Mementos

As the philosopher Haddaway once asked, what is love? It turns out, love can be anything that stirs the heart: passion, grief, affection, kin. The desire to consume; the poignancy of memory. Here at Hub & Spoke, we want to stretch our arms, and ears, around it all. This episode is hosted by Lori Mortimer and edited by Tamar Avishai. Production assistance from Nick Andersen. Music by Evalyn Parry, The Blue Dot Sessions, and a kiss of Dionne Warwick. Listen to the full episodes: Forrest Foster Lays Karen to RestCherie’s LettersConsumedJean-Honoré Fragonard's The Desired Moment (c. 1770)You can also share the love by supporting our Valentine’s Day fundraiser: www.hubspokeaudio.org/love

Season 1, Episode 8: Liz's Nonni Guest: Liz Sumner Liz is the creator of I Always Wanted To, a podcast where she interviews people doing things others long to do. You can follow Liz on Twitter at @LizSumner or @alwayswantedpod. This episode written, sound designed, produced, and hosted by Lori Mortimer. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. www.MementosPodcast.com Music Credits: "Palermo" by Trabant 33, licensed from Epidemic Sound "Lovers At Dusk" licensed from Soundstripe "Riviera Walk" licensed from Fesliyan Studios ASCAP IPI 792929876, 792929974 "Cold Days Ahead" by Rune Dale, licensed from Epidemic Sound "A Way to Tell" by Rune Dale, licensed from Epidemic Sound "Sage the Hunter" by Blue Dot Sessions "La Bottega Dei Sapori" by Medite, licensed from Epidemic Sound Mementos audio logo by Martin Austwick Sound FX credits: 486410__martineerok__wagon-cart-on-gravel, Freesound.org Ziegen Bidone field recording 549882__guynoland__horses-pavement-then-cobblestone, Freesound.org 486410__martineerok__wagon-cart-on-gravel, Freesound.org 244292__ravelite__little-goat-bells, Freesound.org --------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT Mementos Season 1, Episode 8: Liz's Nonni [00:00:00] Lori: Mementos. Sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. [00:00:13] Liz: All the time or thinking about living in Italy, I pictured this gorgeous little Medieval town Cortona. And I imagined, okay, so we'll buy an old run-down villa and we'll rebuild it. And I got this belief in my head that because we didn't have Italian heritage that we would never belong, that it was pointless to try to think about moving to Italy, because since we didn't have family, we would never really be a part of the community. [00:00:55] That was really behind it was that nobody would help us because we, we weren't connected. [00:01:10] Lori: Welcome to Mementos. I'm Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of the show. On today's episode, my guest Liz is gonna tell us about how she and her husband moved to Italy and the memento that they found there that helped her overcome her worries about feeling like they would never belong. [00:01:33] Liz: My name is Liz Sumner, and I currently have a very boutique coaching practice. Uh, it's gotten small because I really like podcasting. And so now I consider myself a full-time podcaster. My podcast is called I Always Wanted To, and I interview people who are doing things that others long to do. [00:01:59] I didn't always want to live in, in Europe, but Michael, on the other hand, my husband, had lived in the south of France when he was in his twenties and he had done a lot of traveling. So it was more his original desire that we would move to Europe at some point. [00:02:20] Lori: In the early 2000s, Michael suggested Italy as a potential new home for them. [00:02:25] So the first step was for them to take a two-week vacation in 2002. On that trip, they did all the usual touristy stuff in the Italian capital cities. [00:02:36] Liz: At that point, we just could speak only, "Do you have a room?" and "I'm sorry, I don't eat tomatoes," and things like that. We didn't ever connect with anybody on that trip. [00:02:49] Lori: Liz was intrigued by the idea of moving to Italy. But at that point, she developed those major concerns about not ever feeling like they'd belong. But they kept researching on what it would take and what it would cost for such a move. [00:03:04] In 2005, they went on another trip. The plan this time was to be more intentional about connecting with local residents. They spent the entire first week in a tiny bed and breakfast in Orvieto. [00:03:19] Liz: And the people who ran it were so sweet. They also owned a restaurant. They kept inviting us to meals and bringing food home from the restaurant for us. [00:03:31] And I remember...

