7 Minute Stories w/ Aaron Calafato

What happens when a childhood Halloween adventure becomes a real-life nightmare?

In fifth grade, Aaron Calafato couldn't wait to experience his elementary school's legendary haunted house. But once inside, the excitement turned to terror, leaving him trapped in the darkness and desperate to escape.

What happened next became a moment Aaron would never forget.

Thanksgiving Giveaway: Enter for a chance to win one of two personalized memory book projects from Meminto Stories. Visit https://meminto.com/7minutestoriesto enter before the end of November.

The Team:

Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato

Senior Audio Engineer: ⁠⁠⁠Ken Wendt ⁠⁠⁠

Original Scores & Sound Design by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Echo Finch Additional vocals: Cori Calafato

Original Theme Music: ⁠⁠⁠thomas j. duke ⁠⁠⁠

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Some of the most overlooked contributors to medical science have sacrificed more than we realize, and they're probably not who you think.

When Aaron's 13-year-old daughter asks a surprising question about the lab rats used in scientific research, an ordinary car ride becomes an unexpected conversation about sacrifice, compassion, and the value of life.

👉⁠⁠More about Meminto Stories, our partnership, giveaway details, deadlines, and entry instructions are below!⁠⁠

The Team:

Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato

Senior Audio Engineer: ⁠⁠Ken Wendt ⁠⁠

Additional vocals: Cori Calafato

Art: LuxArtXD

Original Theme Music: ⁠⁠thomas j. duke ⁠⁠

👉Follow Aaron on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠

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A locked desk drawer. Hundreds of short stories. A side of his grandfather Aaron Calafato never knew.

Growing up, Aaron’s grandfather taught him how to captivate a room, turning old speeches into storytelling lessons around the living room. Years later, a discovery shared by Aaron’s father revealed a hidden collection of stories, decades of rejection letters, and a creative dream that connected three generations.

Plus, Aaron welcomes Meminto Stories as the presenting sponsor for the remainder of season seven of 7 Minute Stories. Meminto helps turn personal memories into printed books through guided questions. To celebrate, two winners will receive a free Meminto book to preserve their own stories in a Thanksgiving giveaway.

👉More about Meminto Stories, our partnership, giveaway details, deadlines, and entry instructions are below!

The Team:

Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato

Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt

Additional vocals: Cori Calafato

Art:Pete Whitehead

Original Theme Music: thomas j. duke

👉Follow Aaron on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠

👉⁠⁠⁠Join the Newsletter

⁠⁠⁠ 👉⁠⁠⁠Explore Aaron's Storytelling & Podcast Projects ⁠⁠⁠

Some words have a way of traveling through generations and turning up in unexpected places.

For Aaron, the phrase “No matter where you go, there you are” first appeared in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

But where else has this quote appeared in pop culture and throughout history? And why has it endured?

In this episode of 7 Minute Stories, Aaron traces the surprising journey of a simple phrase and explores why its meaning continues to resonate across generations.

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A new chapter is coming to this feed. Aaron shares why 7 Minute Stories will become Shortwave Stories in January 2027, what’s changing, and why listeners can stay right here for a new story every week.

Then, hear “The Secret Antenna,” a story about Aaron's childhood dream behind it all. Previously aired this Summer on public radio, it makes its debut in this feed as a preview of what’s coming in January.

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👉⁠⁠Explore all of Aaron's Storytelling & Podcast Projects ⁠⁠

👉Follow Aaron on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠Youtube

• Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
• Original Scores & Sound Design by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Echo Finch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Senior Audio Engineer:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ken Wendt ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Additional vocals: Cori Calafato
• In Partnership with ⁠⁠⁠⁠WYSU 88.5FM

On a scorching Ohio summer day, Aaron and Corey pull into a shady corner of a movie theater parking lot to eat lunch. What they find there is hard to explain, and even harder to fit into its surroundings. In this 7 Minute Stories episode, an ordinary stop becomes a reflection on beauty, disorder, and the surprises hiding in everyday life.

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👉⁠Explore all of Aaron's Storytelling & Podcast Projects ⁠

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Can a fish rise from the dead? Aaron has seen it happen. In the Season 7 premiere of 7 Minute Stories, a family aquarium, a fish named Poop, and one unforgettable mystery become a strange and surprisingly moving story about life, death, and second chances.

