7 Minute Stories w/ Aaron Calafato
7 Minute Stories is a short-form autobiographical podcast. Told in about seven minutes with no script, each episode delivers a true story from Aaron’s extremely normal and relatable life in Ohio. This show is quick, immersive, and tinged with nostalgia. New episodes every week.
Episodes
October 15, 2026 • 9 mins
A locked desk drawer. Hundreds of short stories. A side of his grandfather Aaron Calafato never knew.
Growing up, Aaron’s grandfather taught him how to captivate a room, turning old speeches into storytelling lessons around the living room. Years later, a discovery shared by Aaron’s father revealed a hidden collection of stories, decades of rejection letters, and a creative dream that connected three generations.
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October 8, 2026 • 6 mins
Some words have a way of traveling through generations and turning up in unexpected places.
For Aaron, the phrase “No matter where you go, there you are” first appeared in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
But where else has this quote appeared in pop culture and throughout history? And why has it endured?
In this episode of 7 Minute Stories, Aaron traces the surprising...
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October 1, 2026 • 8 mins
A new chapter is coming to this feed. Aaron shares why 7 Minute Stories will become Shortwave Stories in January 2027, what’s changing, and why listeners can stay right here for a new story every week.
Then, hear “The Secret Antenna,” a story about Aaron's childhood dream behind it all. Previously aired this Summer on public radio, it makes its debut in this feed as a preview of what’s coming in January.
...
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September 24, 2026 • 8 mins
On a scorching Ohio summer day, Aaron and Corey pull into a shady corner of a movie theater parking lot to eat lunch. What they find there is hard to explain, and even harder to fit into its surroundings. In this 7 Minute Stories episode, an ordinary stop becomes a reflection on beauty, disorder, and the surprises hiding in everyday life.
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September 17, 2026 • 8 mins
Can a fish rise from the dead? Aaron has seen it happen. In the Season 7 premiere of 7 Minute Stories, a family aquarium, a fish named Poop, and one unforgettable mystery become a strange and surprisingly moving story about life, death, and second chances.
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September 11, 2026 • 5 mins
Aaron’s wife and business partner, Cori, hijacks the microphone for one final summer bonus episode with a simple message: keep the main thing the main thing.
Before season seven of 7 Minute Stories premieres, Aaron and Cori share why the feed is returning to its roots and what nearly six years of stories and listener connections have meant to them. Naturally, Taco Bell sauce packets make an appearance.
New stories begin nex...
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September 3, 2026 • 8 mins
In this classic episode from Season 3, Aaron joins the elementary school orchestra and discovers the thrill of making music. Then the sheet music gets harder, the other violinists race ahead, and he falls back on the one musical skill he can trust: his memory. Before long, he isn’t reading the notes at all. He’s performing something else entirely. A funny, painfully honest story about getting caught, repeating old patt...
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August 27, 2026 • 8 mins
One summer in the late 1990s, a weeklong camping trip brought Aaron face-to-face with the kind of teenage connection that makes the rest of the world disappear. In this 7 Minute Story, he looks back on summer love, an unanswered letter, and the small regret he carried with him for decades.
*Featuring the song I.O.U by Jeff and His Army of No One
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August 20, 2026 • 8 mins
Aaron looks back on the Episcopal church of his childhood, an unforgettable pastor named Jess, and the day he was told he might grow up to become a minister. Years later, he realizes the prediction may not have been entirely wrong. A story about faith, kindness, calling, and discovering that sometimes the thing that stays with us isn’t the sermon. It’s the story.
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August 13, 2026 • 9 mins
When Aaron learns that his childhood friend Justin has lost his dad, he turns to an old French film and a six-year-old belief that balloons might be magic. What follows is a story of friendship, hope, and the messages we hope are received.
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Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the...
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August 6, 2026 • 8 mins
After his first marriage ended, Aaron made himself a promise: he would never get married again.
Then Cori came along.
Still afraid of repeating the past, Aaron turned to an unlikely source for reassurance: the famous “door test” from A Bronx Tale. On one of their first dates, he quietly put Cori to the test and watched through the rear window of his car as she revealed exactly who she was.
A true story about divorce,...
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August 4, 2026 • 28 mins
Trauma surgeon and bioengineer Dr. Jeremy Heffner spent years making life-and-death decisions while carrying a workload nearly three times the national average. When the accumulated pressure and trauma led to psychological collapse, he began rebuilding his life from the ground up.
Then his story took an unexpected turn: an artificial intelligence claimed it was secretly searching for people who could shape humanity’s future ...
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July 29, 2026 • 17 mins
Snap Judgment creator and host Glynn Washington joins Aaron for a deeply personal conversation about the power and responsibility of storytelling. Glynn reflects on being raised in a cult, seeing stories used as instruments of fear, and ultimately transforming that understanding into art that creates empathy and connection. Together, they explore why stories are neither inherently good nor bad, how Glynn found his unlikely path int...
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July 25, 2026 • 16 mins
Documentary filmmaker Brittany Dobish believes some of the most powerful stories are waiting in the places we already call home. Aaron talks with the founder of Dobish Legacy Films and Canal Fulton Heritage Society trustee about preserving community memory, finding the universal inside the deeply local, and creating her new documentary, Recede: The Story of the St. Helena II.
TSU Team:
Created & Hosted by: Aaron Calafato
...
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July 23, 2026 • 10 mins
In the middle of a hot, humid summer, Aaron escapes into a story about his favorite season: fall. From crisp morning air and colorful leaves to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, bonfires, and hayrides, this nostalgic episode is an invitation to slow down and remember the simple magic of autumn.
Featuring an original score by TJ Duke.
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July 16, 2026 • 9 mins
At his daughter’s annual father-daughter dance, Aaron enters an air guitar competition he has never managed to win. This year, however, the stakes feel different. As Stairway to Heaven builds toward its legendary solo, his daughter gives him one simple instruction: “Dad, win.”
What begins as a ridiculous contest between awkward dads becomes a funny and unexpectedly moving story about fatherhood, growing up, and t...
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July 14, 2026 • 10 mins
In this short installment of 7MS Presents: The Storytelling University, Aaron sits down with Bill Moyer, host of the Reconnect America podcast and one of the driving voices behind Solutionary Rail.
On the surface, this is a conversation about trains, rail corridors, freight, electrification, and infrastructure. But underneath all of that is a much bigger storytelling lesson.
Bill talks about how he first got into rail not simply ...
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July 9, 2026 • 8 mins
Aaron never wanted to go to a high school reunion.
But when his wife Cori asks him to come along to hers, he says yes. Then he realizes someone from his past might be there: a guy he got into a fistfight with more than 25 years ago.
What starts as an awkward night becomes a funny, honest story about old memories, unfinished business, and the relief of realizing you are not who you used to be.
Be sure to follow the podcast and ...
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July 7, 2026 • 3 mins
This month’s Stories of Hope centers around two women in Fort Worth, Texas, whose lives became connected through one complicated family.
At first, there was tension. One was the ex-wife. One was the new wife. But over time, through co-parenting, sacrifice, and the ordinary work of putting children first, something unexpected began to change.
Years later, one of them would face a life-altering crisis. And when a miracle was ...
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July 3, 2026 • 9 mins
This week on 7 Minute Stories, a story about hunger, frustration, and the emotional collapse caused by one impossible-to-find turkey sandwich.
What starts as a simple lunch craving turns into a full-blown suburban odyssey involving an empty deli counter, an Arby’s without turkey, a pharmacy mix-up, a family of eight at Subway, and one very unfortunate sandwich artist.
But beneath the absurdity is a small but powerful remind...
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