Latest / Heavyweight / #46 Dan

Transcript

#46 Dan · Heavyweight

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't you tell me there was a story where
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: someone came up to you and said, hey, are you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Jackie from Heavyweight? And you said, no, is that true?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've denied it.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: I think it's true.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Why why would you deny it? If people I never
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I try not to lie in my life.
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: There's nothing you lie about.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: If I don't have to.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: In which situations would you lie?
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: Hmm?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I guess when you make your famous couscous and cutlets
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and you say, Johnny, do you like it? And I say, mm, yes,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: very much? So I love it. I'm so delicious. Oh
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it's so good. Oh my goodness.
• 0:39
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Oh I'm not going to wash my mouth for a week.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Sound familiar Jackie Cohen from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Dan right after the break.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Hey Dan, Hey, Jonathan, how are you?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Dan is a serious journalist, like national security correspondent. Serious.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm just trying to turn off my phone so
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: it doesn't be.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Turning off your phone during an interview serious journalism. Actually
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I should do the same thing. Dan is a friend
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: whom I've known for years, but conversation can still sometimes
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: feel like a game of chess. You're looking well, thank
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you arrested. Likewise, good of you to say check and mate.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Given what a serious journalist Dan is, I'm surprised he's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: come to me for help. But then his crisis is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: not one of national security. His is a crisis of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the heart, and that is an area in which my
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: journalism excels. Dan's story all begins in the summer of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three, the night he and his wife, Nancy,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: first met.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: At a dinner party hosted by this American diplomat in Jerusalem,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: and Nancy got to the dinner late because she was
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: out on a date that night.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: A terrible date. I went to see X Men two,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: which was unfortunate all the way around.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: This is Nancy, also a friend whom I've known for years,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and also a serious journalist for the podcast serial in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: This American Life.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: And I wasn't even going to go to this party
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: and just thought, oh, for Christ's sake, why am I
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: going to this?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: But then she met Dan.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: He was quiet.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: I noticed that he was just kind of watching and
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: not being rambunctious. You know, there's a lot of sort
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: of false hilarity at parties and that was not something
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: he was engaging in.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: A week later, Dan and Nancy went out on a
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: date at an Italian restaurant in downtown Jerusalem.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: You know, it's July, it was warm. She was wearing
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: a tak top. I remember I ordered ravioli and a
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: beer and she ordered a burger and a whiskey.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: Because I don't know, that's the kind of hard drinking,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: hard eating gal I was.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Nancy says she'd been on a lot of first dates
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and rarely got her hopes up. She was wary anticipating
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the moment, say, when Dan would ask her to see
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: X Men three. Still, something about Dan drew her in.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: I remember him saying very early on that he was
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: separated and that he had two kids, and I could
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: see that he was kind of bracing for that to
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: be a deal breaker for me, and I didn't feel
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: that way at all. On the contrary, I felt interested
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: and excited and yeah, you're a whole person with a
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: whole person's complications. It was nice, it was fun, but
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: then something strange happened. Do you want to jump in with.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: A question.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Serious journalism. This must be frustrating for you. You must feel
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: like I could do both sides of this. What do
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I need this tarp before? But yes, indeed, like what happened.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: We're still just in the stage where we're getting the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: main facts. Where are you from? What are you doing
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: here so far from home? And a woman who was
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: sitting with her husband at the table right next to us,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: leaned in towards us and said, hey, you know, excuse me,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: sorry for interrupting, but I think I know your father. Dan.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: It chaired with Nancy that his dad lived in California
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and helped invent the breakfast cereal cap'n Crunch. Hearing these details,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the woman realized the connection.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: She said, that's so funny. He's our friend. We live
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: next to him.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: He throws these great parties. He and his wife are
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: very generous philanthropists in the community.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: You know, I can't believe it, of all the people
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: to be next to. And it'll be so great when
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: we tell him we ran into you. And they went
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: back to their dinner. We went back to ours, and
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Dan looked sort of startled.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the surprise of being recognized by
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a stranger seventy five hundred miles from home.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: It was also surprising for another reason, which is that
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know my father. I have not had contact
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: with my father since I was very young.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: And Dan was very quiet and he said, I actually
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: don't know my father at all. It was basically like
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: our date was kind of split into two parts, and
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: the first part happened before that moment with a couple
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: next to us, and the second part happened afterward. It
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: just turned into a completely different conversation that was like,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: here's the.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Deal, here was the deal, leaning in so that the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: couple wouldn't hear. Dan explained that his parents split up
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: when he was five. It was a very acrimonious divorce,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and afterwards his father essentially disappeared from his and his
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: sister's life. Their mother struggled to raise the two kids
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: on her own. In life with Dan's mother wasn't easy.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: She was a Holocaust survivor, and Dan says she carried
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the trauma of those years for the rest of her life.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: And because he told that whole story, I then ended
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: up telling the whole complicated story of my own, my
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: own parents' divorce.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: You know, suddenly we were talking about things that were real.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: It created this intimacy that, you know, so you can
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: go on five days and not get to that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Back at the neighboring table, the couple paid the check
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and got up to leave, but before they did, the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: woman came over once more.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And said, Hey, do you mind if I take a
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: photo of you two?
