The Apple Seed

An episode celebrating immigrant stories and the diversity that has always made America great, featuring stories from professionals and everyday people. Many of our stories are from the StoryCorps project, check out their website: storycorps.org.

Levi Del Rio's Immigration Story (1:28)

Levi comes to the U.S. for high school without knowing any English. He adapts to the culture, goes to college and finds a wife, our audio engineer Maren Del Rio, in America.

It's America! by Corinne Stavish (8:40)

Ethel and her family visit America from Galicia and Ethel stays, against her father’s wishes. She meets a boy in English class and they fall in love and get married. Learn more about Corinne Stavish by visiting: www.stavishstorytelling.com

Storycorps: Slava and Leon Leykin (22:11)

Ukrainian immigrants Slava and Leon Leykin talk about Leon’s hot dog business that he created in America.

Storycorps: Tariq Sheikh and Tabinda Sheikh (24:15)

Tabinda immigrated from the Dominican Republic and Tariq immigrated from Pakistan. They met working in a Manhattan hotel, and despite the fact that both of them didn’t speak English well, they fell in love.

Storycorps: Blanca Alvarez and Connie Alvarez (26:46)

Blanca tells her story of crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. She tells her daughter, Connie how hard she and her husband had to work to support their family.

Storycorps: Mohammad Ashraf Faridi and Muhammad Faridi (29:55)

Muhammad Faridi talks about growing up with a dad whose a taxi driver. His father, also named Mohammad, immigrated from Pakistan to the U.S. in the 1980s.

Storycorps: Francisco Ortega and Kaya Ortega (33:08)

Francisco’s parents immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. when he was a little boy, just so they could get jobs and send money to their kids. Later, Francisco goes to the U.S. and when he’s in college he is an English tutor for his peers.

One More Day by John McCutcheon (37:38)

Song about immigrants working hard each day to put food on the table. Learn more about John McCutcheon by visiting: www.folkmusic.com

Travellin’ Con by Yvonne Healy (41:42)

Yvonne’s grandfather, Con, sailed to America from Ireland, and then, not wanting to be interrupted mid-story, stays on the boat and goes straight back where he came from. Learn more about Yvonne Healy by visiting: www.yhealy.com

Grandma’s Lullaby by Dan Keding (52:50)

Song about all the different lullabies sung by grandmas who are from all over the world. Learn more about Dan Keding by visiting: www.dankeding.com

Traditional Iroquois legends.

How the Birds Got Their Feathers by Joseph Bruchac (2:07)

Buzzard flies to the Creator to get clothes for all of the birds. He gets the first choice of feathers and ends up with the ugliest ones. Learn more about Joseph by visiting: josephbruchac.com

Raccoon and the Crayfish by Joseph Bruchac (9:37)

Raccoon tricks a bunch of crayfish into thinking he’s dead and then he eats them.

The Wife of the Thunderer by Joseph Bruchac (15:57)

A girl is treated badly by her aunt, who tries to arrange her marriage. The girl escapes and meets the thunder gods. She marries their leader and they have a child. The girl later returns to her village to warn her people to flee from a monster that is going to attack them, but her aunt gets in her way.

Turtle Goes to War by Jim Bruchac (33:32)

Turtle goes to war with the humans, bringing with him Skunk and Rattlesnake. None of them have success, however, because the humans scare them off. Jim is Joseph Bruchac's son.

The Great Bear by Fran Yardley (45:52)

A huge bear eats all of the deer around an Iroquois village. Three warriors who have special powers go after the bear, but the bear and the warriors all turn into stars, stars that the make up the Big Dipper. Learn more about Fran Yardley by reading an interview with her here: www.adirondackexplorer.org.

Stories and snippets that we've adored from the week of June 25, 2018 to June 29, 2018.

Featuring Mark Binder's telling of The Monkey's Paw (1:12). Similar stories can be heard in the rest of the episode entitled"Be Careful What You Wish For". From the episode "Kids Write the Darndest Things" we're sharing the roundtable The Apple Seed team had where they shared material they wrote as kids. That's followed by two stories from the "Silver Linings" episode including "The Monkey & The Donkey" (34:02) by Dianne Ferlatte and "Wave" (48:02) by Anne Shimojima.

Sam's Dad, Marvin Payne, came into the studio to say hello. He’s had a long-time love affair with folk music and folk instruments, and a lot of people have heard his music, which he peddled from door to door when Sam was a kid. He came by to talk about a bluegrass and folk festival he’s involved in: It’s called Bluegrass Roots; the first annual Timpanogos Folk Festival (visit bluegrassroots.net to find out more). We chatted with him about the festival, talked about folk music, and even had him read a piece called "My Life According to the Acquisition and Disposition of Various Fretted Instruments." The episode also includes the story of Stephen Collins Foster, America's first hit songwriter.

Winston Churchill once said, “For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” It doesn’t do much good to seek out the negative in a situation, which is why this episode is all about looking at the bright side of life and hopefully remind you to look for a silver lining.

