November 26, 2024 • 24 mins
This week Will and Mango celebrate their own wonderful grandmas by paying tribute to a whole world of awesome grandmothers. From a cuddly graffiti gang in Europe, to a group of grandmas who advanced our understanding of marine science, to a few celebrities who never would have gotten where they were if it weren't for their Mamaws, here's to all the grandmothers and grandmother-figures we're so lucky to have in our lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that? Will? So?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I was thinking about.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Carol Burnett the other day, and actually, you know, I
think about her often. I admitted before the episode. She
was one of my first crushes, which might come as
a surprise to many, but she was just so fun
and we used to love watching her show, The Carol
Burnette Show in the evenings. But anyway, one of the
things I was thinking about recently was how she used
to tug her ear to say hi to her grandmother
(00:35):
on air.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Now, actually, did you watch the Carol Burnette Show?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, it's it's actually one of my earliest memories of TV,
like watching that and also the Muppet Show because my
parents loved both of those. Also, have you watched Palmroll?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I have not yet.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No, it is so fun. It's like soaphi it but
she's in a coma and somehow she's still funny. Like
she's funny even when she's in a co like do
these minor little actions and stuff, she can still get
a laugh.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's he is the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But I was thinking about this whole ear tugging story,
and I decided to look into it a little bit more.
And apparently the first time she was on TV in
New York, her grandmother says to her, why don't you
just turn to the camera and say hello to me
when you're on TV? And Carol's response was, of course,
I had to explain to her that we're not allowed
to just say hi, nanny on television, And so they
(01:23):
came up with this secret signal that's now famous where
she would pull her ear lobe, and according to Carol Burnett,
it meant HI, I'm fine, your check is on the way.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
That's ridiculous. I think I've heard they were close because
Burnette was raised by her grandma.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Right, that's exactly right, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And part of the story that I thought was really
funny is that this writer from Life magazine actually measured
her ear lobe and found that she'd stretched it from
pulling it so much over the years, and that her
ear lobe was noticeably longer because of all the time
she turned to the camera and let her grandma know
that she was thinking about her.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I mean, that is both really sweet and I feel
like it's real love, like giving up your symmetrical face
for your grandma.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's a real, real sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
But you know, in the interview, Carol Burnett did want
to clarify that she only pulled her ear when she
was on TV.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
She didn't go around pulling her ear just for the
heck of it.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But with Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner, we thought
it might be the perfect time.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
To do a little tribute episode.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
To Grandma's So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:43):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Hot Ticket
and sitting there behind the big booth glass wearing a
vintage Charlotte Hornets Larry Johnson basketball jersey.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Probably a lot of our younger listeners are saying, who
the heck is Larry Johnson? Amazing basketball player. This is
a real deep cut here, Dylan.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I love it when he goes for the deep cuts,
making a throwback joke to those Grandmama commercials.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, he's nodding his head back there and just.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Smiling once again. That is our good friend and producer,
Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You know, I watched this interview with Larry Johnson where
he was talking about why he signed with Converse and
did those Grandmama commercials, and he said it was a
total bait and switch. Like he was fresh out of college,
he was the number one NBA draft pick, and Converse
was like, we've got the perfect ad for you. It's
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson wearing surgeons gear and they've
(03:38):
created this perfect basketball player, right, and they're just deciding
what to name him, and Larry Bird's like, let's call
him Larry, and Magic is like, let's call him Johnson.
And they're fighting like Larry Johnson, Larry Johnson, and as
they're arguing, he just kind of rises up like Frankenston's monster, right.
And so of course Larry Johnson is young, he's all in.
He's so sold by this idea. Also had a million
(04:00):
dollars to give him, so he was happy to take
that and he went off and bought his mom a
house with the money, okay, and then Converce called him
up and was like, Magic and Larry don't want to
do the commercial, so we've got another idea.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You're gonna be a grandma.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I feel like a grandma, and you're gonna dominate the
basketball court. And he was like, man, I wish I
hadn't fought that house. Yeah, but I barely. You ended
up having a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I mean, it was it was a pretty great series there.
But Mengo, you're already getting a soft track. We are
doing a show that is a tribute to our grandma's.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And I know you knew my mamma and.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Really loved her, and she loved you, and I think
later in her life she actually thought you were one
of her grandkids. And I remember meeting your grandma in
college when she'd come to visit from India, and you know,
it was just always the sweetest visits to see how
much she meant to you, and it was it was
just a lot of fun that.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
She actually came to college.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I remember knocking your dorm room one time and she
was actually just lying there on the bed like she
was one of our friends.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
It was she was small, she was lying on it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But I wasn't going to.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Say that, but actually I think she was there one
time with one of your aunts and they were both
lying there as far as that's you know, these tiny women.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But it was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
But anyway, I know, this holiday season We're both missing
our grandmothers a lot, and I thought it might be
nice to do a nine things in honor of them.
So this one is for Nadine and Soushila.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Mm hmm. That's so wonderful. So I'm going to start
with a story about a group of grandmas in Zimbabwe.
