Latest / Heavyweight / #24 Jimmy and Mark

Transcript

#24 Jimmy and Mark · Heavyweight

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: How are you, Jonathan.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: It's a new season of Heavyweight, and I was thinking
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of every episode we can have a
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: little medical corner where we get health tips from doctor
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Jackie Cohen. I have a medical question for you. Do
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: you say the big toe or do you say the
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: great toe? In a medical situation? If someone came into
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: the er and their foot was broken to bring a
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: smile to their face, would you refer to their pinky
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: toe as the little piggy? If their foot had just
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: gotten run over by a truck, would you and you
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: were like examining all their toes, would you say, oh,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: it is the little piggy?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Would you do that? How are you employed? From Gimblet Media.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Jimmy
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: and Mark. There were a couple of days in nineteen
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: seventy four that Jonathan Marshall can't stop thinking about. They
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: involve a bicycle and a crazy idea, his dad's crazy idea.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Jonathan says there are two important things to know about
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: his dad. The first is that he was a salesman,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and according to Jonathan, he could be pretty persuasive.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: When I was twelve, I bought my first car. What
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: because my father thought it was a good idea. So
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: he convinced me with my lawn raking money to buy
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: a car and then work on that car for three
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: years until I could drive it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Wait is it twelve year old even allowed to buy
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: a car.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Well, you can buy a car, you just can't drive
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: it legally.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: The second thing to know is that Jonathan's dad was
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: a seventies kind of guy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: He had the wide ties, he had the lapels, he
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: had platform shoes, Syburns tried to get a perm once.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Was he kind of like a Kung Fu aftershave kind
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: of guy? Or that was an old spice guy, old
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: spice slap on some old spice.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, my dad was a
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: groovy guy.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: Ah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: The seventies, the nineteen seventies, all of us crying out
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: dinomys when life was good, and I am not a
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: crook when life was bad, pet rocks, mood rings, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: cool open collared dads. In the nineteen seventies, there was
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: nothing cooler than a cool dad, and Jonathan Marshall's dad
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: was the coolest.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: He was the father that on a hot summer night
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: would go, hey, Ji, how many of your friends want
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: to go get ice cream? And we had a van,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: so however many kids could get in a van would
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: go get ice cream with my.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Father, all those unseat belted kids banging around in the
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: back of the van like bingo balls. But even though
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: it was the nineteen seventies, a decade during which my
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: own father once used my shoe as an astray at
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: a garden party, Jonathan Marshall's father was about to set
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a whole new standard. Jonathan was only ten years old
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: when his father took him aside to pitch him on
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: his craziest idea yet.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: My father said, hey, you know what if you rode
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: your bike to.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Vermont, That is, why don't you pedal your child's sized
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: bicycle two hundred and forty miles all alone, over the
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Adirondack Mountains, over the Green Mountains, across Lake Champlain to
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: your uncle Herb's house in New And how long were
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: you anticipating the trip would take three days in three days,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: so you would be going like eighty odd miles a day.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that was the idea. No adult supervision, none
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: coins for pay phones, because that's how you used to
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: make calls back in those days.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So you were just completely on your own. Yeah, when
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: your dad proposed to you this, you know, two hundred
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and fifty mile trip, did you did you really have
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: a sense of what that meant?
