Suzy Conn - BOOK - Like Swans

I'm pleased to welcome to the fifty five Carscite Morning Show. Book you can get on my blog page fifty five krs dot com like Swans by our local author, Susie Cohn.

Susy, welcome to the program. It's great to have you on this morning. Thank you.

I'm honored to be here. Thank you.

Well, I'm honored to have you on.

And you know, you could be quite an inspiration to some other folks in the listening audience. And I would like to put a plug in for Peter Bronson because his Chili Dog Press is a local publishing outfit and he is an extraordinary author in his own right. But let me first ask you what part of town are you and since you are described as a local author.

Susie, I live in Sharonville.

Okay, great, And you got a bit of a Brady Bunch situation going over at your place.

Well, our kids are all grown, so they actually never.

Grew up together.

Oh okay, but they get along great. So we have I have twin boys and my husband has three daughters, so we're one short of the perfect Brady Bunch.

That's great.

I saw the description of your in your in the outline, and I just was chuckling to myself about that. You're also a flight attendant.

Yes, doing that from Doha last night? Actually, oh wo.

And I was so nervous because you know, the airport in Philadelphia is a mess. There were so many delayed flights, and I was like praying that I would get on the six o'clock because otherwise it would be a very late arrival and with the jet lag and all that, I was like, I just want to feel good in the morning, you.

Know, I understand that. And props to you and all of the flight attendants I talked to iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Ratliffe every Thursday, and he is always reminding people that you're not stewardess is you're highly trained folks who are designed to deal with, you know, potentially terrible problems that need to be treated with much greater respect. So I can put in a word a positive word in for you and other flight attendants for the work that

Well. My parents always, especially my mom talked about how they escaped and life over there, and I wrote a short story about it in like nineteen eighty six, and my professors like, oh, that, you know, that's pretty good. You should expound on that. Well, you know, then I had twins and got really busy and I was, you know, flying full time.

And my mother, though, was always like, no, Phisy, what aren't going to write that book? And it was a lifelong dream.

And when COVID came about, the silver lining of COVID for me was having an eighteen month leave where I could sit down. Michael, my husband, said, Okay, you know, you can write your book now, and I knew I had no more excuses, so I sat down and worked, you know, very hard.

It was really a labor of love.

It was the hardest thing I've had to ever do because when I was writing it, you know, we had so much censorship going on, and it just reminded me of what my parents talked about.

Well, you said over there.

The over there you were talking about is Czechoslovakia with post communists when the people in the Communists were in charge.

Yes, it was like in nineteen sixty six was one day escaped.

So sorry, I forgot that small detail, but that's okay.

Yeah, So they you know, told me about how everything was still controlled, and that's how I felt that everything was controlled, you know, information about COVID and then how we could live, what we could do, you know, we had to wear masks.

Uh. It was just it was just really weird. I can't even but see that's in the sea.

I've found a whole lot of positive about COVID, and you're illustrating one of them. I think the people will be less inclined to just sort of prostrate themselves before whatever directed from some random governor says about where you can be and what you can't do. In spite of the fact that we have amendments of the Constitution which project protect these liberties and freedoms, it's as if the

Brian, my mother got called into the local police station for wearing a sweater that was bright and colorful.

Oh my go. They accused her of you know, advertising Western propaganda.

Uh.

And that was really.

A blessing because my father had spoken for years about you know, he'd you know, we need to leave. Things are getting worse and they're they're not going to get better. But she didn't want to leave her family. You know, they waited two years to get an apartment, she had to get an extra part time job to you know, furnish it. Everything was difficult. I mean there was just no easy path for food, for furniture. And so she's like, you know, I don't want to leave. But that showed

A had a watch person. Yeah, so you never knew who it was.

And so she got called in because of this sweater and that's the turn that was the turning point for her.

You know, she knew that they had to get out.

Wow, that's that's just frightening. Stuff is the book about their story, in other words, a work of nonfiction about their trials and tribulations and experiencing life under communist Czechoslovakian then ultimately leaving.

Yes, it's it's I really wanted people to see why you would want to leave a place like that. I mean, you know, waiting in line for food. People would get in line if there was a line. They didn't even know why, oh wow, but they got in it because it might be something good that they could sell. I mean, it was just like a weird sci fi they were living in almost but it was if the book is a love story and a thriller because of you know,

All came about. That they were actually able to to get out well.

Really amazing because many people weren't able to well in an oppressive regime like Czechoslovakia during the Soviet days.

You mentioned the emotional struggle of deciding to leave because in spite of how bad things are you have all these emotional ties not just to the land, but also to your community and your friends. But once they made the decision to leave, was it was it difficult? Did they have to you know, steal out of the country under cover of darkness or be snuck out or could they Did they work through some approval process.

No, they tried to get approval.

I mean my dad had approval you know, put in for years, but they never got it because my father, my mom's dad, was a capitalist. He had a trucking company and so he was on their like blacklist, and so my mother wasn't allowed to go to college. She was she actually wanted to be the flight attendant. That was her lifelong dream, which is so ironic because I never that wasn't in my I, you know, a view at all. And I got it by just sheer chance.

Wow, So they were.

They took the same train out of Prague, got to Austria Vienna, and did not go on their separate trains to their final destinations. They stayed there and my dad had had family there that they actually didn't even know if they were still alive, because they never got the letter, a letter, you know, in response to their letter. But you know, it just worked out for them that they were.

I'm so glad you wrote this because this may give people something they truly need, is to pause and consider the freedoms that we enjoy in the face of a country that won't let you leave. I just can't imagine being in that environment. And I've heard a lot of stories like this over the years. Think of the people who tried to get out of Berlin and had to, you know, go through the wall or under the law or or law I'm at risk getting machine gunned down for even endeavoring to leave.

This is a great story.

And I guess you're communism was so great? Why would people go right?

I know I was gonna say earlier in your in your breadline comments like whatever happened to from each according's ability, each according to his need? How come it's so hard to get an apartment in a communist country? This is all summed up like Swan's my local author guest today, Sussy, It's been a pleasure talking with is Susie Khan likes Swann you. You can get it on my blog page fifty five carose dot com. I encourage people to do that and then pause and reflect on what we've got