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: This will be so funny. Let's take a picture of
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: you and we'll send it to your father.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And Nancy and I kind of looked at each other.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: It was this look of Okay, this is weird, but.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Why not, and we kind of leaned.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: In, I think, and maybe even I put my arm
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: around Nancy and.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: They took this picture.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Dan and Nancy posed frozen smiles, hiding their real smiles
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: at the fact that this woman adjusting her camera knew
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: nothing of what they knew.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: It was pretty funny. I think at some point they
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: even said, like, we didn't even know he had a son,
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, lady, you have no idea.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: It was like we had an experience together right right,
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: You know, we had this inside joke already.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: After the photo, things moved quickly.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I think I gave Nancy the key to my apartment
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: within two weeks of that date.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: The photo was a chance, you know, it gave us
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: a chance to both kind of take the first big
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: leap of our relationship.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Would you say that the woman sitting beside you was
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: sort of like a cherub, but rather than carrying a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: bow and arrow, she was holding a camera. Would you
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: say that? Would you say that, Nancy?
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say that, but I would support your saying.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: That, And with Nancy's full support behind me, I will
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: say that because Dan and Nancy have now been together
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: for nineteen years.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know Nancy, so you know how lovely
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: she is and funny and warm and all that was
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: on display right away that evening, and I fell in
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: love with her at that dinner.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And that first spark was captured in the photo. Because
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of crashed hard drives, Dan and Nancy have lost the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: photos from the beginning of their relationship. So while those
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: photos have certainly gone, the first photo, the most important photo,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: might not be, and so Dan has come to me
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to find it. But here's the catch. If the woman
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: with the camera kept her promise, then the photo is
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: in the hands of Dan's father, and I am.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Not particularly interested in trying to reach out to my
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: father directly or indirectly. In other words, This is what
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: might make it more tricky if he has the photo.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go that road.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: It's been about fifty years since Dan's father walked out
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: on the family. Dan isn't looking to make contact now.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: But I can't help thinking that as much as Dan
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: wants a photo, some part of him must also be
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: wanting something more from his dad. The strange symmetry is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: hard to ignore. The thing Dan wants most is in
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the hands of the person he wants to talk to least.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: But Dan is adamant.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the mission here is not let's reach out to
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: him and get to know him. I really just want
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: the photo.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Are you saying sometimes a photo is just a photo exactly?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's just a photograph.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: No, But I don't think I can know everything that
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: it means to him necessarily. I think it's hard to
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: want anything from a parent who has been so thoroughly absent.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so thoroughly.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Derelict. Does he remember anything about his father?
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: I'm hesitating. You know, this is small, but it's personal.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It's a sad memory.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: I mean to me, it's sad, Okay, to me, it's sad.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: He told me he remembered his father rubbing his back.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: I rub his back a lot.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: With Dan's father in the no fly zone. It leaves
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: only one person who might have a copy of the photo,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the woman with the camera. Do you remember what she
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: looked like?