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: None? Absolutely none.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: As a parent, the entire plan makes me shudder. But
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: as a ten year old, it would have felt like
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a dream come true. When I was out riding, I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: could pretend that I was an orphan, I could pretend
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that I was free. But how free could you really
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: feel when you were expected home for dinner? And Marshall
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have to pretend he was free, He would be free,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: dangerously free. Jonathan's best friend at the time, a season
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: thirteen year old named John, lived down the street. Jonathan
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: asked him to come along, and John's parents, over what
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I can only imagine to be a dinner of jello
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: salad shrouded and smoke rings, agreed to let John go.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: He was a little bit of a badass. You know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: we'd go out in the woods and start a fire.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You know, we'd go do stupid stuff, right, and so
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: he seemed like a great partner in this. Okay, we're
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: going to ride our.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Bikes the two best friends spent the next few weeks preparing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: They poured over maps and planned their adventure. They gathered
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the supplies they'd need, ponchos, bike tools, forty bucks in cash,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: and the food they bring slim jims and cupso soup.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Everything was perfect. But then Jimmy and his little brother
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Mark showed.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Up about a week before the trip started. This these
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: two guys, Jimmy and Mark, the names coming back to me.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I barely knew them, and they were sent by their
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: parents to live with us for a month.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Jimmy and Mark arrived all alone on a Greyhound bus
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: from Long Island. Jimmy was twelve, Mark just eleven. Their
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: family had met Jonathan's family at a resort a couple
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: summers earlier, but Jonathan hadn't thought of the brother since
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: now here they were standing at his door, adult sized
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: luggage clutched in their hands. Jonathan had no idea why
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: they were there.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: I remember asking my mom, well, what are we going
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: to do with Jimmy and Mark when John and I
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: ride our bikes to Vermont, and my mom's response was, oh, well,
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: they'll go with you. Initially I was resentful because it
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: was what do you mean they're going with us? You know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I've been planning this. We don't even know if they
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: know how to ride bikes. They're from Long Island, wherever
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: that's from. But at ten years old, I certainly didn't
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: say no to my mother, and so they were going
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: on the trip because mom said they were going on
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the trip.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And so one August morning, before the sun had risen,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the two best friends, Jonathan and John, and the two
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: mysterious brothers Jimmy and Mark all set off.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Day one is really a recollection of hitting the Adirondacks
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: and starting to just have to go uphill a lot.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: But uphill battles are worth the fight when you're a
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: young boy on a bike and the day's destination is
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: a hotel room that your dad booked for you at
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the happiest most men place on Earth.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Frontier Town. It was a little fantasy land of the
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Old West. It had a jail, a saloon, a big
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: square that was you know, do you know Frontier Town?
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Frontier Town was a family owned Old Western theme
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: park and as a kid, I'd see commercials for it
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: on TV. Please can we go? I'd beg my parents
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: and my father a decidedly uncool. Seventies Dad would tell
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: me that he didn't need his son getting trampled by
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: wild donkeys.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I remember they had a dunking machine, and that was
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: a thrill for a kid.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: As Jonathan tells me about stepping foot into the Frontier
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Town hotel after a long, hard day of peddling, the
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: ten year old in me is jealous, but the adult
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: in me knows that jonathan accommodations couldn't have been that great,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, Frontier Town was
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: probably nothing more than a roadside motel with cowboy hats.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: No my recollections the hotel rooms were as cool as
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Frontier Town because everything seemed to be made out of logs.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: My god, I could have slept on a bed with
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: a wagon wheel headboard. Ten year old me and adult
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: me are in complete agreement. We've wasted our lives. Jonathan
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and John crawled into one double bed, Jimmy and Mark
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: into the other. Exhausted, they all fell asleep almost immediately.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: When we woke up, it was raining. It rained all day,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: It was gray, it was cold, it was nasty, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: we got three flat tires that day, And.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: For day two was to catch the ferry across Lake Champlain,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: but of the many things they packed, no one had
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: thought to bring a watch. When they reached the dock,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the very last ferry of the day was about to
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: set sail.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: We went down the ramp yelling. We were yelling and waving,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: and we're like, no, no, stop, stop, stop, and the
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: guy waited to bless his heart.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: By the time they got off the ferry, they were soaking,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: wet and hungry. What did you do for dinner?
