June 16, 2026 • 11 mins
Sometimes it's the little things like a lone individual or a tiny county that find a way to stand tall amidst the pages of history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone in Hanoi's neighborhood had a secret in their garage.
Each family worked under cover of night, bringing strange materials
from their workplaces. Boil drums, styrofoam, old car engines. They
used whatever they could find. It was August of nineteen
ninety four in Havana, Cuba. Food and other resources were scarce.
(00:57):
The people longed for a better life, and it was
only one hundred miles to Florida, one hundred miles of choppy,
shark infested water, but they were willing to take the chance.
Many garages how secret bus us makeshift rafts that families
could use to send loved ones to America. The name
is derived from the cheap, flimsy balsa wood some Cubans
(01:18):
used to construct their rafts. The government didn't approve of
its citizens leaving the country, though so they kept tight
control over materials such as plywood and inner tubes, and
so the people used what they had. The rafts were
as numerous as they were strange. Some were barely better
than a cork bobbing in an ocean, truly just a
square of foam and aluminum, but some were more elaborate too.
(01:41):
Entire cars were hollowed out and then placed between two
rows of floating oil drums. Hanoi and his family members
worked on their raft in secret. They used tar as
an adhesive to attach blocks of styrofoam to a wooden frame.
An old shower curtain was used to line the interior.
Hanoi would try alone in the small compartment. The thought
(02:03):
filled him with anxiety and despair. He might drown or
die of thirst, or be eaten by sharks. Even if
he was successful, he might never see his family again.
But they wanted this for him. They wanted him to
have a future, and as it turns out, they didn't
have to bring the raft to the ocean. Under the
cover of night. On August eighth of nineteen ninety four,
(02:25):
the country's leader, Fidel Castro, lifted the emigration ban, allowing
Cuba citizens to flee on their rafts without fear of capture.
People like Hanoi and his family lined up along the
country's beautiful beaches, preparing to say goodbye. The sunrises in
Cuba are magnificent and the ocean is bright blue. But
of course you can't eat the view, and so Hanoi's
(02:47):
family fed him a simple meal of rice and beans,
and then helped him into the raft. They pushed him
off and into the ocean. He waved and waved, not
stopping until Cuba and his family were a dot on
the and then he got to rowing. The trip could
be completed in about a day and a half. The
shorter the better. Of course, the rice and beans were
(03:09):
all the food his family had. It would be his
last meal unless he could reach America. Similarly, he didn't
have any drinking water, and unfortunately, the choppy waves meant
that not even the rice and beans would stay in him.
He soon got sick and threw up over the side
of the raft, and as he traveled he could see
other rafts dotting the ocean. He and the other sailors
(03:31):
encouraged one another, but as night fell and darkness surrounded him,
he could no longer see them. However, he could hear screams.
All of these balsaros, the Spanish name for rafters, soon
found that some of the rafts were better designed than others.
Some were little more than a frame, and the blsaro's
feet dangled into the water, and at nighttime, hungry sharks
(03:52):
took advantage of this. More than one Balsaros lost a
limb or their life. When morning came, Hanoil was alone.
He continued rowing, pushing himself in the heat. His mouth
was dry and his hands were blistered, but he kept
on rowing. Finally, mercifully, land appeared on the horizon. It
(04:13):
was Florida. He was nearly there, but now he was
sharing the water with a very different type of sailor.
The United States Coastguard descended on Hanoi and his fellow bolsaro's.
President Clinton had ordered that they be rounded up and
taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They would not be
allowed into the United States as their predecessors had in
(04:33):
the sixties, seventies, and eighties, The country, they seemed to say,
no longer had room for them. There were thirty thousand
detainees in total. The thought of returning to Cuba was
heart wrenching, but being kept at Guantanamo actually had its upsides.
The soldiers there provided the Cuban refugees with tents, food,
and water, but it was excruciatingly boring to wait in
(04:54):
the hot, dry, dusty camp while the world powers argued
what to do with Hanoi and his countrymen. All he
could do was hope, and ultimately that was enough. After
nearly a year, the Clinton administration relented and allowed the
Cuban refugees into the United States. Hanoi's long ordeal was over.