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I think she had curly brown hair, and I can
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: get Nancy's take on this as.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Well, dark hair like not really a beehive, but sort
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: of up and kind of pin curlsy or something.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think maybe she said something about the Jewish community,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: so I wouldn't be surprised if they're active in the
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Jewish community there.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I look at the notes I've been taking, an older
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: possibly Jewish woman from California who, when traveling to Israel
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, maybe wore her hair in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a beehive. I mean, this is really this isn't really
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: not a lot, you know.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's going to be hard finding her as a
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: big obstacle. And then eighteen years later, does she have
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: this photo lying around?
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I begin my search for the woman with the camera
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: where it all began. Buck Facacia Bar, the restaurant in
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Jerusalem where Dan and Nancy had their first date. Wielding
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: what's left of my bar Mitzvalessen language skills. My plan
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: is to endear myself to the Fakacia bar staff uh shalom.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Is there a manager maybe on second Slussia? Hello shalom? Hello,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: how could I have you? I tell the manager about
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: my two friends who had their first date at his restaurant, yes,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: eighteen years ago. Oh nice, Yeah, And encouraged by his interest,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I explained the whole story, how I'm trying to find
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the woman with a camera, and how maybe he has
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: her credit card receipt on file. Luckily, Dan and Nancy
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: remember the exact day of their date, July first, two
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: thousand and three. So yeah, you could go back to
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the computer just type in two thousand and three.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Oh man, we're not so much technology, you know.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's no shating like seven eight computer, different computers, you know,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: so nothing you could do in other words, no nothing nothing, Okay,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to your shalom.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So I try something else. Since the woman was a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: neighbor of Dan's father, I look up his address and
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: contact the county assessor's office. I request historical records of
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: property owners in his town from two thousand and three.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that like the catchy bar. They
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: aren't very technology and don't keep data dating back that far.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Unable to find a list of past neighbors, I decide
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to try calling present ones. Maybe the woman with the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: camera is still living in the same neighborhood as she
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: was in two thousand and three, or at the very least,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: maybe someone who knows her does. My producer Stevie and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I turned to the white pages and start phoning Hello. Hello,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: my name is Jonathan Goldstein. The reason I'm phoning is
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I do a pot. Are you familiar with podcasts?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: No?
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: I don't have time for anything.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: I just not enough to thank you.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I'll get to the point, ma'am. Hello. The neighbors rarely
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: let me get to the point, and even when they do,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I mostly met with one of two reactions pity.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Good look.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Or non pity.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: I haven't photographed anybody.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I've been in the little bar.
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: I know nothing about what you're talking about, so you're
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: pointless coming here and talking to mean thank you?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Bye?
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: All right?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Well, did you say I've never been to a noodle bar?
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: Uh huh?
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: All right, we can cross that one off the list.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: After dozens of calls to random strangers, I begin to
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: lose hope. But since Dan thought the woman with the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: camera might have known as father through the Jewish community,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I phone every synagogue within an hour's drive of Dan's
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: father's neighborhood. I get the rabbis to include a call
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: out and their e newsletters. It doesn't yield a thing.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: With the futility of finding a nameless woman with an
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: indeterminate address, I reach back out to Dan. It seems
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: as though it might be impossible without you know, in
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: some way it kind of connecting to your father.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Nancy and I talked a bit about it.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Perhaps anticipating the shortcomings of my journalisming, Nancy devised a strategy.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Dan's fear is that his dad will think this is
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: an attempt to reconcile, to reconnect.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: And so what I said was Jonathan could just call
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: him and say no, no, no, no no no, I'm
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: just here for the photo. If you could just give
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: us the photo, that's all I want.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Dan is comfortable with this approach, but before giving me
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the green light, he says, there's one last person I
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: need to call.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, we share a lot and we probably did
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: actually raise one another.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: This is Abby, Dan's older sister. Given the difficulty of
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: their childhood, they've always sort of been a team of two,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: so Dan wants to make sure she's okay with my
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: contacting their father. Abby tells me that over the years,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: she and Dan have reached out to their father a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: number of times, almost always to no response. The last
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: time for Dan was twenty years ago, when he was
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: in his mid thirties. For Abby, it was March of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: last year. Dan and Abbey's mother had just died, and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Abby was going through her mom's belongings when she found
