Joel Tucker and Gordon Blake

UPDATE: Joel and Gordon’s story aired June 26, 2016, on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

The shooting at the Orlando, Florida, nightclub Pulse on June 12, that left 49 dead and 53 wounded, while unprecedented in scale, is certainly not the first time a killer has chosen to target the LGBTQ community. Anti-LGBTQ violence has a long history in the United States, and in this special StoryCorps production (excerpted from our latest podcast, StoryCorps 473: Upstairs, Backstreet, Pulse), we look back at another high-profile incident.

On September 22, 2000, 53-year-old Ronald Gay entered the Backstreet Café, a gay-friendly bar in Roanoke, Virginia. According to police accounts, Gay had set out that evening in search of gay people to kill, and after seeing two men inside the Backstreet Café embrace, he pulled out a 9mm gun and began firing. Gay ended up killing Danny Overstreet and wounding six others.

One of those shot was Danny’s friend Joel Tucker who was there with his partner and friends drinking beer and playing pool. At the time, Joel was not out as a gay man and recalls in a StoryCorps interview that he regrets telling a newspaper reporter that he was at the café at the time with his girlfriend. While initially not realizing what was going on, Joel remembers seeing fire come out of the gun, and when it dawned on him that there was a man shooting at people, he screamed for everybody to get down. “It was just like seven shots, seven people. Then he just walked out the door.”

Joel (above left) came to StoryCorps with his long-time friend Gordon Blake (above right) in Hollywood, Florida, days after the Orlando massacre to share some of the emotions that flooded back to him after learning about the killings at Pulse. Gordon, who was supposed to meet up with Joel and their friends at the Backstreet Café that evening in 2000 but did not make it, joins with Joel in offering advice to the survivors:

“You have got to be strong. Don’t let something like this ruin your life because it could’ve ruined mine…This was one person who hated and I have seen hundreds of people who love. And I think love wins.”

This story is excerpted from a special StoryCorps podcast featuring another previously unheard piece from a witness to the devastation that followed the June 24, 1973, fire at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Until the killings at Pulse, this blaze, which took 32 lives, was believed to be the largest single mass killing of gay people in U.S. history.

Click here to listen to StoryCorps 473: Upstairs, Backstreet, Pulse.

Top Photo: A vigil outside the Backstreet Café in Roanoke, Virginia, September 2000. Copyright, The Roanoke Times, republished by permission.

Barb Abelhauser and John Maycumber

For 14 years, Barbara Abelhauser got up each day and went to work in an office. She hated her job, and finally, one day she quit, reasoning, “I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. And if that happens, I want to have woken up that day and not thought, ‘I don’t want to go to work.’ ”

Her next job was nothing like the one before; it didn’t require her to put on pantyhose or navigate tricky office politics—Barb became a bridgetender. Sitting in a booth called a tenderhouse (pictured at left) over the Ortega River in Jacksonville, Florida, she opened and closed the bridge to allow boats to pass from one side to the other. Her office now consisted of a console with buttons and the walls were so close that she couldn’t even fully stretch out her arms. But windows surrounded her and from her perch on top of the bridge she had “the most gorgeous view in the entire city.”

The bridge over the Ortega River requires that a bridgetender always be on duty, but that doesn’t mean that passersby were always aware of Barb’s presence. The position requires both patience and vigilance, and from her spot she became familiar with the people (joggers, fishermen and couples out for romantic strolls), and the animals (birds, manatee, and alligators), that spend their days on and around the bridge. She was “getting paid to stop and look.”

When she took the job, Barb didn’t expect to be a bridgetender for more than a year, but for the next 14 years, she watched the sun rise and set on the river from the tenderhouse. She now documents her observations and experiences on her blog, “The View from a Drawbridge.” In 2014, Barb left Jacksonville and moved to Seattle, Washington, where she continues to bridgetend.

Barb came to StoryCorps with her friend, John Maycumber, to explain why she fell in love with her job.

Originally aired April 15, 2016, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

This story is featured in Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, a collection that celebrate the passion, determination, and courage it takes to pursue the work we feel called to do.

Callings is now available from Penguin Books. Get the book at our neighborhood bookstore, Greenlight Bookstore, or find it at your local bookstore.

Photos courtesy of Barb Abelhauser

Marjorie Finlay, Nathan Williams, Denise Clancy, and Shane Clancy

Last year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that as of April 1, all military combat jobs would be open to women. As part of StoryCorps’ Military Voices Initiative (MVI), this week we are presenting two broadcasts from woman who served at a time when their roles and expectations were defined almost solely by their gender.

Marjorie Finlay enlisted in the Air Force in 1973 at a time when there were few women in the military. She was excited to be in uniform, but the training she received was not what she had expected when she joined up.

Instead of completing obstacle courses and firing guns, she was instructed on how to sit with her legs crossed at the ankle, how to do her hair and makeup, and how to dial a telephone with a pencil.

Even though this disappointed her, Margie (pictured in a yearbook photo at left) still loved being a member of the Air Force. But while enlisted, she became pregnant with her first child, and was told by her commanders that in order for her—a married pregnant woman—to remain in uniform, she would need her husband to sign a waiver giving his permission for her to remain in the military.

