Speaker 1: Pushkin, John Sorria.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that when we were kids, you had
Speaker 2: promised me. You'd said, if you live to fifty years old,
Speaker 2: Do you remember the promise that you made. No, you said, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: with your eating habits and your lack of exercise regimen,
Speaker 2: there's no chance you're going to live to fifty. But
Speaker 2: if you do make I never said that. You said,
Speaker 2: if you make it to fifty, I will send you
Speaker 2: on an all expense paid.
Speaker 3: Cruise, John, I never would have said that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've got my childhood journal right here,
Speaker 2: so let's take a look. January fifth, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Today Jackie promised me a cruise.
Speaker 3: I never said that. It's never the kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I ever would have said.
Speaker 2: Yet there it is. So what are you thinking? Kokomo?
Speaker 2: Never ever Wait, it doesn't say cruise, it says booze.
Speaker 2: You'd buy me booze. My penmanship was terrible, So what
Speaker 2: do you think? In krem Dumont from Gimblet Media, I'm
Speaker 2: Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Mary Clode.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode, Hello, So how's your day been.
Speaker 5: That's nine forty one in the morning. I haven't done much.
Speaker 2: Yet this plucky pip is Mary Clode, and she's come
Speaker 2: to me today with a problem as well. She should,
Speaker 2: because not only are problems my metier, but Mary Clode
Speaker 2: is one of my oldest friends. We met in the
Speaker 2: fifth grade in Montreal. So you were half French, half English.
Speaker 2: The marry side represents the English and the clothed side
Speaker 2: represents the French exactly. And what does the hyphen represent
Speaker 2: as they set up the microphones? Because what's the good
Speaker 2: of problems without microphones? I make some small talk to
Speaker 2: put Mary hyphen Clode at her ease. How How was
Speaker 2: it nice.
Speaker 5: Just making conversation because we can sit in silence. It's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm just making some chit chat.
Speaker 5: Just let's go.
Speaker 2: Back when Mary Clode and I first met forty years ago.
Speaker 2: We were a couple of shy, outsider kids. Even though
Speaker 2: Mary Clode lives in Canada and I now live in America,
Speaker 2: in many ways, we still lean on each other the
Speaker 2: way we did when we were kids, which brings us
Speaker 2: to why we're talking today. Mary clodes problem dates back
Speaker 2: to our days in grade school together fifty She thought
Speaker 2: it was behind her, but in the last couple of
Speaker 2: years the problem is returned, its threat multiplied, and its
Speaker 2: size exponential. Because Mary clodes problem is a math problem.
Speaker 5: I started failing math being grade seven. I got all
Speaker 5: the answers wrong. I did terribly. When my mother went
Speaker 5: to parent teacher interview. What was the name of the
Speaker 5: grade seven math teacher, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Was it Monsieur spirit In.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's it, that's exactly it. Yeah, So he told
Speaker 5: my mother, no, no, there's no problem. She understands. She
Speaker 5: just gets the answers wrong.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 5: Exactly? That's what my mother said, if she understood to
Speaker 5: get the answers right, Just how you get a sense
Speaker 5: of how this whole nightmare started.
Speaker 2: What kind of math was it back then? Was it algebra?
Speaker 5: I don't know, you think, I know. I think there
Speaker 5: was something with brackets, you know, like there was a
Speaker 5: number and then there were numbers in brackets, and then
Speaker 5: there was something else I remember, like an a's and
Speaker 5: b's and c's or something.
Speaker 2: You know, you know there's a name for that. Actually
Speaker 2: it's called algebra.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Although Mary Clode knew nothing, not even the kind of
Speaker 2: math she was doing. She was so quiet and unassuming
Speaker 2: that she just got passed along herded into eighth grade math.
Speaker 2: Let me see if I can remember who the grade
Speaker 2: A teacher was. Was it mister Goyech?
Speaker 5: I think it was, yeah, nice.
Speaker 2: Guy everyone called mister Goyech, the gooch walking into class
Speaker 2: with his hockey bag slung over his shoulder, hair wet
Speaker 2: from a hockey ring shower. The gooch didn't seem like
Speaker 2: he wanted to be in class any more than we did.
Speaker 5: I remember liking mister Goyech. I remember still not understanding
Speaker 5: a bloody thing I was doing, honestly.
Speaker 2: But the gouch was too nice to fail Mary Clode,
Speaker 2: so again she got passed along.
Speaker 5: Grade nine came along and and the teacher was mister Cohen.
