StoryCorps 530: Too Blue for the Morning News

Michael Garofalo (MG): It’s something of a Friday tradition –– NPR’s Morning Edition program takes a break from the news when this music starts:

[MUSIC]

Steve Inskeep: Hey, it’s Friday, time for StoryCorps. And this morning… [FADE UNDER]

MG: StoryCorps has been a fixture on morning drive-time radio since May 2005. That may very well be how some of you first heard us. Each Friday a new story of of triumph, sorrow, of love, of loss.

But sometimes we come across stories that, well, just won’t ever make it to air, and that is why God created podcasts.

[MUSIC]

Allan Fuks (AF): My last name is spelled F-U-K-S…

Ruth Kramer Ziony (RKZ): … I developed a sort of fetish attachment to donuts…

Tracia Kraemer (TK): It was our third date before we saw each other dressed…

MG: In this episode, stories that were deemed too blue for your morning commute. It’s the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. I’m Michael Garofalo. Stay with us.

[MUSIC]

MG: Welcome back.

If you’re a regular listener to this show, you probably know that we’re an NPR podcast. Maybe you even listen to this podcast on the NPR website, or through an NPR app on your phone. But what you might not know is that, every Friday morning, NPR airs a StoryCorps story on the good old-fashioned radio. You know, National Public Radio?

But every once in a while there are stories that we love that are just a little too risqué for the airwaves.

FCC rules, NPR in-house standards, good taste… Fortunately for us, those rules don’t apply to podcasts!

So today, we wanted to bring you some of our favorite stories that were just a little too much for the radio.

And just a note: if you’re listening with kids, you might want to hit pause and listen on your own before you decide to play the rest of this episode for them.

First up is a man who, well, I’ll let him introduce himself:

Allan Fuks (AF): Hi this is Allan Fuks. My last name is spelled F-U-K-S…

MG: Allan Fuks is the son of Russian immigrants. He grew up all over the place — New York City, Northern California –– before finally landing in suburban New Jersey. But no matter where he went, the taunting and bullying at school followed.

Allan recently sat down with his middle school classmate Spencer Katzman to look back on their preteen years.

AF: “No one really called me by my name. I was either “The F Word,” Dumbo, because I had like huge ears, or a combination of the two. It was like, I was walking around with an army of hecklers behind me.

Spencer Katzman (SK): I grew up with a kid, his last name was Lipschitz. That one’s a softball: if your lip shits, what does your ass do!?

AF: I was actually jealous of Lipschitz, I was like, “so much better.”

SK: I just felt like there was kind of this, like, baseline taunting that was always there.

AF: Right, like how do you remember the first time you saw me?

SK: You kind of stood out on the first day. You had a “Allan” gold chain, you know, across your chest. With a TV anchorman haircut…

AF: … Ted Koppel haircut.

SK: …and I don’t know that I had it in me to stick up for you at that age…

AF: No one did, what are you talking about? That’s a kamikaze mission! You know, this country is so polarized, but kids of all demographics, they were united in making fun of the last name Fuks. That brought people together! I remember even the kids on the lowest social rung didn’t want me sitting at their lunch table. So, I would go to the library because I didn’t want to sit alone. And I remember I read the entire Holocaust Encyclopedia. I recognize now that’s kind of dark. But I was such a lonely kid that to have human contact at 12 years old, I would call the Nintendo Hotline to have someone to talk to me. I remember trying to painfully segue from a conversation about video games into just, like, “So how’s it going in your life?” And he’s like, “What!?” That’s basically my childhood.

And then around 16 years old, my parents decided to try a name change. They were like, “You’re pale, you could be Irish.” So they threw all these Irish names that started with “F” into a hat, and picked out Finn. And then I went to school and I was like, “Hey guys, I’m no longer The F Word. I’m Finn now.” They were like, “What? What are you talking about?”

SK: I didn’t buy it for a second.

AF: No one bought it! But, you know, this past year I decided to go back to Fuks. I just got it into my head that I’m letting the bullies win. And I remember reading about this philosophy of a broken vase that you glue back together and you show proudly because the glue is now part of the art. And I’m hoping to achieve something like that in my own life, and start gluing the pieces back.

[MUSIC]

MG: That’s Allan Fuks, speaking with his friend Spencer Katzman, in New York City. Maybe you’re thinking Allan might have had it a little easier at home. He says, not really.

AF: My mother was instilling me with a messiah complex, while my father was always knocking me down, and I have this really vivid memory, we’re at the grocery store on line, and my mother goes to my father and says, “Look at our handsome boy. He should be on the cover of a magazine.” And my father goes, “Yeah, Schmuck Monthly.”

MG: This next story was recorded way back in 2006, and we pitched it and it was rejected several times for the radio.

It’s the story of a young woman, named Ruth, living in New York in the late 1960s, who realized her marriage just wasn’t working and she needed to get out. And it all started… with doughnuts.

Ruth Kramer Ziony (RKZ): “I never got enough to eat because my father was convinced that I was overweight. My father of course served us at the table, at dinner. And he would look at me and he would say, “Ruth, is there anything you don’t want?” I’m convinced that my sister and brother always got bigger portions than I did, so I had to supplement.

