 Welcome, welcome, welcome, now we have our official stars who are monthly scores and showcase. I'm very excited to welcome our viewers. My name is Melissa Stone. I'm the DC Director of Programs and Community Outreach, the Engagement here at Mechanics Institute and I'm very excited to greet all of you for our monthly storytelling showcase with Corey Rosen and featuring a fantastic set of storytellers for the month of September. We're very excited to have you all back. We're seeing new faces and welcome back to everybody. A very quick overview about Mechanics Institute. We were founded in 1854, so we are a very old nonprofit. We are a historical landmark, cultural center, gorgeous multi-story library, world-renowned chess program and events center like what we're doing this evening. We offer anywhere from five to 15 different types of programs every week here at Mechanics Institute and I would love to encourage folks to check out more of our information at milibrary.org. Join us as a member, come back for more events. We have tons of different things going on like our storytelling showcase writers groups, book groups, classes, chess tournaments and classes, reference programming, all sorts of amazing things coming up. For example, tomorrow we have an online program called Book Collecting Now about book collections and archival materials with Spencer Stewart. In the evening we have a program on garden neighborhoods of San Francisco with Richard Brandy back here at six o'clock. On Friday night, we have our weekly cinema list program with the film Paper Moon closing out our Hollywood New Wave feed. So we have lots of amazing things going on here at Mechanics Institute. So again, please check us out at milibrary.org. We hope to see you again very, very soon. And with that, I am very excited to welcome up to the stage, Corey Rosen. Thank you so much. Keep it going for Alyssa Stone. Story and talent showcase. I am delighted to be back at this for those of you who have not heard from here before. This is my second of the same occurring monthly series of shows that we're going to be doing here at the Mechanics Institute. They are going to be storytelling focused series on the just like tonight on the last Wednesday of every month. And so I'm delighted to have such a great audience here. So thank you for coming out on a weeknight braving the presidential motorcade. I understand that that's happening. Did that actually happen to actually affect anybody in this year coming here? Good. This is what I want to do before we can do anything regarding the show is there's a, you know, I like to look online and see like what day is today. You know, every day is a day. Today is National Ancestor Day. Ancestor Day, right? So before we even get to the story tellers themselves, I would like to invite everybody to find somebody near them and just tell them about somebody that was an ancestor that had an influence on it. So you don't have to tell a whole story. Just somebody that you remember a relative of yours or an ancestor that had some influence on you. So go ahead, find somebody you know, somebody that you don't know. Thirty-four seconds, thirty-four seconds. All right, I get your attention. Storytelling. Joe, you are all now storytellers. You've all been a part of the storytelling. Nothing makes a room smaller than to just find stories and they are everywhere they are among us and they're something that delights me and something that really transcends me about this place, this building, this historic building and this community. Who here is a member of Mechanics Institute, by the way? A lot of you. Thank you for your membership. Thank you for being part of it for those of you who are not. I'm sure that there's people who are among us that would like to tell you about playing a lot of chess and doing those kind of things. I'm going to tell a short story. So we're going to basically have a story for you tonight. I'm going to tell a little story and then we have five storytellers that are going to each tell those stories. They're going to be short about five minutes and they may or may not cover the topic of ancestry or families. We will see if they do, if they don't. That's something that I kind of put out to the storytellers for tonight's show as kind of a combining, unifying theme for tonight. My story is about my current family, my immediate family, because I have a son who is seven years old and looking ahead and looking to the future because he is a senior in high school and he has kind of set his gaze towards what lies beyond. And as a parent, this is a horrifying and terrible moment for me because I have not created my identity around my family and my child, but like certainly the last 17 years of my life, he's been a major and powerful emotional center of my life. And so I've kind of not quite been able to envision what the future is going to be like without him in my house. Now, I say that anticipating that he will not be there, but as some of you who are parents find out, sometimes they don't leave. Right? And that is entirely possible. This summer, we went on sort of college tours, we went to visit schools. We started vocally and then we got to stand out, we got to Davis, we went down to L.A., Santa Barbara, that sort of inland empire. Then we went to the East Coast, we went to Boston, drove across Connecticut, Rhode Island, Northern Pennsylvania, Philly, Pittsburgh, that were Carnegie Mellon, yeah. Then up to Rochester, Ithaca, all over the place. And when it was all done, I asked Henry, that's