♪ ADAM STUMACHER: The gun stays on us as it passes.

And the whole time, I can't stop shaking.

I can't stop thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?"

KAREN MAE BLACK: There is a sign in front of Blarney Castle that reads, "This castle is an ancient crumbling ruin.

Good luck, tourists."

TOM WILLIAMS: So I look at my friend.

I says, "You got your American Express with you?"

And he says, "Yes."

I says, "Let's buy a plane."

(laughter) THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Now or Never."

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

OKOKON: Do you dare to get on that horse or to apply for that new job?

Do you dare to say the words that are in your heart that could make all of the difference?

Tonight's storytellers are going to be bringing you their true stories of the moments in life where they took that leap and, for the most part, landed on their feet.

♪ WILLIAMS: My name's Tom Williams.

I grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts.

I've been a lawyer for the last 47 years.

I have a wife and four children.

Right now, I live in Scituate, Massachusetts.

OKOKON: Wow.

And your accent is so very Quincy-Boston, truly.

WILLIAMS: It's Quincy-Boston-- the Quincy accent, just a little bit different than the Boston accent.

OKOKON: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: But it's there.

OKOKON (laughing): Yeah, it's very Quincy.

I imagine people always know where you're from.

WILLIAMS: They, well, they...

If you go to other parts of the country, they just say, "Could you say that again?"

OKOKON (laughing): Like that.

WILLIAMS: And did I park my car at Harvard Yard, and they love it.

(Okokon laughing) OKOKON: So what role has storytelling played in your life?

WILLIAMS: In my law practice, what I do is, rather than tell people the law, I sit down with them and I try to tell them a story and how their plight fits into the story, and they remember the story.

But if I told them that, what the law was on Medicaid or what their law was on estate taxes or whatever, they're gonna walk out of the room and they're not really gonna remember.

But they remember the story.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I had just finished my chores, mowing the lawn, and all of a sudden, I looked over at my neighbor's house, and the garage door was open.

And this is where he keeps his man's cave.

And I said, "Well, let's go visit my neighbor."

So, and he was a former Marine-- he happened to be an undertaker, but he was a former Marine-- and he really liked Soldier of Fortune magazines.

So he's in his garage, sitting down there, having a highball and reading Soldier of Fortune magazine, and that's a magazine that's full of adventures.

And so him and I are talking about, we should have an adventure, and we're both suffering a little bit from a midlife crisis.

So we needed an adventure.

And I'm flipping the magazine, and all of a sudden, there's a picture of an airplane, of one of those jet... One of those fighters of World War II, with the top off and a big shark skin in the front, and going like that.

And my friend says, "I always wanted to be a pilot."

And I said, "Me, too."

Now, folks, I was afraid of heights, okay?

But I said "Me, too."

Then I said to him, "If we really want to be pilots, "let's get in the car and go down to the airport and get a pilot's lesson."

So, we get in the car, we drive about 20 miles, we get to the airport, and there's a plane available and there's an instructor available.

So, "Take us for a lesson."

So we get in for a lesson.

And we're in there for about a half an hour and we're flying around, you know?

It was pretty nice.

And so then I says to the instructor, "How much does it cost for lessons if you want to be a pilot?"

He says, "$100 an hour."

I says, "Oh," I says...

But he says, "If you own your own plane, it's 50 bucks an hour."

(laughter) Hmm, okay.

So my friend and I get, get out of the plane, and I says to the instructor, "How much does a plane cost?"

He says "You could buy that plane over there for $18,000."

So I look at my friend, I says, "You got your American Express with you?"

And he says, "Yes."

I says, "Let's buy a plane."

So we bought a plane.

(laughter) Now, folks, by the time we're driving home, we are completely sober, okay?

And we're deciding that, yes, we own a plane, because they cash those American Express pretty fast.

We own a plane, now we gotta tell the wives.

Now, how are we gonna do that?

And then secondly, what can you, gonna do, own a plane and not have a pilot's license?

So we said, "Okay, we're gonna get our pilot's licenses."

So we studied and we got, we went to night school and ground school and we learned how to fly.

