♪ SCOTT SCHULTZ: And then I told my mom, "His father's leather jacket "is hanging in my roommate's closet.

Don't lose the jacket."

EWA CHRUSCIEL: So I kept walking, thinking, "If God lets my sausage in, I will eat it like a saint."

(laughter) ANNA WILLIS: Now this poor young man, his outfit is ruined, his belly is scalded, and probably worse, particularly being British-- everybody is looking at him.

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Lost and Found."

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

Thank you.

OKOKON: Not all who wander are lost.

And as human beings, really, we are programed to seek.

We search connections, we search experiences, we search challenges.

And sometimes the thing that we were looking for was never even lost to begin with.

We may spend our entire lifetime trying to find someone to co-narrate this thing that we call life.

And sometimes that person or that thing that we were looking for is sitting right there in front of us, never lost, just waiting to be noticed.

♪ WILLIS: My name's Anna Willis.

Me and my husband left the U.K. about 16 years ago, and we've lived in Asia and the U.S. since.

I work in nonprofit, mostly.

With refugees and also asylum seekers.

OKOKON: So, what drew you to storytelling, and why did you focus on vocal storytelling, as opposed to writing?

WILLIS: It's a good question, it...

So basically, I'm dyslexic.

And I do now, thankfully, have the keys to the kingdom that is called literacy, and, I hope, very well.

But my best voice is not my written voice, and it is my real voice.

OKOKON: Yeah.

WILLIS: And if you think about it, people have been talking way before they ever learned to read and write, before mass education and we could all do this thing called writing.

I just think that... it's just so much easier for me to talk than for me to write.

And I believe the art of live storytelling gives people that otherwise wouldn't go and write a book, or write an article, or get published, it gives them an avenue to tell stories and share ideas that would never otherwise be told.

So it's about 20 years ago now.

And I'm sat on a South Coast train on my way into London.

It's raining, average British day.

Mid-morning, midweek-- really nothing remarkable about this journey.

And I've sat there for a while and I've finished reading the couple of sheets of newspaper that somebody had left on my seat.

And I'd looked around me and sort of summed everybody up.

I'm always wondering who people are and what their story is.

And there was a little old lady sat across the table from me.

And she was sat there knitting, like, something pink, and for a baby, it looked like.

And there was a young man next to me.

And he sort of looked like he was trussed up in this sort of ill-fitting suit, and he was all uncomfortable and nervous, and he was playing with his tie.

That was him.

And I looked out the window, and I daydreamed a bit.

Daydreaming-- do you remember daydreaming?

That thing we used to do before we had phones?

It's vastly underrated.

You think?

Anyway, I looked up, and there was a lady working her way down the aisle towards me.

And she's sort of in her late 50s, early 60s, and she's carrying a hot cup of coffee in one hand and a rolled-up paper bag in the other.

And she's sort of steadying herself with her elbows on the backs of the chairs as she's coming toward us.

And suddenly, very violently, the carriage sort of jolted to one side and then the other.

And she's trying to sort of steady herself, and in doing so, kind of loses her balance and kind of dives forward and punches, accidentally, the young man next to me in the chest with the cup of hot coffee.

(laughter) Oh, yeah.

And he bolts up, and he's like... (stammering) And he pulls his shirt out of his pants, and he's fanning his scalded belly, and he's, like... (stammering).

And the lady, she's, like, "Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry.

Oh, my gosh."

And she's flapping around, she's searching around in her bag for some tissues to mop it up, and so is everybody within earshot.

And she looks at the young man, and she says, "And you're so smart."

And he went, "Yeah, I was going for an interview."

And she went... (gasps) "Oh.

"Right, I've got to put this right.

"When we get into the station in London, "I am going to take you to the nearest department store, "and I will buy you a new shirt, new tie, new jacket, whatever.

"And... and if you're late, "oh, well, I will...

I'll take you to that interview, "and I'll speak to that boss, and I'll tell him why, and I'll say it's my fault."

And now this poor young man, his outfit is ruined, his belly is scalded, and probably worse, particularly being British, everybody is looking at him.

(laughter) And he's mortally embarrassed.

And he's going, "Oh, no, it's fine, it's good, it's fine.

No, no, no, no, no, it's good, it's really good."

And this lady, she's beginning to get really teary.

And I'm thinking, "Ooh, I'm going to have...

I'm going to intervene, I have to do something."

And so I reached over, and I put my hand on her arm, and I said, "Why don't you just sit down for a minute.

"You know, kind of just calm down, let the dust settle, and I think everything will work out fine."

And she said, "Oh, I suppose so."

And she sat down, and she calmed down.

And after a while, I said, "Where is that accent from?

You're not from around here, are you?"

And she went, "No, I'm from New Zealand."

And I said, "Oh."

And she goes, "Oh, but, no, I was born here.

