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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, as I mentioned briefly before the news, the final chapter in our year-long WNYC centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. We began the series on WNYC's actual 100th birthday. That was July 8th last year, one year ago tomorrow. We committed to exploring 100 years of 100 different things, not 100 things about the radio station.

We used it as an excuse to book guests and take your oral histories about 100 different things, from 100 years of freedom versus fascism to 100 years of ice cream and 97 things in between. We hope you've enjoyed and learned things along the way. Now, on the final day of our centennial year, we wrap it up with our final 100 years topic. It's 100 years of you. Tell us one way that you're similar to your grandparents or one way that you are different from your grandparents. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

As I said before the news, we'll take calls first from people 50 years old or younger. We'll get to 50 and up in a little while. 50 and younger born 1975 or later, tell us one way that you're similar to your grandparents or one way that you're different from your grandparents. 212-433-WNYC, or you can text. For everyone who calls, you get a bonus question to answer if you choose. Tell us a funny family story from the last 100 years. A funny family story from the last 100 years if you choose.

Now, if you've heard some of these 100-year segments through the year, you know a central element in addition to our expert and historian guests has been your oral history calls with your family stories or other personal stories about whatever the topic was. We thought a fitting way to wrap it all up would be to devote our last 100 Years of 100 Things segment entirely to you, our fabulous community of listeners and participants. Thank you, listeners, for everything you do to make this show.

It's all of us, so it's 100 years of you through a similarity or a difference from your grandparents. We'll do it from now till the end of the show, splitting it up under 50 first, and then over 50. You under 50 years or 50 or under, neglected Gen Xers. I'm looking at you. Millennials and Gen Z, if you're 50 years old or younger, you go first on how you're similar to or different from your grandparents, not your parents, your grandparents, as we're trying to get stories that hint at a 100-year arc of history.

For everyone who calls, you get to answer that bonus question if you choose. Tell us a funny family story from the last 100 years. Your difference or similarity with your grandparents can be something just personal, or it can say something about how times have changed or how they haven't, but you don't have to overthink it. Just tell us one way that you're similar to your grandparents or one way that you're different. 212-433-9692, call or text.

Maybe your similarity or your difference is about politics. What family politics have persisted for three generations or maybe skipped a generation, or you've just become politically really different from your grandparents? Maybe because times are really different, 212-433-WNYC, but politics is just one way. Maybe your difference or similarity is about what you eat or how you get food. Maybe it's about religion.

Maybe it's your similarity or difference on your relationship to the idea of marriage or kids or the practice of marriage or child-raising or your relationship to your gender, related however you think of that. Maybe it's about your relationship to money or your relationship to technology. So much we could say about that. Tell us one way any way that you're similar to your grandparents or one way that you're different from your grandparents.

If you would like a bonus question, tell us one brief funny family story. The time Uncle Bill didn't realize that he, or the time your cousin accidentally left something out of the fridge for four days after Thanksgiving, and then their daughter used it as a science project, [chuckles] or whatever it is. Your funny family stories as a bonus question, 212-433-WNYC. Sasha in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Sasha: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you?

Sasha: Very well. Thank you so much for taking my call. I have enjoyed your program forever. Hopefully, I'll continue to enjoy it for another 100 years. One way that I am similar to my grandparents, they were farmers. I learned from them the importance of self-sufficiency, how to be independent, how to take care of yourself. I learned from them a great appreciation for the land. I have my little plot of earth that I garden. While they were farmers and I learned so much from them, for them, they didn't have much in terms of formal education. I really became someone with an advanced degree. That was just from being their grandchild and listening to their stories and seeing how they moved in the world.

Brian Lehrer: That's two wonderful stories rolled into one. Do you happen to have a funny family story that you also want to relate? That's optional. Maybe you don't have anything top of mind, but if you do.

Sasha: Well, [chuckles] this is kind of funny to me. My cousins and I, we would go to visit the farm on holidays, particularly in the summer. We had this huge plum tree. We call it a June plum. It's tropical. I don't think you guys have it here. The tree was so high. You couldn't get to it. The only way you got to the right juicy fruits was them falling off during the night.

The wind would come, knock the fruits off the tree. My cousins and I would see who could wake up the earliest because that's the only way you would get the best fruits that fell off the tree overnight is by waking up before the crack of dawn and getting down there and foraging for the fruits that fell off. That has always brought pleasant memories back when I think about being a child and visiting with my grandparents.