Credits: Guest: Jeff Aylswerth Host/Producer: Lori Mortimer Music: Prigione Eterna - Zealots 332697__mseq__trance-gate-a-124 - Looperman Aurora (Original Mix) Alleave 159184__symphoid__trance - Looperman 396684__dbspin__party-background-chatter-real-1 - Freesound.org looperman-l-2234076-0205209-stars-lil-uzi-vert-type-melody - Looperman

"Halloween" by Ruth. Read by Bréjean. Production, sound design, and music by Lori Mortimer. SFX from Freesound.org: 436503__clgood__small-creature-scamper-on-wall.wav 455484__jpeek345__sound-fx-mac-cheese-box-top.mp4 545478__ienba__apple-fall-and-rolling.wav 554312__opticaillusions__sparkly.wav 420390__magdaadga__walking-the-leaves.wav ------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT Seventh grade, age 11. And it was written on 10/20 of 1932. “Halloween” The autumn has another pleasure, for Halloween is coming soon, When through the leafless trees there shines the great October moon. The spooks all start when darkness falls, the wind howls round the house all night, But 'tis not till near the dawn that the witches take their flight. Then after a night of weird music, these spooks all scamper away, The witches and goblins and fairies go not to return for a year from that day. The only traces remaining are the scattered leaves on the ground, And apples shaken from the trees showed that these imps were around.

Bréjean finds a folder of her deceased grandmother's poetry tucked away in a closet and learns that she has a lot more in common with her "prim and proper" grandmother than she thought. Written, produced, and sound designed by Lori Mortimer. Story editing by Galen Beebe. Mementos audio logo by Martin Austwick. Music & SFX Allie Mine by Blue Dot Sessions Georgia Overdrive by Blue Dot Sessions Pastel de Nata by Blue Dot Sessions 131032__klankbeeld__wind-in-tree-white-birch-01 © Klankbeeld Freesound.org Birds Sound Effect by BurghRecords 420390__magdaadga__walking-the-leaves Freesound.org looperman-l-1440756-0080599-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sun-pizzicato looperman-l-1440756-0080594-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sun looperman-l-1440756-0080595-simonecampete-strings-of-the-sun-2 looperman-l-0207475-0195342-milk-seduction.wav looperman-l-0747210-0174488-82-bpm-acoustic-guitar Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. ---------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] LORI: Mementos sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. BRÉJEAN: I feel like I’m very different from my grandmother. But am I? She had such an image that she kept up. She was very prim and proper. You know, she had perfectly coiffed hair, and she had to have her face on, and she had to have her jewelry on. And my grandfather was buttoned down shirts, ties, jackets when you went to visit him. They were not to be seen even in private or in public when they were not wearing those, you know, what felt like uniforms of the, um, prim and properness of it all. In her home, you know, there was the matching bedroom set, and then in the dining room, the table and the, the armoire and the buffet, and the chairs, like everything was all about how it looked. It was a little three bedroom ranch. All the rooms were kind of small. But what really struck you when you went to see her was when you walked into the living room, with the green and gold furniture – ’cause that was her color scheme – right over the fireplace, was a giant picture of my grandmother. Posed, sitting there, stately, lording over this home. And that was just showing that she was really, she was the one in control of that home. And all the while she had this wild side of her that she couldn't talk about or share. [00:02:07] LORI: Welcome back to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of the show. If you’re listening for the first time, thank you. It’s great to have you here. This week, we have our first grandma episode! My guest, Bréjean, is going to tell us about a memento that’s helped her see her grandmother in an entirely new light. Just a heads up that there’s some content in this episode that’s not suitable for kids. Bréjean lives in the U.S. with her wife their cats. They’re also the parents to two adult unschooled children who have long been out of the house. Her story starts in 2012, after her mother passed away. [00:02:50] BRÉJEAN: And when that happened, I went to her house to go through her belongings. And there was like a little linen closet in the hallway. Now, this house belonged to her parents. And when her parents died, she moved into the house. So a lot of the belongings in the house were from my grandparents, Ruth and Sal. So I went through the belongings, and I went through that closet, and way on the top shelf, underneath some towels, was a brown envelope. And it said my grandmother's name on it. And it said “poetry.” And sure enough, I saw what my mother had told me many, many years ago when I was a little, that my grandmother was a poet. [00:03:37] LORI: Even though Bréjean knew her grandmother was a poet, she’d never seen any of the poetry and they never talked about it. The poems had been stored carefully and neatly, in chronological order, in an envelope and with a label...