Drinkin' From My Saucer by Joe Herrington (1:07)

A poem underscored with music about being grateful for what you have. Learn more about Joe Herrington by visiting: joeherrington.com

High School Musical by Slash Coleman (3:19)

A guy couldn’t play football because his parents wouldn’t let him, so he decided to paint pictures of football players he liked and play in marching band so he could be close to the field/players. Learn more about Slash Coleman by visiting: www.slashcoleman.com

Keep on the Sunny Side by David Holt (17:04)

An upbeat song reminding us to always look for the positive side of things. Learn more about David Holt by visiting: www.davidholt.com

The Runaway Horse by Odds Bodkin (20:28)

Blessings turn out to be curses and vice versa. Learn more about Odds Bodkin by visiting: www.oddsbodkin.net

Mr. Peckinpaw by Rivka Willick (28:38)

A young girl meets someone who is missing a finger, but the person is very grateful that all they lost in the accident that caused it was a finger. Learn more about Rivka Willick by visiting: www.simplyextraordinarytales.com

Wave by Anne Shimojima (35:47)

A man sacrifices his rice fields by lighting them on fire to quickly warn his village on an impending tsunami. On the bright side, he saved 400 lives. Learn more about Anne Shimojima by visiting: www.anneshimojima.com

The Monkey & The Donkey by Dianne Ferlatte (43:46)

A story about a man who is grateful for the little things he has and feels rich because he has food to eat, a place to sleep, shoes to wear, and hope. Learn more about Dianne Ferlatte by visiting: www.dianeferlatte.com

An episode inspired by the crazy and wonderful things kids say and write.

Secret Fighter: Kid Songwriters and Their Grownups by Sam Payne (1:37)

Sam's story about writing as a kid that causes other kids to share what they write too. Find more of Sam's work at: www.sampayne.com

Stories We Wrote Roundtable (14:14)

The Apple Seed Team shares and discusses some of the literary masterpieces they produced as children.

3rd Graders, Paranoia, and the Life We All Should Lead by Kylie Turley (44:21)

Kylie Turley, an English professor at Brigham Young University, shares a personal story about her experiences as a writing tutor for her daughter's third grade class.

...it might just come true.

The Monkey's Paw by Mark Binder (1:08)

A traveler brings home an ancient relic that promises it’s possessor three wishes, a man has a debt to pay, and a mother and father lose their only son. Learn more about Mark Binder by visiting: markbinder.com

Sista Sarah Mae by Lyn Ford (6:52)

A frivolous young girl longs for love, and finds herself in a predicament when she follows a strange young bachelor into the forest. Learn more about Lyn Ford by visiting: www.storytellerlynford.com

Jessie by Linda Goodman (20:12)

Set in the Antebellum South, a young woman casts a love spell on her husband-to-be that backfires terribly. Learn more about Linda Goodman by visiting: lindagoodmanstoryteller.com

The Stonecutter by Heather Forest (43:32)

A lowly stonecutter wishes to be the most powerful being in the universe, but even when his wish comes true, he still can’t find contentment. Learn more about Heather Forest by visiting: www.heatherforest.com

The Time Jack Lost His Wishes by Donald Davis (48:06)

Jack blindly wishes for things he doesn’t need, chaos in the universe ensues. Learn more about Donald Davis by visiting: www.ddavisstoryteller.com

Stories and snippets that we've adored from the week of June 18, 2018 to June 22, 2018.

From our "Lost In Translation" episode we thoroughly enjoyed Bil Lepp's story "Fortune Cookie" about the first Chinese restaurant in the town of Halfdollar, West Virginia. After that we have a small segment of a larger conversation we had with Liz Breslin at the famous storytelling pub The Celtic Knot in Evanston, Illinois. We finish the round up with highlights from our "Guatemala" episode with a story from Allen Christenson and a discussion featuring Assistant Producer, Kassie Schreiber, and her cousins Josie and Carmen Juárez.

An episode produced by Kassie Schreiber, who is half German and half Guatemalan, about discovering the joy in the less explored part of her heritage. It features a story by Dr. Allen Christenson, a Maya iconographer and linguist, about one of his experiences in Guatemala while translating the Popul Vuh. The rest of the episode is a conversation between Sam, Kassie, and her cousins Carmen and Josie Juárez who study linguistics and have an affinity for Guatemalan languages, particularly K'iche'.

In this episode, we visit Evanston, Illinois, and one of the most beloved and long-lived storytelling venues in the area: the Celtic Knot Pub. At the back of the pub, there's a little room that storytellers from all over the world know simply as “The Snug.” Not many professional storytellers come through Chicago without setting up a gig here. We visit the Snug, and enjoy a conversation with Liz Bartlow Breslin. Together with her husband, she owns and operates the Celtic Knot, and you can also see her on stage at festivals (like the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenessee) as an ASL interpreter for some of the greatest storytellers in the world.