Brian Lehrer: I guess they didn't wake you up in the middle of the night when they fell off. They weren't that loud, right?

Sasha: No, because I was a little one.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Sasha, thank you. Thank you for starting us off. Here's one in a text message. Interesting difference. Listener writes, "Apparently, my grandmother, Mary, was very clean. She wore a white glove to check for dust on objects in the house. This was the 1930s, 1940s. My siblings and I are all not very clean. I imagine my grandmother would be horrified by my home," writes Marie in Kingston, New York. Gabriel in Brunswick, Georgia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gabriel.

Gabriel: Hey, Brian. Good morning, and thanks for all that you do. Yes, I wanted to call and talk about my-- well, I guess all of my grandparents. As I was reflecting, I realized that we are really genetically not that far from our grandparents' generation. In the grand scheme of things, what that ultimately means is that we are them, very much so. Personally, I can vouch for that because I look like all my grandparents, talk like them, probably move like them, and maybe even have same emotional inclinations that I'm not even aware of that are just genetically connected.

One way that I'm different from at least one of my grandparents is that he came over here from Poland and naturalized as a US citizen by joining the Army Air Force in World War II, so he became a citizen. I grew up very much just a regular-degular American citizen on the Upper West Side. Just like Mamdani, by the way. Upper West Side, represent. Since this whole Trump administration thing's been going on, I've been trying to get my citizenship back to Poland, which I can't because of a technicality with the naturalization of your connective ancestor. Now, ironically, with the legislation that's coming out right now with this current administration, my grandfather would be a candidate for getting deported back to Poland, from which my family was escaping. Right now, I'm trying to get to Poland because it's a peaceful, safe place, and--

Brian Lehrer: At least get the citizenship. I know at least one other person is doing exactly what you're doing. Descendant of Polish immigrants to this country trying to get dual citizenship. I know multiple people. Talk about ironies of history. Jews whose families escaped the Holocaust from Germany, in particular, now applying, and some of them getting dual US-German citizenship in case they feel that it becomes unsafe here too much for them, either from the right or from the left. Yes, you're part of a trend. You want to finish that thought?

Gabriel: Yes, I'd love to. In fact, I don't mean to do your own job, but could I follow it up with the bonus question?

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Yes, please. Thank you for being the assistant.

Gabriel: Just for the sake of time and Brian Lehrer, but this grandfather of mine, when he came over on a ship in 1923 after his father had anchored the family here about five years before in Detroit when my grandfather finally came over as a toddler, he was singing on the ship for food, money. They were in steerage. He had a good voice. Someone gave him a banana, which he had never seen before, because from a shtetl in Poland. He ate the banana with the peel and everything. I'm assuming they didn't have Chiquita banana stickers on them quite yet. Just for added irony, I grew up in this country going to a grocery store, knowing exactly what a banana is, knowing who Chiquita banana was.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] There you go. I wonder if people would even survive eating a banana with the peel, but I guess your grandfather did. Gabriel, thanks for a good call. Appreciate it a lot. Let's go next to Erica on Long Beach Island. Erica, you're at the Jersey Shore. Are you calling from vacation?

Erica: Sort of, Brian. I am here all summer. Lucky me.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Hello.

Erica: I can't believe I'm talking to you. This is so exciting. You're the coolest. My story was how my grandparents and I are similar, which was we've always just talked about our families being number one, our favorite people feeling so lucky to have one another. We have the most fun together. My grandparents expressed their love for us in cooking a lot of the time, and I do the same, which is similar. Where we're different, I would say my grandmother or my Italian grandmother on my dad's side, she cooked what she liked. She cooked what she knew.

She wanted you to eat every last drop off of the plate. She was in charge. With me, I'd like to cook for people what they like and make mental notes of what they like and don't like so I can take care of them in a way that is meaningful and show that I care. I was telling your producer, my grandmother once made a lasagna with this heavy meat sauce. I don't eat meat, which she knew. I sat down to dinner, and she just said, "No, no, no, there's no meat in that. You can eat that. You can eat that," which was just a big difference between the two of us and also hilarious if you knew her.