I was born in Bournemouth on the south coast."

And she said, "Actually, I've come back "for a couple of weeks, because I'm trying to find some of my family."

I went, "Oh."

And she said, "Yeah, well, you see, "like, I came from Bournemouth, where I lived with my parents, "and they divorced when I was four.

"And well, me and my two sisters, "we went to go live with my, my mum, "and the boys, my brothers, "they went to go and live with their father.

"And when my mum remarried, and we moved to New Zealand, "and I actually never saw my brothers ever again.

And I've come back to find them, and..." And she's getting teary again.

And she said, "I think I was really close, "but I haven't managed to find them, and actually, "I'm on my way back to London, because I'm flying back out tomorrow."

And I said, "Oh, I'm really sorry.

What were their names?"

Now, I do actually have to tell you at this point I don't remember their names, but they were very sort of English-sounding names like Ian, Brian, and John, so I'm gonna use those for this purpose.

So she said, "Ian, Brian, and John."

Then the young man next to me sort of perked up a bit and said, "My dad's name's John, "and those are his brothers' names, and he's from Bournemouth."

And she went, "Really?"

And he went, "Yeah."

And she went... (gasps) And her eyes became even bigger and started to leak more, and then she let her breath go and she lost it.

And she was... she was... she was crying and sobbing, trying to breathe and trying to speak all at the same time, and it was like... (panting).

Now, this lady and this young man had already caught the attention of everybody around us with the hot coffee incident, and they're of course listening in, but being very British and pretending not to.

(laughter) Sort of, kind of badly.

But at this point they all went, "Oh?"

And they're looking backwards and forwards and people's hands were going to their mouth, and there was a few glassy eyes.

And I was feeling really sort of emotional, too.

And so it transpired that this lady, through some random act of coffee spilling, had found her long-lost nephew, and I'm guessing was soon to be reunited with her long-lost brothers.

And it was, you know, soon we pulled into the station, and they went on their merry way, and I was kind of left in sort of awe and kind of shock.

And once I sort of calmed down, it occurred to me that somehow, through just some tiny intervention and a small act of kindness, I'd somehow helped these two find each other, and it felt really special.

And in all the years since, I've traveled the world, I've lived all over the world, I've kind of made it my, my, my job to, as I travel, to speak to people and to sort of look for opportunities to offer random acts of kindness, because you never know what you might find.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) Actually I don't believe in six degrees of separation, and really because I think we're far closer.

It's more like 0.6 degrees of separation.

There's a lot more connecting us than there is dividing us.

And you just have to listen, you have to speak to people, and you have to listen to people.

And you don't even need to do that for very long before you start to realize how closely connected we all are in some way or another.

♪ SCHULTZ: My name is Scott Schultz.

And I'm originally from Boston, but I've been living in Los Angeles for most of my adult life.

I produce a show in Los Angeles called BUSted Los Angeles, and that is true stories about getting around L.A. told by people who don't drive.

OKOKON: Hm.

SCHULTZ: So it's stories that take place on the bus, trains, bicycle lanes, sidewalks-- any way of getting around except driving or motorized.

OKOKON: How do you go about finding your storytellers?

SCHULTZ: I recruit on the sidewalks, I recruit on the buses and trains, I recruit in break rooms.

OKOKON: Mm-hmm.

SCHULTZ: And you hear commiserations in the break room, or some outrageous story that happened that day.

When I hear those people, I just approach them, and I encourage them to tell a story at the show.

OKOKON: With all the different stories that you're listening to and you're hearing, there are so many different themes that people could go for-- happy or sad, funny, whatever.

SCHULTZ: Sure.

OKOKON: So what kinds of stories do you feel that people gravitate towards?

SCHULTZ: New storytellers, they're always going to reach for the low-hanging fruit because-- which is the outrageous stories, the crazy scenes-- because that's what's fresh in their recollection.

When I bring in new storytellers, I try to tell them imagine you just got off the bus, you just walked in the break room, you see me and Theresa, and you're, like, "Man, you're not going to believe what just happened," and then you tell the story.

♪ Ten years ago, I'm talking with my mom on the phone.

I'm flying out to Boston for a family wedding.

My mother's really excited, because my youngest sister, Sherry, is bringing her new boyfriend, J.J., to the wedding from New York City.

And my mom is convinced that I'm going to love this guy because his father, who died when he was five years old, had been a magazine publisher and founded his own magazine, and I had always worked in publishing my whole adult life, in alternative weeklies and independent music magazines.

So I was intrigued, I said, "Do you recall the name of the magazine?

Maybe I've heard of it."

She said, "I think it was called Creep or Creek. "

I said, "You mean Creem magazine?"

She goes, "Yeah, yeah, that's it, Creem, Creem magazine-- have you heard of that before?"