And this story actually begins with a young psychiatrist. His
name is Dixon Chibanda. So Zimbabwe apparently has been dealing
with an incredible shortage of mental health professionals over the
past few decades. And the story comes from the Boston
Globe and they say that Chibanda was actually only one
(05:44):
of fifteen psychiatrists in the country of sixteen million people.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Isn't that stunning?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
But this starts with a really sad story. So Chibanda
had a patient who was unable to visit him because
she couldn't afford the fifteen dollars bus fare to travel
this insanely long distance to see and she ends up
taking her own life, and Chibanda is just devastated by this.
He's like, we need to be giving people more care,
making the access easier. So he starts exploring all these
(06:10):
different ways to recruit and train more mental health practitioners.
But it is just really, really difficult. There are a
lot of hurdles to jump to make it happen. And
what he realizes is that there's actually already this incredible
core of whys and empathetic caregivers who have a lot
of life experience and a lot of time on their hens.
And so of course we're talking about grandmothers here. So
(06:33):
he pilots this program with fourteen grandmothers in her are
and he gives them the tools to better listen, right.
He helps them make people feel heard, He helps them
give people a sense of belonging and confidence, and he
also teaches the grandmothers to empower people to tackle their
own problems. Right. It's a little tutorial he does. But
instead of putting these grandmas in crowded clinics or hospitals,
(06:56):
they come up with this totally novel approach. They set
up these benches that are in the open, that feel
like you're just having conversations, so there's no shame around
the treatments and no negative perception. Initially, Schibanda wanted to
call these benches mental health benches, but the grandma's actually
pushed back on that branding and suggested calling them friendship
(07:16):
benches instead. Oh, that's nice, and so then this idea
of the friendship bench was born, and honestly, the results
have been incredible. The grandmas don't use psychiatric terms, so
instead of talking about depression or anxiety, they use gentler
Shona terms. There's actually one called Kufunga Sisa, which, as
The Globe points out, translates as thinking too much. Right,
(07:37):
you're just thinking too much. And they're just very warm.
They're really colloquial and today there have been over one
hundred peer reviewed studies about these benches. According to one study,
after six months, participants who interacted with these friendship benches
were better off in terms of all types of indicators,
including their fear head lessen, their anger head lessen, and
they actually had improved sleep patterns. And in fact, the
(08:00):
grandmas have helped over sixty thousand people in Zimbabwe to date.
But the best part is that it's also great for
the grandma's self esteem, like they feel like they're being
useful again and they're contributing to the health of this country,
which is just kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I was thinking the same thing.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
This is definitely one of those perfect scenarios where I
think everybody walks away from it feeling a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, that is amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I would totally go to something like that too, if
there was just a grandma, you know, would be sitting
on a bench and you could go sit next to
or on chat for a bit. But you know, I
was thinking about the image that we have of, you know,
the stereotypical grandmother. When you think of grandma's hanging out,
you're probably picturing them I don't know, playing bridge or majong.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Or something like party or something like that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
That's exactly right, But you're probably not picturing them with
cans of spray paint, right, Like tagging a wall with graffiti?
Is that something that comes to mind for you. But
that's exactly what's happening in Lisbon, Portugal, where the world's
most lovable graffiti gang.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Has come together. I love this so much.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
The group is called Lata sixty five and Lota refers
to an aerosol can and sixty five because it's open
to anyone who's sixty.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Five or older.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So, according to one of the group's co founders, Lara Rodriguez,
she was watching Lisbon come alive through this incredible graffiti movement,
and as she puts it, quote decaying cement walls were
transformed into a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. Abandoned factories
breathe new life, and water cooler conversations moved to walls
that told stories. But while she was seeing this thriving
(09:34):
art scene all around her, she was noticing something else.
She was having conversations with older people in her community,
and she picked up on this sense that they felt
like a burden. There was this one seventy one year
old grandmother who told her art is for the care free,
the creative, and the sensitive. I'm just a grandmother. And
so Laura got this sense that these incredible women saw
(09:55):
themselves as simply caretakers, or even worse than that, like
nonexist from time to time. So she put this call
out to anyone who wanted to give graffiti a try,
and as she tells it, the youth were numb and
bored to my outreach, but elders actually wanted to jump
in and participate. The response was actually overwhelming from this,
and ever since, the Grandma Graffiti Gang has totally taken off.
(10:19):
So today these artsy grannies wander into the city's most
neglected neighborhoods and they brighten them up with these vibrant
and rebellious works. Actually, just talking about it doesn't do
it any justice. I want to share a few photos
with you right here, so you know it's like the
sweetest vandalism you'll ever see. Like their smiles are so big.
They're painting the town red, and you know, lots of
(10:40):
other colors too.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But look at these pictures.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh, I love them so much. I kind of want
my mom to join a graffiti granny's group. It looks
so fun. So here's kind of a quirky one. One
of the first things I looked up when we decided
to do this episode on Grandma's was if there was
any scientific research on grandmothers, and there's actually lots of it.
Fun how a grandmother's brain lights up when they see
(11:02):
a photo of their grandchildren. There's also research on how
grandmothers have actually helped us evolutionarily, and how menopause may
be linked to caring for younger kids because it actually
gives women more energy for that, which is interesting. But
the most fun paper that I encountered was one about
the dead grandmother exam syndrome, and this was recapped in
(11:24):
a special education issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.
