Title: 100 Years of 100 Things: Your Family Stories

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now as we head toward the news, we'll set up for the rest of the show on this all-call-ins Brian Lehrer Show for Christmas Eve, Hanukkah Eve, Kwanzaa-almost Eve, and this all-call-ins edition of our centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. Today it's thing number 52, Your Best True Family Stories of the Past 100 Years. Now, listen up. I thought to keep it as kind of a hundred-year timeline over the last hundred years. We're going to do this in three chronological chunks. Maybe this will work, maybe it will crash and burn, but let's try it.

If you have a family story that dates from any time in the 1920s, '30s, or '40s, call in right now and tell a short version of it on the air. 212-433-WNYC. If they're from later than that, hold it for the moment. If you have a family story that dates from any time in the 1920s, '30s, or '40s, call in right now and tell a short version of it on the air as soon as we come back from the news. 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692. It can be a funny story, a serious story, a life-changing story, or a trivial story. No rules in that respect, just any family story that dates from any time in the 1920s, '30s, or '40s. Call in right now and tell a short version of it on the air.

I could tell the story, I won't really go into it because this is for you, but of my maternal grandmother who was a refugee from what is now Ukraine winding up in the United States. Her naturalization document says country of origin was Austria-Hungary, but these days it's part of Ukraine area called Ivano-Frankivsk. But if she had remained there, she would mostly, most surely have been murdered in the Holocaust as practically all the Jews who were there were. That's one family story from me.

Yours could be much lighter than that. It can be a funny story, it can be a political story, or tell a story of how someone in your family got by in the Great Depression. Or maybe you or an older family member served in World War II. Any World War II vets listening right now with a war story you want to share? We know some World War II veterans are still with us. Or it could be much lighter than that.

Maybe it's like the time Uncle Pete tried to rescue the pet cat who got stuck in the tree and then Uncle Pete got stuck in the tree and they had to call the fire department on him, or any light or goofy family stories from the 1920s, '30s, or '40s. You get the idea. 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692. Then we'll go on to the later decades later in the hour. But those '20s, '30s, and '40s family stories coming up. I see people are calling in. That's great. Right after the latest news with Michael Hill, who's going to tell us what else is happening.

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It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. And yes, Michael Hill did just meow near the end of that newscast. I'm glad I'm not a mouse because otherwise I would be very afraid. Now to your calls with your best true family stories that date from the 1920s, '30s, or '40s. We will start with Alice in the Bronx here on WNYC later in the hour. If you're just joining us, we're going to go on to your best family stories in our 100 Years of 100 Things series from later decades. But first, '20s, '30s and '40s, Alice in the Bronx here on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Alice: Hi. My father was a musician and he was he's Black or he was Black. He's died. He was playing in a club out on Long Island and Huey Long was in the club. All night long, Huey Long had been insulting all the members of the band the whole night. Evidently, when he got to my father, he called him Smoke. My dad, he was a musician. He was not a tough guy. He was a short man. He punched him in the eye, gave him a black eye, knocked him out. Then he had to hide for years because they were trying to kill him. Other Black families would take him in and hide him for a few months and he'd move to another family.

Brian: Wow. That is some story.

Alice: It was in all the newspapers. In fact, it's in the books on his life. They mentioned the incident.

Brian: Oh, that was just what I was going to ask you, if that story, which sounds newsworthy, ever made the papers. You're telling me it did?

Alice: Yes, it was in the Amsterdam News. I have the Amsterdam News, September, let me see, 6th, 1933. It was definitely also in all the Black papers. But you know, I think the point of this is that we talk about people who stand up to racism, who take the stand, and what we don't realize is that most of those people suffer from it. Okay? They say it's wonderful to stand up and it's a wonderful thing, but in the long run, the family can suffer because my father couldn't get a job for many decades, and they wanted to shoot him. So our whole family suffered.

Brian: You can say that and laugh now. Thank you for the story and the moral of the story. You stuck the landing terrifically there with not just the story, but the moral of the story. I hear you how when you stand up--

Alice: It's not all well and good.

Brian: Yes, you can pay a price. Alice, thank you very much. Bill in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Bill.

Bill: Hi, how are you?

Brian: Good.

Bill: Can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear you.