I would go around to my neighborhood with a small silver cream jar with a hole punched in it, and tell people that I was collecting for the March of Dimes, and then take the money and buy food. I didn’t feel in the least bit guilty about this, I was hungry.

So I went and I would buy doughnuts. Big packages of these pre-made, prefabricated, chocolate covered donuts. And I then developed a sort of a fetish attachment to doughnuts. When I was about 22 I decided that it might be a good idea to try to work this out.

So I went up to a doughnut shop on 86th Street, and asked the baker if I could come in at night and photograph him making the doughnuts, and he said, “Sure!” What did he know? Well one day I went up at night, and there was a thin, young man eating an apple in the doughnut shop, and I thought, my God anybody who comes into a doughnut shop eating an apple must have something really interesting going on. So I started talking to him. I started telling this guy that my husband and I only had sex once a week on Saturday night in the same position. I was a virgin when I got married and didn’t know much, but wasn’t that the way that everybody did it?

At which point, he looked at me and said, “I have to teach you the facts of life.” So we got on the subway train out to Coney Island, and on the way there he told me the facts of life, about how people really acted in their beds, and you didn’t have sex once a week on Saturday night, and you could have sex many different ways, many different nights, etc. etc. When I finally stopped crying, which was about three days later, I packed up all my personal belongings that I thought were important, and I said to my husband, “I’m leaving you for a week.”

So I went on the 31st of December, 1968, I got off the plane, I looked at the blue sky of Los Angeles, the palm trees, it was 75 degrees, and I said, “I think I’ll stay a month, I can be somebody here.”

Well I ended up staying six months, and then I went back to my husband. I took a look at him, we sort of talked, and I knew it was over. I’d lived six months on my own, I didn’t need a husband.

So I left, and that’s the story of my marriage, and the doughnuts! And who knows what happened to the one who liberated me?

[MUSIC]

MG: That’s Ruth Kramer Ziony in New York City. She was interviewed by her niece, Sarah Kramer. And, she tells us though she’s had many suitors, she’s never remarried.

We’re used to hearing people bare their souls at StoryCorps, but our last story is about baring quite a bit more.

Ten years ago, on Tracia Kraemer’s 40th birthday, she wanted to do something she’d never done before.

So she gathered her courage and paid a visit to the last surviving nudist park in the state of Louisiana, it’s called Indian Hills.

She figured she’d at least wind up with a good story, but actually came away with a husband. She spoke to him – his name’s Patrick – for StoryCorps.

Tracia Kraemer (TK): It was our third date before we saw each other dressed. And that was a good thing, because had I seen you dressed on the first date, I probably wouldn’t have dated you again. You wore those two different brown plaids together, that was terrible.

Do you remember the day you met me?

Patrick Kraemer (PK): Yes. I seen a big beautiful woman walking around. Very vibrant, very articulate, and I decided I wanted to meet you.

TK: Remember at the party you asked me to dance?

PK: Mhm.

TK: And I always had a rule, I had never slow danced with anyone at Indian Hills because I was scared their man bits would touch me. But I took one look at you and saw your big belly and I knew I was safe.

PK: We giggled probably for the first thirty, forty seconds of the song.

TK: [giggles]

PK: And then we fell into each other and started talking and I don’t think we ever separated after that.

TK: I felt it was easier to communicate. Like a certain barrier, obviously, had been lost and we could just talk more openly than you would the first time you meet somebody.

PK: That’s right. After ten minutes it felt like we knew each other all our lives.

TK: It was love at first sight, but we had this issue with timing.

You really like to be early for everything and I kind of never been on time for anything.

And then our friend from the park passed away one week to the day after we met.

And the memorial service was set for 2 o’clock. 3 o’clock, I pulled up with the deviled eggs. So I took off all my clothes, threw them in the car, grabbed the eggs. I was running past the pool, into the clubhouse, and I put the deviled eggs on the table. Turned around and everyone in the clubhouse was wearing their clothes.

PK: I was just like, “What is this fool doing?”

TK: At that point I really thought you were never going to ask me out again. But you and I do a great job of balancing each other.

PK: That’s right, love. Somehow you always figure out a way to turn it into something good. And that’s what I love about you.

And our favorite saying is what?

TK: It’s hard to be mean when you’re naked.

PK: That’s right. I love you.

TK: I appreciate you everyday.

[MUSIC]

MG: That’s Tracia and Patrick Kraemer. They married in 2013.

And, I have to admit, that story actually did make it to air, with some minor edits –– you’ll have to guess which ones.

That’s it for this episode.

These stories were produced by Jud Esty-Kendall, Kelly Moffitt, and me. This episode of the podcast was produced by David Herman and edited by me. As always, you can find out what music we used on our website, StoryCorps-dot-org. If you ever want to leave a message for somebody on this show, there’s a voicemail for that: the number is (301) 744 “TALK”… That’s (301) 744 T-A-L-K.

Until next time, I’m Michael Garofalo for the StoryCorps podcast. Thanks for listening.