my son's name, where he wanted to go or which one he likes, he thought that Berkeley sounded good. So it probably saved a lot of time. Just cut it off right there. But when Henry was born, we, like a lot of families, we didn't know what the sex of the baby was going to be, it was a mystery to us. We had to tell all of the ultrasound nurses not to reveal the sex of the baby. And on the day that he was actually born, the doctor asked me, as I kind of expected, that he was going to ask me, one thing that a lot of new parents are asking, he asked me, do I want to cut the cord? And I said, no, no. It was something I definitely didn't. Did anybody, any cord cutters here? Do you ever cut a cord? You cut two cords. Wow. I feel like that's a cliche, but I think that there's a sense that people say like, you know, when the baby is born, cut the cord. You know, there's professionals in the room to hold the medical equipment. I did not want to cut the cord. All I really wanted to do was to be the photographer at the actual moment of my child's birth. But then he asked me a question that I did not expect, which is he asked, do you want to call it? And by it, he meant the gender of the baby, right? So I want to call it. Now this is something that I feel like I have the training for this job. This is something I can do. I feel, I feel equipped. And so it was a lot of excitement and encouragement when the moment came and the baby's kind of halfway out and I'm like getting ready for my job. And I still had my camera, I was ready for the both parts, the photography and the thing, not the cord cutting. And then all of a sudden the baby is born with a little push and I see this 14 inch long penis. And I say, it's a boy! In my highest register, I'm not quite realizing that it was just a medical board, not some manhood at that time. And then with great confusion, I said, right? And Jenny, my wonderful, I go, what is it? What is it? And the doctor's like, it's a boy, it's a boy! And my still point was confused and blown off by that moment. It's moments like this, these moments that I look back on my son's life from the very first moment that he came into the world to maybe the moment that I have to cut the cord that I will appreciate every moment that I've had with him. Thank you. Okay, so as indicated, we're going to have five storytellers. Now these storytellers represent, for me, a range of friends, colleagues, storytellers that I have known to work with for a variety of lengths of time. And your first storyteller tonight is someone that I have a particularly close bond with because for a number of years, we were not just friends, but also colleagues. He was one of the producers of The Vaughn, which is a storytelling show that I also host in Berkeley in San Francisco. And he's a good friend. He's a great storyteller. So please welcome the stage, Chris Williams. Sometimes in which I really feel it. Love's about action, more than words. And it can show up in many different and weird ways. 2001 was a really messed up year for me and my family. I grew up in New York City. My grandmother passed away, my mom's mom in the summertime. And then I was in high school when 9-11 happened about a while away. It was a lot going on. I was a particularly sheltered kid. I didn't go out a lot. I had a really small group of friends. And I was just like a school kid. People in my neighborhood wanted me because I like school. Cool. I never really felt like I belong in a lot of places. But the summer of 2002, I decided I was going to find out some things. Mostly about myself. But about the world. I started talking to girls. They didn't really talk to me. Started trying to make new friends. Didn't make a lot of friends. But I think you get invited to some places. In one particular time, I got invited to one of these teen nights. So in New York City, back in the early odds, there would be these like big community space gatherings for teens. No adults. Crazy times. So I thought to be invited to that, you'd be really cool. And you'd find something that you were looking for. For one time, it was in the summer, I went to one of these places. I was invited. I was like, I'm so excited. I'm not going with friends. I'm going by myself to meet people. Usually, not the way you go to a party. Usually, you have friends and you go as a group and you go together. No, not me. But I was looking for something. Didn't know particularly what. I go to this party. Don't have a great time. I'm out waiting to wait. I don't drink, well, at the time. I didn't smoke, not for vodka as per se. I just mostly wanted to experience something. And that is until 10 o'clock came around. And I realized I miscurve you. Why am I supposed to stay out? I'm not having a particularly great time. I'd rather not be home. My mom was going through it. She lost her mom. We're going through a lot of things as a city in the country. It took a big effect on her. And it took an effect on our relationship too. Normally, I would tell her where I am, what I'm doing, exactly what time I'm being back, what train I'm taking. I didn't do any of that. That year was really rough. She was experiencing things that I kind of experienced now in terms of loneliness, loneliness, unsureness. I think we all can feel that at some point in our lives. But I didn't know. I was 16, trying to get the hell out of my house. So I realized it's 10. And I'm like, damn, Liz is going to be mad. And I called her Liz. I didn't call her mom. She hated that. And I was like, you know what? I'm supposed to stay. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? The hour goes by. I'm pretty bored. I should go home. It's not far. I didn't want to go. Midnight goes around. She's already mad at me. What was she going to do? She's going to yell at me? She's going to yell at me? That's not before. It's 1 a.m. I should probably go home now. I'll wait a little longer. 2 a.m. I think it's about time. I get to my stop. Are you 45th Street, baby? Go down the hill, make a right. I see my building. But who's that at the paintball? Quick context. We were very poor in the projects. We didn't have a phone that made outgoing calls. So whenever I call people, they don't go to a paintball. Which I don't think exists anymore. Whatever. I approach. She's across the street. I'm walking. I'm like, oh, I think that's Liz. Is that my sister? My little sister. Seven years old. Half asleep. Clutched to my mom's hand. It looked like she was actually sleeping. I could hear her from across the street clear as deck. Oh, he's missing. I wasn't missing. I was right there. What's wrong with you, mom? As I tried to sneak past it and I was ever seeming. Oh, I get to that corner and she saw me all right. Don't worry, officer. I see him. She didn't talk to me for two weeks. She was so upset that I just missed her view. I didn't communicate. I think that's something in my adult life. I've realized that that's part of love. How do you communicate? I love each other, whether it's physically or by your words. And even though she was mad at me and I was mad at her at that moment. I realized that that's what love can be. Someone who's so worried about you, they just want you to be okay. They may not need you there right then, but they just want to know. And now that she's gone, I really miss them about her, how much she loves. And I hope that I possess that too. Thank you. You remind me of you could call me for that. I think that there's something that I, every time I hear a story, like a personal story about a parent or a close relative, it really wells up for me those feelings of people that I love and that I appreciate in my life. And especially in Chris's case, people that sometimes we take for granted. And thanks for sharing that. That's awesome. All right. Let's change direction and bring up another wonderful person that I'm lucky to have met in the storytelling world over the last couple of years. And he is somebody that I especially appreciate for being here tonight, because he only decided yesterday that he was going to be here. So he didn't know long in advance. And so please be very warm welcome to the one rolling Scott. The swimsuit calendar for Christmas. I was 15. I'm not sure what was more traumatizing, now looking at these sexualized images of them every day or seeing the strange look of excitement on my face in the obligatory Christmas photo. Mom, you shouldn't have. I'm on. Okay. So just a tip for most parents buying highly sexualized images of supermodels will not in any case turn your gaze up straight. It's not like there's a lack of sexualized images of women in our society. Why lack of imagination was actually the problem is beyond me because, you know, a lot of imagination went into what was the back of the eyes short shorts. Why was that a problem? Well, if you're picturing my mother as some high school men clutching her corals somewhere in the Midwest, she's not bad. We're native Californians and my mom is gay. She liked to say that when my dad died in Vietnam, she turned to my babysitter for comfort and never looked bad. She now denies, ever, or, you know, like, pressuring me to be straight. That shows me why I was gay. So why did you buy me this part about the pictures, Mom? My partner, Nicholas, thinks that my mom bought them, so we could look at them. And I want to thank Nicholas for giving me the image of my mother coming into my childhood bedroom and dippin' herself. Thank you, Nicholas. But seriously, like, people generally think that my mom was a lesbian. It was easy for me to come out in lessons. What it took for me to come out was my twin friend, Brian, dragging me to the Folsom Street Fair here in San Francisco in 1997. I was 29 and still in the closet. Now, Brian had spiky blonde hair and wore floral patterned shirts before they were cool, but always a button all the way down to show off his rock hard abs because he was also from New Jersey. I confided with Brian that I had been chatting with this Scottish bloke on a well chat, and that he was going to the Folsom Street Fair. So Brian's like, okay, we got to go there, we made a decision, and we did the L.A. at the time. And I asked him, I said, so what is the plan for San Francisco, Brian? He's like, dick. Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick. I went up the vibe freeway. Brian pointed out that I was always pushing away the definition of gay away from me. So even though I had anal sex on the map, because I was on top, I wasn't really gay. You weren't really gay, I said, until you had one in your butt, then you were gay. But I had shown that, so I wasn't gay. So we're getting ready to go to the Folsom Street Fair, which was this last weekend. Do you guys know about it? It's leather, do you wear it? So I brought a silk shirt, and Brian told me so, he went full Professor Higgins to my lies and do a little, and said, you can't wear that, try to look blue-collar, and he grabbed my undershirt arm, and he ripped the sleeves off in one move. He's like, you're a bear, you're a blue-collar, you're a bear, I'm like, I didn't