StoryCorps 480: Gifts From Our Parents
Michael Garofalo (MG): It’s the StoryCorps podcast. I’m Michael Garofalo. This episode is about inheritance, but not necessarily the kind that can be measured in dollars and cents. There are all kinds of things that can get passed down between generations. Maybe it’s a gift intended to send a message.
Betty Jenkins (BJ): My mother didn’t think I had enough boyfriends. So she bought me a bra that you blow up.
MG: Or, it could be something a bit more abstract.
Chloe Longfellow (CL): It’s really surprising the amount of life lessons you can learn in a kitchen if you have the right teacher.
MG: We’ve got four stories. And then, for the first time ever, we’re going to listen to some of the voicemails that you guys, our listeners, left for people you heard on this show.
But first, the stories.
We’ll start with one about a trade — and a way of thinking about work — that’s been passed down from father to son.
Phil Mortillaro and his son, Philip Jr., run Greenwich Locksmiths in Manhattan’s West Village. If you’ve ever been to New York and taken a cab down 6th Avenue, you may have noticed their squat, one-story building on the West side of the street. The exterior is covered with these intricate designs made entirely of keys.
Anyway, the Mortillaros came to StoryCorps to talk about locksmithing, which the older Phil has been practicing since leaving school after the eighth grade.
Phil Mortillaro (PM): I was one of those kids who would show up when school first started. And they would see me again around Christmas time. And then they would see me in June to tell me that I had to do the grade over again. So dropping out of school was, it was inevitable. And as far as you doing the business? You started younger than me.
Phil Mortillaro Jr. (PMJ): As soon as I could walk.
PM: Even before you were walking.
PMJ: Yeah, I…
PM: I’ve got pictures of you in the shop when you were in the bassinet.
PMJ: I was literally there since day one. I saw you do it, I was like, ”Ok, I can do this.” Then I kind of realized, man, you know, everyone loves my dad. One half of that is, you know, ‘cause he’s a great guy, but the other half is, like, he’s the guy who helps you when even other locksmiths can’t help.
PM: I have a sense of usefulness. And that’s a big thing in my noodle, you always have to feel like I have some worth.
PMJ: I’m not just saying this, you’re the most hardworking, tenacious person I know and…
PM: That comes from coming from immigrant parents. You can never work hard enough. Even when you’re working seven days a week they say, “You’re a little lazy.” Think about it Philip, when am I ever late?
PMJ: Never.
PM: When do I ever take vacations?
PMJ: No, never.
PM: And when am I gonna retire?
PMJ: One day before your funeral?
PM: You know it.
PMJ: Yup. [Laughter]
PM: You know if you ever didn’t want to do this, you know, I would never be heart broken. I would understand.
PMJ: Yeah, yeah.
PM: You know what I mean? My father, he hated my business man. You know, I had a cousin who became an accountant, and my father used to tell me about him all the time. But um, I think it was the, the founder of IBM, he said: ”I’m no genius, but I’m bright in spots, and I stay around those spots.” I like that.
PMJ: You raised all of us, man. Five kids and every single one of them did not ever want for anything, man. That’s hard to do for someone who just went up to the eighth grade.
PM: Well, you do your best kid. This is what you do. But honestly your best. Not just your B.S. best. And even if you fail. It doesn’t feel that bad.
PMJ: You’re always my barometer. You never let anyone down. That’s what sets you apart.
[MUSIC – Podington Bear “Saunter”]
MG: That’s Phil Mortillaro with his son Philip Jr. in New York City.
One of the first things our parents give us is our names.
That’s pretty much all that 10-year-old Ibukun Owolabi has to remember his mom by. She died suddenly and unexpectedly when he was only two weeks old. Ibukun’s teenage sister, Alice, then stepped in to help raise him. And a decade after their mother’s death, Alice brought her brother to StoryCorps so he could find out more about their mom.
Alice Mitchell (AM): It’s still really hard to talk about her, because her passing was around the same time as you being born, so it’s like…
Ibukun Owolabi (IO): …A happy moment and a sad moment.
AM: Yeah, but in the two weeks you guys were together, she was always kissing you and always holding you, she did love you a lot. Do you think that you two have any similarities?
IO: Yeah, I probably get my stubbornness from her.
AM: Definitely, you got that from Mommy. She wanted you to have a Nigerian first name, and we were like, “Let’s just make it easy and give him an English name.” So everybody decided on Jacob, but with your name, and just anything in life, if she had an opinion, she wasn’t going to back down. She was like, “My son’s name is Ibukunoluwa.” And your name means Blessing from God. Do you think Mommy made the right choice in naming you?