Bill: My grandfather was a son of Norwegian immigrants and he had a sister named Lilian, Lilian Tucker. In the early years of the century, she became a well-known stage actress. But in the '20s, about 1920, '21, she got into films. Her first film was produced by a guy named Duell. It was a New York society type, and it was a low-budget film. They shot it in Canada and you can just imagine ice flows and so forth, but it was a great success. This guy, Duell, became excited by this and he planned a second film to be shot in Italy and put a tremendous amount of money into it, built an entire Italian town just as a set, and the whole thing went bust, probably because the budget was so outrageous.

The first film, my great aunt Lilian Tucker starred next to Lillian Gish. They had to change. They couldn't have two Lillian's on the marquee, so they changed. [chuckles] She had to change her name to Elsie. Her screen name then was Elsie Tucker. She then falls in love with this guy, Duell, marries Duell, and her name then becomes Elsie Duell. That was her screen name for the rest of her career, which didn't last too long. For a while, in between these films, they were living in Newport, the three of them. Lo and behold, Lillian Gish runs off with Duell, leaving my great aunt bereft. At that point she--

Brian: Let me just insert that our two stories so far from the '20s and '30s and '40s are the time my grandpa punched Huey Long in the face and the time that Lillian Gish ran off with my grandfather's sister's husband. Bill, okay, finish the story.

Bill: I think it was Charles Duell. But anyway, so Lilian then sues him for divorce, but she had to go to Paris to do that. She lived in the Ritz for a while while this lawsuit was pending. Finally gets the divorce, comes back and sues both Lillian Gish and Duell. The lawsuit was a national scandal. It was very covered in the papers and so forth. She won, she got some money, and she retired to a villa in somewhere in Hollywood. I never was out there, I never visited her. But every Christmas she would send us these strange gifts that we thought were so bizarre. Just every Christmas, that was all, we get a present from her.

Brian: Lost the husband, won the lawsuit and became, sounds like, an eccentric retiree, in your opinion, and sent you weird gifts. Real quick. Do you remember what one of the gifts was?

Bill: It was an ashtray and it was a hand-blown ashtray which in a strange shape. My mother thought it was just the most bizarre thing. The [unintelligible 00:10:28] of that, this is, that I actually met Lillian Gish years later when I was on a cruise ship. I had a job in a cruise ship, and I met her.

Brian: Did you tell--

Bill: But I didn't mention this at all.

Brian: You didn't mention this at all. Bill, thank you. It was very probably self-preservationally tactful. Bill, thank you very much. Sandra in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sandra.

Sandra: Hello. This is a caution, Rudy. This is a cautionary tale. My family were sharecroppers in North Carolina and they used to give little cash they had in cars for Christmas and we used to burn the garbage out back in a barrel. One of the kids gathered all the wrapping paper and all the cards and burned them, so all the money went up in smoke. That was tough for the families in the '30s. But I'll tell you, my family really thrived. Every first cousin and every child in that family went to college. They learned how to be careful. I want to caution everybody. Take that money out before you put those cards away. [chuckles]

Brian: Right. If it's cash or gift cards [chuckles] because you've got a record if they burn. Sandra, thank you very much. Peter on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Brian. When you brought up this topic, the first thing that came to mind, as I told you, Screener is a family tale from 1935. My father was born in Germany and came here in 1922 with his family. He was about a year and a half. In '30 they were living in Greenpoint, I believe at the time, and were members of a German Lutheran church on the north side of Williamsburg, St. Matthews.

The story goes, around 1935 after my father had made his confirmation, the pastor there started to preach sermons on the theme of sing unto the Lord a new song. The thing was, though, that the new song he was espousing was Nazi, Nazism and fascism as practiced in Germany, Italy. Again, as the story goes, in disgust, my father and his parents left that congregation and joined another in Greenpoint.

Brian: The time my father, my parents changed congregations because the pastor turned into a Nazi. That's a story from the 1930s. All right, one more. Mary in Peachtree City, Georgia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian: Good.

Mary: My story is from 1939. My dad was turning 10. He grew up in Newark and he had broken his arm. I think he just fell. I don't think that story is that great. But back then, if you broke a bone, it wasn't a simple emergency room get a cast and go home. He was actually in the hospital for about a month in traction. A neighbor of his on his birthday, August 24th, 1939, got him an autographed picture of Lou Gehrig that's autographed to him that says, "To Jackie, with best wishes on your birthday. Lou Gehrig," dated his birthday August 24th, 1939. He had done his famous luckiest man in the world speech just a month earlier.