want to be a bear. Here I saw that hairy guy who was unappealing at that time. And so when I met the guy I was meeting, he was 6'2", looked like he just walked up a rugby pitch, like blonde, who I built. And I like, when I saw him, I realized that I had a tie that he was dead. And lucky for me, he had a tie too, fat and hairy. He pulls out this humongous, I'm pepiness, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All goes slow. And he did. And it was great. And the next day, when I was going to the bathroom, my friend Brian stuck his head out and said, hi, Kyle. And I said, I'm gay. Next up, we have somebody that I am so excited because the only stories that I really read of Michael have been written on little slips of paper over the years. I posted them off for over 10 years, and there's a tradition that we have where you can write like a little kind of mini story on this little paper. And Michael, you know, everyone always submits those stories and the lights when I kind of randomly pulled them out of the back. But this is somebody who tells stories all the time. I mean, he tells them not just on the little pieces of paper, but he shows on KALW, on KPFA. He's been working in public radio for almost 30 years, to some degree. And he's a wonderful person. And I'm honored to have him here. Please welcome Michael Johnson. Meet someone new, which I do all the time. My wife is watching at home. I might be the home game. Knows that if we're in a crowd and this happens since we were going out, that we're always running into someone and start talking to them and making new friends. This is how I kind of get to go about life. It's something about being here in San Francisco, which I call the Crossroads of the Universe, is that you run into everyone here in this one place for long enough, everyone else will walk in. And the other sense that I've been thinking about a lot lately is what makes this sense. This comes up constantly, a little bit of background on myself. My parents came from the Deep South. My father from Jacksonville, Florida. My mother from Little Rock, Arkansas. And after the war, as many African-Americans did in the country, they moved to the coastal cities for opportunities for freedom, for a sense of, what was the name of the government? I think Zippel was called the warmth of other signs. It just didn't be in a place where they could be. And they met here, I believe it was at Mount Zion Hospital. And they got married. And they had a chance to do a lot of firsts here. My father studied with the Ansel Adams. He came out to study with the Ansel Adams, the first African-American student there. And my mother started working for AT&T on a Montbell. And the Pacific Office, so many different derivations up in there. And she was the first African-American, one of the first African-American operators there, too. And they had four children. I was number three. And my brother Douglas, my sister Claire, there was me, and my younger sister, Patricia. Though we were born generally about three years apart, it really felt like we were born because of the various social movements that were happening at the time. My brother was the child of the 60s. I was from the 50s, right, and I was new rag, and these other things. But it's a stroke, like he was from that era. My sister was a child of the 60s because we grew up, by that time, in a little neighborhood called the Hedashbury. And a lot of things were happening there. It was world famous, still world famous. People were still coming to the Hedashbury to bring their kids there. And people were still hanging out there to give a sense of what that is. I was more of a child of the 70s, in a way. Even though, like I say, it was three years separating us all. It feels like we were decades apart. Part of the interesting consequence of that, of those very social movements, is that we're kind of disparate. We're not as close as many siblings are. My wife has a wonderful close relationship with her siblings, her four siblings, particularly Germany. And they are as close as they can. I knew this the first moment that I met her, and that her brother, who came to visit. They were turning cartwheels down to the marina. I'll never forget this thing. I can see the vibe between them. And it made me long for that. I don't want to say jealous because I was happy to hear it. But he was so longing for that kind of closeness. And so when the 70s came around, and I was coming closer to the high school age, I was just visiting a local park. And this young woman was there. She was babysitting a couple of people, a couple of kids. And she started talking, and we realized that we're going to be going to the same high school. And so they're going to go crazy. And then she also introduced me to my family. They explained that we were part of this, she was part of this church youth group, Unitarian Church called LRY, the Liberal Religious Union. Or it was the Inrepidious Union. So, or let's go from raspberry yogurt. Unitarian is called LRY, the Liberal Religious Union. And that turned out to be this family, this bigger family. I didn't know that at the time. And what also didn't know is that the thing that we had in common was some of the distress that extended families. Maybe situations where parents were either single parents or divorced parents or about-severe divorce parents is about that in my case. There too. But it did provide me a sense of family, in a sense of caring about a group of people. And it also made me realize that family can be much bigger than