walking on the beach
38:44
she said i’ve been thinking about this a
38:46
while
38:48
okay she’d been to a lawyer’s office
38:52
she told me what the major settlements
38:55
would be
38:56
that i’d be served divorce papers i was
38:59
served divorce papers
39:00
that week at work up front
39:04
but don’t feel sorry for me i’ve been
39:06
very blessed
39:08
you know i didn’t see that coming but
39:10
there’s always two sides to every story
39:12
too
39:14
but thank you
39:30
[Music]
39:40
do
39:42
[Music]
39:53
you
Tricia shares the only story she has about her great grandfather Fred Miller, a schizophrenic who spent his later years in a mental institution in Jamestown, ND. Through this story she traces the mental illness of her family to a place of forgiveness.