Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi everyone, this is Dawn Klem and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
When I was growing up in the late 60s, early 70s, my mom was a stay at home mom until I was went to the fourth grade and then she started working at the hospital.
But those early years, she was pretty involved with me and my brother. And one of my most favorite things that she did is in the afternoon she would sit us down with her and she would read to us. I think more often to me than my brother. A lot of times my brother would just go and lay down and take a nap. But I always required a story before I was going to take my nap. I remember she had bought those Collier encyclopedias and it came with a set of 12 children's encyclopedias. And one of the books was actually children's literature.
So we would always get that book out and then she would pick out a story or a poem or something that she thought would be of good benefit for me.
One of the favorite stories that she read to me of all time, and I can still see her reading it to me, was the fairy tale the Princess and the Pea. I was completely fascinated by that story.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: I don't know if any of you.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Know the story, but basically the premise was the prince was looking for for a princess to marry, and he had found a woman who was not living in royalty. She came from a different background, and so they felt the maidens who were going to be getting her dressed up felt like they needed to qualify whether or not the woman really was a princess and from royalty.
So they came up with this plan that they were going to put a pea under her mattress.
If she woke up in the morning and had no complaints and said she slept great, they would know she was a phony.
But if she woke up in the morning and had had a fitful night's sleep, then they would know that she really was who she said she was.
So the kicker to the story is that they piled 12 mattresses, one on top of each other to look like a really fluffy bed for this princess to sleep. Sleep in. But underneath the 12th mattress, on the very bottom, they put a hard pea. So a pea that had not been cooked yet. It was hard, like a little stone piece of gravel.
And that's how they were going to find out. And I remember my mom reading me the story and I'm like, how could you possibly feel a little pee under 12 mattresses, Mom?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: We had a whole discussion about it. She kept saying to me things like.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: You have to wait for the End of the story. You just have to wait for the end of the story.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: I can still hear her talking to me like that. Patience has never been one of my strong points.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: So, anyhow, we get to the end of the story, and of course, as all of you know, she didn't say anything right away about her sleep. But later on. And so they were thinking, yes, she really is a phony. She's a phony. But later on she said, oh, I had such a fitful night's sleep last night. I just didn't sleep well at all. I felt like there was something in my bed. And then they knew that she was really a princess.
So flash forward that stuck in my head, that story. I just thought it was fascinating how you could determine whether or not someone was a princess.
Now I'm starting to watch tv, and one of my favorite shows that came on is Family Affair, and it's the story of an uncle who adopts his two nieces and nephew to take care of after their parents, I think, had died in a car accident. I'm not. I don't remember exactly, but they were gone. Okay. And he was now going to be their caretaker.
And I remember thinking at the time, wow, this is unbelievable. Because he would say, you know, I'm just like your father. So I started thinking, yeah, my dad might not really be my dad. He could be really like an uncle to me. And I wouldn't even know because maybe my mom and dad decided they didn't want me to know.
Maybe my mom isn't really even my mom. Maybe this is just a story that they've been telling me to just help me get through life.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: And it's so ridiculous because I look just like my dad. I look like a little Italian just like my dad. So the fact that I'm making this.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Story up, I blame it on my mom, really, because she read to me.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So much, and I had a vivid imagination.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: But I decided to concoct this plan that married these two stories up. The Princess and the Pea and Family Affair, I decided that I was going to test my dad first to see if he was really my father.
So in our neighborhood, and if you've listened to my podcast before, you know that I grew up in Hillsdale in a small town, and we lived in a small neighborhood, and we had a large yard, and in the side yard, every summer, we would set up a badminton net, and all of the fathers in the neighborhood would come and play badminton. All the mothers would come, and they would sit in the lawn chairs with the little side tables and smoke cigarettes and drink iced tea. And then all of the kids would, would run around in the backyard all over our neighborhood really playing hide and go seek, kick the can or capture the flag, whatever we felt like playing that night.
They would all come right around 7:00 and they would usually stay till about 10:00 In Michigan, the summer sun is out until 9:30, 10:00 at night.
And so we could play long hours during that time. And it was great for everyone that came over. We all had a wonderful time.
So I started thinking, how can I test out and see if my dad is really my dad? I had to come up with a theory to figure this out. I kept thinking about the pea, the pea and the princess. What could I do? Like that.
So my mom always gave us a lot of fruit during the summer.
And one of the things that we loved more than anything were grapes. All the grapes had seeds in them back then.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: They were very rarely did you have seedless grapes.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Grapes.