Speaker 5: You remember him.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah. He decided he didn't like me for some reason,
Speaker 5: which was very rare because I was so quiet and shy,
Speaker 5: like there was not one teacher that didn't like me,
Speaker 5: because they probably didn't even notice me. So I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think mister Cohen just passed me so you wouldn't
Speaker 5: have to have me in his class again. A second year.
Speaker 2: After Miss Cohen, there was Missya Stehauer, then missyr Ryan.
Speaker 2: Each year Mary Clode was scooted from one monsieur to
Speaker 2: the next, one grade to the next, scooted all the
Speaker 2: way to senior year, her last year of high school math.
Speaker 2: On the first day of class, Mary Clode walked into
Speaker 2: the room and took a seat facing the teacher.
Speaker 5: He's reading the attendance list, and then he sees my
Speaker 5: name and he says, Marie, Marie, what are you doing
Speaker 5: in this class? You don't belong here. You're never going
Speaker 5: to pass.
Speaker 2: Under the teacher's advisement, Mary Clode dropped the class. We
Speaker 2: went to a terrible, terrible I remember. Their way of
Speaker 2: trying to inspire us was like, I think you and
Speaker 2: I sat in the dumb row together.
Speaker 5: We did.
Speaker 2: They called it the dumb row, and they tried to
Speaker 2: inspire us to get out of the dumb row. There
Speaker 2: was like five rows, and I remember there was the
Speaker 2: really dumb row behind us, but then there was just
Speaker 2: the dumb row, which was like a second from the wall.
Speaker 2: And we were trying, like we were working really really
Speaker 2: hard to get into that middle row.
Speaker 5: Did we make it?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I don't think so either. You know, every year, the
Speaker 5: same thing I'd sit in class, I would try I'd
Speaker 5: copy down the examples from the board. It seems so simple.
Speaker 5: There's a disconnect, you know, like it's on the board
Speaker 5: or it's in the book. It seems simple. I say, yeah,
Speaker 5: I can do that. I understand that, and then it
Speaker 5: comes down to applying it, and I just I can't
Speaker 5: apply it. And then you know how it is, once
Speaker 5: you start failing, you don't do well in the exam,
Speaker 5: then you're discouraged, and I just I didn't understand it.
Speaker 2: You know, but didn't you have to pass math in
Speaker 2: order to graduate high school?
Speaker 5: What are you saying? I don't have a high school diploma.
Speaker 2: I don't remember seeing you in a yearbook.
Speaker 5: You signed my yearbook, you jerk.
Speaker 2: Despite not taking her final year of high school math,
Speaker 2: the administration allowed Mary Clode to graduate, but only because
Speaker 2: of what happened in the last few months of the semester.
Speaker 5: If you remember, my father was very sick growing up,
Speaker 5: and in the spring of the last year of high school,
Speaker 5: my dad went into the hospital, I see you, and
Speaker 5: he never came out, So you know, we basically kept
Speaker 5: a vigil by his bed, and you know, I was
Speaker 5: holding my father's hand when he died. And to get
Speaker 5: back to reality, that really could not. I just I
Speaker 5: didn't care. I didn't feel normal, I didn't feel like
Speaker 5: everybody else, and I didn't want to hang out with them,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. Yeah, it changed all my friendships. Really,
Speaker 5: like you and I stayed friends because you're very good.
Speaker 2: With death, by the way, thank you.
Speaker 5: You were different. But yeah, so just it changed everything,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so.
Speaker 5: I never went back to school, never wrote my final
Speaker 5: end of year exams. I guess my mom made arrangements
Speaker 5: with the school, and because of the circumstances, they just
Speaker 5: passed me. Basically, they graduated me. So yes, I did
Speaker 5: pass high school, Jonathan, maybe not the conventional way, but
Speaker 5: I passed not in the last.
Speaker 2: High school ended and Mary Clode put math behind her.
Speaker 2: She met her husband, had two daughters, and worked at
Speaker 2: their family country store. Over the years, she's done all
Speaker 2: kinds of jobs, from waitressing to sales to working in
Speaker 2: a funeral home, but none of it ever felt like
Speaker 2: a calling, not the way being a mom did.
Speaker 5: I always worked school hours, as I call them, meaning,
Speaker 5: you know, I walk my girls to school every day
Speaker 5: and I pick them up every day whether they wanted
Speaker 5: me to or not, even in grade six. So really,
Speaker 5: my focus has always been, you know, really being a
Speaker 5: stay at home mother.