But in nineteen ninety nine, a professor named Mike Adams
of Eastern Connecticut State University noticed an interesting phenomena happening
in his classes. So he wrote the Definitive Analysis on
what he calls the grandmother exam syndrome, in which he writes, quote,
the basic problem can be stated very simply. A student's
(11:45):
grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before
the student takes an exam than any other time of year.
What I guess people were constantly giving this as an
excuse in his class. Yeah, and so he decided to
make a point by writing a paper that is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
All right, Well, here's a strange one about this awesome
grandma who refused to be scammed. So there's this seventy
three year old grandmother, Jean Evert, and she's living in
Long Island, and she gets this phone call where a
scammer is posing as her grandson who claims he's been
in an accident. And actually, I remember my grandmother getting
a similar kind of call, Like it's a common scam
(12:22):
of types of people calling and claiming to be their
grandson or somebody as all those lines, and I know
this shouldn't be funny, but she would say, like you
talking about will are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And started naming her grandson. She's like, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So anyway, he says he's been charged with a dui
and he needs money urgently to get him out of bail.
But Jean's grandkids are in elementary school and they're not
driving and they're definitely not drinking, so she knows that
this is a scam. Also, she's a retired nine to
one to one dispatcher, so she knows how to work
a phone, and she decides to play along. So the
(12:55):
fake grandson says he needs eight thousand dollars and he
needs it soon because he doesn't want to be in
jail and he's really laying it on thick in this story,
but she keeps stringing him along.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
She offers to venmo him the amount.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
But he says he really needs it in cash, so
she asked him to call back, and she obviously needs
the time to get the money, and in the meantime,
she calls the police.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
They come over.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
They actually listen in on the follow up calls, and
eventually the scammer says he's sending a bail bondsman over
to her front door in ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So when this guy arrives, she opens the door.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Hands him an envelope stuffed with paper towels so it'll
look like it's this fat wad of cash, and then
as he pockets the money, the officers.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yell surprise, jump out and arrest the guy.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I love it they actually yelled the problem. Now.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
They totally were like, surprise, you're going to jail. But
the whole incident was captured on Jean's ring cam and
it wasn't long before the conman were thrown in jail.
And as for Jeans, she's now Internet famous as the
granny who scammed the scammers.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Oh, I like that. I also love that a lifetime
of nine one one calls makes her super calm in
like any phone call situation. Yeah, you have so much practice,
so I know that I couldn't do an episode on
Grandma's without talking about my favorite group of old women,
the divers in South Korea known as.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Henyo, which I did not look into because I knew
you would be doing something here.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So you might remember this from when I commissioned a
photo essay for mental phloss about those years ago. But
the hen you are famous because they dive off the
coast of the Jaju Island to harvest mollis, abalony, octopus,
seaweed and other tasty sea life. Right. But the society
is particularly special because, unlike the rest of South Korea,
it's a matriarchal community. And people don't exactly know how
(14:41):
it came to be this way and how the women
took over the diving, but it's been this way for
centuries now, and the work is really dangerous. They dive
between thirty to sixty feet. They free dive actually into
icy waters. They brave sharks and hypothermia, among other things.
And you know, it might be that this diving culture
started because men went off to war and the women
(15:04):
took over. It's also thought that the women have more
body fat and so they're better at dealing with the.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Very cold water.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
But whatever the reason, it's led to the society that
really values women and considers women more powerful than the men. Apparently,
husbands stay home to watch the kids and they do
the domestic chores and Unlike other parts of Asia, where
you know, having a son is really valued, having a
daughter here is really celebrated in the community because women
(15:32):
bring in money. And what's really interesting is that a
young woman often begins practicing these diving skills between the
age of eight to ten. You're often trained by your mother,
but they're not considered experts until they reach their forties.
And then women will keep diving well into their eighties,
which is why you see these beautiful mermaid grandmothers still
keeping this traditional live.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It's amazing, Like it's just wild that they're willing to
do that. For me, if it's below seventy degrees and
further than like five or six feet, I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Not trying to do it, like it's just it's too much.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
But I love these stories about these Korean grandmas, and
as I mentioned, at a feeling you were going to
do a fact on them. So I also looked up
a group of Austin diving grandmas, and I found a
group from a slightly different part of the world. It's
an island called New Caledonia, which is in the Pacific Ocean.
So if you're trying to get your bearings here, New
Caledonia is east of Australia and north of New Zealand.
(16:27):
So the story starts with these two researchers who are
in New Caledonia and they're studying sea snakes. Now, in particular,
they're looking at this harmless, small turtle headed snake that
primarily exists there. But while they're researching, they end up
seeing these much larger sea snakes that are super venomous.
And these things are scary, like they're five feet long
and lethal, but you know, it turns out they're also
(16:50):
really shy. So the scientists who are in this area
studying for about three years, only end up seeing a
couple dozen of these snakes and they can't get a
handle on their behavior. Anyway, there isn't much research on
these venomous snakes. But then in twenty seventeen, a group
of grandmas who by the way call themselves the Fantastic Grandmothers,
hear about this, and they're in their sixties and seventies
(17:12):
and they decide they want to help out because it
turns out this area where the sea snakes have been
spotted happens to be the snorkeling turf of these grandmothers.