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I remember distinctly. We went to A and W. I
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: remember John took off his shoes and it was the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: worst smell I've ever smelled in my life, And to
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: this day I still remember that horrible, horrible, horrible smell
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: of wet construction boots that had been soaked through an
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: A and W food.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: What to a bunch of ten year olds who have
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: been bicycling in the rain all day order at an
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: A and.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: W everything everything we could think of, you know, A
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: multiple bird, multiple shakes, hot dogs, fries. Yeah, it was.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: It was.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: It was a feast and it was some of the
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: best food I ever had.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Was there a point at which like it stopped feeling
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: like a kind of Fun Boys Adventure, you know, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: felt like suddenly you were like in a World War
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: One film. Day three after the break, Day three and
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: all the days since. When the boys woke up, they
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: were still a full day's ride from their destination. Without
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the will to get back on their bikes. They got
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: back on their bikes, very sore and very tired, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: we've got another eighty miles through the green mountains to go.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Eventually they came to a familiar road who was the
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: same stretch Jonathan's parents drove each year to visit his uncle.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, guys, we are so close, and so
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: then we keep.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Going and going and going and going, and I recognize nothing.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: As it happens. A highway looks a lot different from
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: a bicycle than it does from the back seat of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: your dad's car. I picture them, four little kids, still
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: young enough to have baby teeth, standing at the side
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of the road, hunched over a large map that they'll
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: never be able to fold back up. Using their little fingers,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: they trace their roots, trying to figure out where in
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the world they are. In the end, Jonathan asked directions
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: from a farmer who must have wondered why four children
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: were cycling down a highway all alone. They rode the
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: rest of the way in silence and arrived after dark.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: When Jonathan's uncle Herb saw the boys at his doorstep,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: he was shocked.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: And I just remember looking at their face and they're like,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: your father told us you were gonna do it, But
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: we really didn't think you'd make it. We thought you'd
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: call and we'd come and get you somewhere along the way.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Because Jonathan's uncle, Herb great seventies uncle name by the way,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: was a grown adult, he was able to see the
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: extraordinariness of the trip in a way that the boys couldn't.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: My uncle said, you know, I think we should call
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the paper. And we thought that would be a swell idea.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: And so the next day the boys rode their bikes
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: into downtown Newport, where a photographer for the local paper
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: took their picture. It felt like being famous.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: And we bought a dozen copies so we could hand
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: them out, and that was like the most exciting thing
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: that ever happened to me.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Jonathan sends me a scan of the photo. It's folded
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: up as though it's been carried around in a wallet
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: for decades. In it from left to right, Jonathan, his
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: best friend John, and his two new friends Mark and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Jimmy stand astride their bikes with looks of little boy pride.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: You know, when you ride your byke two hundred and
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: forty miles when you're ten, right, everything that comes up
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: after that you gauge by a two hundred and forty
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: mile bike trip, and it seems small in comparison.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: The bike trip is Jonathan's origin story on the track team.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: He never considered himself especially talented, but what he lacked
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: in natural athleticism, he says he made up for an
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: effort after college, even though no one saw it coming.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: He entered law school and graduated fourth in his class.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: For Jonathan, the three day trip with his three little
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: friends wasn't just kids stuff, crazy seventies stuff. It taught
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: him keep going.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you listen to me now, I'm
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: still I am still talking about three days that happened
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: forty five years ago.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Jonathan is now middle aged. He has white hair and
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: an office job, but the trip is with him all
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: the time, whenever he looks at a map or sees
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: a kid bike bye. And as he grows older, Jonathan
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: finds himself telling the story with greater frequency. But when
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: people think that he's exaggerating or worse, that he made
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the whole thing up more than two hundred miles on
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: a three speed at age ten, without parents, he doesn't
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: have anyone to turn to, anyone who can say, yes, Jonathan,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: we did do that, and yes, I also think about
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: that trip all the time. A year after the bike trip,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Jonathan's family moved away and he lost touch with his
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: best friend John. As for the two brothers, Jimmy and Mark,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: after they got back on the bus Tolong Island wherever
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: that is, Jonathan never saw them again.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: It's just so weird to me that we went through
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: this adventure and I never spoke to them again.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: And this is why Jonathan has come to me. It's
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: really quite simple, he says. He feels like the last
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: living goony, and so he just wants help finding his
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: old friends. If you could find these guys again, Like
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: what specific questions would you want to ask?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Did the trip have as big of impact on your
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: life as it had in mind? Do you ever think
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: about that? If you do, what are your recollection, were
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: your impressions? What do you remember of the feeling of
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: you and Jonathan playing out the bike trip.