Brian Lehrer: That's really funny. You're telling this story about your Italian grandmother cooking for you in her own way. You trying to have more contemporary, situational awareness of who you're cooking for. "Are you gluten-free? Are you vegan? Are you this? Are you that?" Right?

Erica: Right. Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a listener who texts, "I am American Irish on both sides, and I don't drink. My grandparents did raise a toast now and then," so I don't know if that's engaging in a self-Irish stereotype by that listener. Erica, thank you very much for your call. We appreciate it. Lowell in Queens here on WNYC. Hi, Lowell.

Lowell: Hey, Brian. I love the show. Me and my grandfather, we both share our names, Lowell Stevens. I share it with them. My father had the same name. Now, my son, who's the fourth, he's also another Lowell. Another thing that I remember about my grandfather is that he used to make signs by hand. He had all the tools and the markers and everything, and he used to make those.

I used to watch him and be so fascinated. I think that it played a huge role in what I do now. I'm a drafter, so I make plans and everything using the computer. Also, my father, he went to the print school. He also made signs by using large plotters. Now, my son is really interested in drawing as well, and I think that just is passed down. We all have similar interests in print.

Brian Lehrer: Continuing that legacy, yes. Making you interested in art and architecture. Did he have one of those? You triggered a memory of when I was little, and a friend of mine had a father who was in a similar kind of field to what you describe. He had this drafting table. There were physical, large sheets of paper, blueprint paper that I remember. I don't know if those exist anymore at all in the digital age.

Lowell: He had them and I still have them because I love drawing and everything by hand. Yes, so he definitely had those. I try to find the vintage ones online sometimes. If I'm feeling good, I'll just get some classic tool that I try to find a use for. I wanted to tell you not a funny story, but just a memory.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Lowell: For the listeners who are familiar with Georgia Diner in Queens on Queens Boulevard, they recently moved to a new location. I remember my grandfather taking me to Georgia Diner. They used to have something that doesn't exist anymore, which is a smoker's room, which is basically a room where people were able to smoke cigarettes and eat. I remember him taking me there when I was-- I mean, maybe I wasn't supposed to be there, but they don't have that there anymore. That's just a memory that I'll always remember whenever because I took my son to Georgia Diner. I just laugh at the fact that, back in the day, they used to have just like a whole room where people could just smoke and eat and that's just--

Brian Lehrer: How about smoking sections on airplanes where it would be the back, certain number of rows, where you could smoke on the airplane as if the smoke didn't filter to all the other parts of the cabin?

Lowell: Yes. See, that's before my time, Brian. [laughs] I definitely remember the smoking room. Again, thank you for the segment.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, where on Queens Boulevard is the Georgia Diner?

Lowell: It's near Grand Avenue, I believe. It's now as close to where that Target is at the Rego mall. It's in that area. Rego Park basically.

Brian Lehrer: Rego Park, Forest Hills. Yes, big mall complex there these days.

Lowell: Another interesting thing about the new Georgia Diner is that they actually managed to physically move the full restaurant over. Usually, when they open a new location, a restaurant opens a new location, they rebuild it and redesign it. If you go to the new Georgia Diner, it looks and feels exactly like they transferred the essence of the diner over to the new location piece by piece.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Nouveau old. Lowell, thank you very much. All right, one more in this set. If you're just joining us, listeners, it's the final chapter of our 100 Years of 100 Things series. It's number 100, 100 years of you. We're taking your calls on one way that you're similar from and one way that you're different from or similar to and different from your grandparents, and with a bonus question of, tell us any one funny family story from the last 100 years. We've been doing this first for people 50 or under. In a couple of minutes, we'll flip it and do it for people 50 or older. One more in this set. Janet in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hello, Janet.

Janet: Hello. My grandparents came from Barbados on a boat through Ellis Island over 100 years ago. I love telling recent West Indian immigrants that. I called on the 50th anniversary and got through to WNYC. My grandparents also went to Barbados' first independence celebration. I remember them going. My grandmother's first job was on the street. My mother later bought a house on. I think my funny story is that I'm a photographer and people used to say, "Oh, get your camera out of my face." Now, they really value the pictures that I have. That's it.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say at the beginning of this that you called WNYC and got on the air 50 years ago to celebrate the 50th anniversary?

Janet: No, no, no.

Brian Lehrer: No?

