This is the Moth Radio Hour.
I'm your host, Jennifer Hickson.
In this hour, we'll be hearing stories by and about mothers, the matriarch,
your most insightful critic, or your greatest defender, often both at once.
Consider the archetype, mama bear, fiercely protective, running on instincts,
able to fend off your worst enemies and soften your darkest hours.
Sometimes the mama bears in our lives are our grandmas or our sisters, our neighbors.
There was a crossing guard in the town I grew up in.
I pity the impatient driver who'd honk or inch up while us kids were crossing.
Nuh-uh.
Not on her watch.
We met our first storyteller, Donald Harrison, in Philadelphia.
Here he is at St. Ann's Church in New York City.
The year I turned 30,
I decided it was about damn time I got a job playing the piano and singing in a gay bar.
Sometimes you just reach that phase of your life, you know?
But it wasn't any gay bar.
It was a Philadelphia institution called Tavern on Camac.
I had always loved Tavern.
It is a medium-sized gay piano bar.