who you're related to by blood. Especially if there was some pain and distress in that family. It wasn't like escaping the south and all the pain and oppression in the south. But behind together is a group. It's actually one of the memories of that family you're at tonight. We've known each other for 15 years, 15 plus years. And it's something that has been so important to me to have that as a sense of family. And also it helped me when I began my own family. And that was a woman from Germany and I was smart, of course. And we had this conversation and I learned that she was a teacher and that she was working with severely emotional and disturbed children, teenagers. And it was something about that compassion, that deep compassion that she had and still has for children that was very alive. Something that was very real. Something that was very important in this world. And something that resonated with me greatly. And we've been married now for about 30 years or so. We have a daughter who's 24 years old. And someone who, as our residents with each other, could have worked with her in order to just give her a place in the world. You know, she's a citizen of so many places right now. She's a young woman in the world. She speaks languages fluently. She has a great ease with languages. And I'm very proud of her and very proud of her mother as well for helping to put that together to make this person prove can continue this idea of reaching out to me. Telling stories. Telling stories is so important. It's the one thing when I think back about my own family and about my mother and my father that I wish that they had told stories to me. They were fleeing. I think so much discomfort and pain that they hid their stories from me. They hid their stories from our family. They did tell us about some of the oppression and some of the intense things that happened to them. I had to find this out. At least on my father's side, I committed a documentary about an NPR in the 90s. I wish that I had done the same for my mother. I think I've done her a disservice by not asking her as many questions as I have. Excellent, yeah. She passed away in 2008. My father still does. He's just turned 97. And I think if you get a chance to ask questions, to ask someone for their stories, do it. Ask them about what their experience is. It could get totally stranger. It can be someone that you've never met before. It can be someone who has been by your side for your entire life. Right now, the stories that I was able to ask my father years ago, I have those with me. But now a lot of the stories are locked up because he has a dimension, dance dimension. And some of those stories are locked up in his head. And most of his concerns now are, did I do okay? Is the family okay? Was I good or wrong? I don't judge him for whatever mistakes he made because I believe that him and my mother did the best that they could over all those years. It's not my place to judge them. Because I'm just trying to do the best that I can. I'm not always successful when I drive. And so I'm wishing for all of you that you could tell stories to others or ask others to tell you their stories. It could be a totally stranger. It could be someone that you've known all your life. There was a mind that came out of a movie that I think I mentioned to my wife the first time I met her. The movie is The Year of the Dangerous. There's a character in there named Billy Vaughan. He is asking Mel Gibson who's a reporter in Indonesia, what it is, and Jakarta. That's just watching this tragic scene in front of them and people that are poor and people that are struggling. He cites Luke 310, I'm not a big Bible person, but the crowd asks Jesus, what then does he do? What then must he do? I'm kind of told story thinking about that answer and saying, well, we have our right to the Son of God. I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue to do that and then hoping that that will resonate out. Thank you. Let me just say that I was working away. One of my favorite things about Michael and about the story that you just told. First, there was a story about storytelling, right? About what we're all doing, about how we started this day, telling stories to each other, and I loved his admonition to evolved just to keep doing that because especially with this theme that we're exploring tonight about families, they're both the families that we have and the families that we choose and that we surround ourselves with and they are all full of stories. So thank you, Michael, for that. All right, our next storyteller, he is, we're out of that one of my favorite storytellers in San Francisco, the world, the best storyteller in the world, no. She and I have met and performed together many, many times in different settings. She is herself and a claim to author. She's written four books on poetry, four poetry books. She's written for Chicken Soup of the Soul. She is working on a young adult's fiction novel, which I am dying to read and you get to hear her tell a story right now. So please welcome to the stage, even Schlesinger. Just arrived after visiting my brother and her two weeks. It was the first time we had traveled together for longer than three days. I had some trepidation. Another worries about what people think. A conversation is not complete without her asking, what will people think of you if you do such and such? She also worries about the outcome of things, assuming they'll end badly. Usually I groan and roll my eyes. I also worried about what she would say if