This is just where they've been swimming for a good time,
and they didn't know there was any danger lurking there,
so they asked the researchers, or rather tell the researchers
that they're going to lend a hand and photograph any
(17:34):
sea snakes when they see that they're out and about. Anyways,
one of the researchers told Mental Flaws quote, as soon
as the grandmothers set to work, we realized that we
had massively underestimated the abundance of greater sea snakes in
the bay. So apparently the work was this huge boon
to the researchers because over a short period, these grandmothers
(17:54):
identified over two hundred and forty nine of the venomous
sea snakes while managing not to get didn't. Also, they
shed light on their breeding habits and offspring. So today
the Fantastic Grandmother's project is regularly cited as a way
that communities and scientists can work together to advance the
understanding of animal life.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's really cool. So I know we've got two more
facts a go, but before we do, why don't we
take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius,
(18:34):
where we're talking all about Grandma's So, will what do
you want to do for your last fact?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
All right, Well, I know we kicked this off with
a Carol Burnett story, but I want to talk a
little bit about another luminary who was raised and influenced
by his grandmam, And that's Willie Nelson. And I guess
I didn't realize how hard his life has been. But
they rarely had money to buy food off and lived
off of soup bones. And well, his grandmam had a
job and a school lunch room. She had a lot
(19:01):
of odd jobs to just feed the family, and she
often took him with her. And so, as he writes, quote,
I started picking cotton alongside my grandmother when I was
maybe five or.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Six years old.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I had a little bit of cotton sack she made
for me, and some knee pads so I could crawl
along beside her. I learned a lot about what hard
work farming is. So this is probably why he's devoted
so much of his effort to farm, mate, if you
think about it. And apparently those days in the field
really shaped him musically. There were a lot of black
farm workers, he says, Mexican farm workers, a lot of
(19:32):
guys like me, little white guys going to school, trying
to make a living. We all came together out there working.
You hear blues coming from over here, You hear Mexican
music coming from over there, Bob Will's coming from over here.
It was like living in an opera. And so his
grandmother is also the one who taught him music. One
of his fondest memories that he had told Rolling Stone
(19:54):
about was that if he got a lesson right quote
that day, she'd take a gold star, a little star
the size of your finger, and glue on one side,
and she'd stick it on a sheet of music to
let him know that he'd done a great job.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And he kind of lived for those moments. You can
imagine it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, it's amazing how much she shaped him. So I
think I've got the perfect fact to end on and
espartially because I missed my grandma or my almama's cooking.
But if you're like me and you're missing your granny's
comfort food, a good place to visit might be the
restaurant where Nona's ruled a kitchen, and that's Enoteca Maria
in Staten Island. Now I've heard the buzz about this
(20:31):
restaurant for years, and I've been meaning to make a visit,
but I actually thought it was just a gimmick, like
the old Ninja cafe where they're just Ninja's jumping out
with your food or whatever. But the story behind the
restaurant is really sweet. So the restaurant was founded by
Jod Scaravella in two thousand and seven after he lost
his own grandmother, and as he put it, quote, I
(20:51):
think subconsciously, I was just trying to patch those holes
in my life, and seeing an Italian grandmother in the
kitchen cooking was my idea of comfort. It was his
way of dealing with the grief because his Nonah had
played a really big role in his childhood. Both his
parents had worked day jobs, and his Nonah kept the
house running in Brooklyn where he grew up, and as
(21:12):
he tells it, she was this really big personality, Like
one of the most fun things he did as a
kid was accompanying her to the market where she would
just sample all the wares before buying them. So like
if she'd bit into a peach and liked it, she'd
buy a dozen, But if she took a bite out
of a vegetable and was unimpressed. She'd just like angrily spit.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
On the floor.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
That's rough, but if friendly. Everyone loved her and liked her,
so they didn't really mind, and her cooking was divine.
And while Jody's initial idea was to serve Italian comfort
food with nonahs from different parts of Italy, before long
he was bringing in nonahs from around the world. So
every day there's like one Italian nona and one from
various locations. So you might have like a Jamaican nona
(21:52):
serving doubles, or a Bangladeshi won serving curries, or big
bowls of oudon from the Japanese nona. And just like
your own grandmother or my own grandmother, they are very
particular about the recipes. So, like one Greek nona was
unimpressed with a feta that he had on hand, so
she bought her own from Greece, Sri Lunkan Nona didn't
(22:13):
think much of the curry powder, so she made him
drive her to New Jersey so that she could buy
all the spices to assemble a proper spice mix. But
what's interesting is that while the restaurant serves up comfort food,
what's funny is that Jody doesn't really think of it
as a restaurant. He sees it as more of a
community project, and as he told Travel and Leisure, what
he loves most is the power of food to bring
(22:35):
people together. As he put it quote, coming off a
very divisive period in history, it really helps to bring
down those barriers in the same way music and art does.
It helps you engage with another culture without even realizing it.
And the fact that the food is served with extra
dollars of love from a grandma who might remind you
of your own makes experience that much sweeter.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Aw, that's a perfect story. I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Although I know we pre decided that we weren't going
to do a trophy, this episode took some of the.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Pressure off into spirit to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
So instead, let's just end with a reminder to call
your grandmothers and basking their love this holiday season, and
if you have a second, share your best grandmam stories
with us on our end stuff we're at part time genius.