Brian: Wow.

Mary: I have that. It's on my wall in my office, and it's one of my most prized possessions.

Brian: Yes. It sounds like you won't sell it, but it may not be worth as much as Juan Soto's contract, but probably would bring a pretty penny if you ever needed the money. Mary, thank you. Thank you very much for that story. That's going to end part 1 of this 100 Years of 100 Things all-call-in special on the best family stories from the past 100 years. Here comes part 2.

Now that we've done the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, your best true family stories of the 1950s, '60s, or '70s at 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. '50s, '60s, or '70s. Now, these were consequential years in American culture. I don't have to tell you. Of course, any decades are consequential decades, I guess, but we're talking now about decades that many people listening right now have lived through. The post war years, the prime baby boom years, the civil rights and Vietnam War and counterculture years, and into the '70s. Who has a family story relating to any of these things? 212-433-9692.

Again, they can be political and big cultural trend stories, or they can just be whatever quirky and interesting and memorable family stories like we've been getting a lot of so far for the early decades. 212-433-9692. One thing I'm thinking is that a part of conservative politics today is nostalgia for 1950s lifestyles and what they consider 1950s values, however you define that. Do you have a 1950s story that you look back on sweetly or that you look back on and ask yourself, what was I thinking? Or what were my parents or grandparents thinking? A '50s story that's been handed down to you.

Or maybe you were involved in the civil rights movement then, or maybe you saw-- we just heard a baseball story, Jackie Robinson steal home for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1955 World Series, sliding under Yogi Berra's tag, Yogi with the Yankees, or whatever it was from the '50s. Or maybe you have a 1960s counterculture story. Are you a guy who argued with your parents about how long you could wear your hair?

Maybe you have a getting high on pot for the first time story. I know a guy from that generation who was a 14-year-old camper, the way he tells it, at a sleepaway camp. He tells me he got turned on by one of the counselors who was in charge of his bunk. Can you imagine that today? Even with today's legal weed laws, that counselor would be so busted for giving drugs to a minor. That story goes that lots of people at the camp knew and everyone was like la de da about it.

Or maybe you remember where you were when you watch humans walk on the moon for the first time in 1969. Of course, the '60s were heavy too, with assassinations and the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, before he was killed in '68, talked about integration being good, but they were integrating into a burning house. Any stories from the '60s, serious, funny, earth shatteringly profound or silly and light, but they're part of your family lore. '50s, '60s, or '70s. Your family stories from those decades in our 100 Years of 100 Things series, and we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your family stories that date from the 1950s, '60s or '70s. We will start with Laurie in Holmes. Is it Holmes, New York?

Laurie: It's home. Yes, it's just north of Carmel or [unintelligible 00:18:45].

Brian: Got you, Upper Westchester.

Laurie: In my family there was a story about one of my uncles who was part of the family, a mob. I said, no, this is nuts, it can't happen. But I picked up the book, Valachi Papers, and he's in it.

Brian: Huh.

Laurie: His name is. He really was part of a gang.

Brian: That's the revelation, is that my uncle was really part of a gang. Is there anything that he did that gets handed down, nefarious or otherwise?

Laurie: Well, mostly he gave my mother her wedding present. He sent her to Cuba. He spent a lot of money on my mother. That's probably where he got his money from.

Brian: Thank you very much. Evan in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Evan.

Evan: Yes, hi, Brian. Good morning. How are you?

Brian: Good. You have a '60s story, I see.

Evan: I do. I was born in 1961 in Berkeley, California, which was just kind of awakening as one of the centers of the counterculture protest environment and just was like a little wide-eyed kid in the middle of all this going on with going to music festivals at the University of California, Berkeley where my dad worked and getting my face painted by flower children, having my neighbors bring a friend of theirs into our house who was in the middle of an acid trip and remembering my parents trying to talk this guy down and pointing out the window and saying, "What does that look like across the street?" and he would say, "It's a tree." They said, "Yes, that's, that's a tree. You're doing well, Joe."

Hearing stories about my parents going to their friends and smoking pot for the first time and my dad having to carry my mom back across the backyard into our house. We had neighbors that lived around the corner that were grad students and we took the fences down between the two backyards and so the kids could all run around together. It was a pretty magical time.

Brian: Do you look back on it as magical and idyllic, or do you look back on it as, wow, growing up with hippie parents, it was kind of weird?