So both of us learned how to fly, and we get our pilot's licenses.

The first day that we ever flew together-- first and only day that we ever flew together... (laughter) Okay?

We're down at the Marshfield Airport, and we take off like this-- and that's right next to the ocean-- and we take up, and we're around 800 feet up in the air, and we're going up, and my friend opens the window.

Now, folks, when you open a window in one of those small planes, it's like 25 lawnmowers... (imitates): Making so much noise.

I tell him, "Close the window!"

Okay?

And he doesn't close the window.

Then he reaches into his jacket and he pulls out a white box.

I said, "What are you doing?"

He says, "Cremains."

I says, "Cremains?"

Okay, now it struck me: My friend's an undertaker.

He's taking a tax deduction for his plane.

He's gonna bury... (laughter) He's gonna bury somebody at sea, or drop 'em off.

So, I want to tell you the truth, folks.

You don't spit in the wind, you don't pee in the wind, and you don't throw cremains in the wind.

Okay?

He puts it out the window, it blows back in.

(groaning and laughter) I am the pilot, okay?

Folks, I was scared to death.

It's in my eyes, it's all over me.

All of a sudden, the plane's going... (makes engine sound effects) And all I can think is, "A dead person's gonna kill me."

(laughter) The second thing, all I could think was, is, a lawyer and an undertaker die in a crash-- who cares?

(laughter) Okay?

It just sounds like a, a joke.

Okay, so then, what happens is this.

About, maybe about a month later.

Or a couple of months later, my wife and I, we had a farm.

It's a four-hour drive, up in Maine.

Okay?

From where we live.

But it's only about an hour and 15 minutes if you fly.

So I built myself a runway, okay?

On my farm.

I built a runway, but there was one end of the runway that was a little wet-- I knew it was wet.

Okay, so then, I asked my wife one day, "Do you want to fly to the farm?"

"Sure," so she got, she gets in the plane, and she's flying with me up to the farm, and everything's going pretty good.

And she's quite proud of having her husband being a pilot.

Okay, so we get to the farm, and when I see the farm, I get farm-itis, okay?

And that means I just want to land.

So I see the... and I go to land, and I go like this in the air, but I know there's a wet spot there, So I go... (makes engine noise) Okay?

And I get to the, then... (makes sound effect) I take off like this.

And she says, "What are you doing?"

I says, "Touch-and-go."

"Oh, okay."

So then, I come in again.

(makes engine sound effect) Gonna land-- boom!

I take off again.

She says, "Will you stop that touch-and-go and land the plane?"

I says, "Okay."

So this time, I'm gonna land the plane.

I go down, (makes sound effect) and I have farm-itis, folks.

And I'm not looking at the windsock.

You're supposed to land against the wind, not with the wind, but I'm not looking at it.

So then I land the plane.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

The plane won't stop.

We're going down the runway.

Now, folks, I ran out of runway.

You're not supposed to run out of runway.

(laughter) Okay?

At about 200 feet at the end of the... my airstrip, I have a badminton net.

The plane hits the badminton net.

(makes sound effect): Okay?

I say to my wife, "Carrier landing," ha-ha, okay?

(laughter) She didn't... She didn't speak to me for three days.

(laughter) About, oh, maybe about a couple of weeks after that, somebody calls up, they want to buy some meat from my farm, because I had meat up there.

So what happens is this, I have a man down the airport, I said, "Let's go for a ride."

So he goes for a ride up there with me.

Everything's going good.

I see the farm.

Okay, farm-itis again, didn't look at the windsock.

Then I go to land.

But this time, I wasn't gonna do any touch-and-go, I was just gonna land this plane.

So I go down... (makes engine sound effect) Then, boom, boom, boom!

The plane won't stop.

And then I pass where the badminton net used to be.

(laughter) Okay?

And there's a big barn in front of us, and this man thinks he's going to go to heaven right away.

But what happens is this: Fortunately, God was watching over me, and I had three tractor trailer truckloads of chicken manure dumped on the ground.

(laughter) So the plane hits the manure, okay?

Now, you know what hit the fan.

(makes sound effect): Okay?