So I decided, aha, this is a perfect thing. It's kind of like a pea, a hard pea. I'm going to start collecting the grape seeds. So I collected the grape seeds in a baggie for about a week and.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: I would hide it under my pillow at night. Those are ridiculous.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: I didn't want my mom to find out what I was doing. This was my ultimate secret and my plan, which I never shared with anyone whatsoever at all.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: It was just for me to find out.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: So by the weekend, I thought I had gathered enough seats. And on Wednesdays was usually the day that we had everybody come over. So sure enough, Wednesday was coming and my dad gave my mom the signal. Let's see if everybody wants to come over on Wednesday this week for a night, a game night and a get together. And my mom was like, okay, I'll talk to the ladies and we'll get everything confirmed.
So Wednesday night comes. In the meantime, I'm like, where am I going to put these seeds?
Then I started thinking, yeah, my dad had a favorite pair of shoes that he always wore when he was playing badminton. And they were slip on shoes. I think that's why I liked them. They remind me of the slip on kind of boat shoes, tennis shoes kind of thing back then.
And I said, that's a perfect thing. That's a perfect place for me to put these grape seeds. If he goes out and he plays badminton with everybody and he complains there's seeds in his shoes, I'm going to know he's really My father, he's my birth father. But if he doesn't say a word about it at all, then maybe he's just my adoptive father. Maybe he's not really my father at all. Maybe he just married my mom to help her raise me and my brother.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: I mean, when I say this out loud, I think what a raven lunatic I was. I'm telling you, I had a vivid imagination, obviously.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: So when nobody was looking, I snuck his shoes upstairs to my bedroom and I pulled the seeds out from underneath my pillow in the baggie.
And I thought about it, go, do I want to put them in the baggie, Leaving the baggie in the shoes. And I go, no, he'll notice the baggie right away. What's the matter with you? I'm like talking to myself, well, how am I going to get those seeds in there?
So finally I decided to put the seeds in to empty out the baggie, divvy the seeds up between both shoes, put them way down in the toe of the shoe, and then I carried the shoes downstairs with the heel up and the toe, toe pointing down so the seeds did not move.
I got him back into the place where he always kept them. And then I actually even got a flashlight out to look and see if I could see the seeds and if they were still in the toe, which, which they were, why wouldn't they be? But this is what I. I was.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Being very methodical and very practical to.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Make sure those seeds were exactly where.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: I wanted them to be.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: So this was on a Monday. My parents weren't even paying attention. They didn't pay one bit of attention that I'm running up and down the.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Stairs trying to make these seeds implanted in the tennis shoes.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Wednesday comes and I'm kind of excited about it. I'm thinking about it, you know, at school a little bit. Oh boy, my experiment's gonna happen tonight. I can't wait to figure out what really happens.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: This is gon be so exciting, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: And I get through school, I get home, everybody starts to come over about 7:00. And then I got completely entrenched with all my friends and what games we were going to play, and I was off and running. I never gave those shoes another thought. I went through all this planning and I never even thought about them again.
We played until 10 o'clock, as we usually did. One of the signals that it was time to go in is the bats would come out and they would always dive bomb at the birdies when the birdies Were up in the air.
And so my dad and his friends did not want to swat at the bats so they would know that it was time for them to quit playing and we all needed to come in.
So the bats started coming around, and all the fathers say, oh, time to quit. And the mothers started yelling for the kids to come back in because it was time for them to go home. And my mom is like, and it's time for you guys to get ready for bed.
Same routine that had been for two summers now. No change.
Very consistent.
We all came back to the house.
Everybody dispersed. My brother and I ran upstairs to get our pajamas on and to brush our teeth. And I never gave those shoes one ounce of thought.
Never, not one time. I was tired from running around, Brushed my teeth, combed my hair, got in my pajamas and into my bed. I went sound asleep out of it. In the meantime, my dad never said a word about anything at all. Never mentioned the seeds, period. Not one time.
I never thought about them again. Really. Actually, when I look back on it, we went through Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, no mention of the seeds in the shoes. On Monday, I started thinking, hey, wait a minute.
I haven't heard a word from my dad about this. I wonder what's going on here?
But it was a fleeting thought.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: I had a lot of other things going on. I'm in school, I'm busy, I got.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: A lot of friends.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: I'm bugging my brother, playing with the.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Neighbors, you know, I just didn't think about those seeds again. It's so funny how I spent so much time and effort making this whole plan. But once the plan had been completed, I never looked back.
No, not one time.
So Wednesday started to come around again, and it was raining, so they had to cancel badminton and game night that week.
That was kind of disappointing, as we love to get together in the neighborhood.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: And have a good time. But.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: But we played indoors instead. We played games indoors. And sometimes my parents would have everyone come in and they would play pinochle. So we would just transfer into the house instead of playing outside.