Evan: I think it was pretty magical. I mean, my parents were not hippies. They were about 10 years older than the grad students. They were a little removed for it, but they were around it and had friends that were in it. It really is like a rose-colored memory kind of experience for me. I kind of wish I would have been a little more present or a little older so I could have seen when Jimmy plays Berkeley 66, and go see some Grateful Dead shows in San Francisco.

Brian: Evan, thank you. Thank you.

Evan: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: The Dead legacy lives on. I don't know if you saw the Kennedy Honors show this week. One of the things that they honored or group, they were honored individuals, and they honored the Grateful Dead as a group here in 2024. Jack in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jack.

Jack: Hello. How are you? Family stories. My father was in the army in the '40s, pre-World War II, and he was in the cavalry. They trained him to be a farrier, horseshoer. During World War II, he was actually stationed in the Aleutian Islands, so there were no horses up there. Flash forward to the 1950s, he's living in Brooklyn around horseshoeing for the police department, for private stables, for the racetracks. He met my mother at the stable in Brooklyn called Ryan's in the late 1950s, and I came along.

Shortly after I was born, they picked up and moved out of the city, and they bought a bar in upstate New York. I grew up in a pub, started tending bar when I was 12, 13 years old. Flash forward many years, and I'm working on a farm, learning to work with horses, because I grew up with no horses in my life, even though that's where my parents started with. My father has long passed away. I'm talking with the farrier who came to work that day. He grew up in the town right near me and he was my age. We got to talking. We went to two different schools, because it was two different school districts.

It turned out he had apprenticed with his grandfather to learn to be a farrier himself. I asked him, by any chance, had he ever met my father, because my father was very well plugged in because of the bar, the liquor dealers association, he knew everybody. Of course, the man asked me who my father was. I came to the name. He looked at me. He went to his toolbox and pulled out a hunk metal with a handle welded on it. He said, "Your father made this," and my father had been dead for 20 years.

Brian: Wow.

Jack: It turned out when he finished his apprenticeship with his grandfather, my father gifted him all of his old tools, which had been in a giant wooden box out in our barn throughout my childhood. He handed me the tool. He said, "You take this." I was like, "No, it's something you use," because he used it every day. He went back into his collection, found something obviously hand-forged that he thinks was what they call was a bending tool because the racetracks used very lightweight horseshoes so that they could custom bend these lightweight shoes and was obviously hand-forged. 20 years after my father passed away, I got a tool that he made. It was just, it's mine. It's just boggling. I get choked up whenever I tell this story.

Brian: It's such a beautiful story, Jack. Thank you very much. Wow. Out of the blue. Let's go next to Miyoung in Summit. You're on WNYC. Hello, Miyoung.

Miyoung: Hello, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to share my story. In 1960, my mother, my brother, and I immigrated to America to join our father who had come six years prior. He had left almost immediately after I was born and we were reunited in New London, Connecticut. He was a doctor and he had to go through his medical training all over again when he arrived.

Once we were reunited and we arrived in America not really speaking the language, not knowing the culture, and there was a great deal of discrimination and bigotry when we would go out to the grocery store or to a department store that would make singsong noises and were just extremely unkind. At this point, having lived here for over 60 years and observing the progress that this country has made and specifically for Koreans, I'm awed by the acceptance and the success of the Korean culture, its food and the arts.

I just want to say that America has come a long way and I would never have imagined where it would be today. I do feel that America has grown culturally and in acceptance of other cultures and have embraced especially Korean food. I just have to say that it really has been quite an experience and to witness the progress that has occurred in this country.

Brian: K-pop is one of the most popular forms of music in the United States today.

Miyoung: Yes, and films and directors and actors. All of that I would never have imagined could have happened. To witness that, it really warms my heart to think that all those years, when we were objects of bigotry, that we are able to say today that Korean culture has been embraced in so many different ways.

Brian: Miyoung, thank you. Thank you very much. I know we could tell lots of stories of how bigotry, including anti-Asian bigotry, still exists today in this country, but Miyoung's story is Miyoung's story. Thank you very much for sharing it. One more in this set. David in Flushing, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi, Brian. Thanks. Thanks for letting me recall. It was the day after the last day of junior high school in 1969 and a weekday having taken the Regents or something, we had the day off. My friends and I were just old enough to know that we liked Jones Beach. We lived in Flushing, and we wanted to get to Jones Beach on a lovely early summer day. We went to the siblings and parents of all of us to see if somebody would give us a ride to Jones Beach and got turned down repeatedly.