I did something outrageous. I wanted to just be myself and not have her comments interrupting my flow on our vacation. Our trip had actually gone without a hitch. We talked, we laughed. Because I was enjoying myself, I was not worrying about what she or anyone else was thinking about me. Before we left Hong Kong, we bought bananas to eat on the plane. I put mine in my handbag under the sea in front of me and hers was in her bowl along that sat in an overhead bin several rows behind ours. As we settled into our seats, she said, we must remember to eat our bananas. No problem, I said, I'll have mine for breakfast. At 2.30 a.m., the flight attendant brought our customs forms. My mother pointed to one item that read, I am bringing fruit slash vegetables back to US soil. But I checked, no, she said. Surprise flickered through me. In theory, we were bringing fruit back. I rationalized, by the time we arrived, we would have eaten our bananas. A few hours later, she said, I would like to get my banana. How do you do that? I didn't know if she had the upper body strength to reach into the far left corner of the bin, drag out her bag, and maneuver it to the floor since she had complained about its weight as we trekked through Hong Kong. Had it been stored over our row, I would have offered to retrieve it. Since I have the aisle seat, I knew I wouldn't hit anyone on the head with it if it fell. But it rested above someone else's row. The thought of getting it down made me worry about dropping it on the man seated below the bin. I know what you can do, wait for the plane to land, get someone to help you with your bag, then eat your banana. Oh, no, Eva, that wouldn't be legal. She surprised that I gave my bananas. Can you eat my banana too? I'll give it to you after we land. Maybe her lack of sleep kept her from thinking clearly. It was unlike her to think such a thing. I did plan to eat it, but just then we hit turbulence, and by the time we taxi to our gate, I was eager to be the first to race off the plane and into the nearest bathroom. When I emerged, I caught up to my mother and we made a beeline to baggage claim then federal inspection where we dropped our bags and rested. I still have my banana, she said. You'll have to eat it now. Since I was used to her extreme moral self, it didn't occur to me that she could be anything, but I'm peeling her banana, I stuck giant sized bites between my lips. I did not feel good about what I was doing. What's her got a stomachache? Halfway through eating it, a U.S. customs official stood over. May I please see your passports? Is this about the banana I asked? Peanuts. I can explain. It was in my mother's backpack and she planned to eat it on the plane, but she didn't get a chance, so she gave it to me. We both knew it was wrong, but he held up his hand to stop me. You can hand in your banana now and you won't be in trouble or keep eating it your choice. For a second, I was tempted to keep eating it. I needed the potassium to give me strength, but I also valued our freedom. So I discussed the matter with my partner in crime. My mother decided she handed in it was, after all, her banana. I felt sad giving it up. We're a waste of a good banana. As the door swung open for our grand entrance, my mother and I doubled overlapping. She had shown a different side of herself, and though we nearly got arrested, love swelled inside me, linking us. I wouldn't trade that for anything, not even a banana. I'm delighted to say that probably the newest storyteller of the crop that you're going to see tonight to me, somebody that I had not known for years and years. In fact, we met just this past summer in the woods. Yes, we met in the woods and we connected. Since then, I have been delighted to find out that he is also a performer and it was a monthly show at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley that I had the great fortune to see. I would like to, without further ado, welcome to the stage, your final storyteller for tonight, Dennis Kiriakos. I'm the son of Greek immigrants. My mom is from a little tiny little village way way up in the mountains of Greece. I would tell you the name, but I promise you you have no idea where this place is. What a beautiful place. She grew up in the middle of World War II. That village was occupied. It was very great for her and her family and everyone there. There really wasn't a high school to speak of in that town, so her and all of her friends who were around the same age, they would travel over to the next village, which was a bit of a larger village, and they would spend the week there in school and on the weekends they would make trek back across the valley to be with their family. It was a beautiful place. I never had any shoes. My mom's dream was to be a nurse probably because she was the oldest of six kids and she was always taking care of somebody. And that's what she did. She went to nursing school there. She worked as a nurse in Greece and she ended up immigrating to the states of the early 60s. She landed in the story of Queens and got a job in a little hospital there. She got a job in a little hospital there. She started in the ER. She didn't like it very much. She moved to the maternity ward. That really wasn't her thing. And then she ended up in the OR assisting the doctors who were discredited and she liked for whatever reason she loved that. In fact, she got so good at it that one of the top doctors, one of the top surgeons in New York City who had hours there, would demand that they take my mom off whoever's schedule she was on and put her on his schedule whenever he was having surgeries there. And she barely spoke the word of English at the time. Or so the story goes. Are you shuffling there? What is your name? Christina. Christina, I need you to make sure there's nothing in the box. That box, empty Christina? Fantastic. These cards go in that box and Christina, I'm going to ask you to hold on to these. Do not let me touch these cards again. Christina, make a number between 1 and 15. 