We made it through that night, just kept going. On the following Wednesday came. By now it's been two whole weeks.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Since I put those grape seeds in my dad's shoes.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Gets his shoes on. They go out there and they're playing badminton. You don't. I didn't hear a word. We're playing our games. Everything's great. Everybody's all set.
And all of a sudden I'm thinking to myself, hey, wait a minute.
Hey, it's been two weeks, and he never said one thing about those grape seeds. That seems so weird.
Something is clearly not right.
Maybe he really isn't my dad. I started actually thinking about it.
I played the games, I got distracted, and I played with the kids in the neighborhood. And another great night. 10 o'clock came. We're all rousted around, and we're all coming back into the house.
And everybody else is going home.
I go upstairs, I put my pajamas on, brush my teeth, comb my hair, say my prayers. And I'm thinking to myself, something isn't right. Something really is not right. But I was tired, so I fell sound asleep, went to bed, woke up the next morning getting ready to go to school.
I come down to the breakfast table. My mom has my peanut butter and jelly toast ready for me. And my dad is getting ready to leave the house. He's got his coffee in his hand, and he turns around and he looks at both me and my brother and he says, by the way, I totally forgot about this. But I thought about it this morning when I walked by my shoes in the hallway.
I know that one of you put grape seeds in my shoes. And when I get home from work tonight, we're gonna talk about it because I'd like to know what the heck was going on there.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: I started smiling. I got the biggest smile on my face. So they knew right away it was me.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: And my dad goes, was it you? And I said, yes, it was. He says, don Linne. I said it was dad. And I have a good explanation. And when you come home tonight, we'll.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Talk all about it. And he says, okay. And he leaves and goes to work. My whole day was met at that.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Moment because my dad had basically just.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Said he was my dad. The grape seeds had confirmed with his acknowledgment that he was actually my dad. And I had a great day at school that day, let me tell you.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: So we're all at dinner that night, and my dad says, I haven't forgotten.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: About the grape seeds, young lady.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: I went out to play badminton and my shoes were so uncomfortable, I could.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Not figure out what the heck was going on.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: And I lifted that shoe up, and to my amazement, when I turned it over, out poured a ton.
Out poured several grape seeds.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: He says.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: And I said, yeah, that's right, dad. And now I know. He says, now you know what? I know that you're really my dad.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: He says, what in the world are you talking about?
So I launched into my whole explanation about the Princess and the Pea.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: And how the pea was the way they found out that she was really there.
A princess. She really was a princess. And I told them about family affair and how the uncle had been taking care of the children. And I just wanted to confirm that you were really my dad and not a stranger or another kind of relative that had come to help mom out.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: To take care of us. My dad is like, where in the world do you come up with these stories? Your imagination is just unbelievable.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: And I just looked at my mom, I said, well, mom read to me for a lot. A lot.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: The whole time before I got into school. Dad, my mom read to us. And so I have a vivid imagination and that's how I put things together. But I'm really glad to know that you're my dad. And with that, I walked over and I gave him a big hug and a kiss. And my dad was like, how could I even be mad knowing why you put the grape seeds in my shoes?
[00:21:47] Speaker A: And that, my friends, was the end.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Of that chapter in my life because I had confirmed that my father was actually my father in my own mind and in my own way.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: I hope you enjoyed the story today.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: It kind of tells you that I am crazy. Now you know why I'm doing a podcast, right? I have a lot to say and a lot of things to talk about, and adoption is not one of them. Although I did end up adopting my daughter. So kind of a full, full circle story there, right?
[00:22:34] Speaker A: I appreciate you listening, though.
And we're still working on our website. I think we're going to be done. We have a final meeting next week. So when you click on milkman.com, the web page is going to look completely different now, and I think you're going to like it.
Much easier way to access me if you want to email me or you want to send me a story or you want to see my biography or you want to hear a biography about someone who I'm going to be interviewing. So there's going to be a lot of good things on that page and I'm looking forward to finally getting that updated.
So stay tuned for more with that.
Also, don't forget, I am selling my canvas bags with the button closure and a hard bottom and they're selling for $10. So if you're interested in purchasing one, that would be great and I would really appreciate it. I'd love to have your business.
If you have a story you want to share, please don't hesitate to give me a call or you can email me at Dawn D A w.nilkman11word.com Leave me your name and phone number and I will definitely get back with you and we can talk about the story you want to share. Whether you want to share the story yourself or if you want me to tell the story for you. Either way is fine with me. I have a recorder now that I put on my phone so I can actually do a recording over the phone. You don't necessarily have to be here in person until the next time.