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: some photos of her parents taken early in their relationship,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and they were happy pictures.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: They were pictures of love and you know, and passion.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: And so I wrote to him and I said, I've
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: been going through these pictures and I seen lots of
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: beautiful pictures of you and my mom, and I just
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: wanted you to know that my mom has passed and
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: it looks like there were times that were also beautiful.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: And then I ended by saying I have a beautiful family,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: and I'm very lucky, and Danny is lucky.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Abby sent the letter not expecting to hear back, but
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: about two weeks later, her father answered, and he said.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Something to the fact of we weren't happy, and he
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: said family is very important. But he didn't you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: he didn't say anything about my children, or he didn't
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: say anything about even my loss. I mean, he didn't
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: have the you know, the I guess the depths, the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: emotional depths.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Which is why she doesn't see the point in asking
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: her father for help, even though we're only asking for
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the kind of small effort you'd expect anyone to make.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: If I have a photo, you'll call me up and
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: you'll say, Abby, do you have the photo? And I'll say,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: oh my god, this is so difficult. But ultimately I'll
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: look for it and then he will sense that I
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: care enough to look. But we're not going to get
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that from her father. He doesn't care enough.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And no matter how old you are or what you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: might say to the contrary, that hurts.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: If you look at us, you think, oh, those two
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: are just regular people. But I don't think we are
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: a regular I think deep inside, we're still researching and
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: we're trying to understand, like why why would a parent
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: not want contact with us? And nobody's going to give
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: us that answer. So it's really.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Painful in the end, even though Abby is skeptical her
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: father will help. She gives me your blessing to try.
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, if that's.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: What Danny feels like is the right thing to do,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: then I would support that. I want that photo. I
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: want that photo for Danny, but not at the price
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of him being hurt. I don't think the photo is
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: worth not.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Dan's father is my last chance to score the photo,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to blow it, which is why
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I've been putting off the call. I don't want him
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to hang up on me, and from what Abby told me,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it seems like there's a definite chance he might. But
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: on a Monday afternoon, a few days after speaking with Abby,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I pick up the phone. Dan's father is in his
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: late eighties, but he still works. When I phone his office,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a friendly woman tells me he's hard of hearing, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: then she gives me a cell phone number. After three rings,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Dan's father picks up.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: He says, Hello, I say loudly, but not too loudly.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I hope it's okay that I'm calling you on your
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: cell phone. Well, I don't know what you're calling about,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: he says. For the next two minutes, they nervously explain
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: about Ficacia bar about how twenty years ago his neighbor
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: took a photograph of his son, and how I'm now
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: looking for that photograph. When I'm done, I'm met by
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a silence that feels long enough to make me wonder
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: whether he'd hung up somewhere around my explanation of what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a podcast is. Finally, he says, so you're asking me
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: if I have this photograph. Yes, yes, I say, Dan's
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: father lets loose a laugh, not a mean laugh, like
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and you think I'm going to help you with this.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It's free and amused, sounding a hearty and vigorous laugh.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what to make of it. Dan's father
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: says he has no memory of any photo, but he
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: does remember the incident, being told by his neighbor that
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: she'd seen Dan. He tells me she since moved away
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't remember her name, but that he'll look
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for it try and reach me tomorrow. He says. When
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I pick up the phone to call Dan's dad a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: second time, I'm pretty sure I'll get blown off, that
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: he'll screen my call or maybe tell me sorry I
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: couldn't find her. But just as he'd promised, Dan's father
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: looked for his old neighbor's name and found it. I'll
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: tell you her name, he says. But that's all I know.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't spoken with her, so if you can find her,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you can ask her directly. I ask him if he
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: remembers anything more about the conversation years ago when she
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: told him she'd seen Dan. Was he surprised, you know?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: He says, I was honest with you. I got you
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the name of the person. That's all I can do.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: All right, Yes, yes, I say, sensing. Well, thank you
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: so much, and have a good day you too, he says. Bye.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: When I get off the phone with Dan's dad, I
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: look at my notes where I've written down the name
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: of the woman with the camera, and that name is Deborah.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Once I have Deborah's name, it's not hard to find her.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: She still lives in California. At first phone debraah a
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: few days ago. She was on her way out and
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: asked if I could call her back on Thursday.
