Learning to Fly

This is the story of my first play...that was almost my last. I’ll also introduce you to the famous Duck Man – a hero I could have used onstage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Today's stories about a school play, unexpected turns, and a
box full of baby ducks. It's also about me, your
host a pump Care, but mostly it's about making you smile.
Welcome to anupum Cares Chapter two, Learning to Fly. I

(00:32):
want to tell you the story of my first play,
back when I'm budding young actor named Anu. Pump Care
was in fifth standard and shim La was still a small,
beautiful hill station. Now I'm proud to say that in
my very first play, I was cast in the lead role,
the hero. And while I would like to believe that

(00:55):
I got that role because Mrs ba my teacher, saw
my immense secting potential, unfortunately I don't think that was
the case. You see, Mrs Baja was this wonderful roly
police teacher, but she was a little lazy. She didn't
like carrying her heavy handbag to and from school, so

(01:16):
every morning I would go to her house, pick it up,
and then leave it just outside the school's gate so
she could walk in like she had carried it the
whole way. And for that little act of kindness, I
was rewarded with a lead role. I was made the
King and in the story my job was to rescue

(01:37):
a damsel from a villain. Now in the fifth Standard,
I not only had a beautiful mop of air, but
I was also very slender, real thin. Mrs Bajaj wanted
to cast someone my total opposite as the villain, so
she chose the milkman's son. Ali asked none do and

(02:01):
Nandu had clearly drunk a lot of milk. He was powerful.
In fact, he was a hulk five times bigger than
I was in every direction, but mostly back any school play.

(02:23):
The final scene had a duel, and I, the scrawny king,
was supposed to fight this powerful gunda to win the
fair maiden. It was a sweet folk tale, and as
we had choreographed it, I was supposed to take my
sword and flash it in the air, then give the
dialogue cha, which usually translated as get out, get out,

(02:49):
don't talk rubbish, and then I would knock Nado down
with a little sword flight. Then he would get up
and I would again say get out, get out, don't
talk rubbish, and again he would fall. We were supposed
to do it three times before I could claim victory.

(03:12):
To tell you the truth, to a puny little fellow
like me, it felt wonderful. My confidence rose at every
play practice, and while none they didn't enjoy being humiliated
on stage, especially because he could beat me to a
pulp with ease off stage. This was a play, and
in the play we had to follow Mrs Ba's rules.

(03:35):
So we practiced just like that. And on the big day,
all fourteen members of my family came to see the play.
As the curtain went up, I was thrilled for me.
This was a way to finally get noticed. In school.
I never got great marks, and I couldn't run fast.

(03:57):
Once my pet teacher saw me running, he said, even
if you run alone, you will come second. I was
so thin that my mother used to put extra books
in my school bag so that if the wind blew,
I wouldn't be carried away. And now an open care
was finally in the spotlight. Before the curtain rose, I

(04:19):
peeked out and noticed a little tension in the audience.
On one side was my family and friends, proudly packed
into this little auditorium, and on the other side was
none Bo's family, who also had come to see the play.
The difference was striking. On no side you had rose
full of big mustaches and biceps lots of meat on

(04:43):
those bodies, and they seemed angry from the start. But
I was just focused on my father and smiled and
relaxed into the part. To tell you the truth, the
play was going great. My dad was beaming with that

(05:04):
proud dad smile all parents seemed to get when they
see their kids on stage. The X went on smoothly.
Kids remember their lines, and then we moved to the finale.
Finally my time to shine. So I rescued the maiden,
pulled her to my side of the stage, then geared

(05:24):
up for the big sword fight. I took my place
and confidently said Chalaja Chalaja, bakaaker too. I could hear
the delighted clapping from my father's side of the stage.
Then I made a quick jab and none felt off.
I came my line a second time, this time with

(05:46):
more bigger chalaga chalagak and again and who fell down
just as we had reased. Now it was time for
me to kill. I belted the line out one final time,
Chalaga chalaja, When I was suddenly interrupted. There in the audience,
I saw none those fathers standing and screaming none do

(06:10):
abuque girato carnayo, which translated into Nana do if you
fall down a third time, don't bother coming home? I
was confused, so was Mr Bajas and the rest of
the cast. But none do. He seemed to know exactly
what to do. As the audience began clapping, chanting together

(06:36):
none do, None do None to Nando looked at his father,
to all the other milkman, and then he focused his
case on me. I don't know exactly what Nand was thinking,
but I knew he was no longer in character and
he was no longer following the script. As the audience

(07:00):
continue to cheer him. On re route landing, he picked
up this scrawny king, held me high above his head,
and then he threw me into the audience, into my
father's lap, and then triumphantly in an inspired moment of player,
I think he looked at his father and delivered a

(07:20):
final line, Babo, he can I come home now. I
can still hear the cheering for Nando. It was a
great night for me and Mrs bag It was a disaster.

