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Unlucky Hand · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Old West a
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  Speaker 1: time of change and growth, of outlaws and renegades, gunfights
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  Speaker 1: in the streets, and swift justice without all the red tape.
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  Speaker 1: Disagreements were settled when they happened, and often the only
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  Speaker 1: form of mediation required was a bullet. If the movies,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: television shows, and video games we all experience are true,
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  Speaker 1: the Old West was a time when laws meant less
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  Speaker 1: than one's personal code of honor. If someone thought you
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  Speaker 1: did them wrong, you made it right, or you died trying.
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  Speaker 1: One man thought Robert had done them wrong during a
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  Speaker 1: poker game in eighteen fifty eight. It had been in
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco, just eight years after California joined the country
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  Speaker 1: as a full fledged state. The city was growing out
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  Speaker 1: from under the thumb of Mexico's rule and planting the
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  Speaker 1: seeds of the San Francisco we know today. Originally nothing
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  Speaker 1: more than a trading post for the West, San Francisco's
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  Speaker 1: dirt roads had been paved over, and it's hills leveled
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  Speaker 1: for new homes and businesses. One of those new businesses
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  Speaker 1: happened to be a saloon. You'd recognize the scene immediately,
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  Speaker 1: a dusty wooden floor, men in heavy jackets and tall hats,
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  Speaker 1: all sitting around a table, drinking whiskey, and in one
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  Speaker 1: dark corner, a game of cards with the stakes higher
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  Speaker 1: than they'd ever been. Lose a hand, lose a shirt,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe more. Robert Fallon had been playing for a
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  Speaker 1: while with a group of men who nursed their beers
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  Speaker 1: and down shots in between their hands. Some want a little,
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  Speaker 1: some lost a little. But Robert had something about him,
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  Speaker 1: a kind of aura that had skipped over the other players,
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  Speaker 1: a kind of luck. But they didn't see it that way,
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  Speaker 1: and they didn't take kindly to cheaters either. Actually, they
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  Speaker 1: didn't take kindly to anyone winning who wasn't them. Robert
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  Speaker 1: had amassed a small fortune at his seat, about six
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  Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and his companions thought something was amiss. Tired
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  Speaker 1: of losing every hand, one man stood up and called
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  Speaker 1: him out for cheating. Robert, surprised by the allegation, tried
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  Speaker 1: to explain he had done nothing wrong, but no one
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  Speaker 1: wanted to hear it more excuses from a line cheat,
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  Speaker 1: they figured, so they shot him before he'd had a
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  Speaker 1: chance to prove his innocence. His opponents, not wanting to
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  Speaker 1: stop a game for something as inconsequential as a dead cheater,
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  Speaker 1: looked for someone else to take his place at the table.
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  Speaker 1: The new player hunkered down in the dead man's seat,
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  Speaker 1: and the table gifted him with the six hundred dollars
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  Speaker 1: his predecessor had already won hand after hand, This new
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  Speaker 1: young man seemed to display a similar break and of
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  Speaker 1: luck as Roberts. He turned that six hundred dollars into
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  Speaker 1: in no time, and just like before, his opponents weren't
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  Speaker 1: very happy. But before anyone could pull a revolver from
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  Speaker 1: their holster, the police burst into the saloon. Word had
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  Speaker 1: traveled fast, and they were on the hunt for the
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  Speaker 1: late Fallon's killer. They surveyed the scene and asked a
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  Speaker 1: few questions before telling the players that that six hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars that Robert had won should go to his next
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  Speaker 1: of kin and not this new card player. The players
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  Speaker 1: looked around, unsure of how to find Robert's family. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't know anything about him, where he'd come from where
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  Speaker 1: he was headed. All of it was a mystery. The
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  Speaker 1: new player, however, this young man who had almost quadrupled
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  Speaker 1: Robert's winnings that night, wanted to see whose money it
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  Speaker 1: was that he'd taken. He looked down at the body
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  Speaker 1: and got one good look at the face, and then
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  Speaker 1: new the money had been his all along. Robert Fallon
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  Speaker 1: had been killed that night, only to have his estranged
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  Speaker 1: son take his place. The two hadn't spoken in seven years.