Speaker 2: But Mary Clode's daughters are now entering college and don't
Speaker 2: need her as much, so she's begun thinking about what
Speaker 2: she wants to do next.
Speaker 5: And I thought, like, this is it, Like you know,
Speaker 5: I want to I'm going to finally get some sort
Speaker 5: of a career going for myself that I enjoy, that
Speaker 5: I can do that I like. So I got the
Speaker 5: idea in my head that I wanted to be a
Speaker 5: real estate agent, and I sign up for this course.
Speaker 2: Over the next year, Mary Clode began the requisite real
Speaker 2: estate classes real estate law, real estate appraisal, real estate architecture,
Speaker 2: and construction. She passed them all and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: But then Mary Clode got to the final class and
Speaker 2: ran headlong into her old problem and thus the reason
Speaker 2: I'm talking to her today, because that final class was
Speaker 2: a real estate math, geometry, percentages, and algebra, in other words,
Speaker 2: high school math.
Speaker 5: So that's where I find myself. Now. I need to
Speaker 5: pass high school math to get my real estate license,
Speaker 5: and it's killing me. It's really killing me.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode is living a classic anxiety dream, the one
Speaker 2: where you're back in school. Unprepared for a test. But
Speaker 2: for Mary Clode, it isn't a dream, it's a living nightmare.
Speaker 2: The one thing that's standing in the way of her
Speaker 2: new life is math.
Speaker 5: It's haunting me. Really, I can't. I just all these
Speaker 5: old fears and feelings of anxiety and feelings of hostility,
Speaker 5: like I really hate it, you know.
Speaker 2: Each time she opens her math book to work on
Speaker 2: her homework, Mary Clode is instantly plunged back into adolescence.
Speaker 2: She's reminded of the teachers who told her she couldn't
Speaker 2: do it, that she shouldn't even bother trying. Worst of all,
Speaker 2: she's reminded of her dad.
Speaker 5: At my daughter's high school graduation, there was awards given
Speaker 5: to a couple of kids, three kids actually, who basically
Speaker 5: accomplished so much despite I think all these three kids
Speaker 5: in the graduating class have lost a parent. And meanwhile,
Speaker 5: they were all straight A students. And I remember I
Speaker 5: left that graduation. I said to the kids like, basically
Speaker 5: like what the fuck? You know, Like, how come these
Speaker 5: kids were able to stay focused and stay on track
Speaker 5: and do so well in school? And yet that event
Speaker 5: for me, basically his followed me for thirty five years.
Speaker 5: Because I never finish anything like that's that's me, right,
Speaker 5: you know me. I can't close the deal like I
Speaker 5: just I can't finish.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode says that high school math was just the
Speaker 2: first in a series of things she never finished, from
Speaker 2: her bachelor's degree in polly CSCI to joining the Peace Corps,
Speaker 2: from opening a bookstore cafe to becoming a civil rights activist.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode is dreamt of doing all kinds of things.
Speaker 5: So there's there's always all this stuff I want to do,
Speaker 5: but I can't get there. And I think somewhere along
Speaker 5: the line, like I didn't get that lesson, you know,
Speaker 5: how to get from point A to point B.
Speaker 2: And now before Mary Clode can make it to point B,
Speaker 2: she has to go back to point A. And I'm
Speaker 2: going back with her. You're my friend, right, yeah, but
Speaker 2: I believe in you, yeah, and I want to help.
Speaker 2: I'm going to make sure Mary Clode passes that class
Speaker 2: like one of those teachers in one of those movies
Speaker 2: who walk the school hallways carrying a bullhorn and a
Speaker 2: baseball bat. I'm going to be there through the hard
Speaker 2: times so Mary Clode can lean on me until she's
Speaker 2: able to stand and deliver and I'm going to be
Speaker 2: waiting outside the door after you take your exam flashdance style,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna come running down the hall. And instead
Speaker 2: of a bouquet of flowers behind my back, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have what big plate of poutine?
Speaker 5: I would honestly love that. That would be lovely. Can
Speaker 5: we go out for drinks after celebratory whiskey? Yeah, on
Speaker 5: your dime.
Speaker 2: It's all taken care of. I'm gonna do it, except
Speaker 2: she doesn't. After we bid goodbye that day, so full
Speaker 2: of hope and determination, Mary Clode refused to take a
Speaker 2: single one of my phone calls for an entire year.