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: Very nice timing.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Oh good good, I'm glad I caught you. It turns out,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Deborah remembers clearly the night she and her late husband
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: ate at Facacia Bar, seated next to Dan and.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: Nancy, I'm a terrible eavesdropper. I just can't help it
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: because I love people's stories. Yeah, and I said to
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: my husband, I'm betting first date. And he said something
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: to me like stop it.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But Deborah couldn't stop it. She kept listening for what
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Dan would say.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Next.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: He said, my father invented the flavor for Captain Crunch.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: Huh so much. Okay, there can't be two of those
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: people in the world. You know. My recollection is that
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: we printed a copy of the picture and took it
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: to give his.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Father, despite Dan's father not remembering any photograph. In Debra's telling,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: she did show it to him.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: But my heart memory is that he didn't really want it,
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: which was, you know, made me really sad.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: It turns out Debra snapped the photo knowing more than
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Dan and Nancy imagined. She knew Dan's father had remarried,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and she knew he was estranged from his old family,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: but a photo of his son seemed like something that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: might warm him. Deborah was a second wife and had
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: seen her fair share of difficult family dynamics.
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: And my husband went through periods of being estranged from
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: his son, and one time someone came up to us
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: in a restaurant and said, oh, you must be Jeffrey's father,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: and Russell was tickled. You know, he's still his son,
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: so you know, I don't know. What we hoped was
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: the charming story of a sweet coincidence received a very
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: still reception, if you know what I mean, Yeah, these
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: stories of estrangement. I think one of the hardest things.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: One of the hardest things is that we think we're alone.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: For years, Deborah worked at a healing center, helping residents
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: there as they approached end of life. One day at
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a volunteers meeting, someone told the story of an elderly
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: estrangement from their children.
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: And pretty much everyone around the table had some variation
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: of estrangement from someone that they thought they'd been very
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: close to who was suddenly gone from their lives, and
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: it was just very quite. The word is liberating to
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: know that this is a human condition that we don't
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: talk about much. There are some relationships that you just
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: kind of, I don't know, on a cellular level, that
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: you that you long for even if you know you
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: can't have them. So when you talk to Dan again,
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: tell me it's not alone.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Deborah says that as requested, She did a search for
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the photo and.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I found it.
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: I found it.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: You believe it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: I found it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Deborah had cared enough to look.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Hi.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Hi, Hello. So the.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Long and short of it is, we found the photo.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Get the fuck out?
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Wow? What come on?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah? We found it?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Okay, I did not expect you to say that at all.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I didn't think. I didn't think we would.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Frankly, how the fuck did you do this? How did
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you pull it off?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I tell Dan and Nancy about Deborah, who for almost
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: twenty years held onto the photograph of an estranged son
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: of an old neighbor. Deborah says she kept it because
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: she was touched that Dan, who must have held such
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: anger towards this father, had still been so gracious with her.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: So that that changes my sense of what was happening,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: because I thought I remembered her having said I didn't
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: know he had a son, that she really had no idea.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: But Deborah did have an idea. So while running into
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Deborah was pure luck, her snapping of the photograph hadn't been.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It was well intentioned.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: God bless this lady.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: I know, Yeah, I fe feel very warm towards Deborah.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Of course, Dan wants to know how I found Deborah
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: in the first place. I ended up calling your father
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to ask, which brings me to his father, who answered
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: my call.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: I find it very surprising. I mean, he has never
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: been responsive to communications with my sister and I, so yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: I'm surprised.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I will also say that I talked to to Abby
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: just a few days ago and I told her about
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the whole thing.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised that he
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: went to look for the name. I didn't think it
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: was possible. I thought he wouldn't bother Maybe for just
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: a brief moment, he recognized a need.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like you see though at the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: same time, like it's small.