Janet: No. I might have said that, but that's not what I meant. I called when Barbados had its independence celebration. Yes, its 50th independence celebration, and got on WNYC.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you got on again. Janet, thank you very much. All right, one more. One more text in this set. Listeners, if you're calling and you're under 50, let's clear the lines and open them for people over 50. Same question. We'll see if the stories are any different, right? If the comparisons are any different as we go back even further in time in this final 100 years segment. If you are 50 years old or older, I guess if you're exactly 50, you get the privilege of being in either group.

If you're 50 years old or older now, you can call in and tell us one similarity to or one difference from your grandparents, and if that says anything about the different times that they lived in and you live in. As a bonus question, you can tell us any one funny family story from the last 100 years. 212-433-WNYC, for 50 and older now, 212-433-9692. This one, last one in the first set from a texter. Listener writes, "I'm--" Oh, actually, this makes the segue because this says, "I'm over 50, and my religion is different from my grandparents. I'm also taller than especially my grandmothers."

As the funny story, this writes, "My funny--" and this is an earlier era of radio story. Listener writes, "My funny story is that my grandmother was a big Phillies fan. At her lake cottage north of Scranton, she only had a radio. The reception was often not great, but she sometimes could get a good signal in the front bedroom closet. She would listen to the Phillies games in the closet if the game was close." Thank you for that family story. We'll take more on your similarities or differences with respect to your grandparents and your funny family stories if you're 50 years old or older. 212-433-WNYC, call or text right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We are in the final chapter of our year-long series, 100 Years of 100 Things, celebrating WNYC's centennial. It started on July 7th, July 8th, I should say, 2024, the actual 100th anniversary of the station signing on the air. We are ending it here on July 7th, the last day of a full year cycle, July 7th, 2025, and celebrating you by making Chapter 100 be 100 years of you, and with the arc of history in mind, doing 100 years of any one difference from or similarity to your grandparents. Now, Part 2 for those of you 50 years old and older with one funny family story as a bonus question if you want to tell one. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Elaine in Hoboken, you're on WNYC. Hello, Elaine.

Elaine: Good morning, Brian. My grandmother, Mildred, sold ball gowns on Kings Highway back in the '60s. She had a great fashion sense. She would put on lipstick to go take out the garbage, and she always wore the best. I dress for comfort. I don't judge other people's fashion because I know I wouldn't live up to it myself.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's interesting about dressing for comfort as something that has really become so much more common today. I think I told this story recently. I once had the child-rearing legend, Dr. Spock, Benjamin Spock, on the show before he passed away. He said one thing he didn't understand about young people today, "When I went on an airplane," he used to say, "I dressed for the occasion. Now, people go on in sweatpants. I don't understand it." I think your grandmother's story taps into that a little bit?

Elaine: Our story is my grandmother's parents and a bunch of relatives are buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn. The space in that little plot started running out years ago. There was an argument with the aunts and the cousins and so forth, who was more entitled to be buried in that plot. My brother ended the conversation and settled it by saying, "First come, first served."

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] I will leave that without comment and let listeners digest it at their leisure. Daniel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: Hi, Brian. Yes, my grandfather, who would be, what, 120 today or around this area, he made us, we were children from 10 years on up, shake his hand. He would tell us, "Your handshake is everything," boy or girl. He was right. That served me throughout a lot of my business, that your handshake and your trust and your honor, everything. When you had a firm handshake, he would say, "Now, you're growing up."

Funny thing about him, he was a great pool player, loved to play nine ball. He would beat anybody. My uncles didn't want to play him because they would all lose. I would always ask him, "Grandpa, how do you do that? How can you hop balls? How do you do these tricks?" He would just tell me, "Patience, Son, patience," and he was right. I've been in tournaments, and I've cleaned house up on people in pool games with patience. That's what he taught me.

Brian Lehrer: When you win, you give them a firm handshake and say, "Better luck next time."

Daniel: There you go. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Charlotte in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charlotte.

Charlotte: Hi. My grandparents on my mother's side were famous and rich. Irene Castle was a dancer World War I. My father owned the Chicago Blackhawks. My mom couldn't wait to get away from rich, selfish people. My father was orphaned at the age of eight. His parents both died before he was four. He lived with his grandparents, and they both found each other and went into academia.