Speaker 2: What the hell happened after the break? After my last
Speaker 2: conversation with Mary Clode, I was ready for us to
Speaker 2: hit the ground running. I saw myself as a cross
Speaker 2: between mister Miaggi, Julie Andrews, a pre math Walter White,
Speaker 2: and that droopy eyelidded teacher who really seemed to care
Speaker 2: from that TV show I can't remember the name of.
Speaker 2: The point is I was going to make a difference.
Speaker 2: Personal change is hard, but if anyone was going to
Speaker 2: change personally, it would be the result of my near constant,
Speaker 2: unrelenting help. What with my twice daily emails packed with
Speaker 2: inspirational quotes, and my thrice daily voicemails in which I
Speaker 2: inspiringly yelled those quotes over the theme song from Rocky
Speaker 2: How could we fail? And yet over the course of
Speaker 2: an entire year, Mary Clode continued to ignore me.
Speaker 1: There is getting her way.
Speaker 2: You know that this is one of Mary Clode's oldest friends.
Speaker 2: Is this doctor Jackie Cohen, MD, I have on the line.
Speaker 2: She also happens to be one of mine. Because Mary
Speaker 2: Clode won't answer my calls, I phoned up Jackie to tattle.
Speaker 2: I tell her how Mary Clode hasn't spoken to me
Speaker 2: since I vowed to help her get a real estate license.
Speaker 7: You're gonna help her?
Speaker 1: How are you gonna help her?
Speaker 2: How hard can all this real estate stuff be?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Like like in a house, the toilet is A in
Speaker 2: the bedroom, B in the bathroom, C in the living room.
Speaker 6: I could see her thinking that the toilet goes in
Speaker 6: the living room.
Speaker 2: Jackie tells me she already went the trying to help
Speaker 2: Mary Clode route without success.
Speaker 1: Is anyone able to help her? To help her organize herself?
Speaker 1: I try to teach her how to, like, like do
Speaker 1: five pages a day, like to just make it, you know.
Speaker 6: But the problem with Mary is if she feels like
Speaker 6: anyone's pressuring her, she.
Speaker 5: Feels the need to without.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode has a problem with authority. And if my
Speaker 2: freshman semester of developmental psychology taught me anything, it's that
Speaker 2: these rebellious tendencies often begin in the home. Hello, Helen, Hi,
Speaker 2: Hi Johnny, Katie. So I phone Mary Clodes home and
Speaker 2: speak to her daughters. Helen is now a freshman in
Speaker 2: college and Katie is about to turn eighteen. They're also
Speaker 2: I'm proud to say, my god daughters. Have you guys
Speaker 2: been keeping tabs on how your mom's doing with her math?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 8: I don't know. I think she's still trying.
Speaker 2: Have you seen her doing any homework?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Helen and Katie are both excellent students, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to math. So at first they tried to tutor
Speaker 2: their mom. And how did it go.
Speaker 9: I feel like you shouldn't have a family member as
Speaker 9: a tutor.
Speaker 2: That is very diplomatic, very diplomatic.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I hear you. I'm reading between the lines every time
Speaker 2: they tried to help, Mary Clode would get worked up
Speaker 2: and slam the book shot. The girls grew frustrated and
Speaker 2: stopped offering help, and Mary Clode stopped asking for it.
Speaker 9: She just has like an idea in her head that
Speaker 9: like she hates math and she doesn't want.
Speaker 7: To do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think she doesn't have enough faith in herself.
Speaker 4: Hello Mary, thought.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't answer. Eh.
Speaker 2: After Helen and Katie make an appeal on my behalf,
Speaker 2: Mary Clode finally picks up the phone and lets me
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 8: You've nagged, honestly, you've nagged the desire for me to
Speaker 8: complete the I was on a roll honestly till you
Speaker 8: got involved and you turned me off the whole thing
Speaker 8: because you're such a freakin nag. I swear to God.
Speaker 2: It's hard to ask for help. But asking for help
Speaker 2: was never Mary Clode's problem. Her problem is accepting it
Speaker 2: when it arrives. So I let her have it. You know,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be I wouldn't bother you with all of
Speaker 2: this if it weren't for the fact that that first
Speaker 2: time when we talked over a year ago, I really
Speaker 2: heard someone that wanted to build a better life. For themselves.
Speaker 2: So what happened to that? I mean, isn't that something
Speaker 2: that you still want to do?
Speaker 4: I want to do it.