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: It's significant. Hmmm, it means something I don't know, in
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: a Hollywood dream movie. He did it for Danny and
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: he thought about it and he imagined him. But I'm
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: not so sure this is a Hollywood moment. Yeah, but
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: maybe he did see Danny in this.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you make of that.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: That's his I'm not buying it face.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I don't. She's
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: she might be a little more charitable about it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's been decades of radio silence from Dan's father,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and in that time Dan has come to wonder less
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: about how someone could do that to a son and
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: more about how someone could do that to himself.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I feel intuitively that this must plague my father. I
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: kind of think that to turn away from, you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: a five year old and a seven year old and
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: just cut yourself off requires really sort of emptying out
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: your heart. And it is just baffling to me that
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: still at this age, he wouldn't figure out how to
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: do something about it for his own good so that
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: he doesn't take this with him.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Dan says that when he split up with his first wife,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: his son was the same age as he was when
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: his parents divorced. Dan wanted to do things differently.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I was just very conscious of doing everything we needed
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: to do to be a presence in his life, for
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: both his mom and for me to be always a
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: presence in his life. And we did crazy, crazy things.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Crazy things like multiple transatlantic moves from Israel to the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: US and back, all five of them, Dan, his ex wife,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: his two kids, and Nancy. Things like living in neighboring
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: towns as the kids grew up celebrating Thanksgiving as one
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: big family. It wasn't always easy.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: But in every way I can explain or think of,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: it has made a difference. And it was very conscious
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: and very much a kind of a reaction to the
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: way that he went about things. They went about things,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: And just.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: To say, there were a lot of things I loved,
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: and I knew that I loved about Danny, but his
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: relationship with his children was at the center of it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: And his ex wife Tommy, we're all kind of in
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: a big, big stew together. We have been the whole time.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: And she's been game for the weirdness too.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Shout out to my ex she's pretty great.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: They don't normally do shout out. It's not that kind
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of radio show, but serious journalism. Do you want to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: see the photo?
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes I would, Jonathan, I'd like to see the photo.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Before our conversation. I had it framed and wrapped.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh Jesus, my god, this is so
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: much better than I thought even, Oh my god.
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: In the photo, Dan and Nancy are sitting next to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: each other at a round wooden table. Dan's body is
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: angled towards Nancy, Nancy smiling and leaning towards Dan.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Look at you, Jesus Christ. Nancy. Oh my god, man, wow,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I totally remembered that tank top. It's smile.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Dan is often so serious, but in the photo he's
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: smiling so wide you can see all his teeth. He
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: looks unencumbered at ease.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it's it's sort of remarkably not awkward.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we just look very relaxed.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: We look awesome.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I guess sometimes a photo is just a photo, or
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: in this case, a really great photo.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Nancy, I oh my god, you just you look
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: fucking adorable. You marry me all over I would marry
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: you all over again.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Dan's daughter is getting married this summer in Israel, and
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Dan and Nancy will be there, along with Dan's son,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: his ex wife Tommy. Shout out to his ex wife Tommy,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and his sister Abby two, who just recently became a grandmother.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Dan says whenever he visits there's always a lot of
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: requests for stuff from America, but along with the Sephora
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: makeup and Adida sneakers, he'll be bringing the photo to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: share with his whole family. Now that the Fernituers returned.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: To its goodwill home, now that the last month's rant
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: is scheming with.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: The damnage, take this moment.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: To do so, if we meant it, if we.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Talk but felt around for far too from pas it accidentally.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheiney mcgauker. Our
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Khalila Holt. Production help from Damiano Marquetti.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Caitlin Kenny, Phoebe Flanagan,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: and Jackie Cohen. Nancy Updike, who you heard in this episode,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: is coming out with a new series called We Were Three,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: which drops on October thirteenth from Serial Productions. Bobby Lord
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: found on our website, Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with a
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: new episode next week