I said, "Mom, that's the magazine that turned me bad when I was 12."

(laughter) For those of you not familiar with Creem magazine, in the '70s and '80s, it was the number-two music magazine in America.

But it was a lot more crude and rebellious than Rolling Stone .

Creem magazine was ground zero for what's now post-modern rock journalism.

The glossy photos exploded off the page.

Lester Bangs was the editor.

This was the magazine that coined the terms "punk" and "heavy metal" into music vernacular.

The staff looked more like a touring band than they did journalists.

It's where I learned about sarcasm, it's where I learned to question authority and my heroes, equally, and for better or worse, from that first issue I read when I was 12 years old, Creem became my blueprint for life.

So yeah, I was familiar with Creem magazine.

And then I told my mom, "His father's leather jacket is hanging in my roommate's closet."

And a few minutes later, my sister calls from New York City curious about why her boyfriend J.J.'s father's jacket was hanging in my closet in Los Angeles.

You know, which made sense, because Barry Kramer died in 1981, and he lived in Detroit, where Creem magazine was based.

So I explained how the jacket ended up in my closet.

You see, my roommate Tom grew up in Detroit Rock City, home of Creem magazine, and his older brother-- known as Ribs-- worked in the mailroom at Creem magazine as a gofer at the time that Barry Kramer died.

Now, J.J.'s mother-- Barry's widow, Connie-- was getting rid of her husband's effects after he passed away, and Ribs had a similar physical build to her husband.

So she gave him three leather jackets, since he's basically paid in records and concert tickets.

Now, Ribs grew up to become a hoarder on a family farm in rural Detroit.

(laughter) So several years later, Tom returns to visit his brother, and walking among these towers of clutter and garbage are these three amazing leather jackets from the 1970s.

He realizes they're Barry Kramer's-- he immediately takes them to L.A. with him, 'cause they need to be put back into circulation.

Now, I never saw the first two jackets, only in photos.

But the first one was the coolest jacket I ever saw.

It was soft black leather, diagonal-cut, leather strands coming down, buckles, straps, the works-- lead singer jacket.

The kind of jacket that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith would wear.

A friend of ours who played guitar in Buckcherry-- the third-greatest Sunset Strip glam metal band ever-- took it on a European tour and let a woman backstage wear it, and never saw the jacket or the woman again.

The second jacket, more of a drummer's jacket.

It was, like, a heavy leather studded jacket meant for riding motorcycles in Detroit conditions.

That was taken by another friend of ours on an Asian tour with the Rolling Stones, and it met a similar fate to the first jacket.

(laughter) The third jacket, the one hanging in my roommate's closet, not as cool as the other two.

Still, retro, leather, funky color, like an off-camel.

Kind of the...

The kind of jacket that the band's manager would wear.

(laughter) You know, perfect for signing contracts and smoking a doobie with the Eagles.

So I took a picture of this jacket, 'cause that was still in the closet, sent it to my sister.

A few minutes later, she texts me back.

Connie recognizes the jacket as her ex-husband's jacket, or deceased husband's jacket, and she remembered Ribs.

So I tell my roommate when he comes home, and he allows me to bring the jacket to L.A. with...

I mean, to Boston with me for the wedding, with one caveat: don't lose the jacket.

Like, "Yeah, no problem, man."

So I meet J.J. at the wedding, and he's a nice guy.

He's not as rock-and-roll as I was hoping.

I was hoping he'd have long hair or a cool mustache or visible tattoos.

He's a corporate attorney.

That's all right, though-- my sister likes him, that's all that matters.

So the night's moving on, I say, "Hey, J.J., you want to see your dad's jacket?"

He's, like, "Yeah!"

So we go to my hotel room, and in the closet, it's the only thing in there hanging.

There's a light over it, illuminating it-- it looks like a museum piece.

J.J.'s, like, "Wow."

I go, "Why don't you try it on?"

So he puts it on, it fits him perfectly.

He's glowing, his eyes are freaking anime-style.

I take a picture of it.

I'm, like-- he's, like, "I feel a charge running up and down my arm."

I said, "Dude, take that jacket home with you.

That's your jacket."

He's, like, "Thanks, man."

So I go back to L.A., my roommate's asking me if I showed him the jacket.

I said, "Yeah!

And it fit him perfectly and I gave it to him."

He says, "Dude!

"Now he has to marry your sister.

Otherwise he's gonna be the biggest jerk ever!"

He actually used non-PBS language.

(laughter) Fortunately for all involved, my sister and J.J. did get married.

They have a boy and a girl, a home in Columbus, Ohio, and in that home in a closet hangs his father's jacket.

(scattered applause) Yeah.

(laughter) And no matter what happens with the rest of my life, whatever I achieve, wherever I go, I will always, always be the crude, rebellious, sarcastic, straightforward, rock-and-roll uncle of the grandchildren of Creem magazine!