Mementos doesn't have a new episode dropping this week, but there are a few more in production for this fall. Lori is hard at work on them and is making sure the sound design is top notch -- your patience will be rewarded, so keep watching this feed! Thank you! -- Lori Feathersoft by Blue Dot Sessions

Jared meets his match in an aggressive little Senegal parrot named Cricket, who ultimately charms Jared and changes his life for the better. Jared keeps a large scarlet macaw feather as a memento of the relationships in his life that led to his becoming a "flock leader." Mementos Season 1, Episode 5: Jared's Flock Guest: Jared H. Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram CREDITS Lori Mortimer – Host, Sound Designer, Producer Jared H. – Guest (Jared has a gaming podcast called Parrot Talk.) Galen Beebe – Story Editor Alyssa Duvak – Social Media Music: Kenneth Donahue for “Good Boy” Martin Austwick for the Mementos audio logo “Borough,” “Pedalrider,” “Let Go Gecko,” and “Checkered Blue” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue). looperman-l-2789900-0179984-roddy-rich-x-ynba-type-loop looperman-l-1186967-0194474-piano-melody-755-abelouis TRANSCRIPT Mementos Season 1, Episode 5: Jared's Flock Lori: Mementos. Sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. Jared: So I, uh, I walked into Emily's family house then various in the kitchen, and he's just staring at you with these watching every movement you make. She goes and gets some, opens the cage and you know, he's, he's able to fly. He's got his feathers. They're not clipped, but he sits just on her and he just stares. He would fluff up a little bit and he puff his wings out a little bit, kind of get a little huffy at ya and he just make himself look about two or three times bigger. And it wasn't like he was looking at you more as looking through when he wanted to be aggressive. The first introduction of me and Cricket was him turning around to bite my finger and making me bleed. He was, he was a demon. [00:01:10] Lori: Welcome to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer. You know, it makes sense that people like to talk about mementos that remind them of someone who’s passed away. But it’s also nice to hear somebody talk about a memento that has deep meaning to their own personal journey. Today we’re gonna hear about a memento that's tied to that little Senegal parrot, Cricket. Cricket isn’t very big. He stands about 9 inches tall. And he weighs no more five or six ounces. But that little guy made big impact on my guest’s life. Be sure to listen all the way to the end today because I’ve dropped something special after the credits. Ok. On to the story. [00:01:54] Jared: My name is Jared. I’m from central Wisconsin, Lori: Wisconsin, huh? Guess what Jared does for a living. Jared: I make cheese. Jared: Um, yeah, I know very Wisconsinite of me. [Laughter] Lori: Also very Monty Python. Monty Python clip: Blessed are the cheese-makers! Lori: And even though Jared humored me when I barraged him with cheese-related questions, Jared: uh, I mean, Parmesan is Parmesan, no matter what, uh, acidity level. Lori: That's not what he came to talk about. [00:02:25] Jared: The object that I wanted to talk about today, which I actually brought with us, is a giant macaw tail feather. Specifically, it's a scarlet macaw feather. It has quite significant meaning to me because of the impact parrots have made in my life. The tail feather of a scarlet macaw -- some people don't really know how big they actually are -- it's actually the size of my forearm, believe it or not. Lori: Scarlet macaws are the big red and blue parrots. Like the ones you see on a pirate's shoulder. But Jared's not a pirate, mateys. He's an air force veteran, a blessed cheesemaker, and he's here to tell us about…. Jared: My journey into fatherhood of, of parrots. [00:03:09] Lori: The story starts with little Cricket. About seven or eight years ago, Jared was dating a young woman named Emily. She was in college nearby. Cricket was Emily’s her pet. But he lived across the state with her...

Cherie inherits a stack of 33 letters, written by her grandfather, who died during the Korean War, and who Cherie's family never talked about. Before receiving the letters, she knew almost nothing about him. She hadn't even seen a picture of him. But the letters unveil who he was and the fateful decisions he made that affected not only his life but still affect her life today. Larry Hood’s page on the Korean War Project website. (While talking with Cherie, I misspoke and called it the Korean War Memorial website. It's the Korean War Project. My apologies to the folks there!) Season 1, Episode 4: Crystal's Letters Guest: Cherie Louise Turner Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. CREDITS: Lori Mortimer – Host, Sound Designer, Producer Cherie Turner – Guest Charles Gustine – Voice Actor Galen Beebe – Story Editor Alyssa Duvak – Social Media Music: Micolai by Blue Dot Sessions Looperman: looperman-l-1186967-0179585-piano-melody-654-abelouis looperman-l-2431466-0230476-sunset-piano-melody looperman-l-4487063-0257366-lofi-piano-really-chill looperman-l-2392682-0213471-classic-mellow-piano -------------------- TRANSCRIPT Mementos Episode S1:E4 Cherie’s Letters [00:00:00] CHERIE: One of the reasons that he was so aggressive about putting himself in danger is because he just wanted to get back home. And that was his fastest way to get back home. And it ended up doing the very thing that made it, this short track, which is that it was super, super dangerous and you're at risk of dying. And that's what happened. LORI: Welcome to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer. If you listened to the last episode, Crystal’s Hymn, you’ll know that it was a story about a grandfather. Today’s episode is also about a grandfather, but the two episodes could not be more different. In this episode, my guest is going to tell us about a grandfather who she knew nothing about until just a few years ago. Cherie has been able to bring back to life, in a sense, her grandfather, who died many years ago and who had been lost to the sands of time. And she learned that he made some fateful decisions a long time ago that not only affected him but also still affect her life today. [00:01:30] CHERIE: My name is Cherie Louise Turner. And I’m originally from Goleta, California, which is near Santa Barbara. LORI: Cherie’s story starts in 2010, when she got a phone call from her aunt. CHERIE: She informed me that my grandmother had passed, after several bouts of cancer. And she had left me some things in her will. Which I was very surprised about because I really hadn’t spoken much to her um, in probably over 20 years. [00:02:00] So I received this stack of 33 letters that my grandfather, Larry Hood, had written to my grandmother while he was in the Army and then when he went off to the Korean War. Before I got these letters -- I got them when I was 40 years old -- I really didn’t think much of my grandfather. Or I didn’t give him much thought. I had maybe known that he died in a war. I wasn't even ever clear on which war it was. He went into the Army on the 4th of April, 1951, and he died on June 29th, 1952. He wasn't even overseas for but a few months. So by the time I was cognizant of this missing person, he'd been gone for such a long time, and nobody really talked about him because my grandmother had already been married -- remarried -- twice. And so this was my first opportunity to learn anything about him. [00:03:03] LORI: One by one, these letters unveil the pieces of Larry’s life story. Most of them are written to Cherie’s grandmother Mary and to Cherie’s father Gary, who was just little at the time. He was between 4 and 5 years of age. And yes, this family has rhyming names: Larry and Mary, and their son...

Crystal Chandler finds the perfect memento of her grandfather, a former Seventh Day Adventist preacher, to bring with her when she moves to New York. Season 1, Episode 3: Crystal's Hymn Guest: Crystal Chandler Crystal Chandler runs a media production company that highlights the underrepresented voices in society while providing production opportunities for young people of color to gain hands-on media experience. You can follow Crystal on social media @TheCrystalLens. You can can learn more about her work and production company at www.TheCrystalLens.com. Original music composed by Nate Sharples. Sound FX, Foley, and mixing by Kenneth Donahue. Story editing by Galen Beebe. Produced and hosted by Lori Mortimer. "Victory in Praise" by Cast of Characters; licensed from Soundstripe. Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Mementos … sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. CRYSTAL: About a year ago, I'm moving to New York, and I want something of my grandfather’s. Like, I need to have something other than just a picture to remember him by. And I go back to my childhood home. My mom and my grandmother still lived there, and they had really cleaned out a good portion of his stuff at that point. [00:00:31] And mind you, he's passed for about seven, eight years at this point. And so I'm looking in the closets, and I'm looking past this plastic bag with like this gray thing in it. And I'm thinking, oh, it's just some, like, I don't know, like rain jacket, like, like, let me find something, you know, more of substance. And I keep passing it. [00:00:47] I'm pushing the bag to the left. And to the right. And just looking around it. As soon as I'm about to leave, I think, okay, let me go look one more time. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it was God or the universe or what, but something told me to open up that plastic bag. And I just thought, like, this is worth a million dollars. [00:01:14] I couldn't have found anything better than this. [00:01:25] LORI: Welcome back to Mementos. I'm Lori Mortimer, and I am so happy to return, finally, with some new episodes after an almost two-year hiatus. That's one reason this is a happy tune. [00:01:44] But the real reason is because of the story my guest Crystal has to tell us today. It has moments of sadness. But ultimately it's about deep love and bonds between a grandfather and his granddaughter. [00:02:00] What's more joyful than that? [00:02:05] I'll step out of the way now and let Crystal get back to telling us what she found in that plastic bag. [00:02:19] My name is Crystal Chandler. I currently live in New York City, and I'm originally from Boston. My grandfather's name was Aubrey Prescott Williams, and he was born in Barbados in the 1920s, I want to say. And he went to England and then eventually came to the United States and settled in Cambridge, where his mother was living. [00:02:43] He was a pastor in Barbados, and then I'm not sure if he preached when he was in England, but he definitely preached when he got to United States. And he was a pastor at Cambridge Seventh Day Adventist Church. [00:02:59] Growing up, I didn't get to enjoy him as a pastor, but I got to enjoy, you know, all of the years of his, his pastoring through his sleep. So my grandfather used to sing in his sleep and sing full choruses, full hymns. He would sing soprano. He would sing the tenor. He would sing the bass and he would sing the piano part and the violin and the trumpet part. [00:03:24] I mean, he was just a one-man band in his sleep. I mean, fully dead asleep, but he was singing his heart away. [00:03:35] I remember my cousin and I,...

Mementos is returning in September 2021 with new episodes. In this update, you'll hear a clip of the first episode that will drop just after Labor Day. Subscribe now or set a reminder to check MementosPodcast.com the week of Labor Day. TRANSCRIPT Episode Title: Coming Back in September! Date published: 7/25/21 LORI: Hey there, I’m Lori Mortimer, the host and producer of Mementos. After a brief hiatus – brief being defined as, say, 23 months (it sounds shorter if you say it in months) – Mementos is coming back this September with brand new episodes. Here’s the opening to the first episode you’ll hear this fall. It drops in September, just after Labor Day. CRYSTAL: About a year ago, I'm moving to New York, and I want something of my grandfather's. Like, I need to have something other than just a picture to remember him by. And I go back to my childhood home. My mom and my grandmother still lived there, and they had really cleaned out a good portion of his stuff at that point. And mind you, he's passed for about seven, eight years at this point. And so I'm looking in the closets, and I'm looking past this plastic bag with like this gray thing in it. And I'm thinking, Oh, it's just some like, I don't know, like rain jacket. Like, like, let me find something, you know, more of substance. And I keep passing it. I'm pushing the bag to the left and to the right and just looking around it. As soon as I'm about to leave, I think, Okay, let me go look one more time. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it was God or the universe or what, but something told me to open up that plastic bag. And I just thought, like, this is worth a million dollars. I couldn't have found anything better than this. LORI: What did Crystal find in the closet? I dunno. You’ll just have wait until September to find out. Hit Subscribe in your favorite podcast app, or set a reminder to check MementosPodcast.com just after Labor Day. See you in September. Mementos audio logo is by Martin Austwick. And the song today was by Blue Dot Sessions. Thank you both.

Editorial advice provided by Ariana Martinez -- thank you, Ariana! Music: "This Our Home" by Blue Dot Sessions "Spring Cleaning" by Blue Dot Sessions "When the Guests Have Left" by Blue Dot Sessions "Egomaniacal Pluck Melody" by FJX via Looperman.com "Bebop intro in C" via Looperman.com TRANSCRIPT Mementos Season 1: Episode 2: A T-Shirt Hug from Dad Lori: Welcome back to Mementos, where we talk to people about the personal meaning and deeper stories behind the items they keep. Lori: I’m your host, Lori Mortimer, and I’m excited to bring you Episode 2. Lori: On this episode, we’re gonna switch gears and talk about a handmade gift. Lori: Handmade gifts connect the maker with the recipient. Both people are represented in the final piece. Lori: My husband – let’s call him Steve -- really enjoyed making toys for our kids when they were little. He hand carved and painted them Star Trek phasers (from the original series – for you nerds out there). He made them swords. He carved them little totems to wear after we watched the movie Brother Bear. Lori: And he even made them canoe paddles. We had gotten a canoe and the standard paddles that came with it were way too long for them. They were just unwieldy, and that frustrated them. So instead of just buying kid-sized paddles, my husband, Steve, bought two pieces of wood and used this hand-scrapy tool that had belonged to his grandfather, who was a carpenter. And he slowly and deliberately carved them kid-sized canoe paddles. Like the apocryphal story of Michelangelo chipping away at the stone until David just emerged, Steve scraped away and chipped away at the wood until the paddles that were inside were revealed. Lori: Okay, so maybe that’s a bit much, but you know what I mean. When Steve made those paddles, he brought three generations. Lori: Behind every handmade gift is an expression of love. It takes a lot of time and it takes intention -- and especially in today’s click-and-buy world -- it takes commitment to make something for someone else. Lori: Today, you’ll hear from a woman who encapsulated her relationship with and love for her dad in a hand-stitched t-shirt. she brought it with her to my house one sunny Sunday afternoon last winter. Karen: I'm Karen Krolak. I'm an interdisciplinary artist, and most recently I've been working on a project called The Dictionary of Negative Space that looks at where we don't have words for things that relate to mourning and loss and healing after trauma. Karen: I've come with a periwinkle blue T-shirt that has in it a hand-stitched eagle that's been reverse appliquéd. Lori:Karen found the shirt as a do-it-yourself kit on a clothing designer’s website. Karen: It dawned on me that it was something I could make for my dad that he would actually wear. Originally the kit was made with a white overall shirt, and the background you would kind of choose the color on. But when I called the company to say, “I'm making this for my dad, and my dad spills things constantly on his shirts. Is it possible to do this in a darker color?” They had actually suggested that I do it in in blues. Karen: It's the first thing that I ever had sewed the entire garment. Karen: I first began on the appliqué part of just sewing around all the pieces of the eagle. And I was really aware of how many stitches each little section took. And I began thinking as I was putting in each of the stitches of memories of my dad and time that we spent together and both things that kind of drive me crazy about him and things that I had not thought about in a while that we did together. Karen: You know it has all of these little knots that are the talons. And I had decided that that's what it was going to do for the foot there because I figured that would be a good place to place all the things that kind of drove me crazy about him, was to be like I’ll just knot those up and put them in there. Karen: And I really kind of made a conscious choice to make sure that...

Funkybutt clip courtesy of Juli Berg and Candace Corelli. Music by Blue Dot Sessions and UltraCat, via a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. Songs used: "A Palace of Cedar" and "Scalloped" (Blue Dot Sessions) and Disco High (UltraCat) "This is Roller Skating" by The Roller Skating Foundation of America (public domain, Mark 1) Roller skating rink ambient sounds from SoundSnap (www.soundsnap.com). TRANSCRIPT Is there this one thing that you can't throw away or wish you hadn't thrown because it had some kind of meaning for you that was connected to another person or an experience? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about here on Mementos – so thank you for joining me, Lori Mortimer, your host, on this first episode. We’re going to explore the personal meaning and deeper stories behind the items people keep. What makes an ordinary item a memento? Not collectibles, but individual items that are really containers of meaning. Items that hold memories, they hold stories, emotions, and sometimes raise questions that will never, ever be answered. The idea for this podcast sprouted after my mother died and I had to empty her house. About three days before Habitat for Humanity was coming to take what was left, I came across one particular item that threw me for a loop. What I found was something that had belonged to my mom when she was an adolescent and which I didn't know she owned. At that point, I’d already cleaned out every closet, every cabinet, every kitchen drawer. I had looked in every pocket of every coat and every pair of pants and every skirt. I had literally touched every item inside the house and had had decided its fate. So I started working in the garage. And I was digging in this back corner underneath the stairs to the garage attic. So I had I pulled out the shop vac, and I found my brother’s old chain saw in there. And Behind that, I found my dad's old manual typewriter, and that was a pretty cool thing to find. And then I saw this wooden box. It wasn’t very big, maybe a foot by a foot square, maybe about 8 inches tall. I crouched down to move further under the stair with that sloping ceiling. So I reached and I grabbed it by its handle, and I slid it toward me across the floor. It was just covered in dust, and near the handle, it had a brass latch on the front. I honestly had no idea what was in it. I had never seen this box before. It was clearly old, because nothing comes in a wooden box like that anymore. So I brushed away the dust and I opened it up. And inside was a pair of white leather roller skates. And they had wooden wheels and wooden stoppers on the front. And I just didn’t know my mother owned these. At this point, I had found a lot of personal things. I mean, but this … there was sobbing. There was wailing. There was snot. I mean, I just lost it. But why? I mean, it’s roller skates. I think it was a lot of things, right? I think it was, you know, she had only just died a couple of months earlier. And there was then all the pressure to go through everything, to sell the house, and to get rid of so much personal stuff. But I really think that what I saw when I looked in that box was that the person who died wasn't a 74-year-old woman. It was my grandmother's daughter. I think that's what hit me. My grandmother’s only child just passed away. And my grandmother most likely gave her those skates. My grandfather died in 1944, when my mother was 2 and a half. And my grandmother, who had to find a job immediately, started working two weeks later. But she made very little money. On Fridays, all she had left was a nickel to take the bus to work. And she needed her paycheck, so that at the end of the day, she had bus fair back home. So these roller skates must have been an extravagance for the only child of a single mother. She was, of course, a child I never knew. So the roller skates are like this connection to my parent as a child who I could have never known as...

Welcome to Mementos, a podcast about the stories behind the objects that evoke memories, connections, emotions. What turns an ordinary object -- a necklace, a t-shirt, a letter -- into a memento? Well, let's talk to people and find out. Appearing in this episode: Lori Mortimer, host Cherie Turner Homa Sarabi Daumais Karen Krolak Steve Nelson Music by Poddington Bear, Creative Commons Attribution License: "Caravan" "Window Shopping" TRANSCRIPT [00:00:03] Lori: Hi I'm Lori, and I've made a little podcast. It's called Mementos. In each episode, we're gonna capture the deeper story behind someone's cherished possession. [00:00:14] If you think about, it a memento could be anything. [00:00:17] Karen: It's a periwinkle blue, hand-stitched t-shirt. I made it for my dad, actually. And I remember when I put it on thinking that it felt like this, this hug at a time when you really want to hug from your dad. [00:00:31] Lori: Sometimes they’re like time machines zapping us back to another moment and place. [00:00:37] Homa: It was super shiny. It was the shiniest thing in the store. And I saw this necklace and was like, this is definitely magical. This should have some magic in it. [00:00:48] Lori: Or they can connect us to someone new. [00:00:51] Cherie: I received this stack of 33 letters. In his own words, these are his stories about what's going on in his life. It made me feel like I had a grandfather. [00:01:04] Lori: Here's a question for you. Steve: Mmmmhmm. Lori: The house is on fire. Steve: Mmmhmm. Lori: The people and the pets are out. Steve: Right. [00:01:11] Lori: We've grabbed life's essentials. Basically our cell phones and laptops. Steve: Okay. [00:01:15] Lori: You've got 30 seconds. What are you willing to run back inside for? [00:01:22] Steve: Maybe the needlework that my mom made. The Frank Lloyd Wright styled one. She's still alive, but it's kind of the top of her game in terms of what she did with it. But also at the stage she's at in life, with her vision and her fine motor skills, there aren't going to be any more. That's something I never want to lose. I always want to have hanging on the wall somewhere. [00:01:47] Lori: Little piece of mom. Steve: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:51] Homa: I think I will always keep it because it's something that my grandma and I went through together. I have brought it to the United States with me. I've kept this necklace and brought it all over to oceans. [00:02:06] Cherie: Yeah, it brought him to life for me. And nobody else had done that. And the fact that he got to do that? That was really special. [00:02:17] Karen: I keep thinking it has to make it through the rest of my life with me. So I try and save it for days when, like, I know I'm doing something that is really challenging or that I need some extra belief in myself for or I know I just could use some reassurance from my dad. [00:02:35] Lori: You know, when it comes to mementos, sometimes what you really keep is on the inside. Lori: The first episode will be ready in early October. So subscribe now on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And join me on social media at mementos podcast. And if you want to learn more about each episode, check out mementos podcast dot com. [00:03:03] Lori: Music provided by Poddington Bear under a Creative Commons Attribution license. 0bKEdqCm6KNdaRgLWOqy