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  Speaker 1: And that right there is what some might call the
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  Speaker 1: luck of the draw. We're rarely in the right place
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  Speaker 1: at the right time when it counts. On the eve
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  Speaker 1: of a lottery drawing, we buy a ticket and hope
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  Speaker 1: for the best, But it's always someone three states away
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  Speaker 1: who bought their ticket before us, who wins the jackpots.
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  Speaker 1: And there we are in the wrong place at the
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  Speaker 1: wrong time. In the case of Michael Dick, carpenter and
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  Speaker 1: father from Suffolk, England, he'd been right where he needed
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  Speaker 1: to be at just the right time. He'd lost track
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  Speaker 1: of his daughter. In the late nineties, he and his
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  Speaker 1: wife had divorced, and after the papers had been signed,
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  Speaker 1: she and their Lisa moved to Sudbury. They hadn't gone far,
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  Speaker 1: maybe a handful of miles, but Michael somehow lost touch
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  Speaker 1: with both of them. Ten years passed and Michael found
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  Speaker 1: himself part of a new family with a new wife
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  Speaker 1: and two daughters, but he never forgot about Lisa. She
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  Speaker 1: crossed his mind every day. What was she learning in school?
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  Speaker 1: What kind of food did she like? Was she happy?
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  Speaker 1: Did she remember him? In the summer of two thousand seven,
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  Speaker 1: Michael had had enough. He couldn't be content knowing his
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  Speaker 1: daughter was out there somewhere without him. All he had
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  Speaker 1: to go on was a general location and a father's
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  Speaker 1: determination to make his family hole again. He and his
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  Speaker 1: two daughters went door to door in search of Lisa,
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  Speaker 1: but the effort proved too great for the three of them.
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  Speaker 1: His next thought was to scour the local election records
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  Speaker 1: for her name and information. Nothing. She was a ghost,
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  Speaker 1: and Michael was at the end of his rope. And
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  Speaker 1: then he got an idea, A long shot, really, but
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  Speaker 1: it was the only hard left for him to play.
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  Speaker 1: He contacted a local reporter at the newspaper in Sudbury
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  Speaker 1: and asked them to run a story about his efforts
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  Speaker 1: in finding his daughter. Instead of them running all over
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  Speaker 1: town looking for her. They'd let her come to them.
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  Speaker 1: The reporter agreed and snapped a photo of Michael and
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  Speaker 1: his two girls to run alongside the story. All he
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  Speaker 1: had to do now is wait. The article ran the
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  Speaker 1: next day, but neither Michael nor the reporter got a response.
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  Speaker 1: Another day passed still nothing, and then days later the
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  Speaker 1: phone rang. Lisa had found the story, well, her friends
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  Speaker 1: had found it, and they showed it to her. She
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  Speaker 1: read through the piece and just knew she had to
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  Speaker 1: get in touch. Lisa and her father met up that
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  Speaker 1: evening to catch up on a decade's worth of lost time,
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  Speaker 1: exchanging hugs and stories and share pictures of their lives
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  Speaker 1: that had played out separately up to that point. But
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  Speaker 1: amidst the tales of her upbringing and the photos of
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  Speaker 1: her children, his instant grandchildren, as he'd like to call them,
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  Speaker 1: was one other story, a story Michael wouldn't have believed
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  Speaker 1: if he hadn't seen the proof for himself. When her
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  Speaker 1: friends showed her the article in the Sudbury newspaper, something
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  Speaker 1: immediately stood out to her about the photograph they printed
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  Speaker 1: above it. There was her father, older and with less
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  Speaker 1: hair than she remembered, with his arms around her half sisters.
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  Speaker 1: Lisa didn't know them, but she did know one other
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  Speaker 1: person in the photo. She hadn't expected to see herself.
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  Speaker 1: When the reporter had snapped the picture, they had also
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  Speaker 1: caught Lisa in the background, pushing one of her children
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  Speaker 1: along in a stroller, yards away from her father and
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  Speaker 1: half sisters. What's more, she had moved out of Sudbury
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  Speaker 1: a long time ago and had only been there in
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  Speaker 1: the city for a single day to visit her mother.
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  Speaker 1: That picture of Lisa and her father was a one
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  Speaker 1: in a million shot. Michael may not have won the
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  Speaker 1: lottery that day, but both he and his daughter had
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  Speaker 1: been in just the right place at just the right time,
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  Speaker 1: and because of that, they want something a whole lot better. Family.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of lore dot com, and until next time, stay curious.