(07:43):
At the end of the night, they still decided to
do the press distribution ceremony. I did not win the
Best Actor Award or Best supporting actor. I thought maybe
maybe I would get a consolation price, after all, I
had taken flight that night. But I didn't get that either.

(08:05):
When you live in a small town, in a small
house with just one small room, like we did, there
isn't anywhere to go to be alone. You can't really hide.
So I sat in the corner wallowing, do not cheat, Kia.
And then I saw my father coming from outside. He

(08:30):
had plucked these wild yellow flowers on his walk home
and turned them into a clumsy little bouquet. And then
in KASHMIRI he said, imp Ruth, these flowers are for you,

(08:51):
my son, not for losing, but for trying. And you're
a child. There are moments when nothing can comfort you
except your parents words. And sitting there holding a book
a blanketed in the love of my father, I felt
like the best actor in the world. That night. My

(09:19):
father seemed to catch me twice, first when I had
landed in his lap, then again when he gently showed
me a way forward. The beloved children's tevie host Mr.

(09:44):
Rogers used to say, look for the helpers, the people
you might not notice who are nearby waiting to catch you.
For a group of baby ducks. That helper turned out
to be a man named Joel Anderson. For years, Joel
was working as a humble loan officer at a bank
in Spokane, Washington, even the kind of guy you usually

(10:07):
saw if you needed a loan. But for one day
every spring, Joel would lose in his tie and provide
a different kind of service. In two thousand eighteen, Joel
was working from his second story office downtown when he
looked out of the window and noticed just below his
office was a mother duck resting on a concrete awning

(10:31):
fifteen feet about the sidewalk. Beneath her rested nest of
about ten eggs. For the expecting mother duck, it must
have seemed like a smart place to put her nest.
There was ample protection and predators certainly could not reach it.

(10:51):
But each day, as Joel checked on the mother and
her eggs from the desk, he began to wonder how
the new ducklings would get down from that height. And
then one day Joel peeked out of the window as
usual and saw ten yellow balls of fuzz chirping. They
had hatched. He watched as the mother gracefully floated down

(11:16):
to the sidewalk, and it began quacking. Then Joe's fear
came true. The ducklings lined up along the ledge of
the awning. One of the babies decided to join its
mother and jump and crash. Joel washed in horror as
the ducklings smacked onto the concrete sidewalk below and lay

(11:38):
there motionless. After ten long seconds, the groggy baby duck recovered.
Joel immediately thought, I've got to get down there and
help those things. He sprang from his desk, raised down
the stairs to the sidewalk, and looked up. One by one,
those little yellow puff balls began to free fall off

(12:01):
the ledge like lemmings. Back in college, Joel used to
play baseball. He had lots of experience shagging fly balls,
and as an added benefit, he was embidextrous, so as
the ducklings fell, he reached his hand out and gracefully
plucked them one by one from there left hand, right hand,

(12:23):
left hand, right, and did each catch. He gently lowered
the duckling to the ground next to its mother, just
in type to catch the next. At one point two
ducklings jumped at the same time, and Joe nimbly caught
both before they hit the pavement, all the while the
mama duck looked on with indifference. After all the ducklings

(12:45):
had safely made it to ground level, Joel realized that
his work was not done. It was a quarter mile
walk to the river, and the path was blocked by
busy roads. At first, Joel thought about holding up traffic
as the duck links waddled behind their mother, but it
was futile in such heavy traffic, so he and some

(13:05):
helpers stuffed the ducklings into a cardboard box and followed
the mother as she walked to the river. All of
the ducks made it there safely. After they event, Joel
was declared in the local press as the duck Man,
and in fact the name stuck because Joel's work wasn't finished.

(13:27):
The next year, the mother duck returned to the same
awning about the sidewalk, and the year after that. Each
time Joel watched the newborn ducklings line up on the
ledge and prepared to parachute down, and each time he
was there ready to catch them. After three straight years
of rescuing ducks, the Duckman became a local sensation. One year,

(13:51):
the rescue occurred during a popular festival parade, and onlookers
came to clap and cheer as Joel and the ducklings
waddled their way the safety of the river. All time,
Joel would catch nearly thirty ducklings, never dropping a single one.

(14:14):
That's it for today's episode. I'm an opum Care. Be
kind to yourself and thank you for listening. Palm Cares
is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm your Host

(14:35):
an Opum Care. Our executive producer is Senior 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 Marinov and Married du Writing by Lucas Riley,

(14:59):
Matt Riddle, margoun La Boy and Julian Weller. Lucas Riley
and Madriddle are our story editors. Thanks to Sikin Paru,
Herman de Suza, Godwin Amana, Sidium Studios, Cornel Byrne and
Bob Pittman