Speaker 8: I just don't want to do the freaking math. I
Speaker 8: told you that I don't like maths.
Speaker 2: No shit, It's clear Mary Clode isn't going to do
Speaker 2: the work for herself, and she's certainly not going to
Speaker 2: do it for me. But there are two people for
Speaker 2: whom Mary Clode would do anything, And so I remind
Speaker 2: her of something she said way back when we first
Speaker 2: spoke a year ago, something I just so happened to
Speaker 2: have recorded.
Speaker 5: What kills me is that my kids are so so
Speaker 5: supportive of me going back to school. They were so
Speaker 5: proud of me. But it haunts me, you know, because
Speaker 5: there they work so hard in my kids, and they've
Speaker 5: accomplished so much, and they inspire me. Really, they're just
Speaker 5: so great, you know, and they're so proud of me
Speaker 5: that I don't want to let them down. Like, even
Speaker 5: if I don't even work as a real estate agent,
Speaker 5: I have to finish this class because I don't want
Speaker 5: them to think I'm a quitter, you know. I don't
Speaker 5: want my girls to see me as a quitter.
Speaker 1: That is a big motivation.
Speaker 9: You're right, You're right.
Speaker 5: Like I said, I'm gonna do it. I gotta do it.
Speaker 5: I gotta follow through. That's really not my strength, following through,
Speaker 5: but I'm gonna follow through.
Speaker 2: To complete the math class, Mary Clode must first pass
Speaker 2: several homework assignments with a sixty percent or higher. Only
Speaker 2: then will she be eligible to take the final exam.
Speaker 2: So to get things started, I find her a tutor.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode is surprised when I tell her I'll be
Speaker 2: auditing their first class. You think I'm gonna let you
Speaker 2: go off to your first day of class by yourself.
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm going to introduce myself to your teacher.
Speaker 2: In truth, I also want to make sure Mary Clode
Speaker 2: doesn't bail. So together we phone the tutor, Suzanne.
Speaker 3: My eldest student was eighty. He survived the math class,
Speaker 3: so wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see there's hope for you, Mary.
Speaker 3: So if you have any questions that don't hesitate to
Speaker 3: stop me as I'm explaining stuff to you. If there's
Speaker 3: something you don't understand.
Speaker 2: Before the lesson, Mary Clode made me swear I wouldn't
Speaker 2: embarrass her in front of her new tutor. So I
Speaker 2: promise not to make a peep. I'm just here to
Speaker 2: offer silent support.
Speaker 3: We're moving, taxes becomes a challenge, so I just want
Speaker 3: to make sure that it's understood. Maybe you already know
Speaker 3: how to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, Mary Cloude is yeah, writing Suzanne the
Speaker 2: same way she used to. Yeah, write mister goyetche Only
Speaker 2: five minutes into the lesson and I can already tell
Speaker 2: Mary Cloude doesn't understand a thing, not a jot. If
Speaker 2: she hopes to pass, she needs to tell Suzanne when
Speaker 2: she doesn't understand, or someone needs.
Speaker 3: To if the bank charges you three in a quarter.
Speaker 2: Sorry Mary, Yeah, I just wanted to jump into say
Speaker 2: if there's something you don't understand.
Speaker 4: Get off.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 8: Ignore him. I've seen her working on it a lot
Speaker 8: more than before.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: After a few weeks I convene a daughter's teacher conference
Speaker 2: with Helen and Katie.
Speaker 10: Like I've seen her after dinner, pull out her notes
Speaker 10: and like start doing some algebra.
Speaker 8: Seems like more motivated.
Speaker 9: She was saying how much she loved the tutor.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she said she wants her to be her life coach.
Speaker 2: Sure, Mary Clodes enthusiastic now but she was also enthusiastic
Speaker 2: when we first spoke back before she ghosted me for
Speaker 2: a whole year. I ask the girls what they think
Speaker 2: we can do to keep our problem child on task encouragement.
Speaker 8: I think we need more positive reinforcement.
Speaker 9: Yeah, she really needs like structure.
Speaker 2: So I devise a scheme.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hi, Johnny, how are you for structure?
Speaker 2: I phone Mary Cloude every Friday morning on her drive
Speaker 2: to meet Suzanne to make sure we're still on track
Speaker 2: and for positive reinforcement. I invite a special surprise guest
Speaker 2: to each of our weekly check ins to offer words
Speaker 2: of wisdom.