Boy howdy!

Thank you!

(cheers and applause) It's a fun story to tell and it leads up to a big finish.

And for me, it's kind of like a rock-and-roll song, 'cause I like working with rock bands.

That's what I do in L.A. And so, like, I consider segments of my stories as guitar solos-- like, the final line that I do in the story, that's a guitar solo.

The story of the three jackets, that's a guitar solo.

And so I put like little-- I actually break my stories into guitar solos, and drum beats, and stuff like that.

That's how I do my personal measurements.

You guys don't hear the cacophony, but it's there.

So for me, whenever I can tell a music story, that's always fun.

And I think that the audiences enjoy those, as well.

♪ CHRUSCIEL: My name is Ewa Chrusciel.

I immigrated from Poland to pursue my Ph.D. studies in English studies.

And I currently teach at Colby Sawyer College where I teach creative writing and English courses.

And I also write, I write poems, both in Polish and English.

So I have three books in Polish and three books in English.

OKOKON: Does the language that you're writing in change the way that you're writing?

Like, if you took your story for tonight and you said it in Polish instead, would it change the way that you told the story?

CHRUSCIEL: Absolutely.

So I believe that each language conceptualizes reality differently.

So the story wouldn't be completely different-- I wouldn't be talking about a butterfly instead of sausage.

But maybe the tone, the register would change, and that very much also depends on the translation.

OKOKON: So what's most challenging for you in storytelling?

CHRUSCIEL: I think that's, that's...

The most challenging thing is actually let go of the control, especially that I'm a beginner to it.

And... just let the story take me somewhere I didn't... That would be marvelous, if I just forgot really about performance, right?

And the story would carry me somewhere.

OKOKON: Yeah.

CHRUSCIEL: That would be fantastic, especially that the story I'm telling is about carrying, right?

Carrying things.

So if the story could carry me, that would be... That would be the ultimate goal.

♪ We immigrants, we learn to carry things.

We pack and unpack and we take our homes with us.

I once took a sausage with me.

A Polish sausage, mind you.

Might not taste any different from American or Israeli sausage, but it's a Polish sausage.

I bought it at the airport before I left Poland.

And it was sealed tightly, so I thought it was okay.

And then on the flight, I sort of started to have bad premonitions.

So I asked a flight attendant, and she told me to eat it right away.

(laughter) But I fell asleep instead.

And I only woke when it was time to exit the flight.

So I promised myself to throw the sausage away in the nearest bathroom, and I kept walking.

I grew up in the Communist regime, and the food was scarce, and I don't like to waste food.

So I kept walking, thinking, "If God lets my sausage in, I will eat it like a saint."

(laughter) "Circle a table with Gregorian chants."

So the baggage carousel spat my luggage out, and I looked around, and I quickly transferred my sausage from carry-on to the checked luggage.

And I kept walking towards the Customs, praying for my sausage.

(laughter) And the officer pulled me aside.

And my luggage went through a sausage scan.

(laughter) And he said, "What is it?"

And I said, "It's a sealed sausage."

I said it with pride.

And he said, "But you declared no meat."

And I said, "Sealed sausage is not a meat.

Sealed sausage is a sealed sausage."

He looked puzzled, so I repeated with determination, "Sealed sausage is a sealed sausage."

(laughter) And he looked blinded, as if this hypnotic alliteration threw him back into the waters of his childhood.

(laughter) Where perhaps eels jiggle Scottish dances.

So in the end, my sausage got arrested, and I had to promise that I understood that sausage was a meat.

(laughter) Had it not been confiscated, perhaps I would have sent it to the Vatican to become a relic.

(laughter) And this sausage incident gave me a desire-- an appetite-- for more.

So I started to research the, the things that immigrants carry with them, and I went actually a few times to Ellis Island to track the historical objects.

And they carried barrels of pickles, goose feathers, they carried Bibles, they carried rosaries, honeymoon dresses, live goats.

There was a Swedish woman who carried a stained sheet used in her family to give birth, only.

And she wanted to show it to her new doctor.

And then I thought, "What were the invisible things "that they carried or they were sneaking through the Customs?"

Albert Sabin, a pauper from Bialystok in Poland, carried a live virus, the vaccine that eliminated polio from the United States.

Kahlil Gibran, an Arab, carried a live virus of poetry that soon became his famous book The Prophet .

Pola Negri carried the dreams of stardom, and she became a Hollywood star.

So we immigrants like to carry things, and we do not throw easily away cheese wrappers and glass jars from our country.

And you could wonder, what do those silly attachments stand for?

I think they stand for something much bigger.

It could be our desire to, not to lose our identity or a desire to find a new identity.

So you might say I lost my sausage, but I found the poetics of smuggling.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