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: Not a whole lot.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: This is Jonathan's best friend, John forty five years later,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: and the badass from down the street is now a
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: retired carpenter living in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: stays in Vegas, and apparently what happened on the bike
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: trip stays anywhere that isn't John's brain. Do you remember
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the day that it rained, the day they rained, or
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: taking off your shoes in the A and W.
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Are there any other details that you remember?
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: We made it.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: But despite not remembering many of the details from the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: trip or any details from the trip, John tells me that,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: like Jonathan, he still has the photo. He keeps it
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: in a dresser drawer along with other mementos, mostly from
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: just after that summer.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: I have every concert ticket stub that I've ever been
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: to since probably nineteen seventy four, Rush Kiss Journey, Led Zeppelin,
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: Rolling Stones, Pink Flood.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, the year of the bike trip,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: John was thirteen, three years older than Jonathan, and his
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Schwinn was starting to take a back seat to going
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: out at night to concerts. To loud music, to other
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: things teenage things that must have eclipsed the bike trip
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that summer with his younger friend. So for John, the
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: bike trip is a nice but foggy memory, a newspaper
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: photo tucked away in a drawer. But there on the
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: opposite end of that photo, in T shirts and scuffed
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: up sneakers are the two brothers who'd mysteriously shown up
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: at Jonathan Marshall's doorstep in the summer of nineteen seventy four.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Jimmy and Mark Campbell, names so common that it's hard
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: to narrow down the search. We know the brothers are
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: originally from Long Island, but as it turns out, Long
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Island is a pretty long island, and we don't know
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: what part Jimmy and Mark are from. So Jonathan calls
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: in a favor from a friend who works in local
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: government there and has access to elementary school yearbooks dating
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: back to the seventies. In the end, though, Jimmy and
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Mark Campbell don't show up in any of them. Next,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: we reach out to the resort where Jonathan met Jimmy
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: and Mark some forty five years ago, but there's no
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: record of their stay. The resort had no computer system
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: in the seventies and the owners have since changed. So
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: over the next few weeks, I make hundreds of phone calls.
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: Hello, you definitely have the wrong number.
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: I think you have the wrong number.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Probably have their own number.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: We're sorry your call could not be completed. No brothers
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: named Jimmy and Mark, who've lived in the state of
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: New York in the nineteen seventies are safe.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: He hasn't lived here for years.
• 20:11
  Speaker 7: There's no James here, No James Campbell lives here.
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: I was literally talking about that trip a week and
• 20:24
  Speaker 8: a half ago, and.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Then the bizarre Jimmy Campbell. He now goes by James
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: or Jim. He's a financial advisor living in California. He
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: phones me back from his office.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: I can remember us walking our bikes and climbing up
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: the hill at like six in the morning. That's where
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Root nine was, and we'd take off.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I remember, as we talk, it becomes clear that that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: summer long ago is just as alive for Jim as
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: it is for Jonathan.
• 20:56
  Speaker 8: I can remember the second day when we were trying
• 20:59
  Speaker 8: to catch the Fay Burlington.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: But the more we keep talking, the less Jim dwells
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: on the bike trip itself.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: I can remember things like Johnson's dad coming home from
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: work and having some fun fights in the pool or.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Something, and the more he talks about the day's book
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: ending the trip.
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: I remember sitting in their family room watching the TV,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: and then we camped out on their.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: For Jim, family life with the Marshalls was in stark
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: contrast to his own home life, or to what it
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: was becoming.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: My family's situation got uglier and more difficult post that.