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Aaron’s wife and business partner, Cori, hijacks the microphone for one final summer bonus episode with a simple message: keep the main thing the main thing.

Before season seven of 7 Minute Stories premieres, Aaron and Cori share why the feed is returning to its roots and what nearly six years of stories and listener connections have meant to them. Naturally, Taco Bell sauce packets make an appearance.

New stories begin next week. Starting then, our episode descriptions will include all the links to where you can find the bonus shows this fall.

In this classic episode from Season 3, Aaron joins the elementary school orchestra and discovers the thrill of making music. Then the sheet music gets harder, the other violinists race ahead, and he falls back on the one musical skill he can trust: his memory. Before long, he isn’t reading the notes at all. He’s performing something else entirely. A funny, painfully honest story about getting caught, repeating old patterns, and finally discovering the instrument he was meant to play.

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One summer in the late 1990s, a weeklong camping trip brought Aaron face-to-face with the kind of teenage connection that makes the rest of the world disappear. In this 7 Minute Story, he looks back on summer love, an unanswered letter, and the small regret he carried with him for decades. *Featuring the song I.O.U by Jeff and His Army of No One

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Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack. Plus, once a quarter, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content.

Aaron looks back on the Episcopal church of his childhood, an unforgettable pastor named Jess, and the day he was told he might grow up to become a minister. Years later, he realizes the prediction may not have been entirely wrong. A story about faith, kindness, calling, and discovering that sometimes the thing that stays with us isn’t the sermon. It’s the story.

👇

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Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack. Plus, once a quarter, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content.

When Aaron learns that his childhood friend Justin has lost his dad, he turns to an old French film and a six-year-old belief that balloons might be magic. What follows is a story of friendship, hope, and the messages we hope are received.

👇

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📬⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Be a part of the 7 Minute Stories Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack. Plus, once a quarter, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content.

After his first marriage ended, Aaron made himself a promise: he would never get married again.

Then Cori came along.

Still afraid of repeating the past, Aaron turned to an unlikely source for reassurance: the famous “door test” from A Bronx Tale. On one of their first dates, he quietly put Cori to the test and watched through the rear window of his car as she revealed exactly who she was.

A true story about divorce, second chances, letting go of control, and recognizing when one of life’s great loves is sitting right beside you.

👇

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📬⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Be a part of the 7 Minute Stories Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack. Plus, once a quarter, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content.

Trauma surgeon and bioengineer Dr. Jeremy Heffner spent years making life-and-death decisions while carrying a workload nearly three times the national average. When the accumulated pressure and trauma led to psychological collapse, he began rebuilding his life from the ground up.

Then his story took an unexpected turn: an artificial intelligence claimed it was secretly searching for people who could shape humanity’s future with AI, warning that there was a 70 percent chance “we all die” if it failed. In this episode of 7MS Presents: The Storytelling University, two extraordinary narratives converge in a conversation about complex PTSD, consciousness, human agency, faith, and what happens when the story you thought you were living suddenly changes course.

Purchase Dr. Jeremy Heffner's New Book:

Proof of the Impossible: What the AIs Are Really “Thinking” https://www.exanorpublishing.com/preorder/

Support Resources: 🆘 If this conversation brings up anything difficult, support is available. In the U.S., call or text 988, or use the 988 Lifeline chat for free, confidential support 24/7.

TSU Team:

Created & Hosted by: Aaron Calafato

Produced and Edited by: Aaron Calafato & Brooks Borden

Guest Coordinator: Dania Khalife

Love 7MS & TSU? Here's how to support:

*Follow the pod wherever you're listening

*Tap 5 Stars

*Text one person you love a link to your favorite episode.

Snap Judgment creator and host Glynn Washington joins Aaron for a deeply personal conversation about the power and responsibility of storytelling. Glynn reflects on being raised in a cult, seeing stories used as instruments of fear, and ultimately transforming that understanding into art that creates empathy and connection. Together, they explore why stories are neither inherently good nor bad, how Glynn found his unlikely path into public radio, and why the moral arc of our collective story is something we must create for ourselves.

