MG: Jasmyn, have I ever told you much about my dad?

 

JM: Not really.

 

MG: Okay, so he was kind of a character. His name was Anthony but everybody called him Sonny. He was one of those people who didn’t really believe that rules were made for him.

 

One time we were on vacation, and we were driving through New York City, and we started to go over the George Washington Bridge and he realized we missed our exit. Now Jasmyn, if you were driving that car what would you do?

 

JM: (Laughs) I’d turn around. 

 

MG: And how would you do that?

 

JM: Uh, drive to the next exit, I guess.

 

MG: Right? I think any reasonable person would do what you just described… but not my dad.

 

JM: (Laughs)

 

MG: My dad stopped the car, put it in reverse and backed up halfway across the George Washington Bridge… 

 

JM: (Laughs)

 

MG: To get back to our exit. 

 

JM: (Laughs) Nevermind the hundreds of cars around you. 

 

MG: I mean, this is how I grew up. This was totally normal for me as a kid.

 

He was also the kind of guy who had all these little sayings, like catch phrases…and his favorite was… “there are three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way… and my way.” Growing up, I used to think he invented this saying… but, of course, now I know he didn’t.

 

De Niro FROM Casino: “Listen to me very carefully. There are three ways of doing things around here: the right way, the wrong way, and the way that I do it.”

 

Homer Simpson (HS): Kids, there’s three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way. 

 

Bart Simpson: Isn’t that the wrong way?

 

HS: Yeah, but faster. 

 

MG: So I tell you all this because this new season of the StoryCorps podcast… the one that we’re kicking off with this episode… is called MY WAY… stories from people who found a rhythm all their own… and confidently marched to it their whole lives… consequences and other people’s opinions be damned.  

 

JM: Call it audacity, courage, or chutzpah, everyone in the next few episodes had SOMETHING inside that helped them make decisions …that are NOT what other people expected… but they ended up being the right ones for them. I’m Jasmyn Morris.

 

MG: And I’m Michael Garofalo. Welcome to a brand new season of the StoryCorps podcast from NPR.

 

JM: Okay, so our first two stories are about work. And both are about people who found a way to make it in a world that wasn’t exactly built for them.

 

Clayton Sherrod (CS): My father had a heart attack and I was 13 years old and my mother said, ”You can’t go back to school. You’re going to have to find a job.” 

 

MG: That’s Clayton Sherrod…and he’s talking about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in the late 1950s….

 

CS: So I went to the country club, right outside of Birmingham, to make some money. During that time it was extremely segregated. The only way a person who is Black or African American could really go to a country club is to go there to work. And I always wanted to go up to the kitchen and wash dishes because it was really fascinating to see those guys cooking. So I made up my mind that I was going to be a chef. 

 

All my friends told me I was crazy but I saw something that no one else could see, and that is me walking around with that big tall hat on. So I counted how many positions it was from washing dishes to the executive chef. And we had like  a three-room house. So what I did, I had my chart pinned to the wall in our little outdoor bathroom there and I would mark every time I got a promotion. And then I would turn the light off and I would dance. And I would sing ”Johnny B. Goode” and I changed it to ”Clayton B. Goode, you’re so good.” 

 

You know I didn’t mind all the hard work, actually I loved it. I worked the whole weekend without going home. And I worked myself up to sous-chef, and there was this guy named Frank Cahey, who was executive chef. He told me one day, he said, ”I know what you’re trying to do. You think you’re going to be the chef here.” He said, ”But I’m going to be here for life.” He said ”You might as well either keep working under me or go somewhere else.” 

 

So what I did–I was sneaky–you know in the back of trade magazines there’s articles in there looking for chefs all over the country. I wrote one of the best looking resumes and signed Frank Cahey’s name on it, and sent it to all of these headhunters all over the country. And he actually thought he was famous. He said “everybody knows about him,” but he didn’t know it was me that did it. And the general manager got tired of it. He’s like, ”Frank, every time you come to me for raises, and people want you here, people want you there.” He said, ”Right now, at this very moment, I consider you dead.” Frank, he turned white as a sheet and he said, ”Well what are you going to do?” The general manager said, ”Well Clayton, can you take care of it until we find another chef?” I said ”I’ll be more than happy to.” That’s all I needed. I never even looked back.

 

JM: Chef Clayton Sherrod… He was only 19 when he took over the kitchen at that country club.

 

MG: Now to become executive chef as a young Black man in Alabama in 1964, Clayton had to get creative… and agree with his methods or not, you gotta admit he did find a way. 

 

JM: Yeah, and our next story also involves a creative… and brave… work around from someone who didn’t think the way the world wanted her to.