They went into a completely different direction. They were professors and made a great family for the four of us. Then the four of us said, "We like academics." None of us went into those and ended up being three of us, I would say, artistic theater, film, painting. We have one lawyer in the family, my oldest sister. From generation to generation, we loved each other, but we kept going in the opposite direction.

Brian Lehrer: Is it just, I don't know, a personal kind of rebelling against your parents, your parents rebelling against their parents, or do you think there's any larger historical context for this?

Charlotte: I'm not sure it's historical. My parents growing up was so unusual, but I do think the times-- World War II was around the time they got married and had kids. I just think everything was so upset that when that was over, you just had to find a direction because everything was so changed. I think that was part of it. Then me and my siblings were children of the '60s and '70s, so there was a certain rebellion that was happening. We all loved the arts, so I think that was something that held us all together as a family.

Brian Lehrer: Charlotte, thank you so much for your call. Let's see, I think we have a food one here. Janet in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hey, Janet.

Janet: Hi, Brian. Listen, I have called so many times and gotten through to you. I'm getting tired of it. Anyway, [chuckles] I'm calling about my--

Brian Lehrer: You've lost track, right? You can't say longtime listener, 16th-time caller, or anything like that?

Janet: Yes, about five times so far. I'm aiming for 10. Anyway, both sides came from what was called the British West Indies. My father's family is from Barbados and my mother's family is from Trinidad. They both sparked an interest in me of discovering my family roots. I actually have a picture of my grandmother in Ellis Island, but what's really important are two things. The culture and the food. The culture to me meant you had to get in education. The culture meant any dish that had anything to do with rice was something that we enjoyed. Five generations later, we are still enjoying our peas and rice.

Now, I have a funny story. I grew up surrounded not only by Americans but my older relatives, who spoke in a way that was quite different. Some of them would talk about going to Carnival, and I was about three or four years old. To me, Carnival meant going to the circus. I couldn't understand why people were so excited until later on, I realized Carnival was a celebration like Mardi Gras in every March or February.

[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, during actual Mardi Gras season, you're not talking about Carnival on Labor Day in Brooklyn?

Janet: Yes. Well, before there was Labor Day in Trinidad or in any island that celebrated right before Lent started, it was a Catholic tradition that people would do this last rite of passage to dance, to party, to drink, to do all kinds of things, because when Lent came around, you had to give all of that up for 40 days. If you go to Trinidad now, you'll find that the whole country stops and celebrates for those five days before Lent. To me, Carnival actually, because I was a kid, meant circus. I didn't understand what people were talking about.

Brian Lehrer: A memory, a difference, and a funny family story rolled into one. Janet, keep calling us. Thank you very much. We have time for one more, maybe two. Susan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi, how are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. Tell us your similarity with or difference from your grandparents.

Susan: I'm different from my grandparents because they kept a kosher house. They had separate plates for milk and meat. Growing up, we didn't have anything like that. Once, my grandfather, he ate a pork chop. When my mother pointed it out to him, he said, "That's not pork. It's delicious."

Brian Lehrer: [laughs]

Susan: That was a phrase that we've used now in many situations. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: There you go. A difference and a funny story rolled into one, I guess. Let's see. Let me go through some texts that have come in. Listener writes, "I'm a 78-year-old, native-born lesbian with a master's degree. I'm different from my Italian-born grandmother who came here as a toddler, never became a citizen, and stopped going to school to work in the garment industry at the age of nine."

Another one, "My grandparents were from four different countries. A way they're different from me was that they had adopted America and, in so doing, all wanted to speak only English. I, meanwhile, wish they had taught me their languages. Turkish, Polish, Russian, and German." Last one. Listener writes, "I'm 67. My grandparents came of age in the Depression, and they threw out nothing. I was sometimes embarrassed when they sent me off with a sandwich and an old Wonder Bread bag tied with used bakery string. I, on the other hand, reduce, reuse, recycle, and even compost under the guise of environmentalism, but the symptoms of retaining things are all in place because of my grandparents."

Well, folks, that concludes our year-long series, 100 Years of 100 Things, from July 8th, 2024 to today, July 7th, 2025, celebrating WNYC's centennial. I hope you enjoy it and learn from it along the way. Thank you for all your participation all year, including today with oral histories. You've been such an integral part of this. Now, it's on to year 101. It's also on to Alison Stewart and All Of It coming right up. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Talk to you tomorrow.

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