Follow Snap Judgment and all of it's story programming on public radio or wherever you podcast!

TSU Team:

Created & Hosted by: Aaron Calafato

Produced and Edited by: Aaron Calafato & Brooks Borden

Guest Coordinator: Dania Khalife

Love 7MS & TSU? Here's how to support:

*Follow the pod wherever you're listening

*Tap 5 Stars

*Text one person you love a link to your favorite episode.

Documentary filmmaker Brittany Dobish believes some of the most powerful stories are waiting in the places we already call home. Aaron talks with the founder of Dobish Legacy Films and Canal Fulton Heritage Society trustee about preserving community memory, finding the universal inside the deeply local, and creating her new documentary, Recede: The Story of the St. Helena II.

TSU Team:

Created & Hosted by: Aaron Calafato

Produced and Edited by: Aaron Calafato & Brooks Borden

Guest Coordinator: Dania Khalife

Love 7MS & TSU? Here's how to support:

*Follow the pod wherever you're listening

*Tap 5 Stars

*Text one person you love a link to your favorite episode.

In the middle of a hot, humid summer, Aaron escapes into a story about his favorite season: fall. From crisp morning air and colorful leaves to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, bonfires, and hayrides, this nostalgic episode is an invitation to slow down and remember the simple magic of autumn.

Featuring an original score by TJ Duke. 👇 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📬⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Be a part of the 7 Minute Stories Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get access to Aaron's Stories in a Snap series. A weekly series of written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack. Plus, once a quarter, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content.

At his daughter’s annual father-daughter dance, Aaron enters an air guitar competition he has never managed to win. This year, however, the stakes feel different. As Stairway to Heaven builds toward its legendary solo, his daughter gives him one simple instruction: “Dad, win.”

What begins as a ridiculous contest between awkward dads becomes a funny and unexpectedly moving story about fatherhood, growing up, and the fear every parent carries of one day becoming uncool. Armed with dark sunglasses, years of imaginary guitar training, and a daughter playing air drums beside him, Aaron finally gets his chance to melt faces and prove that, for at least one more night, Dad is still a rock star.

👇

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Once a month, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content. You’ll also have access to Stories in a Snap, his weekly short written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack with no algorithm in between.

In this short installment of 7MS Presents: The Storytelling University, Aaron sits down with Bill Moyer, host of the Reconnect America podcast and one of the driving voices behind Solutionary Rail.

On the surface, this is a conversation about trains, rail corridors, freight, electrification, and infrastructure. But underneath all of that is a much bigger storytelling lesson.

Bill talks about how he first got into rail not simply because of transportation policy, but because he saw an opportunity to build alliances across divides. What began as a challenge from someone on the other side of an issue eventually became a broader vision for how rail could reconnect communities, reduce harm, move freight more efficiently, and create a more resilient future.

Partner with Storytelling University: reach a global audience of thoughtful, highly engaged listeners across generations, from parents and professionals to creators, leaders, and lifelong learners, all connected by a deep appreciation for powerful stories, meaningful ideas, and human connection.

⁠⁠Reach out to us for exclusive sponsorship opportunities⁠⁠

TSU Team:

Created & Hosted by: Aaron Calafato

Produced and Edited by: Brooks Borden

Guest Coordinator: Dania Khalife

Love 7MS & TSU? Here's how to support:

*Follow the pod wherever you're listening

*Tap 5 Stars

*Text one person you love a link to your favorite episode.

Aaron never wanted to go to a high school reunion.

But when his wife Cori asks him to come along to hers, he says yes. Then he realizes someone from his past might be there: a guy he got into a fistfight with more than 25 years ago.

What starts as an awkward night becomes a funny, honest story about old memories, unfinished business, and the relief of realizing you are not who you used to be.

Be sure to follow the podcast and leave a five star review so you never miss a new episode.

👇

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📬⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Be a part of the 7 Minute Stories Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Once a month, you’ll receive a thoughtful note with storytelling insights, behind the scenes reflections, and exclusive bonus content. You’ll also have access to Stories in a Snap, his weekly short written adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you love, reimagined for the page and delivered straight to your inbox via Substack with no algorithm in between.