 

Eileen Kushner (EK): In school, they just called me stupid, dumb, lazy. I really thought that that’s what was wrong with me. And when there was something that I needed to do, it was like a door in my brain would drop and it wouldn’t allow me to process any of the information. I didn’t realize that I actually had a learning disability.

 

MG: That’s Eileen Kushner. She grew up in Detroit in the 1950s. And she always had trouble with simple math and reading. And when she got out of high school… she married her husband, Larry, almost right away and they started a family. Eileen hoped that as a stay-at-home mom… she could hide her learning problems. But it didn’t work out that way…

 

EK: Raising the kids, we had no extra spending money.

 

Larry Kushner (LK): Sometimes, for food, it got pretty tough. And I said, “How about going to talk to Carl at the McDonald’s? Maybe he could hire you?”

 

EK: And I said, “Carl, I’d like to make french fries and make your shakes for you. I’ll be the best employee” and he said, “You’re hired.” I remember coming home and I was so excited, dancing around; “I got a job.”

 

LK: In those days, there were no computers. If a customer wanted a hamburger, fry and a Coke, you manually had to add it up.

 

EK: Exactly. I had done such a good job and I was starting to feel really good about myself. Until one day Carl leaded [sic] me over to a counter and said, “Eileen, this is your next responsibility.” And in my mind, I knew that I wasn’t able to add. I thought I was going to die.

 

I went home that night, crying my eyes out to you and saying, “I’m gonna quit, Larry, because I don’t want them to know that I don’t know how to count the money back.” And you said to me, “Eileen, you’re gonna be ok.” You came home and you brought singles, five dollar bills, and coins, and we started playing McDonald’s. Do you remember?

 

LK: I sure do.

 

EK: I would stand on one side of the table in the kitchen and you stood on the other and you would pretend you were a customer. And the following day, I went back and asked if I could please have some Big Mac boxes, some fry boxes, and some cups. And then every day, Larry, with your help, I learned it. Larry, thank you. You opened up my world.

 

LK: I just opened the door for you. You took the ball and ran with it, though, after that. 

 

Do you see yourself differently today than you were 30 years ago?

 

EK: I learned a very valuable lesson from Edison. After he invented the lightbulb, this young gentleman came up to him and asked him, “How did it feel to fail over 2000 times?” Edison said, “I never failed once. It was a 2000 step process.” And this is what my life has been, Larry, more than 2000 steps, But we made it.

 

LK: We did.

 

EK: We made it.

 

JM: Over the years… Eileen moved her way up at McDonald’s eventually becoming a manager… and then attending Hamburger University… getting a degree in what McDonald’s calls “Hamburger-ology.” 

 

MG: At one point Eileen and Larry owned five McDonald’s branches together. So, you know, in the end… she really did have it her way.

 

JM: Michael, that’s Burger King. (Laughs)

 

MG: Oh, oops. (Laughs) Alright, anyway… We’ve got more stories after the break… 

 

Stay with us…

 

BREAK

 

JM: We’ve been listening to stories about people who did things their own way.

 

MG: These next two feature people who put themselves in situations that most other people would run away from. 

 

JM: First we’ll hear from two brothers… 

 

Paul Corbit Brown and John Brown sat down together in Charleston, West Virginia. 

 

Paul, who is the older brother, wanted to know about something that happened in John’s life… when he was younger…

 

Paul Corbit Brown (PCB): When did you first find your voice?

 

John Brown (JB): Well, I guess I found my literal voice in 1993. I was driving to work, scanning through the stations and, uh, I landed on Joy and Praise 101 something… 

 

Archival Radio: WJYP Praise 101. Good morning. Our time is 10:02am… 

 

JB: The announcer was saying all these terrible untrue things about gay and lesbian people about how crude they are. And so I pulled off to the side of the road and I went to a payphone and I called him. I said, ”What are you thinking? If you are going to talk about gay and lesbian people, you should have somebody gay or lesbian person on the show to provide a balanced perspective at the very least”. ”Oh we’ve tried many times to get a gay or lesbian person on our show but…” ”I’ll be on your show”, and he said, ”No you won’t. People say that but they won’t show up.” And I said, ”You tell me the time and the place and I’ll be there.” And he said, ”we’re going to have a live segment. If you want to be here, we’ll put you on the show for ten minutes.” So I said, ”Okay.” 

 

So I hung up the phone, and of course I was shaking like a leaf. And I went to the Hardees across the street and I got five dollars in quarters and I called everybody I knew and I said, ”You’ve got to call into this show because I’m absolutely petrified”. 

 

So at any rate, I went up there and we were in this little studio and I remember there was just a bare light bulb hanging down from the ceiling. 