So now we gotta get out of the plane, and the manure's up to here.

We get out, okay?

We get out in the manure.

And we gotta pull the plane out.

That man didn't speak to me all the way back, either.

(laughter) So then it gets about, eh, maybe I don't fly the plane for about six months.

And I'm-- I'm a lawyer and a busy guy.

And a lot of things on my mind, a lot of things on my mind.

And, you know, we started this thing as an adventure, but I had a lot of things on my mind.

I said, "Well, I'd better fly the plane, "because if I don't fly the plane, it's going to get rusty, like a car."

You don't fly a car, maybe it's not gonna work.

So I gotta fly the plane.

So I go down to the airport, and they got this little piece of paper that tells you how to, you know, what you gotta do.

Check the magnetos, check the oil, check everything.

And I... boom!

I start the engine, and it starts right up.

The plane remembered how to fly.

So now I get down to the airport.

I take off, (makes sound effect) It takes off easy, no problem.

I'm flying up around 2,000 feet, and it's starting to rain.

And I'm thinking that my family all dies, burials in the rain.

It's raining, and I'm getting kind of, it's kind of dark.

And I'm getting kind of, like, "What am I doing in this plane?"

So I says, "It's time to land this plane."

So all of a sudden, I go back to the airport, and then I'm getting ready to land, and folks, I sort of forgot, you have a thing called a carburetor heat.

Do you push it in or pull it out?

I couldn't remember.

So, fortunately, in the front seat of the plane, I had a book on how to fly a plane... (laughter) So I-- I read the book, how to fly the plane, and I-- and I saw what I had to do.

I landed the plane at the airport.

I walked into the control tower, I handed the man the keys, and I said, "Find somebody else "that's having a midlife crisis and tell them to have a great adventure."

(applause) STUMACHER: My name is Adam Stumacher.

I'm an author and an educator, originally from a small town in New Hampshire called Nelson.

I currently work as the director of instruction at the Henderson Inclusion School, which is a Boston public school in Dorchester.

OKOKON: You've written for The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, The Sun, and several other publications.

What kind of writing do you do?

STUMACHER: A lot of my work draws on my experience having, working as a teacher and administrator in inner-city schools for more than a decade now, and so a lot of what I try and do is just kind of explore the realities of that experience.

I feel like there are a lot of, there are a lot of myths about urban schools, like sort of the myth of, like, the white savior, the myth of the hero teacher, and I think a lot of what I'm trying to do is work very intentionally against those perceived images and just kind of depict the reality as I've lived it in all of its, like, sort of messy nuance.

So I'm walking with a group of volunteers down this bombed-out road on the outskirts of Nablus, a city in the West Bank, when I hear a deep rumbling sound.

The sound grows louder and the ground begins to shake.

And then in the distance, I see this cloud of dust, and cresting the hill, this huge steel beast, an Israeli tank.

As it approaches, the turrets swivel towards us, and I'm staring down the barrel of a gun that's opening wider than my head.

The gun stays on us as it passes, and the whole time, I can't stop shaking.

Can't stop thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?"

This is how I spent the summer after my first year as a teacher.

I joined the Teach for America program and was assigned to teach eighth grade in East Oakland.

Imagine me, a clueless white boy with a ponytail pushing a shopping cart down a crowded hallway, and in every classroom, the kids won't quiet down long enough for me to even take attendance.

By the end of my first month, I've been cussed out more times than I can even count.

I've had students tear posters off the walls, take art supplies out of drawers while my back is turned.

Nobody is learning except for me.

This is the first experience in my life of complete failure.

And the worst part is, I have to wake up the next morning knowing that I will fail again.

162 more days until summer.

So when June finally rolls around, I volunteer as a human shield in a war zone.

(laughter) As a Jewish American, I, I've long had a sense of connection, a sense of responsibility for this tragedy unfolding on the nightly news, a sense of stake in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but mostly, after a year of failure, I just wanted to do something good.

Only it ended up more complicated than that, because when that tank rounded the bend and we made our way into Nablus, I found that in this war zone, I didn't have to do anything.

As a human shield, my job was to be.

I held up my navy blue passport, and magic things seemed to happen around me.

