So there's a website called StoryCorps that, as far as I know, podcasts interviews about very touching stories, such as the son of a hijacking victim meeting up with the daughter of the hijacker to share stories. Our English teacher instructed us to listen to at least two stories and describe or narrate them in our blogs as if no one had ever heard them before.
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The first story I'm going to tell you is about Andy Downs and Angelia Sheer.
They both have a very interesting backstory, since they are linked together by their fathers' actions. No, it's not because their fathers were best buddies or something like that. Quite the contrary.
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| Photo courtesy of Andy Downs. |
On October 4th, 1971, George Giffe, who was Angelia's father, hijacked a charter plane at gunpoint, while claiming to be in possession of a bomb.
This was not very normal, but if you think about it, it was—at least for Giffe. He was a 35-year-old suffering from a mental illness.
Low on fuel, Brent Downs—Andy's father—pleaded for Giffe to at least let him land somewhere nearby to refuel the plane. Downs had secretly contacted the FBI for help.
As they landed at Jacksonville, Florida, the FBI was waiting, and decided to shoot at the plane in hopes of bursting some tires or shooting the engine, with no regards to the people inside. Because of this, Giffe panicked, and killed both hostages. One of the two was Downs. After this, Giffe took his own life. While this helped shape the way the FBI handled hijackings, it heavily impacted two certain people's lives.
At StoryCorps, Andy spoke with Angelia.
Andy said, "My mother told me that Dad had gone to fly for God."
He begins to recall the story, adding that he was 18 months old. Whenever he saw an airplane in the sky, he used to point up at it and say, "There goes Daddy." He states that he remembers it very vividly.
Angelia recalls that she was thirteen and was in junior high when the hijacking happened. She remembers that her father was very delusional, and a lot of people were scared of him. She then recollected that her father had once grabbed a salesman who had walked in the door by the throat, and then threw him out of the house.
Scary, isn't it?
It took a long time for Andy to understand what happened. "This was a mentally ill man, and in his mind he was forced to do what he did." To that Angelia commented, "You have more heart for my father than I do."
Andy proceeds to ask, "What were you thinking when I first contacted you?"
Angelia responded, "In a lot of ways I had a lot of guilt, because... My bloodline destroyed your father, and... When I was 20 years old I actually sought out a trauma therapist. And I told him, I said, 'If you think I should be sterilized, I will go tomorrow, 'cause I will not pass this madness down to one other single person.' And just meeting you, it helped my heart and soul understand that there was still love and compassion in the world, even when there's so much darkness."
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The second story is about Herman Heyn, a self-proclaimed "star-hustler" in Fells Point on the Baltimore waterfront.
For decades he has set up in the same spot, inviting passersby to gaze at the stars through his telescope. He was invited by his nephew, John, for one StoryCorps session to remember how he became a "star-hustler".
John asked, "Uncle Herman, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?"
"I wanted to be a scientist," Herman replied, "but I have certain kinds of learning disabilities."
"My mother used to say, 'You can spell Andromeda but you can’t spell anything they want you to do in school.' I don’t know, some people like trees, some people like birds. For me, it was stars," he laughs.
"How long have you been doing street corner astronomy?" John interrogates.
Herman responds that he had been doing street astronomy for 27 years, and that he's been out 2,637 times. Amazing, isn't it? "It’s like being on a Broadway show that has a long run," he adds.
Before he started street astronomy, Herman used to work unsuccessfully for "the man". He states that he grew tired of it , and that on Friday night—November 13th, 1987, he saw that it was a really beautiful evening, and that the moon was up.
"I decided, 'Heck, I’m going to take my telescope on the street, and invite people to look at the moon and Jupiter.' And as I was walking out the door I said, 'I’ll take a hat with me and see what happens.' That first night I made $10. And I went back the next night and made $40, and that’s how it started.
"Back in 1997, a local writer wrote about my being a 'star hustler' on the street. One of the questions was, 'How did you get started in astronomy?' and I said, 'Miss Wicker’s class in the eighth grade.' She drew the Big Dipper on the blackboard. Said, 'Go find it.' I didn’t know if Miss Wicker was dead or alive. But she saw the article and called me up. And I was one of the eulogizers at her funeral."
John then asks him how he would like to be remembered, to which he responds that he doesn't want to be remembered. He mentions that Halley's Comet comes back in 2061, and that he wants to be around by then.
"But I could name people who have looked through my telescope and taken up astronomy themselves, bought their own telescopes. Somebody else said they’ve named a boat 'Saturn' after looking at it through my telescope. It makes me feel it’s worthwhile, what I’m doing. That I’m doing a good thing.
"And over the years, I’ve been hoping that somebody would come along and say, 'I got my Ph.D. in astronomy having first looked through your telescope'—but it hasn’t happened," Herman Laughs. "…Yet. I’m hoping it still may."
————————————————————————————————(As you can tell, I struggled commenting on the first story. I don't know why. But I have a connection with the second story, specifically the part where he states that someone named a boat "Saturn" after looking through Herman's telescope. I did something similar without realizing it. Basically, two other people and I started something silly on Twitter, and through that someone with depression got distracted enough to be able to pull himself together. I won't go in detail, though.)
(I don't excel at this stuff... I could've added some adverbs to help picture the way they looked when they said it, but as a foreigner here it's hard distinguishing voices.)
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