 

Archival Radio: And we welcome you today to the Thursday forum. With 

us in the studio, we have John Brown…

 

JB: We went through the first 15 minutes and he said, ”I’m sure you won’t want to stay”, and I said, ”No, I’m perfectly comfortable. I’ll sit here until you are ready to turn off the microphone.” And we sat there for another two and a half hours and talked about these issues. I was just as comfortable as I could be because what I was there to say, I owned. 

 

Archival Radio: I don’t believe I’m an abomination, I don’t believe I ever have been or ever will be.

 

JB: I just remember feeling so empowered, even though 99.9 percent of the callers who called into that show just talked about me like I was a dog. 

 

Archival Radio: The majority that are in the homosexual community 

have hundreds or even thousands of partners…

 

JB: That didn’t matter. What mattered is that there was somebody out there in that audience that was listening, that needed to hear that it was okay and that was the only person I was worried about. The rest of those people didn’t matter at all to me. 

 

PCB: When I think about you, I think about all the things that you’ve done in your life and the way that you walk your talk and I really admire that. Because I don’t know very many people in my life like you. And my relationship with you has had one of the most profound effects on who I am as a person. There will never be words for it but thanks.

 

JB: I appreciate that; I really do.

 

JM: John Brown with his brother, Paul, in West Virginia. 

 

MG: Our final story comes from Julio Diaz… a social worker in New York City. 

 

Every day… he’d end his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early… just so he could eat at his favorite diner. But one night… as he stepped off the 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform… his evening took an unexpected turn.

 

Julio Diaz: So I get off the train. You know, I’m walking towards the stairs and this young teenager, uh, pulls out a knife. He wants my money. So I just gave him my wallet and told him, ’Here you go.’ 

 

He starts to leave and as he’s walking away I’m like, ’Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re gonna be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.’ So, you know, he’s looking at me like, ’What’s going on here?’ You know, and he asked me, ’Why are you doing this?’ And I’m like, ’Well, I don’t know, man, if you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was go get dinner and, uh, if you really want to join me, hey, you’re more than welcome.’ So I’m like, ’Look, you can follow me if you want.’ You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help. 

 

So, you know, we go into the diner where I normally eat and we sit down in the booth and the manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi – you know so… The kid was like, ’Man, but you know like everybody here. Do you own this place?’ I’m like, ’No, I just eat here a lot.’ He’s like, ’But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’ I’m like, ’Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?’ So he’s like, ’Yeah, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way.”

 

So I just asked him in the end, I’m like, ’What is it that you want out of life?’ He just had almost a sad face. Either he couldn’t answer me or he didn’t want to. The bill came and I look at him and I’m like, ’Look, uh, I guess you’re gonna have to pay for this bill ’cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this so if you give me my wallet back I’ll gladly treat you.’ He didn’t even think about it he’s like, ’Yeah, okay, here you go.’ 

 

So I got my wallet back and I gave, you know, I gave him twenty dollars for it. You know, I figure, uh, maybe it’ll help him – I don’t know. And when I gave him the twenty dollars, I asked him to give me something in return – which was his knife – and he gave it to me.

 

You know, it’s funny ’cause when I told my mom about what happened – you know, no mom wants to hear this but – at first she was like, ’Well, you know, you’re the kind of kid if someone asked you for the time you gave them your watch.’ I don’t know, I figure, you know, you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.

 

MG: That’s all for this episode… which we started off with me telling a story about my dad… 

 

JM: So is there anyone in YOUR life, who is one of these people? Someone who just finds their own way? If there is… tell us about ‘em. 

 

MG: We’ve set up a voicemail line especially for podcast listeners… the number is 702-706-TALK… We’ll occasionally be asking for you to call in about specific things… like who you want to interview… but you can also call in and leave messages for anyone that you hear on this show… we’ll pass them on… and maybe even feature you in a future episode. 

JM: The number again is 702-706-TALK. Or you can email us… at podcast AT storycorps DOT org.

MG: Find out how to record your own story on our website… AND while you’re there you can support our work… Visit donate DOT storycorps DOT org SLASH podcast.

 

JM: Next week…a father and son remember their unique birds and the bees talk…

 

Howie Gordon: So how did you find out that I was actually a porn star?

 

JM: So get ready for that one…

 

Jud Esty-Kendall is our Senior Producer. Max Jungreis is our Producer. Our Technical Director is Jarrett Floyd. 

 

MG: Special thanks to Yasmina Guerda, Emily Martinez, John White, and Katie Simon… As well as StoryCorps facilitators Francesco De Salvatore, Stephanie Burton, Brett Meyers and Michelle Swinehart.

 

MG: I’m Michael Garofalo.

 

JM: And I’m Jasmyn Morris. As always, thanks for listening.