The Israeli soldiers were mostly scared kids with A.K.-47s, and with an American witness present, they changed.

They allowed ambulances through checkpoints.

They allowed villagers to clear the rubble blocking their roads.

They allowed mobile clinics to set up in shuttered schoolhouses.

At night, I slept in a refugee camp in a home scheduled for demolition because the family's son had been a suicide bomber.

The father, Abu Saed, was a wiry man with deep laugh lines who stayed up late, offering me cups of Turkish coffee, platters of figs, and stories.

He showed me photos of his old family farm, the olive groves his grandfather had planted.

He said, when the soldiers came, they had one hour to pack everything they could into an oxcart and leave forever.

He showed me the deed to the farm.

He said, "When you go back to America, I want you to tell them I have this paper."

It wasn't until the end of summer, the night before I was scheduled to leave, that he told me about his son Saed.

He said the boy was born here, lived his whole life in this camp, where school was usually closed, where there weren't many jobs.

He said Saed was a playful boy, but he changed as he grew older.

He stopped laughing, started getting into fights and staying out late with his friends, until that night when he didn't come back.

And the next morning, they saw it on the news.

Saed had blown himself up on a bus, killing himself and three others.

"My boy did not learn this from us," said Abu Saed.

"But now the soldiers want to destroy our home.

"Only, tonight we're safe.

An American is here, and we are safe."

Just before I turned in, he showed me Saed's picture.

I saw this shot of a boy with this wild mop of curls and a look on his face somewhere between mischief and hope.

And that's when it hit me.

This could be any one of us.

This could be one of my students.

The next morning, I woke up before dawn and I left.

I was a tourist in a war zone.

I could choose to leave.

And the truth is, I couldn't wait to get across those checkpoints, back to Jerusalem, and take a long, hot shower.

Only later, after I landed back home, after I started pushing my shopping cart down the hallway again, I realized part of me had never left.

That fall, I learned about Rachel Corrie, an American human shield like me, who was run over by a bulldozer and killed.

And that's when I understood, there is no magic to a navy blue passport.

I had just been lucky.

I never did hear what happened to Abu Saed or to his home, but the picture of his son stuck with me.

And when I see my students, I see him, a boy with mischief in his grin and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

And so I wake up the next morning and I face failure again, and I try to fail a little better every time.

And at the end of the year, I kept on trying, and then the year after that, I stuck with it.

So after ten years now working in inner-city schools, I'm still figuring out what it means to do something good.

But one thing I do know is this: You have to be more than a tourist.

You have to stay.

Thank you.

(applause) BLACK: My name is Karen Mae Black.

I actually am from Charleston, South Carolina.

I do communications and marketing work during the day to keep the roof over my head, and I guess you would say, by night, I'm a storytelling junkie.

OKOKON: I understand that you founded a storytelling show in South Carolina called Truth Is.

Why is it important for you to start that type of platform?

BLACK: I moved to Charleston from Los Angeles back in 2007, and I was just looking for a place to continue doing storytelling, and I found that Charleston did not have a storytelling show.

So with lack of a place to perform, I started my own show.

And I needed something to keep my artistic spirit alive so that it wouldn't shrivel up and die.

OKOKON: And how do you feel in terms of your options for growth as a storyteller in a community like Charleston?

BLACK: It's great because the sky's the limit.

When you host a show, it's easy to be a little loosey-goosey and impromptu.

This has given me a new level of feedback and coaching that has really pushed me forward as a storyteller.

When you have an invisible illness, there's lots of feeling sorry for yourself.

Reading the faces of strangers: "Why is that normal-looking fat girl taking the elevator down?"

"Why is she riding in the motorized scooter at Home Depot?"

Seven years into my diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis-- R.A.-- I felt a strong need to prove something to everybody in my life, including myself.

So I took a spontaneous, ill-advised trip to Ireland, alone.

I'm in the worst shape of my life, I'm in what they call in R.A.-land a flare-up, and I have very little international travel experience.

But I think to myself, "Hey, you're not getting any younger and you're not getting any healthier."