The last target was my father. He was last because we deemed him least likely to say yes. He too said no. We whined, "How do you expect us to get to Jones Beach?" He said, "You know how to get to Jones Beach?" We said, "Sure." He said, "Well, the expressway, Long Island Expressway service road is right down the block. Gather your stuff and go out there and stick your thumbs out and get to Jones Beach," so that's just what we did.

Brian: Your father told you to hitchhike?

David: Yes, sir, and I'm getting to the consequences. We go out to the entrance ramp and some cars pass us by. Pretty soon, and this is as I remember it, pretty soon, lovely young lady in a convertible pulls up and says, "Where you going, boys?" We said, "Jones Beach." Her convertible top was down. It was a lovely day. She said, "Well, this is your lucky day. Get in the back." She took us straight to Jones Beach. We said, "Wow, this is great. We're at Jones Beach. I don't know, 9:00 or early, and we rode the waves, got sunburned. By noon, we were pretty much done and wanted to go home.

Go out to the parking lot and start hitchhiking, but people were still pouring in, so we went out to the road and stuck our thumb out. Some cars passed us and then a cop car pulled up and said, "Where you going, boys?" We said, "Flushing." He said, "Well, get in the back." We got in the back, didn't realize until he passed the bridge up to the Meadowbrook that he was not really taking us to Flushing and took us to the police station where he figured out we were underage so he couldn't ticket us. So, P.S., my father got to go to Jones Beach anyway to pick us up.

Brian: Oh, because he got the phone call from you or the police precinct?

David: No, the policeman. We were there for a long time. I don't know if they still have a record of it, but they typed up long, long forms, these continuous scroll forms that used to go through typewriters. He tried to commit my father to not letting us be seen again in violation of section 145 of the vehicle and traffic law. "I'll release them, these minors, to you if you promise." Skipping a long conversation, by that time, my dear dad had had enough and he said, "I'm sorry, Officer, I can't do that. Come on, boys. Let's go."

Brian: Hitchhiking in the '60s on the Long Island Expressway and the Meadowbrook. You know, even though nobody would drive you, you know you could have taken the Long Island Railroad, just change it Woodside from Flushing, and then you can go out. But that's that. Who had the money for that when you were a teenager in 1969, right?

David: I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Brian: [laughs] David, thank you very much. All right. Well, I guess this is working. You've been calling in with your family stories from the '20s, '30s and '40s, then the '50s, '60s, or '70s. Now I'll top it off with your best true family story from the 1980s to the present. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. As with the calls so far, this can be a serious family story about poverty and surviving and scraping by. It can be funny or trivial, something that lives on and is just fun to tell.

It can be something you experienced yourself, hitchhiking on the LIE, a family story that you tell your own kids. Maybe you've told it 11 times and your kids have said, "Dad, I know that story." Or maybe it can be one that's been handed down to you. Even from the '80s, or more recently, a memory you've had for yourself quietly, perhaps, that you've never spoken out loud before. Any true family stories from the '80s through today in our 100 Years of 100 Things series thing number 52, 100 Years of your true family stories. 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692.

It can be a political transformation, as we've heard some of. It can be a silly story of the time Uncle Johnny had a midlife crisis and traded in the Rambler station wagon for a motorcycle and set off to drive cross country but only got as far as Trenton before he realized he was over his head, in over his head. Or it can be super serious. Or like the previous segments, I'll say again, since the reason for the whole 100 Year series is to use WNYC centennial as a point of departure for exploring 100 years of history. Maybe you have a media story. Maybe it's a story of your first computer, your Apple IIc in 1984 or whatever it is. But it's your family story from the 1980s to the present. 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692. We'll take those stories right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. If you were listening two minutes ago, we ended our 1950s, '60s, and '70s family story segment with that guy who was hitchhiking to and from Jones Beach on the Long Island Expressway. Well, I think Diana in Manhattan has an LIE hitchhiking story from the '80s. Diana, do I have that right? Hello.