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: Trip because.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: My mother was.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Becoming sick, and this is why Jim and Mark were
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: sent to stay with the Marshalls. Their mother was in
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the early stages of both MS and Parkinson's. Having two
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: little boys to care for made a hard time even harder,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: so a phone call was placed, arrangements made, and two
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: bus tickets purchased. When I asked Jim what his mother
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: and father thought of their little boys bicycling all the
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: way to Vermont, he says that they didn't even know.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: They had so much else to worry about. Jim's mom
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: was spending so much time in the hospital that she
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: had to quit her job, making Jim's dad the sole breadwinner.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: My father, what I truly believe could not handle it right,
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: could not handle the stresses of the illness, and they
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: ended up divorcing, and he actually ended up moving out
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: of the state. So he chose to move, and he
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: chose to not contact us again. He chose to disappear.
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: So life got difficult. Money wasn't there. He had a
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: single parent who was an ill person, who was fighting
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: for ear own life, and you had to learn to
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: start sending for yourself. Probably the next year I started
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: working and I grew up fast. So that was probably
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: the last fun summer of my childhood. We'll say that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: For Jonathan, whose world was opening up to him that summer,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the bike trip was a beginning, but for Jim and
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Mark it was an ending. So yes, the bike trip
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: was fun, Jim says, But when he thinks about the
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: summer of seventy four, he thinks about playing games with
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Jonathan and his sister, about sleeping outside in the Marshall's
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: backyard under the stars, about getting to just be a
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: kid one last time.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: I knew my family life was changing and gutting worse,
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: and his was just what I wanted life to be,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: and it wasn't going to be, you know, with a
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: nicer home, nicer setting, the two parents, a lot of
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: family time, just getting a.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Long This is Jim's origin story. Like Jonathan's, it also
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: took place that summer, not a long Route nine, but
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: in the Marshall's home. Jonathan's mom had just had a
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: baby and spent a lot of time with the kids,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: hanging out in the master bedroom, which.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: Has a sitting area.
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: So not only do you have your bed, but you
• 24:35
  Speaker 8: have an area where you have a couch and you
• 24:37
  Speaker 8: can relax in. And I can remember hanging out in
• 24:41
  Speaker 8: that room with a mom and she's nursing the baby
• 24:43
  Speaker 8: and we're all just talking and just having a good time.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: For Jim, that bedroom at the Marshalls represented the heart
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: of family life. It was cozy and it was safe.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It made an impression on Jim that carried into adulthood.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: Years later, when my wife and I bought a home
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: in New Jersey, I wanted to make sure my master
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: bedroom was big enough to have a sitting area because
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: I remembered their house having that, and I wanted that
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: in my own home. I wanted that for my children,
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: and I was going to do my damn just to
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: get that. You know, A parent's supposed to sacrifice for
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: their kids. So I try to live up to my
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: expectations of what a parent's supposed to be, which wasn't
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: what my father was.
• 25:34
  Speaker 9: Jim holds a resentment, and I don't have that same resentment.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: This is Jim's little brother, Mark, eleven years old this
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: summer of the bike trip. He's now a school teacher
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in Florida.
• 25:46
  Speaker 9: I accepted my dad for what he was, and yeah,
• 25:51
  Speaker 9: I and didn't hold a grudge.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: Our reactions to our lives when our parents broke up
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: was very different and made us very different people.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Until that summer, Jim and Mark spent all of their
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: time together. They shared a bedroom since they were babies,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: but after their dad left, they drifted apart and Jim
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: moved out of the room. The bike trip was the
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: last time they'd ever spend together like that, whole uninterrupted
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: days just being brothers. Jim and Mark now live on
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: opposite ends of the country. They rarely see each other
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: or talk, but when they do, the bike trip often
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: comes up, and with it the photo that picture of
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: all four boys astride their bikes in the Newport News.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Unlike John and Jonathan, who've managed to keep there safe
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: for forty five years. Jim and Mark don't have their
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: picture anymore. It's just one more thing lost and the
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: chaos of illness and divorce. Neither Mark nor Jim has
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: seen it since they shared a room.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm picturing right now. I can picture the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: newspaper article with the picture of us four with our
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: bikes with the shoot smiles up in Newport, Vermont. That
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: picture says it all, just four smiling faces next to these,
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: you know, half assed bicycles. Look what we did.