With a chip on my shoulder weighing me down even more, I also decide I am going to do every single thing that is on my group tour package, R.A. be damned.

Now, I want you to picture somebody who's going to climb Mount Everest, and they have absolutely no preparation and absolutely no training.

Now, compress that down into two hours, decrease the probability of actual death by about 97%... (laughter) And you have the story of the day that I visited Blarney Castle.

Evelyn, our sassy tour guide, said, (in Irish accent): "It's a bit of a hike from the bus up to the castle," looking right at me.

Oh, no, Evelyn.

Mm-mm, I'm normal.

I'm going to kiss the famous Blarney Stone, like millions before me-- not that I needed the gift of the gab that it promises to give.

What Evelyn was giving me was a kind warning, her stubborn, swollen passenger, but I just didn't know it at that time.

Limping up the beautiful hillside, I went to the castle.

It was way more than a bit of a hike, but I did it.

Side note: there is a sign in front of Blarney Castle that reads, more or less: "This castle is an ancient, crumbling ruin.

"It's not fit for humans to go inside.

"We wouldn't go in there.

Good luck, tourists."

(laughter) But what did it matter?

I was just going in for a few minutes.

There's no signage that warns you about the horrors that await.

The roof is five stories up.

That's right, the Blarney Stone is on the roof.

Also, the castle was designed to protect little medieval lords and ladies from their enemies, so this narrow spiral staircase has stairs that are a different height as you're going up.

It's a great way to trip up armored knights who get in the mood for castle-storming.

Nowadays, for us tourists, they have a rope there to assist you.

A slimy, moss-covered rope that matches the slimy, moss-covered walls and window sills that are, bonus, totally covered in bird poo.

(laughter) Up the poo stairs I went.

(laughter) Palazzo pants, Coach bags, sunglasses, lots of scarves.

Pulling myself up one treacherous step at a time, I made it to the top.

Like I say to my friends, with the muscle tone of a baby and the joints of your grandparents.

(laughter) And then I saw the line.

My legs were so swollen at this point, I couldn't even really feel them, which was a gift.

There were two stern Bulgarian guys keeping everyone moving along up top, and before I knew it, I was at the front of the line, I was going to kiss the stone.

But where was the stone?

If you guys have been there, you know: there is no stone.

You just kiss a spot on the wall.

Bulgarian guy number two was demanding a euro from me, and Bulgarian guy number one was grabbing me by the waist and throwing me down on the ground onto a cheap throw rug, screaming in my face.

"We go now!

Now!

Grab the metal bars behind you."

You see, you get dipped back and have to go upside down to kiss the wall.

Why?

Because there is a six-story drop.

You can fall all the way down to the dungeon and die.

But I did it.

One and two... (applause) One and two scooped me back up and just shoved me along with everyone else.

And I thought, "Oh, selfie time."

The stairwell to get back down is even worse.

It's gravity and more grime.

I made it back down.

My R.A. skills came in handy, because I knew how to walk down the stairs, and sat down on a rock to catch my breath, and that's when I saw it.

I turned my head a little this way, and on a giant television monitor was a massive, larger-than-life photo of me kissing the Blarney Stone, emblazoned with the Blarney Castle logo.

Of course I bought it; I'm a sucker.

I said to the gift shop lady, "Why doesn't anyone tell you how hard this is actually going to be?"

And she was a sassy lass, too, she said... (in Irish accent): "And ruin my fun?"

(laughter) "You Americans, you go up like you're climbing Everest and you come down from the tropics."

(laughter) That night, I had lots of extra painkillers, lots of Irish whiskey.

The people on my tour toasted to me and cheered me, and my souvenirs from that day were a sunburn on just one side of my face, an overpriced photo, and, when I got home, acute bronchitis.

But another thing I took home with me was a brand-new understanding of my invisible illness and a brand-new sense of self.

I left that chip that was on my shoulder back somewhere around Galway, and if you asked me if I would do it all over again, I definitely would, because now I know I could.

(applause) You go through different stages when you have an invisible illness.

I had gone through years of feeling like there was some external force that would come along to nudge me along.

And at this time, I realized I needed to take action and do something myself.

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