(05:15):
Now he could begin the equally hard work of building
a new life for himself. But that was what he
had always wanted. The ingenuity of his family and his
curiosity in facing the unknown finally delivered him to America.
(05:42):
On December twentieth of eighteen sixty, South Carolina seceded from
the United States. They was the first of eleven states
to secede, which would form the Confederate States of America
and kick off the American Civil War. Their secession, by
the way, was all because they wanted to keep owning
and enslaving other human beans, beans, refusing them rights and
dignity and freedom. You'll often hear it said that the
(06:04):
Civil War was about states' rights, but folks who say
that rarely elaborate. The state right that South Carolina and
all the others wanted to protect was their right to buy, sell,
and use other human beings. South Carolina said so right
in their declaration of secession. The fourth state to secede
was Alabama on January eleventh of eighteen sixty one. The
(06:27):
vote in Alabama was sixty one to thirty nine in
favor of secession. However, when the vote was secured and
the state officially decided to leave the Union, there was
one holdout in the Alabama House of Representatives. Christopher Sheetz,
a school teacher in his early twenties, refused to sign
the ordinance. He was the sole representative of Winston County
(06:48):
and his county did not want to secede. The push
towards secession was driven by slaveholding plantation owners, and Winston
County was not a large participant in that system. A
county of less four thousand people, it only had fourteen
slaveholders in around one hundred and twenty enslave people within
their county lines, a vanishingly tiny portion of their already
(07:10):
small population. Christopher Sheets was ultimately imprisoned for treason against
the Confederacy for this, but spent the entire war awaiting trial. Meanwhile,
his home county became an ideological battleground in the middle
of a civil war. Not long after Alabama's secession, Winston
County residents loyal to the Union gathered in Looney's tavern,
(07:30):
where they declared it the Free State of Winston. The gathering,
while informal, declared Sheets a hero for opposing secession, and
said that if Alabama could secede from the United States, well,
then Winston County could secede from Alabama. That same year,
an opposing gathering of Confederate sympathizers occurred, where they wrote
a petition to the governor asking for his support to
(07:52):
quell the growing Union sentiment in their county. They said
that citizens needed to be forced to swear a loyalty
oath to the Confederacy. Starting in eighteen sixty two, the
Confederate government attempted to force Winston County residents, even those
who supported neither the Union nor the Confederate sides, to enlist.
Many wound up fleeing north, joining the first Alabama cavalry
(08:15):
with the Union Army. Enough farmers fled conscription that Winston
County farms struggled to grow enough food for their remaining residents,
a problem that worsened when Confederate soldiers confiscated food for
their own use as they passed on through. For the
next several years, conflicts broke out across the county. It
was the target of several raids from both Union and
(08:35):
Confederate units. Neighbors turned against neighbors. There was little strategic
value to this northern Alabama county, nor were there any
huge political values to its capture. All the same, the
county became a microcosm for the war itself. Families found
themselves split down the middle, and even after the end
of the war in eighteen sixty five, when the South lost,
(08:57):
tensions remained between neighbors who had served on opposite sides
during the conflict. Christopher Sheetz was let out of prison
and attempted a rocky return to politics that concluded with
him serving in the House of Representatives in the eighteen
seventies and briefly served as the US ambassador to Denmark.
Like the rest of the country, Winston County did its
(09:18):
best to move on from the turmoil of Civil War,
but the reminders of its particular role in the conflict
remained to this present day, most prominently in a memorial
statue in front of their courthouse. The statue depicts a
Civil War era soldier whose uniform is split down the middle,
half Union, half Confederate. The statue bears the title Dual Destiny.
(09:38):
There's a lot to say about the Free State of
Winston and its unique history. If the rallying cry of
the South in the Civil War was states' rights, it
should be abundantly ironic that they tried so hard to
suppress a county that asserted its own independence in the
face of a state in active rebellion. The county never
actually seceded from the Confederacy. It remained officially Confederate territory
(10:00):
until the end of the war, but not by signing
a single piece of paper. Sheets determined that his county
would retain its integrity after the war. In the long
arc of history, a rebellion, even a symbolic one, can
carry real weight. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour
(10:22):
through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by
me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts researched and
written by the Grim and Mild team and produced by
Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people
who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities.
You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
(10:46):
as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the
same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee.
Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com
slash Grimanda and until next time, stay curious. Mm hmm.
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone in Hanoi's neighborhood had a secret in their garage.
Each family worked under cover of night, bringing strange materials
from their workplaces. Boil drums, styrofoam, old car engines. They
used whatever they could find. It was August of nineteen
ninety four in Havana, Cuba. Food and other resources were scarce.
(00:57):
The people longed for a better life, and it was
only one hundred miles to Florida, one hundred miles of choppy,
shark infested water, but they were willing to take the chance.
Many garages how secret bus us makeshift rafts that families
could use to send loved ones to America. The name
is derived from the cheap, flimsy balsa wood some Cubans
(01:18):
used to construct their rafts. The government didn't approve of
its citizens leaving the country, though so they kept tight
control over materials such as plywood and inner tubes, and
so the people used what they had. The rafts were
as numerous as they were strange. Some were barely better
than a cork bobbing in an ocean, truly just a
square of foam and aluminum, but some were more elaborate too.
(01:41):
Entire cars were hollowed out and then placed between two
rows of floating oil drums. Hanoi and his family members
worked on their raft in secret. They used tar as
an adhesive to attach blocks of styrofoam to a wooden frame.
An old shower curtain was used to line the interior.
Hanoi would try alone in the small compartment. The thought
(02:03):
filled him with anxiety and despair. He might drown or
die of thirst, or be eaten by sharks. Even if
he was successful, he might never see his family again.
But they wanted this for him. They wanted him to
have a future, and as it turns out, they didn't
have to bring the raft to the ocean. Under the
cover of night. On August eighth of nineteen ninety four,
(02:25):
the country's leader, Fidel Castro, lifted the emigration ban, allowing
Cuba citizens to flee on their rafts without fear of capture.
People like Hanoi and his family lined up along the
country's beautiful beaches, preparing to say goodbye. The sunrises in
Cuba are magnificent and the ocean is bright blue. But
of course you can't eat the view, and so Hanoi's
(02:47):
family fed him a simple meal of rice and beans,
and then helped him into the raft. They pushed him
off and into the ocean. He waved and waved, not
stopping until Cuba and his family were a dot on
the and then he got to rowing. The trip could
be completed in about a day and a half. The
shorter the better. Of course, the rice and beans were
(03:09):
all the food his family had. It would be his
last meal unless he could reach America. Similarly, he didn't
have any drinking water, and unfortunately, the choppy waves meant
that not even the rice and beans would stay in him.
He soon got sick and threw up over the side
of the raft, and as he traveled he could see
other rafts dotting the ocean. He and the other sailors
(03:31):
encouraged one another, but as night fell and darkness surrounded him,
he could no longer see them. However, he could hear screams.
All of these balsaros, the Spanish name for rafters, soon
found that some of the rafts were better designed than others.
Some were little more than a frame, and the blsaro's
feet dangled into the water, and at nighttime, hungry sharks
(03:52):
took advantage of this. More than one Balsaros lost a
limb or their life. When morning came, Hanoil was alone.
He continued rowing, pushing himself in the heat. His mouth
was dry and his hands were blistered, but he kept
on rowing. Finally, mercifully, land appeared on the horizon. It
(04:13):
was Florida. He was nearly there, but now he was
sharing the water with a very different type of sailor.
The United States Coastguard descended on Hanoi and his fellow bolsaro's.
President Clinton had ordered that they be rounded up and
taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They would not be
allowed into the United States as their predecessors had in
(04:33):
the sixties, seventies, and eighties, The country, they seemed to say,
no longer had room for them. There were thirty thousand
detainees in total. The thought of returning to Cuba was
heart wrenching, but being kept at Guantanamo actually had its upsides.
The soldiers there provided the Cuban refugees with tents, food,
and water, but it was excruciatingly boring to wait in
(04:54):
the hot, dry, dusty camp while the world powers argued
what to do with Hanoi and his countrymen. All he
could do was hope, and ultimately that was enough. After
nearly a year, the Clinton administration relented and allowed the
Cuban refugees into the United States. Hanoi's long ordeal was over.
(05:15):
Now he could begin the equally hard work of building
a new life for himself. But that was what he
had always wanted. The ingenuity of his family and his
curiosity in facing the unknown finally delivered him to America.
(05:42):
On December twentieth of eighteen sixty, South Carolina seceded from
the United States. They was the first of eleven states
to secede, which would form the Confederate States of America
and kick off the American Civil War. Their secession, by
the way, was all because they wanted to keep owning
and enslaving other human beans, beans, refusing them rights and
dignity and freedom. You'll often hear it said that the
(06:04):
Civil War was about states' rights, but folks who say
that rarely elaborate. The state right that South Carolina and
all the others wanted to protect was their right to buy, sell,
and use other human beings. South Carolina said so right
in their declaration of secession. The fourth state to secede
was Alabama on January eleventh of eighteen sixty one. The
(06:27):
vote in Alabama was sixty one to thirty nine in
favor of secession. However, when the vote was secured and
the state officially decided to leave the Union, there was
one holdout in the Alabama House of Representatives. Christopher Sheetz,
a school teacher in his early twenties, refused to sign
the ordinance. He was the sole representative of Winston County
(06:48):
and his county did not want to secede. The push
towards secession was driven by slaveholding plantation owners, and Winston
County was not a large participant in that system. A
county of less four thousand people, it only had fourteen
slaveholders in around one hundred and twenty enslave people within
their county lines, a vanishingly tiny portion of their already
(07:10):
small population. Christopher Sheets was ultimately imprisoned for treason against
the Confederacy for this, but spent the entire war awaiting trial. Meanwhile,
his home county became an ideological battleground in the middle
of a civil war. Not long after Alabama's secession, Winston
County residents loyal to the Union gathered in Looney's tavern,
(07:30):
where they declared it the Free State of Winston. The gathering,
while informal, declared Sheets a hero for opposing secession, and
said that if Alabama could secede from the United States, well,
then Winston County could secede from Alabama. That same year,
an opposing gathering of Confederate sympathizers occurred, where they wrote
a petition to the governor asking for his support to
(07:52):
quell the growing Union sentiment in their county. They said
that citizens needed to be forced to swear a loyalty
oath to the Confederacy. Starting in eighteen sixty two, the
Confederate government attempted to force Winston County residents, even those
who supported neither the Union nor the Confederate sides, to enlist.
Many wound up fleeing north, joining the first Alabama cavalry
(08:15):
with the Union Army. Enough farmers fled conscription that Winston
County farms struggled to grow enough food for their remaining residents,
a problem that worsened when Confederate soldiers confiscated food for
their own use as they passed on through. For the
next several years, conflicts broke out across the county. It
was the target of several raids from both Union and
(08:35):
Confederate units. Neighbors turned against neighbors. There was little strategic
value to this northern Alabama county, nor were there any
huge political values to its capture. All the same, the
county became a microcosm for the war itself. Families found
themselves split down the middle, and even after the end
of the war in eighteen sixty five, when the South lost,
(08:57):
tensions remained between neighbors who had served on opposite sides
during the conflict. Christopher Sheetz was let out of prison
and attempted a rocky return to politics that concluded with
him serving in the House of Representatives in the eighteen
seventies and briefly served as the US ambassador to Denmark.
Like the rest of the country, Winston County did its
(09:18):
best to move on from the turmoil of Civil War,
but the reminders of its particular role in the conflict
remained to this present day, most prominently in a memorial
statue in front of their courthouse. The statue depicts a
Civil War era soldier whose uniform is split down the middle,
half Union, half Confederate. The statue bears the title Dual Destiny.
(09:38):
There's a lot to say about the Free State of
Winston and its unique history. If the rallying cry of
the South in the Civil War was states' rights, it
should be abundantly ironic that they tried so hard to
suppress a county that asserted its own independence in the
face of a state in active rebellion. The county never
actually seceded from the Confederacy. It remained officially Confederate territory
(10:00):
until the end of the war, but not by signing
a single piece of paper. Sheets determined that his county
would retain its integrity after the war. In the long
arc of history, a rebellion, even a symbolic one, can
carry real weight. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour
(10:22):
through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by
me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts researched and
written by the Grim and Mild team and produced by
Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people
who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities.
You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
(10:46):
as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the
same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee.
Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com
slash Grimanda and until next time, stay curious. Mm hmm.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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