We sincerely want to hear about the wonderful grannies and
grandma figures in your life.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, So that's it for this week's episode from Gabe, Mary, Dylan,
Will and myself have a Wonderful Thanksgiving. Part Time Genius
is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is
(23:44):
hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongschatikler and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey. For more
(24:08):
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that? Will? So?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I was thinking about.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Carol Burnett the other day, and actually, you know, I
think about her often. I admitted before the episode. She
was one of my first crushes, which might come as
a surprise to many, but she was just so fun
and we used to love watching her show, The Carol
Burnette Show in the evenings. But anyway, one of the
things I was thinking about recently was how she used
to tug her ear to say hi to her grandmother
(00:35):
on air.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Now, actually, did you watch the Carol Burnette Show?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, it's it's actually one of my earliest memories of TV,
like watching that and also the Muppet Show because my
parents loved both of those. Also, have you watched Palmroll?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I have not yet.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No, it is so fun. It's like soaphi it but
she's in a coma and somehow she's still funny. Like
she's funny even when she's in a co like do
these minor little actions and stuff, she can still get
a laugh.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's he is the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But I was thinking about this whole ear tugging story,
and I decided to look into it a little bit more.
And apparently the first time she was on TV in
New York, her grandmother says to her, why don't you
just turn to the camera and say hello to me
when you're on TV? And Carol's response was, of course,
I had to explain to her that we're not allowed
to just say hi, nanny on television, And so they
(01:23):
came up with this secret signal that's now famous where
she would pull her ear lobe, and according to Carol Burnett,
it meant HI, I'm fine, your check is on the way.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
That's ridiculous. I think I've heard they were close because
Burnette was raised by her grandma.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Right, that's exactly right, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And part of the story that I thought was really
funny is that this writer from Life magazine actually measured
her ear lobe and found that she'd stretched it from
pulling it so much over the years, and that her
ear lobe was noticeably longer because of all the time
she turned to the camera and let her grandma know
that she was thinking about her.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I mean, that is both really sweet and I feel
like it's real love, like giving up your symmetrical face
for your grandma.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's a real, real sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
But you know, in the interview, Carol Burnett did want
to clarify that she only pulled her ear when she
was on TV.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
She didn't go around pulling her ear just for the
heck of it.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But with Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner, we thought
it might be the perfect time.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
To do a little tribute episode.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
To Grandma's So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:43):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Hot Ticket
and sitting there behind the big booth glass wearing a
vintage Charlotte Hornets Larry Johnson basketball jersey.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Probably a lot of our younger listeners are saying, who
the heck is Larry Johnson? Amazing basketball player. This is
a real deep cut here, Dylan.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I love it when he goes for the deep cuts,
making a throwback joke to those Grandmama commercials.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, he's nodding his head back there and just.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Smiling once again. That is our good friend and producer,
Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You know, I watched this interview with Larry Johnson where
he was talking about why he signed with Converse and
did those Grandmama commercials, and he said it was a
total bait and switch. Like he was fresh out of college,
he was the number one NBA draft pick, and Converse
was like, we've got the perfect ad for you. It's
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson wearing surgeons gear and they've
(03:38):
created this perfect basketball player, right, and they're just deciding
what to name him, and Larry Bird's like, let's call
him Larry, and Magic is like, let's call him Johnson.
And they're fighting like Larry Johnson, Larry Johnson, and as
they're arguing, he just kind of rises up like Frankenston's monster, right.
And so of course Larry Johnson is young, he's all in.
He's so sold by this idea. Also had a million
(04:00):
dollars to give him, so he was happy to take
that and he went off and bought his mom a
house with the money, okay, and then Converce called him
up and was like, Magic and Larry don't want to
do the commercial, so we've got another idea.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You're gonna be a grandma.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I feel like a grandma, and you're gonna dominate the
basketball court. And he was like, man, I wish I
hadn't fought that house. Yeah, but I barely. You ended
up having a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I mean, it was it was a pretty great series there.
But Mengo, you're already getting a soft track. We are
doing a show that is a tribute to our grandma's.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And I know you knew my mamma and.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Really loved her, and she loved you, and I think
later in her life she actually thought you were one
of her grandkids. And I remember meeting your grandma in
college when she'd come to visit from India, and you know,
it was just always the sweetest visits to see how
much she meant to you, and it was it was
just a lot of fun that.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
She actually came to college.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I remember knocking your dorm room one time and she
was actually just lying there on the bed like she
was one of our friends.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
It was she was small, she was lying on it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But I wasn't going to.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Say that, but actually I think she was there one
time with one of your aunts and they were both
lying there as far as that's you know, these tiny women.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But it was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
But anyway, I know, this holiday season We're both missing
our grandmothers a lot, and I thought it might be
nice to do a nine things in honor of them.
So this one is for Nadine and Soushila.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Mm hmm. That's so wonderful. So I'm going to start
with a story about a group of grandmas in Zimbabwe.
And this story actually begins with a young psychiatrist. His
name is Dixon Chibanda. So Zimbabwe apparently has been dealing
with an incredible shortage of mental health professionals over the
past few decades. And the story comes from the Boston
Globe and they say that Chibanda was actually only one
(05:44):
of fifteen psychiatrists in the country of sixteen million people.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Isn't that stunning?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
But this starts with a really sad story. So Chibanda
had a patient who was unable to visit him because
she couldn't afford the fifteen dollars bus fare to travel
this insanely long distance to see and she ends up
taking her own life, and Chibanda is just devastated by this.
He's like, we need to be giving people more care,
making the access easier. So he starts exploring all these
(06:10):
different ways to recruit and train more mental health practitioners.
But it is just really, really difficult. There are a
lot of hurdles to jump to make it happen. And
what he realizes is that there's actually already this incredible
core of whys and empathetic caregivers who have a lot
of life experience and a lot of time on their hens.
And so of course we're talking about grandmothers here. So
(06:33):
he pilots this program with fourteen grandmothers in her are
and he gives them the tools to better listen, right.
He helps them make people feel heard, He helps them
give people a sense of belonging and confidence, and he
also teaches the grandmothers to empower people to tackle their
own problems. Right. It's a little tutorial he does. But
instead of putting these grandmas in crowded clinics or hospitals,
(06:56):
they come up with this totally novel approach. They set
up these benches that are in the open, that feel
like you're just having conversations, so there's no shame around
the treatments and no negative perception. Initially, Schibanda wanted to
call these benches mental health benches, but the grandma's actually
pushed back on that branding and suggested calling them friendship
(07:16):
benches instead. Oh, that's nice, and so then this idea
of the friendship bench was born, and honestly, the results
have been incredible. The grandmas don't use psychiatric terms, so
instead of talking about depression or anxiety, they use gentler
Shona terms. There's actually one called Kufunga Sisa, which, as
The Globe points out, translates as thinking too much. Right,
(07:37):
you're just thinking too much. And they're just very warm.
They're really colloquial and today there have been over one
hundred peer reviewed studies about these benches. According to one study,
after six months, participants who interacted with these friendship benches
were better off in terms of all types of indicators,
including their fear head lessen, their anger head lessen, and
they actually had improved sleep patterns. And in fact, the
(08:00):
grandmas have helped over sixty thousand people in Zimbabwe to date.
But the best part is that it's also great for
the grandma's self esteem, like they feel like they're being
useful again and they're contributing to the health of this country,
which is just kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I was thinking the same thing.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
This is definitely one of those perfect scenarios where I
think everybody walks away from it feeling a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, that is amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I would totally go to something like that too, if
there was just a grandma, you know, would be sitting
on a bench and you could go sit next to
or on chat for a bit. But you know, I
was thinking about the image that we have of, you know,
the stereotypical grandmother. When you think of grandma's hanging out,
you're probably picturing them I don't know, playing bridge or majong.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Or something like party or something like that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
That's exactly right, But you're probably not picturing them with
cans of spray paint, right, Like tagging a wall with graffiti?
Is that something that comes to mind for you. But
that's exactly what's happening in Lisbon, Portugal, where the world's
most lovable graffiti gang.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Has come together. I love this so much.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
The group is called Lata sixty five and Lota refers
to an aerosol can and sixty five because it's open
to anyone who's sixty.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Five or older.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So, according to one of the group's co founders, Lara Rodriguez,
she was watching Lisbon come alive through this incredible graffiti movement,
and as she puts it, quote decaying cement walls were
transformed into a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. Abandoned factories
breathe new life, and water cooler conversations moved to walls
that told stories. But while she was seeing this thriving
(09:34):
art scene all around her, she was noticing something else.
She was having conversations with older people in her community,
and she picked up on this sense that they felt
like a burden. There was this one seventy one year
old grandmother who told her art is for the care free,
the creative, and the sensitive. I'm just a grandmother. And
so Laura got this sense that these incredible women saw
(09:55):
themselves as simply caretakers, or even worse than that, like
nonexist from time to time. So she put this call
out to anyone who wanted to give graffiti a try,
and as she tells it, the youth were numb and
bored to my outreach, but elders actually wanted to jump
in and participate. The response was actually overwhelming from this,
and ever since, the Grandma Graffiti Gang has totally taken off.
(10:19):
So today these artsy grannies wander into the city's most
neglected neighborhoods and they brighten them up with these vibrant
and rebellious works. Actually, just talking about it doesn't do
it any justice. I want to share a few photos
with you right here, so you know it's like the
sweetest vandalism you'll ever see. Like their smiles are so big.
They're painting the town red, and you know, lots of
(10:40):
other colors too.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But look at these pictures.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh, I love them so much. I kind of want
my mom to join a graffiti granny's group. It looks
so fun. So here's kind of a quirky one. One
of the first things I looked up when we decided
to do this episode on Grandma's was if there was
any scientific research on grandmothers, and there's actually lots of it.
Fun how a grandmother's brain lights up when they see
(11:02):
a photo of their grandchildren. There's also research on how
grandmothers have actually helped us evolutionarily, and how menopause may
be linked to caring for younger kids because it actually
gives women more energy for that, which is interesting. But
the most fun paper that I encountered was one about
the dead grandmother exam syndrome, and this was recapped in
(11:24):
a special education issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.
But in nineteen ninety nine, a professor named Mike Adams
of Eastern Connecticut State University noticed an interesting phenomena happening
in his classes. So he wrote the Definitive Analysis on
what he calls the grandmother exam syndrome, in which he writes, quote,
the basic problem can be stated very simply. A student's
(11:45):
grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before
the student takes an exam than any other time of year.
What I guess people were constantly giving this as an
excuse in his class. Yeah, and so he decided to
make a point by writing a paper that is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
All right, Well, here's a strange one about this awesome
grandma who refused to be scammed. So there's this seventy
three year old grandmother, Jean Evert, and she's living in
Long Island, and she gets this phone call where a
scammer is posing as her grandson who claims he's been
in an accident. And actually, I remember my grandmother getting
a similar kind of call, Like it's a common scam
(12:22):
of types of people calling and claiming to be their
grandson or somebody as all those lines, and I know
this shouldn't be funny, but she would say, like you
talking about will are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And started naming her grandson. She's like, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So anyway, he says he's been charged with a dui
and he needs money urgently to get him out of bail.
But Jean's grandkids are in elementary school and they're not
driving and they're definitely not drinking, so she knows that
this is a scam. Also, she's a retired nine to
one to one dispatcher, so she knows how to work
a phone, and she decides to play along. So the
(12:55):
fake grandson says he needs eight thousand dollars and he
needs it soon because he doesn't want to be in
jail and he's really laying it on thick in this story,
but she keeps stringing him along.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
She offers to venmo him the amount.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
But he says he really needs it in cash, so
she asked him to call back, and she obviously needs
the time to get the money, and in the meantime,
she calls the police.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
They come over.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
They actually listen in on the follow up calls, and
eventually the scammer says he's sending a bail bondsman over
to her front door in ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So when this guy arrives, she opens the door.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Hands him an envelope stuffed with paper towels so it'll
look like it's this fat wad of cash, and then
as he pockets the money, the officers.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yell surprise, jump out and arrest the guy.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I love it they actually yelled the problem. Now.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
They totally were like, surprise, you're going to jail. But
the whole incident was captured on Jean's ring cam and
it wasn't long before the conman were thrown in jail.
And as for Jeans, she's now Internet famous as the
granny who scammed the scammers.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Oh, I like that. I also love that a lifetime
of nine one one calls makes her super calm in
like any phone call situation. Yeah, you have so much practice,
so I know that I couldn't do an episode on
Grandma's without talking about my favorite group of old women,
the divers in South Korea known as.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Henyo, which I did not look into because I knew
you would be doing something here.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So you might remember this from when I commissioned a
photo essay for mental phloss about those years ago. But
the hen you are famous because they dive off the
coast of the Jaju Island to harvest mollis, abalony, octopus,
seaweed and other tasty sea life. Right. But the society
is particularly special because, unlike the rest of South Korea,
it's a matriarchal community. And people don't exactly know how
(14:41):
it came to be this way and how the women
took over the diving, but it's been this way for
centuries now, and the work is really dangerous. They dive
between thirty to sixty feet. They free dive actually into
icy waters. They brave sharks and hypothermia, among other things.
And you know, it might be that this diving culture
started because men went off to war and the women
(15:04):
took over. It's also thought that the women have more
body fat and so they're better at dealing with the.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Very cold water.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
But whatever the reason, it's led to the society that
really values women and considers women more powerful than the men. Apparently,
husbands stay home to watch the kids and they do
the domestic chores and Unlike other parts of Asia, where
you know, having a son is really valued, having a
daughter here is really celebrated in the community because women
(15:32):
bring in money. And what's really interesting is that a
young woman often begins practicing these diving skills between the
age of eight to ten. You're often trained by your mother,
but they're not considered experts until they reach their forties.
And then women will keep diving well into their eighties,
which is why you see these beautiful mermaid grandmothers still
keeping this traditional live.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It's amazing, Like it's just wild that they're willing to
do that. For me, if it's below seventy degrees and
further than like five or six feet, I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Not trying to do it, like it's just it's too much.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
But I love these stories about these Korean grandmas, and
as I mentioned, at a feeling you were going to
do a fact on them. So I also looked up
a group of Austin diving grandmas, and I found a
group from a slightly different part of the world. It's
an island called New Caledonia, which is in the Pacific Ocean.
So if you're trying to get your bearings here, New
Caledonia is east of Australia and north of New Zealand.
(16:27):
So the story starts with these two researchers who are
in New Caledonia and they're studying sea snakes. Now, in particular,
they're looking at this harmless, small turtle headed snake that
primarily exists there. But while they're researching, they end up
seeing these much larger sea snakes that are super venomous.
And these things are scary, like they're five feet long
and lethal, but you know, it turns out they're also
(16:50):
really shy. So the scientists who are in this area
studying for about three years, only end up seeing a
couple dozen of these snakes and they can't get a
handle on their behavior. Anyway, there isn't much research on
these venomous snakes. But then in twenty seventeen, a group
of grandmas who by the way call themselves the Fantastic Grandmothers,
hear about this, and they're in their sixties and seventies
(17:12):
and they decide they want to help out because it
turns out this area where the sea snakes have been
spotted happens to be the snorkeling turf of these grandmothers.
This is just where they've been swimming for a good time,
and they didn't know there was any danger lurking there,
so they asked the researchers, or rather tell the researchers
that they're going to lend a hand and photograph any
(17:34):
sea snakes when they see that they're out and about. Anyways,
one of the researchers told Mental Flaws quote, as soon
as the grandmothers set to work, we realized that we
had massively underestimated the abundance of greater sea snakes in
the bay. So apparently the work was this huge boon
to the researchers because over a short period, these grandmothers
(17:54):
identified over two hundred and forty nine of the venomous
sea snakes while managing not to get didn't. Also, they
shed light on their breeding habits and offspring. So today
the Fantastic Grandmother's project is regularly cited as a way
that communities and scientists can work together to advance the
understanding of animal life.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's really cool. So I know we've got two more
facts a go, but before we do, why don't we
take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius,
(18:34):
where we're talking all about Grandma's So, will what do
you want to do for your last fact?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
All right, Well, I know we kicked this off with
a Carol Burnett story, but I want to talk a
little bit about another luminary who was raised and influenced
by his grandmam, And that's Willie Nelson. And I guess
I didn't realize how hard his life has been. But
they rarely had money to buy food off and lived
off of soup bones. And well, his grandmam had a
job and a school lunch room. She had a lot
(19:01):
of odd jobs to just feed the family, and she
often took him with her. And so, as he writes, quote,
I started picking cotton alongside my grandmother when I was
maybe five or.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Six years old.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I had a little bit of cotton sack she made
for me, and some knee pads so I could crawl
along beside her. I learned a lot about what hard
work farming is. So this is probably why he's devoted
so much of his effort to farm, mate, if you
think about it. And apparently those days in the field
really shaped him musically. There were a lot of black
farm workers, he says, Mexican farm workers, a lot of
(19:32):
guys like me, little white guys going to school, trying
to make a living. We all came together out there working.
You hear blues coming from over here, You hear Mexican
music coming from over there, Bob Will's coming from over here.
It was like living in an opera. And so his
grandmother is also the one who taught him music. One
of his fondest memories that he had told Rolling Stone
(19:54):
about was that if he got a lesson right quote
that day, she'd take a gold star, a little star
the size of your finger, and glue on one side,
and she'd stick it on a sheet of music to
let him know that he'd done a great job.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And he kind of lived for those moments. You can
imagine it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, it's amazing how much she shaped him. So I
think I've got the perfect fact to end on and
espartially because I missed my grandma or my almama's cooking.
But if you're like me and you're missing your granny's
comfort food, a good place to visit might be the
restaurant where Nona's ruled a kitchen, and that's Enoteca Maria
in Staten Island. Now I've heard the buzz about this
(20:31):
restaurant for years, and I've been meaning to make a visit,
but I actually thought it was just a gimmick, like
the old Ninja cafe where they're just Ninja's jumping out
with your food or whatever. But the story behind the
restaurant is really sweet. So the restaurant was founded by
Jod Scaravella in two thousand and seven after he lost
his own grandmother, and as he put it, quote, I
(20:51):
think subconsciously, I was just trying to patch those holes
in my life, and seeing an Italian grandmother in the
kitchen cooking was my idea of comfort. It was his
way of dealing with the grief because his Nonah had
played a really big role in his childhood. Both his
parents had worked day jobs, and his Nonah kept the
house running in Brooklyn where he grew up, and as
(21:12):
he tells it, she was this really big personality, Like
one of the most fun things he did as a
kid was accompanying her to the market where she would
just sample all the wares before buying them. So like
if she'd bit into a peach and liked it, she'd
buy a dozen, But if she took a bite out
of a vegetable and was unimpressed. She'd just like angrily spit.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
On the floor.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
That's rough, but if friendly. Everyone loved her and liked her,
so they didn't really mind, and her cooking was divine.
And while Jody's initial idea was to serve Italian comfort
food with nonahs from different parts of Italy, before long
he was bringing in nonahs from around the world. So
every day there's like one Italian nona and one from
various locations. So you might have like a Jamaican nona
(21:52):
serving doubles, or a Bangladeshi won serving curries, or big
bowls of oudon from the Japanese nona. And just like
your own grandmother or my own grandmother, they are very
particular about the recipes. So, like one Greek nona was
unimpressed with a feta that he had on hand, so
she bought her own from Greece, Sri Lunkan Nona didn't
(22:13):
think much of the curry powder, so she made him
drive her to New Jersey so that she could buy
all the spices to assemble a proper spice mix. But
what's interesting is that while the restaurant serves up comfort food,
what's funny is that Jody doesn't really think of it
as a restaurant. He sees it as more of a
community project, and as he told Travel and Leisure, what
he loves most is the power of food to bring
(22:35):
people together. As he put it quote, coming off a
very divisive period in history, it really helps to bring
down those barriers in the same way music and art does.
It helps you engage with another culture without even realizing it.
And the fact that the food is served with extra
dollars of love from a grandma who might remind you
of your own makes experience that much sweeter.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Aw, that's a perfect story. I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Although I know we pre decided that we weren't going
to do a trophy, this episode took some of the.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Pressure off into spirit to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
So instead, let's just end with a reminder to call
your grandmothers and basking their love this holiday season, and
if you have a second, share your best grandmam stories
with us on our end stuff we're at part time genius.
We sincerely want to hear about the wonderful grannies and
grandma figures in your life.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, So that's it for this week's episode from Gabe, Mary, Dylan,
Will and myself have a Wonderful Thanksgiving. Part Time Genius
is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is
(23:44):
hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongschatikler and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey. For more
(24:08):
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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