• 27:20
  Speaker 9: No one believes that this even happened, because this sounds
• 27:23
  Speaker 9: so far fetch to everyone. But I'm like, we had
• 27:26
  Speaker 9: the evidence, we can prove it to them, but we
• 27:27
  Speaker 9: don't have it.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: It's very well wrapped.
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: I don't really take it up big time.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: After my conversation with the brothers, I prepared two packages,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: each containing a framed photograph. One is addressed a gym
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: in California and the other to Mark in Florida.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: Dumb here, it sounds freaking open.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, I can't believe you got Holy shit, look that.
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: Now that is crazy.
• 28:05
  Speaker 9: Where did you find this?
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Man?
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, that is the picture. It's funny. I don't have
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: my college degree, my MBA. None of that's in a
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: frame and up on any wall. My wife hates our
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: wedding pictures. She didn't like the photographer, so those pictures
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: don't come out. So for me, this is this is
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: a huge deal for me.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's got to go up. Jim and Mark no
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: longer ride bikes. For Jim it's hard to find the time.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: For Mark. Hip and back surgeries have made it too difficult.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: But looking back at the photostirs an old feeling in Mark,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: one that he hasn't felt since that summer since he's
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: a kid.
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: Complete freedom from everything, think about most of your life.
• 29:00
  Speaker 9: So I'm what I was telling you what to do.
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: When is it ever your time?
• 29:05
  Speaker 9: Because I feel in my life is so it is contained.
• 29:10
  Speaker 9: During that time, I just felt complete freedom. I can't
• 29:15
  Speaker 9: describe it. I know some people tried to describe it
• 29:18
  Speaker 9: in books and songs.
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: There is just a feeling that just comes over you.
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: And I want.
• 29:28
  Speaker 9: That feeling again.
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: To just get up and just go and just be free.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: It's Jim, Jim. I have Jonathan on the line.
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: Hello Jim, Jimmy God, you know, I swear to God,
• 30:13
  Speaker 10: I haven't heard your voice in forty years, You sound
• 30:16
  Speaker 10: exactly the forty.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: Five years buddy his Mark, Hell, huh, John, what's happening?
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: Man?
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: With John out in his hammock drinking a beer, Jim
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: in his office, and Mark at home after school, Jonathan
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: after forty five years, reminisces with his old friends about
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: prowling around Frontier Town after dark, about the smell of
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: John shoes, about being kids with nothing but time and
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: long stretches of open road ahead of them.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: I know, I know, I love telling the story to
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: my kids, and my kids roll their off.
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: When my kid won't ride a bicycle a mile and
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: a half to go do something, Okay, I'm gonna come on.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: Thirteen.
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: I did one hundred and ten miles.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Now that the fern ures rift turn into it's good
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: will home, Now that the last month's rent is skating.
• 31:55
  Speaker 10: With the damage to post, take this moment to desolve.
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: If we too.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Are felt around for far too.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: From thanks accident. LEA Heavyweight is hosted and produced by
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Stevie Lane, Ba Parker, and
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Khalila Holt. The show is edited by Jorge just Special
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: thanks to Emily Condon, PJ vote An a Lad Hailey
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Shaw and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Edwin and Bobby Lord.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Additional music credits can be found on our website, Gimbletmedia
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Weaker Thands courtesy of Epidaph Records, and our ad music
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. You
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: can listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: your podcasts. We'll have a brand new episode next week.