Her husband refused sign a waiver and in 1974, just before the birth of her son, Margie was forced out of the Air Force.

Margie missed being in the military and reenlisted in 1993. She and her husband divorced in 1996. Today she is a captain in the Air National Guard. She came to StoryCorps with her son, Nathan Williams (pictured together above), to talk about her early experiences serving in the Air Force. (Listen to their conversation in the player above.)

Denise Clancy comes from a long line of soldiers. In her family there are more than 200 years of combined military service. Growing up she always knew she would continue her family legacy.

Denise enlisted in the Navy in 1990 serving as a cryptologist and within a few years, when the Navy began allowing women to serve aboard combat vessels, she was deployed to the U.S.S. Enterprise. There were few women on ships at the time and Denise remembers being warned by her fellow enlistees not travel around the Enterprise at night without an escort.

While on the aircraft carrier, Denise met her future husband, Shane (pictured together above). They are both now retired from the military and came to StoryCorps to remember the ways women were treated on their ship, and what it has been like to raise their daughters in a military family. (Listen to their conversation in the player below.)

Originally aired February 27, 2016, on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

Sean Smith and Lee Smith

On June 5, 1989, Sean Smith, 10, and his younger sister Erin, 8, returned home together from school. Alone in their empty house, they went into their parents’ bedroom in search of video game cartridges that their mother had previously hidden away.

But instead of finding the games, Sean came across a .38-caliber revolver that was being kept in his father’s dresser drawer. Sean began playing with the gun, and unaware that it was loaded, he pulled the trigger, fatally shooting Erin in the chest. Sean immediately called 911, and that recording of him–pleading for help for his dying sister–was played repeatedly on news stations across the country. (Note: the above audio contains a segment of the 911 call.)

Within two weeks of Erin’s shooting, a total of five Florida children were accidentally shot with their parents’ guns, leading the state legislature to pass a gun safety bill punishing anyone who leaves a firearm within reach of a child.

Sean, now 36, has lived with constant pain and guilt as a result of what happened that day. His parents have also had a difficult time coming to terms with the loss of their youngest child. Sean came to StoryCorps with his mother, Lee (seen together above), to discuss the day of the shooting, and how they have tried to cope with the burden of going on with their lives following an unimaginable personal tragedy.

Originally aired February 5, 2016, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Top: Sean and Erin Smith together at home on June 4, 1989, one day before the shooting. (Photo Courtesy of Lee Smith)

Alton Yates and Toni Yates

As a teenager, Alton Yates (pictured above) did a job that helped send people into space.

In the mid-1950s, before NASA existed, Yates was part of a small group of Air Force volunteers who tested the effects of high speeds on the body. They were strapped to rocket-propelled sleds that hurtled down a track at more 600 miles per hour and stopped in a matter of seconds. These experiments helped prove that space travel was safe for humans.

At StoryCorps, Yates told his daughter, Toni (pictured together at left), that—for him—the story starts in high school, shortly after his mother died.

Originally aired August 29, 2014, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

After leaving the Air Force in 1959, Alton Yates became involved with the Civil Rights Movement in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. On August 27, 1960, he attended a sit-in that turned violent. It became known as Ax Handle Day.

“Boston” Bill Hansbury & Jake Bainter

In 2008, 70-year-old “Boston” Bill Hansbury had recently lost his leg to a staph infection and was learning to live with a prosthetic.

Jake Bainter, who was seven at the time, was about to have his own leg amputated when their paths crossed.

Four years after that meeting, Jake and “Boston” Bill recorded a conversation at StoryCorps.

Originally aired July 20, 2012 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Freddie Wood and Wilma Sue Wood

In July 2012, the US Postal Service begins consolidating locations and reducing hours in order to cut costs.

One post office in danger of having its hours slashed sits inside the Wood & Swink General Store in the north Florida town of Evinston.

It’s been in Freddie Wood’s family for over 100 years, and has barely changed in that time.

Each afternoon you’ll find Freddie, who is a farmer by trade, holding court there.

At StoryCorps, he spoke with his wife, the town’s former postmaster, Wilma Sue.

Originally aired July 13, 2012, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Aimee Gerold and her father Bob

Bob Gerold came to StoryCorps with his daughter, Aimee, who was adopted from China when she was a baby.

As Bob found out, Aimee had a lot of questions about how their family began.

Michele Garcia and Frank Garcia

Robert Oswain was one of hundreds of NYPD officers who patrolled the World Trade Center site shortly after September 11, 2001.

In 2010, Oswain died from a rare form of cancer that his family believes was caused by exposure to toxic dust at Ground Zero.

His parents, Michele and Frank, came to StoryCorps to remember him.

Recorded on December 5, 2010.

Jose Noriega and Lynn Guarch Pardo

Jose “Pepe” Noriega , one of over 14,000 children who came to the U.S. as part of Operation Pedro Pan, speaks with Lynn Guarch Pardo about the role her father, Jorge “George” Guarch, played in the historic airlift.