48. You know what, maybe like 12. 15. Because later on we're going to have to count 1, 2, 3. And why do you want to count 48? I'm happy with that. But you know, oh, that's totally fine. You want 48, I'm going to have to tell you. Final answer? Are you sure? Are you sure? Yeah. Final answer, 6. If you change your mind again, if you'd like. Or are you going to say it was 6? My dad was from Tripoli, which is a larger city in Greece. You may have heard of Tripoli. And he was basically uneducated. High school diploma made. He didn't talk very much about education. Came to the States around the same time as my mom did. Ranted in the same, in the story as well. He had a job as a courier at a degree. Got to see him with some other odd jobs around New York City. And when he met my mom and they started courting and getting married and all that, he was working in a flower shop, kind of right around the corner from the hospital. And when the owner of that shop decided to retire and sell the business, he offered it to my dad because he was a loyal guy and my dad had no other prospects. So he bought the business and he became a florist. And my mom, being the beautiful wife that she was, quit her dream of being a nurse to help my dad build that business. They spent the next 50 years in that flower shop. In fact, if you go to 42nd Street and 30th Avenue and Astoria Queens today, in that spot, you'll find a flower shop there. He's all shuffled David. It sounded like he did a great job. Okay, great. So my brother and I were basically born there in that shop. We were raised there basically. And being the firstborn son of Greek immigrants, it was expected that I would take over that business. I had other plans. David, do me a favor, hold up one finger. They were in good choice, David. They were in good choice. I'm going to come out there to you in a moment. I'm going to spread the cards out. I just want you to drop your finger down somewhere in the middle, okay? And just use your card. In fact, when I get there, just close your eyes and drop your finger somewhere in the middle there. Just go drop your finger right down there. But drop the card, play the card, this is what you get. Like, look, he's a spade. It's a very good choice. You shuffle these cards yourself and you ended up choosing he's a spade. We're not even, we're not even looking at it. So, I got into magic when I was about 10. I became obsessed with it. It's all I ever wanted. And I remember growing up and doing magic shows for my family. We got together, came to the family. So we all got together on holidays and birthdays and things like that. That was a little bit of magic. And I remember my cousins and my aunts and my uncles telling me and my mom telling me, and I quote, if you want to do magic and make a living at it for adults, you know, if you want to do magic and make a living, you need to learn how to make balloon animals, put on a cloud nose, because no adult in their right mind would ever pay another adult who wants to do card tricks. And yet, here we are. You have your card. What number did you say? Six. You said six. Take the cards out of the box. I don't want to touch those cards. Keep your face down in your hand. And I want you to deal five cards onto the table. I need to do my hand. Count them out one at a time so we know exactly if you want to put the face up so you see them all different. Five cards. One, two, three, four, five. Don't move. Stay right there. Take that card. That's card number six. Keep it face down and set it down right there. Face down. Don't tilt anymore. I don't want to touch that card. Put these cards back in the box. I'm going to give these to you. And you can keep those a little bit. So I grew up thinking and believing in my heart that what is happening here tonight when I'm doing tonight was impossible. I'm shaking up for the longest time. And yet, here I am. And I learned along the way, after so many years of going through that, and finally figuring all out, and I know this is going to sound cheesy, the fact is that nothing you set your mind to is impossible. However, some things are highly unlikely. David, you chose the ace of spades with that deck that you shuffled, Christina. Yes, you said the number, what, 48? And then you changed your number to 46, and then you ended up with six. And you dealt down to the sixth card in that shuffle, and that is exactly the same. Wow. So this is here at the Claremont Hotel. It's a one-please show. It does there. And what a special night. Let's hear it for all of the storytellers. Coming out on a Wednesday night. It's Wednesday, right? Yeah, on a Wednesday night. And a reminder that we do this monthly, so it'll be the last Wednesday of every month. So the next show will be October 25th. 25th, fabulous. Please give it up one more time for the Mechanics Incident website. You're interested in more things that I do, classes, a book, a book that I wrote, and things like that. It's at CoreyRosin.com. And without further ado, please welcome back to the stage all of the storytellers.