Speaker 4: You ready, And I'm just a puking.
Speaker 2: From excitement now. I can hardly believe who I was
Speaker 2: able to book for this first check in. None other
Speaker 2: than the most popular, most likely to succeed girl from
Speaker 2: our high school, straight from the smart row. I've got
Speaker 2: Karen Kassner on the line.
Speaker 8: I don't mean you to call them Karen for me.
Speaker 8: I see her on a regular basis.
Speaker 5: You're idiots.
Speaker 2: I did not know that it's only taken forty years
Speaker 2: with Jonathan Stuart Goldstein is finally friend of a friend
Speaker 2: of a real life popular girl. And you know Karen
Speaker 2: is really nice in real life.
Speaker 6: The truth is, Mary, The truth is that anyone can
Speaker 6: learn math.
Speaker 3: What you have is such a great way with people.
Speaker 3: They like you, they trust you.
Speaker 2: She's calling me stupid. Over the next few weeks, I
Speaker 2: book more guests to encourage and inspire, guests like Omar Karashi,
Speaker 2: one of the best math students in our grade.
Speaker 7: I really respect anyone who's trying to reinvent themselves write,
Speaker 7: I really adm that, and.
Speaker 9: I feel like this my eulogy.
Speaker 2: I even managed to track down none other than our
Speaker 2: old math teacher, Bernie the Gooch Goyach.
Speaker 1: Oh, Hi, very close.
Speaker 2: Hi, you remember mister.
Speaker 5: Go Who doesn't remember mister Goych.
Speaker 2: Everyone remembers the Gouch. The Gouch.
Speaker 8: On the other hand, do you remember Jonathan from math class?
Speaker 4: Who is that?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: That's the me, the person on the who called you well,
Speaker 2: you know it's been it's been a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I tell mister Goyach what Mary Clote is trying
Speaker 2: to do, he offers a story of his own.
Speaker 3: In the high school.
Speaker 4: My concentration level was not great either.
Speaker 3: I wanted to become a hockey player.
Speaker 2: Actually, mister Goach says that he decided to become a
Speaker 2: teacher only once he saw his hockey career was taking
Speaker 2: him nowhere. But now that he's retired, he's returned to
Speaker 2: his first love and plays in a recreational hockey league.
Speaker 5: I played three times a week.
Speaker 4: I just finished last week.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's never too late to give it a chance, right. No,
Speaker 2: After Monsieo Gooyech gets off the phone, I review the
Speaker 2: lesson with Mary Clode. So what did we learn?
Speaker 8: I really gotta get gash? Should I parked on the
Speaker 8: wrong side?
Speaker 5: Crap?
Speaker 8: We learned that I don't know where my gas tankers.
Speaker 2: Mary Clode pulls out and loops around the gas pomp.
Speaker 2: If she understood math, she'd knowed that flipping the left
Speaker 2: side of her car to the right simply by looping
Speaker 2: around is mathematically impossible unless said loop. We're a Mobia strip,
Speaker 2: but there are no Mobia strip shaped roads in a
Speaker 2: Euclidean space like Canada.
Speaker 8: Some intelligence can't be measured in the same way as others.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck, I did it again, and they say math
Speaker 2: has no real world application?
Speaker 3: Why by one, four, nine seven fists yes.
Speaker 2: Because over the next several weeks, Mary Cloude continues to
Speaker 2: work on her assignments. At first, it's like high school
Speaker 2: all over again.
Speaker 8: Yeah, this is gonna be flashback.
Speaker 2: But with time, Mary Cloude grows confident enough to ask
Speaker 2: for help.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to do it, you don't know it.
Speaker 2: And when she does, Suzanne doesn't make her feel stupid.
Speaker 2: She explains things, so it's not long before Mary Cloude
Speaker 2: is getting the answers right.
Speaker 3: Hundred yep. Wow, I'm very impressed.
Speaker 6: Cool.
Speaker 2: I never thought i'd live to see the day Mary
Speaker 2: Clode would call math cool. It's not an adjective she
Speaker 2: throws around lightly. I've only heard her say it about
Speaker 2: eating poutine, drinking whiskey, and listening to her favorite Canadian
Speaker 2: rock band, Blue Rodeo. So to rewarder for working so
Speaker 2: hard these past few months, I book a very special
Speaker 2: guest for our next check in a twelve time Juno
Speaker 2: Music Award winning and two thousand and nine Canadian Walk
Speaker 2: of Fame receiving very special guest. