December 10, 2020 • 15 mins
This is the story of my father’s superstitious obsession with our local bread seller. I’ll also introduce you to a blind explorer who wrote best-selling travel guides… and got into some incredible shenanigans along the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today's story is about warm bread, superstition, and a blind
man who traveled across the globe. It's also about me
your host pump Care, but mostly it's about making you smile.
Welcome to an pump Cares. Chapter four a bread time
(00:26):
story on occasions. My father played the lottery and one
morning he discovered that he had bought a lucky ticket
worth of whopping fifty rupees. He was overjoyed, but being
(00:47):
a superstitious man, my dad wanted to repeat his work.
So he thought back on what happened just before he
won the lottery, and it turns out, just before he
had won, he had seen the face of the local
bread and bun seller, a man who would make the
rounds on our street and hawk his fresh bread in
the mornings. So my father took a note of it.
(01:10):
The later that day, upon reaching the office, my father
got the news that he had just been promoted. He
was thrilled, on top of the world. Hello, but this
felt like too much of a coincidence to my father
to have such luck at you all at once, he
became convinced that all of the good luck came from
(01:32):
seeing the bread and bun seller in the morning. And
if he saw that fellow's face the first thing every morning,
his life could only get better. In that instant, the
bread vendor became my father's lucky masscott, and there was
no stopping it. Every morning, my father would eagerly wait
(01:55):
for the sounds of vendor, yelling, laborat odd bread and barns,
and as soon as it hit his ears, my father
would jump out of the bed and walked to the
door in great excitement. But in keeping with the superstation,
he would keep his eyes closed. He wanted to make
sure the very first thing he saw every morning was
(02:16):
the bread wender. In his commitment to that idea, he
would step on the faces, stomachs, and backs of everyone
who was in his path, fast asleep on the floor. Now,
(02:37):
let me back up for a minute. I had a
lovely childhood, full of colorful stories and loving relatives, but
we lived in cramped quarters. There were fourteen of us,
extended family members confined to one small room, three generations
of cares living almost on top of each other, and
(02:59):
of course there were no beds. At night, everyone would
spread our bedding on the floor and in the morning
will rolled it back up. It was like living in
a small army barracks, but a happy one. So my
father would blindly race to the front door. How he
never tripped remains a mystery. He would only open his
(03:20):
eyes when he could hear the bread and bunman speak
directly to him, rody, hot bread and buns, and then
they would start. And that's how it went on for
a while, unfortunately for him and the rest of us.
One day my father or slept the old day. He
(03:43):
was in a star mood, sullen and impatient, snapping at everyone.
After that, it became my brother Raju and my job
to bring the bread cellar to our home first thing
every morning. I'm guessing you can imagine the bewildered state
of this poor gentleman. There were two young kids waiting
for him at the street corner, insisting he go to
(04:05):
their house every morning before he could start his rounds,
and I'm sure he was even more confused than my father,
wouldn't open his eyes until he was standing in front
of him. The mystery carried on for a few more days,
but when the truth finally came out that he was
my father's good luck charm, the savvy bread seller decided
(04:27):
to raise the price of his goods. He was no fool.
One low foot now crossed forty instead of thirty. Over time,
Roger when I got bored with our father's morning routine,
so we decided to play a little break on him.
One evening, around midnight, we snuck outside, and from behind
(04:48):
the door, I imitated the bread seller, shouting doroty heartbreads
and barns, heartbreads and barns like pablos. Responding to the bell,
my father hopped out of bed and dashed for the door,
expecting to see the rising sun and his good luck
charm number. I got you a bass bass, I got you,
(05:14):
cut you, cut you. Of course, we had made our
escape by that point, so he just looked out into
the empty darks, confused. Good bloom cut cut, cut you.
I don't know how long it was before my dad
stopped leaving in the power of this bread cellar, but
(05:35):
I do remember why he stopped leaving. One morning, he
woke up and did all the usual things. He stumbled
across all of us, opened his eyes, saw the bread cellar,
and started his day off in his usual lucky way,
or so he thought. That morning, when he went to
(05:58):
open the storeroom, of his office. His keys were missing,
searched and searched, but he had clearly misplaced them. Were
still there was only one set his. My father's boss
was so irritated that he made a spectacle of my father.
He yelled at him in front of the entire staff,
(06:19):
which left him feeling low and dispirited. Then, on his
evening walk home, as he was shopping at the vegetable market,
the mule kicked him for no apparent reason, and all
his vegetables spilled out. While the mule walked off most unconcerned.
My father was a picture of misery as he stooped
down to pick up his goods. Instead of helping him.
(06:41):
The youngsters watching just laugh at what they saw. It
was not my father's finest star. But the day wasn't
done with him. As he hobbled home. Just as he
was about to enter our house, a crow flew by
and hit a bullseye on my father's tweet jacket, the
(07:03):
only struit jacket he possessed. By the time, the son
had said that evening, my father's obsession with the bread
seller was also a thing of the past. Every once
in a while, just for fun, my brother and I
would run outside and yell hot bread and buns. Maybe
(07:24):
we thought it would get our dad out of bed,
or maybe we thought it would amuse him. Instead, he
just yelled at us in Kashmari, saying, the cheap you know,
double with canceled. Stop this hotbread and bun nonsense, he diets.
(07:46):
As for the bread seller, he's the only one who
made out in that situation. While the Cares of Shemlan
never won the lottery again, he kept on selling his
bread to us at the new lucky price. Of course. Yeah.
(08:08):
But thinking back on my father and how gracefully trampled
all of us with his eyes closed on his way
to the front door, it reminded me of the story
of another man, a blind traveler named James Holman, and
how his trust in people helped him conquer the world.
(08:34):
James Holman was born in seventeen eighties six, and he
hadn't always been an explorer, nor had he always been blind.
At the age of twelve, the Englishman had enlisted with
the British Navy and served on the high seas. But
just a few years later he started suffering from a
strange illness. His bones and joints began to ache and
(08:58):
his eyesight began to face it. Doctors blamed his symptoms
on rheumatism and tried treating him by plodding Hollman with
a hot poker and draining his blood with leeches, common
cure alls at that time. Of course, none of it worked.
Allman went permanently blind and resigned himself to living out
(09:20):
the rest of his days as a home body. In fact,
he didn't travel again until a doctor suggested that a
dose of warm weather might be good for his spirit.
So at the age of thirty two, Alman set off
for the French Riviera. That trip changed him. Exploring France,
(09:46):
Allman navigated the streets by echolocation. He would tap his
stick on the ground and listen as the sound recociate
of his surroundings. In Europe, he became a tireless explorer.
He began to high mountains, tour cathedrals, and even visit museums.
On a side trip to Rome, he tried to hire
(10:06):
a guide, but Hallman was so energetic that the guide
couldn't keep up. Later, when Hallman climbed Mount Messuvious, a
passer by asked if he needed help. Hallman waved him
off and said, I say things better with my feet.
At first, people looked at Hallman with amusement or they
were completely baffled. In the eighteen twenties, tourism as we
(10:30):
know didn't exist. People didn't travel long distances for the
fun of it, especially not blind people. But Hallman refused
to let others bring him down, and he refused to
be cynical. Instead, he placed infinite amounts of trust in
the people around him to help him get where he
was going. Sometimes people came along for the ride. One time,
(10:56):
as Hallman was passing through Naples, he bumped into an
old friend. His friend was deaf, so the duo decided
to walk and in hand for nearly two miles, all
men acting as the man's ears and the man acting
as allman's eyes. Hallman had fun on his travels too.
(11:19):
In St. Petersburg, he slinked past security to sit on
his arms throne. He also climbed into the barrel of
a famous Russian cannon, to the shock of the military
guards standing nearby. And the distances he traveled were not small.
He treked across much of Siberia. In fact, he would
have made it all the way to China if it
weren't for the pesky Russian police who deported him for
(11:44):
Hallman blindness wasn't the problem to overcome, it was prejudice.
The reason he was deported from Russia was because nobody
believed that a blind man could travel independently. The police
decided he had to be a spy faking his addition. Similarly,
critics of Allman's best selling books argued that a blind
(12:06):
man could never be a true travel writer, but they
could be more wrong. All Men couldn't write about the
things he saw. He had to pay special attention to
his surroundings and the people around him, and that attention
to detail made him a remarkably good writer. In eighteen
(12:29):
twenty seven, all Men made an attempt to circle the
globe and began a series of remarkable adventures. He traveled
to Sierra Leone and became the first person to translate
the native language to English. He chased illegal slave ships
up and down African rivers. He survived malaria and sailed
to Brazil to explore gold mines in the Amazon Rainforest.
(12:52):
In Australia, he joined a team of adventurers to explore
uncharted territory in Sri Lanka, he hunted elephants, in India
odge pirates, and in China he puffed on opium. Not
only would Hollman make it home from that trip around
(13:13):
the world, he would continue to travel for the rest
of his days. What's truly remarkable is that as Hallman traveled,
he came into contact with more cultures than any other
human alive, and everywhere he went he had to place
his trust in those around him. He did it all
(13:36):
without fear because Hallman believed that people at their core
are always good, and that's something I think we can
all believe in. That's it for today's episode. I'm on
a pump chair, Be kind to yourself, and thank you
(14:00):
for listening. Loud. A Pump Cares is a production of
(14:29):
I Heart Radio. I'm your host A Pump care Our
Executive producer is Mangis, Jenior producer Julian Weller, Associate producer
Morgan Lavoy. Sound design and mixing by Julian Weller and
Dan Bauza. Music by Aaron Kaufman. Production support from Emily
(14:50):
Maronoff and Married You. Writing by Lucas Riley, Matt Riddle,
Margin Lavoy and Julian Weller. Lucas Right and Madriddle are
our story editors. Thanks to Sikin Paru Hermandy Suza, Godwin Amana,
Sydium Studios, Donald Byrne, and Bob Pittman,
Today's story is about warm bread, superstition, and a blind
man who traveled across the globe. It's also about me
your host pump Care, but mostly it's about making you smile.
Welcome to an pump Cares. Chapter four a bread time
(00:26):
story on occasions. My father played the lottery and one
morning he discovered that he had bought a lucky ticket
worth of whopping fifty rupees. He was overjoyed, but being
(00:47):
a superstitious man, my dad wanted to repeat his work.
So he thought back on what happened just before he
won the lottery, and it turns out, just before he
had won, he had seen the face of the local
bread and bun seller, a man who would make the
rounds on our street and hawk his fresh bread in
the mornings. So my father took a note of it.
(01:10):
The later that day, upon reaching the office, my father
got the news that he had just been promoted. He
was thrilled, on top of the world. Hello, but this
felt like too much of a coincidence to my father
to have such luck at you all at once, he
became convinced that all of the good luck came from
(01:32):
seeing the bread and bun seller in the morning. And
if he saw that fellow's face the first thing every morning,
his life could only get better. In that instant, the
bread vendor became my father's lucky masscott, and there was
no stopping it. Every morning, my father would eagerly wait
(01:55):
for the sounds of vendor, yelling, laborat odd bread and barns,
and as soon as it hit his ears, my father
would jump out of the bed and walked to the
door in great excitement. But in keeping with the superstation,
he would keep his eyes closed. He wanted to make
sure the very first thing he saw every morning was
(02:16):
the bread wender. In his commitment to that idea, he
would step on the faces, stomachs, and backs of everyone
who was in his path, fast asleep on the floor. Now,
(02:37):
let me back up for a minute. I had a
lovely childhood, full of colorful stories and loving relatives, but
we lived in cramped quarters. There were fourteen of us,
extended family members confined to one small room, three generations
of cares living almost on top of each other, and
(02:59):
of course there were no beds. At night, everyone would
spread our bedding on the floor and in the morning
will rolled it back up. It was like living in
a small army barracks, but a happy one. So my
father would blindly race to the front door. How he
never tripped remains a mystery. He would only open his
(03:20):
eyes when he could hear the bread and bunman speak
directly to him, rody, hot bread and buns, and then
they would start. And that's how it went on for
a while, unfortunately for him and the rest of us.
One day my father or slept the old day. He
(03:43):
was in a star mood, sullen and impatient, snapping at everyone.
After that, it became my brother Raju and my job
to bring the bread cellar to our home first thing
every morning. I'm guessing you can imagine the bewildered state
of this poor gentleman. There were two young kids waiting
for him at the street corner, insisting he go to
(04:05):
their house every morning before he could start his rounds,
and I'm sure he was even more confused than my father,
wouldn't open his eyes until he was standing in front
of him. The mystery carried on for a few more days,
but when the truth finally came out that he was
my father's good luck charm, the savvy bread seller decided
(04:27):
to raise the price of his goods. He was no fool.
One low foot now crossed forty instead of thirty. Over time,
Roger when I got bored with our father's morning routine,
so we decided to play a little break on him.
One evening, around midnight, we snuck outside, and from behind
(04:48):
the door, I imitated the bread seller, shouting doroty heartbreads
and barns, heartbreads and barns like pablos. Responding to the bell,
my father hopped out of bed and dashed for the door,
expecting to see the rising sun and his good luck
charm number. I got you a bass bass, I got you,
(05:14):
cut you, cut you. Of course, we had made our
escape by that point, so he just looked out into
the empty darks, confused. Good bloom cut cut, cut you.
I don't know how long it was before my dad
stopped leaving in the power of this bread cellar, but
(05:35):
I do remember why he stopped leaving. One morning, he
woke up and did all the usual things. He stumbled
across all of us, opened his eyes, saw the bread cellar,
and started his day off in his usual lucky way,
or so he thought. That morning, when he went to
(05:58):
open the storeroom, of his office. His keys were missing,
searched and searched, but he had clearly misplaced them. Were
still there was only one set his. My father's boss
was so irritated that he made a spectacle of my father.
He yelled at him in front of the entire staff,
(06:19):
which left him feeling low and dispirited. Then, on his
evening walk home, as he was shopping at the vegetable market,
the mule kicked him for no apparent reason, and all
his vegetables spilled out. While the mule walked off most unconcerned.
My father was a picture of misery as he stooped
down to pick up his goods. Instead of helping him.
(06:41):
The youngsters watching just laugh at what they saw. It
was not my father's finest star. But the day wasn't
done with him. As he hobbled home. Just as he
was about to enter our house, a crow flew by
and hit a bullseye on my father's tweet jacket, the
(07:03):
only struit jacket he possessed. By the time, the son
had said that evening, my father's obsession with the bread
seller was also a thing of the past. Every once
in a while, just for fun, my brother and I
would run outside and yell hot bread and buns. Maybe
(07:24):
we thought it would get our dad out of bed,
or maybe we thought it would amuse him. Instead, he
just yelled at us in Kashmari, saying, the cheap you know,
double with canceled. Stop this hotbread and bun nonsense, he diets.
(07:46):
As for the bread seller, he's the only one who
made out in that situation. While the Cares of Shemlan
never won the lottery again, he kept on selling his
bread to us at the new lucky price. Of course. Yeah.
(08:08):
But thinking back on my father and how gracefully trampled
all of us with his eyes closed on his way
to the front door, it reminded me of the story
of another man, a blind traveler named James Holman, and
how his trust in people helped him conquer the world.
(08:34):
James Holman was born in seventeen eighties six, and he
hadn't always been an explorer, nor had he always been blind.
At the age of twelve, the Englishman had enlisted with
the British Navy and served on the high seas. But
just a few years later he started suffering from a
strange illness. His bones and joints began to ache and
(08:58):
his eyesight began to face it. Doctors blamed his symptoms
on rheumatism and tried treating him by plodding Hollman with
a hot poker and draining his blood with leeches, common
cure alls at that time. Of course, none of it worked.
Allman went permanently blind and resigned himself to living out
(09:20):
the rest of his days as a home body. In fact,
he didn't travel again until a doctor suggested that a
dose of warm weather might be good for his spirit.
So at the age of thirty two, Alman set off
for the French Riviera. That trip changed him. Exploring France,
(09:46):
Allman navigated the streets by echolocation. He would tap his
stick on the ground and listen as the sound recociate
of his surroundings. In Europe, he became a tireless explorer.
He began to high mountains, tour cathedrals, and even visit museums.
On a side trip to Rome, he tried to hire
(10:06):
a guide, but Hallman was so energetic that the guide
couldn't keep up. Later, when Hallman climbed Mount Messuvious, a
passer by asked if he needed help. Hallman waved him
off and said, I say things better with my feet.
At first, people looked at Hallman with amusement or they
were completely baffled. In the eighteen twenties, tourism as we
(10:30):
know didn't exist. People didn't travel long distances for the
fun of it, especially not blind people. But Hallman refused
to let others bring him down, and he refused to
be cynical. Instead, he placed infinite amounts of trust in
the people around him to help him get where he
was going. Sometimes people came along for the ride. One time,
(10:56):
as Hallman was passing through Naples, he bumped into an
old friend. His friend was deaf, so the duo decided
to walk and in hand for nearly two miles, all
men acting as the man's ears and the man acting
as allman's eyes. Hallman had fun on his travels too.
(11:19):
In St. Petersburg, he slinked past security to sit on
his arms throne. He also climbed into the barrel of
a famous Russian cannon, to the shock of the military
guards standing nearby. And the distances he traveled were not small.
He treked across much of Siberia. In fact, he would
have made it all the way to China if it
weren't for the pesky Russian police who deported him for
(11:44):
Hallman blindness wasn't the problem to overcome, it was prejudice.
The reason he was deported from Russia was because nobody
believed that a blind man could travel independently. The police
decided he had to be a spy faking his addition. Similarly,
critics of Allman's best selling books argued that a blind
(12:06):
man could never be a true travel writer, but they
could be more wrong. All Men couldn't write about the
things he saw. He had to pay special attention to
his surroundings and the people around him, and that attention
to detail made him a remarkably good writer. In eighteen
(12:29):
twenty seven, all Men made an attempt to circle the
globe and began a series of remarkable adventures. He traveled
to Sierra Leone and became the first person to translate
the native language to English. He chased illegal slave ships
up and down African rivers. He survived malaria and sailed
to Brazil to explore gold mines in the Amazon Rainforest.
(12:52):
In Australia, he joined a team of adventurers to explore
uncharted territory in Sri Lanka, he hunted elephants, in India
odge pirates, and in China he puffed on opium. Not
only would Hollman make it home from that trip around
(13:13):
the world, he would continue to travel for the rest
of his days. What's truly remarkable is that as Hallman traveled,
he came into contact with more cultures than any other
human alive, and everywhere he went he had to place
his trust in those around him. He did it all
(13:36):
without fear because Hallman believed that people at their core
are always good, and that's something I think we can
all believe in. That's it for today's episode. I'm on
a pump chair, Be kind to yourself, and thank you
(14:00):
for listening. Loud. A Pump Cares is a production of
(14:29):
I Heart Radio. I'm your host A Pump care Our
Executive producer is Mangis, Jenior producer Julian Weller, Associate producer
Morgan Lavoy. Sound design and mixing by Julian Weller and
Dan Bauza. Music by Aaron Kaufman. Production support from Emily
(14:50):
Maronoff and Married You. Writing by Lucas Riley, Matt Riddle,
Margin Lavoy and Julian Weller. Lucas Right and Madriddle are
our story editors. Thanks to Sikin Paru Hermandy Suza, Godwin Amana,
Sydium Studios, Donald Byrne, and Bob Pittman,
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