Diana: Oh, hello, Ira. This is Diana from Manhasset, New York. I grew up in a three-family house. Our tenants upstairs was Mr. Mark and his two single sons who taught us how to be Brady Mets fans. Myself and my two brothers, one is two years older than me and the other one two years younger than me, would head out to Queens Boulevard and hitchhike to Shea Stadium right from the LIE service road. I don't know how we're still alive today, but we did it. We got to Shea Stadium more than once. We're still Mets fans. Let's go Mets, and happy holidays to everyone.

Brian: Happy holidays to you, Diana. Should Juan Soto hit second or third in the lineup? Well, that's another show. Wesley in Newark, oh, has a very recent story, I think.Wesley you're on WNYC. Hello.

Wesley: Hi. Hello. My story is about my my beautiful blended family. About three years ago for my father's 75th birthday, my mother decides to have a celebration for him in Tennessee. Now, the men-- I should say the men in my family, we fall in love and get people to fall in love with us frequently, but we don't tend to stay married until we get to our third marriage.

Anyway. At this 75th birthday party, my father's second wife was there with her current husband. I've been married three times, first two to women, currently married to a man. My second wife came. My first wife wanted to come but had another obligation. My husband was there. My brother who was married at the time, his ex-wife was there, as well as his then-present wife or then-current wife was there. It was just the most amazing thing to see my-ex wife dancing with my husband, my brother's wife dancing with with his ex-wife dancing with him, my father getting along with his ex-wife. It's just, I just love my family. We always say we're the Mafia. You get in, but you never get out.

Brian: [chuckles] Well, it's such a beautiful story because so many divorces end with all that acrimony. It sounds like in one way or another, love has persisted through so many changes. Wesley, thank you for that. Who's up here? How about Helene in Brooklyn? You're on WNYC. Hi, Helene.

Helene: Hi, Brian. Long time, long time, very long time since you went on the air. My story's about my mother. In 2016, she was an immigrant from Austria in 1939 to escape Hitler at 18 years old. Lived in Brooklyn most of her life and then moved to Maryland to be close to my older brother. In 2016, she was 96, very frail but still compos mentis. The election came along and my brother took her in her wheelchair down the road to the Jewish center which was her polling place. She wanted to a vote for Hillary Clinton.

When she came in, there was a-- I think they were a radio crew who were taking a poll because there was a proposition about gay marriage, and was she willing to say how she voted when she came out. She said, of course, in her slightly still Viennese accent. She voted and came out and they asked her and she said, "Of course I voted yes. First of all, what business is it of mine who marries whom? Then if they're not married, who's going to take care of the children? Or if they get divorced, there won't be a divorce, there won't be a judge, there won't be anybody to work this out for them. That was my 96-year-old mother. Unfortunately, she died the next year, and so did my brother.

Brian: It's a great story, Helene. Yes, I guess one reason for legal gay marriage is there'll be someone, there'll be a structure for taking care of the kids after divorce. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to end appropriately, I think, with a Christmas story from the 1980s. Leanne in Glen Ridge are on WNYC. Hi, Leanne.

Leanne: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for taking my call. Yes. My dad was a stringer for UPI in the '80s. One year he worked on Christmas Eve so that he could be with us Christmas morning, but that Christmas Eve there was a giant snowstorm and all the guides who were coming in that night got delayed, so he had to stay until people arrived.

Well, of course, my sister and I woke up in the morning, saw all these beautiful presents under the tree that we weren't allowed to open because my dad wasn't there yet. We saw two gifts. There was a Hot Wheels for each of us, and then we were allowed to pick one other present. We each picked the same present, of course, and it was a little E.T. doll, so that tells you what year this was. My mom let us ride our Hot Wheels around the house, and we rode them for so many hours that morning waiting for my dad, that we actually wore a little hole in the linoleum in the kitchen. [chuckles] That's our family holiday story.

Brian: The time Dad missed Christmas for getting stuck in a snowstorm as a journalist-

Leanne: Yes.

Brian: -but we got the presents, including the E.T. thing anyway. Leanne in Glen Ridge, thanks for finishing us off and, well, this was great. Thank you all for sharing your most important, most trivial, most serious, most hilarious family stories from the last hundred years in this all-caller edition of our 100 Years of 100 Things series. We will be preempted tomorrow for a Christmas music special from 10:00 AM to noon back on Thursday. Stay tuned for all of it with Alison Stewart. Merry Christmas to all of you who will celebrate tomorrow morning. Happy Hanukkah to those of you who will celebrate tomorrow night. Happy Kwanzaa in advance of Thursday morning. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

 

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