IO: Well, I like my name but not really other people do.
AM: Wait, what do you mean?
IO: Oh, well they just make fun of it.
AM: If you could go back in time, would you want us to change it?
IO: No.
AM: Why not?
IO: Cause then it would probably change everything up to now and right now I’m living a pretty good life.
AM: Well Ibukun, this is the longest conversation we’ve had about Mommy, so if there’s anything you ever wanted to ask…
IO: I can ask it now?
AM: Yeah.
IO: Okay, what was your favorite memory of Mommy?
AM: Huh, I have a lot. I remember I was like 10, I was in 4th grade. Wait, how old are you?
IO: 10.
AM: Yeah.
IO: I skipped kindergarten so…
AM: Well excuse me…
IO: (Laughs)
AM: She was a nurse, she worked the night shift, and so she came home really late. I came over and I took off her shoes and I gave her a foot massage. I remember she was telling the person on the phone how nurturing I was. And, now I’m a teacher, and any time someone asks me why I’m a teacher, I’m like, “I’m nurturing.” That’s exactly what Mommy said about me.
IO: Well, I feel a little depressed that she’s not here to say what she wants to say about me.
AM: She’d probably just be standing back nodding her head, being like, “I did that, I did that.”
IO: (Laughs)
AM: You’re like a little piece of Mommy on earth, so I just want you to really understand who you are and where you come from.
[MUSIC – Scott Holmes “Nights with Amber Lights”]
MG: That’s Alice Mitchell with her 10-year-old brother, Ibukun Owolabi in New York.
Some gifts you can hold in your hands. Some you can’t. Chloe Longfellow got both from her grandmother.
When Chloe was young, her dad died and her mom began working a bunch of jobs to support them. So Chloe spent a lot of time at her grandmother’s’ house in Arizona.
Chloe Longfellow (CL): She had red hair–it was red hair out of a bottle, but it was still red hair. And she was a spitfire. If you messed with her and she didn’t think it was right, she would tell you. But I do remember that she always smiled with her eyes. Even when she was angry, even when she was tired. She was my very first best friend.
It’s really surprising the amount of life lessons you can learn in a kitchen if you have the right teacher. She used to try to tell me about acceptance and how to be a good human being. She’d get all the ingredients for a soup and she’d look at it and she’d go, “Now see honey, this is how the world works: some people are onions some people are potatoes. It would be a really boring soup if you just put potatoes in there, wouldn’t it? But if you add leeks, if you add some bacon, then you make this wonderful thing. And all these different people come together to make this wonderful thing called our world.”
And one time she had grown some beets. And we brought ‘em in, cleaned ‘em off. And I got to move the page in the cookbook. And I had beet juice all over my hands and I left a little tiny handprint on her cookbook. And I started to cry ‘cause I thought I had ruined it. That was grandma’s favorite book. But she took a piece of beet and she covered her hand and she put her handprint on the other side and made our thumbs touch in the print. And said, “It’s perfect now.” If I really miss her I just open the book and go back to that page. She touched it so often that it still smells like her, even all these years later.
She used to tell me that the sky was black velvet and the stars were holes that had been punched in the ceiling of heaven. And that was how our loved ones looked down at us and saw if we were doing wrong, or if we were doing right, or just check in on us every so often. So, every time I look up at the sky, she’s there.
[MUSIC – Scott Holmes “Stay Warm”]
MG: That’s Chloe Longfellow. She recorded her interview in Seattle.
Okay, so we all know this. Even if it’s given with the best intentions, some gifts aren’t worth the trouble they cause.
[MUSIC – “Golden Hour” by Podington Bear]
Betty Jenkins found that out firsthand. This was back in the early 1940s. She was in her 30s and still single. And that troubled her mother.
Betty Jenkins (BJ): I was very skinny and I didn’t have any curves. I guess my mother got kind of worried because she didn’t think I had enough boyfriends. So she bought me a bra that you blow up. I was real excited, so I blew and blew till about 32. I was quite happy with the looks. I got a few wolf whistles.
[MUSIC]
MG: So, the bra had the desired effect at first. But pretty soon, Betty got some attention that she really didn’t want.
BJ: That year I took a trip to South America. I proceeded to fly to Santiago. Soon we were into the Andes mountains, and it turned out that it was a non-pressurized plane. And I felt very uncomfortable. Things were getting very tight. This bra had started to increase in size. As the thing got bigger, I tried to stand up and I couldn’t see my feet. The directions said it would go to 48 if I wanted it to. I thought what would happen if it goes beyond 48. And I found out what happened. It blew out. It was a loud resounding sound and the co-pilot came into the cabin with the gun wondering what had happened. The men all pointed to me.
Well it’s difficult to explain to people in English that part of your anatomy just blew up, but to try to do it in Spanish it’s beyond hope.
So they made a landing. I was taken off the plane and turned over to two women police. And they told me to strip, hunting for what they thought was the bomb. When I stripped down, I showed them the hole in the bra and they chuckled, and I thought, oh my, they’ve gotten the point and I was allowed back on the plane.
A month later, I got a bill from the airline for four hundred dollars for an unscheduled stop.
[MUSIC – Broke For Free “Only Knows”]
MG: Betty Jenkins. She was 94 when she recorded that story. She told us that her mother found what happened to her so funny, that she kept that bra as a reminder of the story until she died in 1967.
So, you may have some questions about this bra. We did, too. Could this really happen?
Well, we did some research and found inflatable bras and breast pads date back to the 19th century. You can see, for example, US patent 146,805.
We also talked to a historian of women’s undergarments, Jane Farrell-Beck. She’s the co-author of ”Uplift: The Bra in America” and a retired professor of Textiles and Clothing at Iowa State. We ran Betty Jenkins’ description of the bra — it had a straw that went into the cup and you would blow into it to inflate it — we ran the description by her and she was able to tell us that yes, those bras were on the market then. And they were made from material that is much more delicate than what bras are made of today — they could tear or rip pretty easily.
Lastly, remember that this was 1940 — and Betty was not in an airliner like we think of them today. It wasn’t pressurized. So we called up John Hansman, a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and he confirmed that yes, an inflatable bra like this one would expand during flight in an unpressurized cabin — especially at the altitude required to fly above the Andes Mountains — and, depending on the material, it could possibly explode.
Over the past couple of episodes I’ve mentioned that we now have a phone number you can call and leave messages for people you hear on the show. Well, our episode about Gold Star families — those are families who lost someone at war — and this episode went out a couple of weeks ago — inspired a lot of you to call in. And now, here’s what you had to say.
[MUSIC – Doctor Turtle “The Encouragement Stick”]
Shannon Holloway (SH): Hi, this is Shannon Holloway. I’m calling from Fountain Inn, South Carolina.
Lee Hubbard (LH): This is Lee Hubbard. I’m calling from Austin, Texas.
Virginia Howard: Hi, this is Virginia Howard calling from Aptos, California to thank Rebecca Fuller and her sister, Francis, for their story about their brother.
SH: My husband served in the military for 23 years and I really appreciate you covering those families and what they’re going through. Just really touched my heart.
LH: I heard Tracy Johnson’s story and my parents are lesbians and I just hope that she knows how moving and how great her story was.
Ruth Simon: Hi this is Ruth Simon and I’m calling from New Millford, New Jersey. I wanted to leave a message for Staff Sergeant Tracy Johnson and her mother-in-law, Sandra Johnson. I can’t imagine the loss that the two of them are feeling and I just want to commend Sandra Johnson for reaching out to her daughter-in-law during a period when the military simply did not recognize our marriages. I have not served in the military, but I have a spouse I love very much and I can’t imagine going through what Staff Sergeant Johnson did. As you can hear, it’s choking me up again. Thank you very much.
[Inaudible]: My name is [Inaudible] and I’m calling from Los Angeles, California. I’m a refugee from Afghanistan that came here during the war. It’s 2AM and I’m in a room right now crying because I really, from the bottom of my heart, believe that if it wasn’t for these heroes, that I wouldn’t be here. That I wouldn’t be an IT Administrator, having a job in California, living this life. And I’m also gay. So imagine if I was in Afghanistan. I wouldn’t probably be alive. So I really want to thank everyone of the Gold Star families from the bottom of my heart for your sacrifices, for your loved ones’ sacrifices. Thanks.
[MUSIC POST]
MG: And thank you to everyone who called in. We sent your messages on to the participants in that episode and they were really grateful to hear from you.
And if you ever want to leave a message for someone you hear on this show, the number to call is 301-744-TALK. Keep the messages coming. Maybe this could be a regular feature on the show. ‘
The number again is 301-744-TALK. That’s 301-744-T-A-L-K.
[MUSIC – Dlay “halves quarters”]
That’s all for this episode. These stories were produced by Liyna Anwar, Jud Esty-Kendall, Jasmyn Belcher Morris, and Nadia Reiman. The podcast is produced by me and Elisheba Ittoop. Find out what music we used in this episode on our website, www.storycorps.org And thanks for rating and reviewing us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. We really do read them all!
For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Michael Garofalo. Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC]