All There Is Read online

  ALSO BY DAVE ISAY

  Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

  Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps

  All There Is

  Love Stories from StoryCorps

  DAVE ISAY

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  New York

  2012

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2012 by The Penguin Press,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Sound Portraits Productions, Inc., 2012

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  All there is : love stories from Storycorps / [edited and with an introduction by] Dave Isay.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-55637-5

  1. Love—Anecdotes. 2. United States—Biography—Anecdotes. 3. Interviews—United States. 4. Oral history. 5. StoryCorps (Project) I. Isay, David. II. StoryCorps (Project)

  HQ801.A2A55 2012

  302.3—dc23

  2011029942

  Designed by Amanda Dewey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  IN MEMORY OF

  LILLIE MAE LOVE 1957–2010

  Love is all there is . . . When you take your last breath you remember the people you love, how much love you inspired, and how much love you gave.

  —LILLIE LOVE, StoryCorps Facilitator

  Lillie Love with fellow Facilitator Anthony Knight at StoryCorps Atlanta

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Author’s Note

  FOUND

  LOST

  FOUND AT LAST

  Acknowledgments

  StoryCorps in Brief

  INTRODUCTION

  StoryCorps launched in October 2003, when we opened our first booth in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It’s a very simple idea. You make an appointment to bring in anyone you want to honor by listening. When you arrive at the booth you’re met by a StoryCorps facilitator who takes you inside and sits you across a small table from, say, your grandmother. You face one another, a microphone in front of each of you, and for the next forty minutes you ask questions and listen. Many people think of their interview sessions as: If I had only forty minutes left with this person, what would I want to ask?

  Needless to say, the interviews are often quite intense. I am always hearing from participants who say that the time they spent recording at StoryCorps was among the most important forty minutes of their lives. At the end of the session you walk out with a CD of your interview, and with your permission, a second copy goes to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, so that your great-great-great-grandchildren can someday get to know your grandmother through her voice and story.

  Since our launch StoryCorps has spread from coast to coast. To date nearly seventy-five thousand people, representing the breadth of the American experience, have participated in the project. Millions more have heard or seen edited excerpts of these interviews on NPR, PBS, and the Web—or in books like this. We hope that recording a StoryCorps interview reminds participants how much their lives matter and that experiencing these stories illustrates the power, strength, and wisdom we can find in the voices of the people all around us when we take the time to listen.

  The book you hold in your hands cuts right to the heart of our efforts. StoryCorps is by its nature a project about the transmission of wisdom across generations. Almost all of the interviews we collect touch on the great themes of human existence, and—as we’ve learned after recording thousands upon thousands of sessions—there can be no question that the greatest of these themes is love.

  While conversations about love in all its forms are captured through StoryCorps, we chose to devote this book to stories about romantic love. All There Is is divided into three sections, which correspond to the three types of love stories we hear about most often: falling in love; remembering a loved one; and finding love unexpectedly after assuming it was no longer in the cards.

  Over the past eight years I’ve been astonished and delighted by the stories that spin out of our booths and land on my desk each week. They speak to the enduring and redemptive power of love. They make my spirit soar. In a culture that often feels consumed by all that’s phony or famous, these stories give me hope and remind me to try to live life without regrets. I hope they do the same for you.

  All There Is is dedicated to Lillie Love, our beloved Atlanta-based facilitator who died unexpectedly in 2010. The wisdom and goodness contained in the pages of this book are a testament to the life she lived. Lillie Mae Love will never be forgotten.

  —Dave Isay, September 2011

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The following stories were edited from transcripts of StoryCorps interviews that typically run forty minutes. We aimed to distill these interviews without altering the tone or meaning of the original sessions. At times tense and usage were changed, and a word or two were added for clarity. We did not use ellipses to indicate omitted text; in the following pages ellipses indicate speech trailing off or a pause in speech or conversation.

  Words and phrases that read well are not always the strongest spoken moments, and the reverse is also the case. As a result, a story may vary slightly from audio to print.

  Participants gave permission for their stories to be published in this book, and each story was fact-checked. A few participants requested that their ages not be included, and we honored that request.

  Found

  GAYLE TERRIS NEWBY, 77, talks with her husband, FRANK NEWBY, 79

  Gayle Terris Newby: After I graduated from high school, my parents couldn’t afford college, so I went to nurse’s training school at the general hospital in Indianapolis. One day my patient’s son told me that he was really crazy about my friend Betty, who was working on the ward with me, and asked if I could get him a date. I said, “I’ll try.” Betty said, “Okay, but I’m not going on a single date.” So he got two guys, and I got another girl, and we went on a triple date.

  On the day of the date I’d spent all afternoon on the roof sunbathing. I was red as a beet, my hair was a mess, and I really didn’t want to go. As we were walking down the stairs I saw the three guys sitting there, and I said to my friend, “Look at the hick with no tie; I’ll bet I get stuck with him.” And I did.

  I knew that he didn’t have any money. They
wanted to stop for a hamburger and a Coke, and he just frankly told me, “I can’t afford it.” Somehow or other that seemed honest to me. I said, “Let’s just sit in the car and talk.” And talk we did. Talked ourselves right into love and marriage.

  I called him, and we decided we wanted to see each other again. So he came to the hospital to pick me up. Unfortunately, my mother and father’s best friends had come in from Chicago that day, and they wanted to take me out to lunch. Now to me, meeting with people who had come all the way from Chicago to Indianapolis was more important than meeting this boy who I had only met once. So I stood him up.

  You were really mad, weren’t you?

  Frank Newby: I waited longer for you that day than I’ve ever waited for anybody in my life. I don’t think I was mad; I was disgusted. I just wrote you off—no one did that to me—and so I went back to work at the filling station. I worked Monday night, worked Tuesday night, and Wednesday evening the manager came back and said, “Frank, you’ve got a telephone call.” I couldn’t think of anyone I had ever told where I was working or who had the telephone number, but it was you on the phone. You started explaining to me what happened, and sucker that I was, I accepted the apology. Since I had the next day off, I suggested that we go to Turkey Run State Park, which is about sixty miles from Indianapolis. That Thursday was one of the most idyllic days of my life.

  On Friday I took you out to the farm to meet my mother and father.

  Gayle: And I wanted you to meet my mother and father too. We went on Saturday. That was when my mother said to you, “I hope you’re not thinking about marrying my daughter, because you’ll marry her over my dead body!” But we got married the next Sunday, and she didn’t die.

  Frank: I told my dad Saturday afternoon, “If you can find us a minister, we’re going to get married tomorrow.” He went out and found the same minister that had married him and my mother twenty-three years before. He pulled the minister right out of the revival meeting.

  I was an avid gardener, and I had over a thousand gladiolas in full bloom. My mother cut practically all of those glads, and the house was absolutely gorgeous with flowers everywhere you looked. So we were married with your two best friends. I had my brother as my best man, and my grandmother and grandfather. That was the wedding party.

  I had twenty dollars in my pocket. I had borrowed forty dollars from Dad for the honeymoon, but in the rush and the excitement of the wedding, I forgot to get it. We got halfway to Lake Shafer on the honeymoon when I discovered that I only had the twenty.

  Gayle: So we honeymooned on twenty dollars.

  Frank: We found a motel for three dollars a night. We discovered a beer garden overlooking Lake Shafer. We’d get a hamburger and a bottle of beer for, I think, seventy-five cents. So we lived three days and three nights on twenty dollars.

  Gayle: On hamburgers, beer, and love. We’ve had fifty-seven great years of marriage, and I’ve never once regretted a three-day courtship.

  Recorded in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on September 2, 2007.

  MICHAEL FAZIO, 50, talks with his wife, SONYA BAKER, 40

  Michael Fazio: I worked for the New York State Thruway Authority as a toll collector for about seventeen years.

  Sonya Baker: At the time I was living in Woodstock, New York, and I would drive the Thruway pretty regularly to go to New York City for auditions and lessons and that kind of thing. I saw you one day, and you were very friendly and desperately cute. I remember one night when it was really foggy, I said, “I don’t know how you deal with this.” You said, “Well, it’s a job.”

  I didn’t see you for six months, and then I came through one day and you were counting money. I said, “How you doing?” And you’re, like, “How you doing.” And then you looked up and said, “Where you been?!” And I said, “I’ve been here. Where’ve you been?!” You said, “Well, you must’ve been coming through the wrong lane!” I said, “Who’s to know what the right lane is, buddy?” And you said, “Well, I’ll put a cone in my lane. It’ll be like keeping a candle in the window for you.”

  I started making excuses to take the Thruway and started looking for the orange pylons—I almost wrecked on several occasions trying to cross lanes. So I would come through your lane regularly, and we started talking.

  Michael: How did you feel about talking to some strange guy in a tollbooth?

  Sonya: To be honest, I hadn’t had a real date for two years, and I just thought, This is a step in the right direction.

  After about three or four months, I went through and I said, “Hey, what do I get if you forget to put the cone up?” And you said, “You name it.” I said, “Will you take me to dinner?” And you said, “Well, I got to remember not to put the cone up then.” And I said, “Just call me,” and gave you my phone number. I drove through and thought I was a total ding-a-ling for giving the toll guy my phone number! Of course, my friends thought I was a lunatic, and that if I was going to meet you it better well be in a public place—because what do I know about you? But any friend that has seen us together has never wondered why we’re together. They always say, Of course: Sonya and Mike. I mean, what they have together is obvious.

  I never, never thought I’d get married. So I always say, Since I never thought I was getting married, I certainly was only going to do it once. So if you hate me, that’s too bad. Tough it out! Because I’m it for you and you’re it for me!

  Michael: I don’t hate you, Sonya Baker. I love you.

  Sonya: The great part is, it’s never felt like there was a time that we had to tough it out. There have certainly been challenges that you and I have risen to together, but there’s nobody I’d rather travel through life with than you.

  Recorded in Murray, Kentucky, on October 2, 2005.

  JOEY LEON GUERRERO, 35, talks with his wife, DELORA DENISE LEON GUERRERO, 28

  Joey Leon Guerrero: The first time we met, I stepped into your office and I asked you to sign one of my papers—I guess it was for my meal card. But we didn’t talk at all until we got deployed and I heard that you were coming to Company B.

  Delora Denise Leon Guerrero: You sent me a couple of e-mails, but I was there to work. I was focused, driven. I was, like, We’re in Iraq. There’s no time for romance or relationships.

  So we spent four months as friends, getting to know one another, seeing each other at work.

  During that friendship phase I heard you talking about your family, and I loved it. I’m very family oriented too. I also noticed your leadership—the way you talked to your soldiers and your supervisors, how you carried yourself, the way you dressed, how your weapon was always clean. You didn’t let anything slip by. I liked how driven you were. And as we became friends, I liked how you were opening up to me—you were so honest and real.

  Joey: But you gave me the cold shoulder. So I was, like, I’ll stay focused on being friends for now. Because I knew one day you were going to change your mind.

  Delora: And then the defining moment was when I was about to leave on R&R, but a sandstorm kept me in Baghdad. We were outside, and you were helping me with my bags by the door of the tent. All of a sudden we get indirect fire—mortars started falling. Boom! Boom! Boom! It wasn’t the first time I had heard mortars, but it was the first time I was standing outside talking while they were going off.

  So I ran to the bunker. Eventually, you came in kind of casually, because you were seasoned. And then we were crouching across from each other in the bunker, waiting for the all clear. I was just looking at you, and it was like a romantic movie scene where all the visions of the last four months come into play: everything we talked about; how you talked to your kids on the phone; the fact that you called your mother; how you treated me. All of it came together while I was looking at you, and I thought, You know what? Life is way too short to pass you up. And I think it was that moment where it changed from
friendship to, I can’t let this one go or I’m a fool.

  When I went on R&R, I had you on my mind. And when I got back we would walk every night just to get away from the other soldiers and talk. Our romantic moments were walking to the bunkers. Doesn’t really sound romantic, I guess: being fully dressed in uniform with a weapon slung on your back . . .

  Joey: . . . But from our perspective, we did what normal couples would do. We just did it as a couple in Iraq.

  Delora: You picked out a ring online. And when you handed me the box, more mortars hit. We had to evacuate and go back into the bunkers. I thought, Is this a sign?

  Later that day, you walked me home.

  Joey: That’s when I got down on my knees with my weapon slung on my back, hoping we weren’t going to get hit. And it wasn’t your traditional engagement ring box—it was more like a post office box—and I tore that open and said, “Would you marry me?”

  Delora: I was kind of hesitant at first—being proposed to in Iraq is not what every girl dreams of. But I knew you were the one for me. So when you said, “Do you want to wait?” I said, “No. This is where we are. This is the moment.”

  Joey: You didn’t turn your back on me. You gave me a chance, and you accepted me. I can’t ask for anything better than you.

  Recorded in Frederick, Maryland, on May 22, 2010.

  BOBBI CÔTÉ-WHITACRE, 58, talks with her wife, SANDI CÔTÉ-WHITACRE, 59

  Bobbi Côté-Whitacre: Do you remember what it was like when we were nineteen and in love—and couldn’t tell anyone?

  Sandi Côté-Whitacre: I remember feeling: I have found the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Everything that I believed in—the core things that I felt were important in life—you did also.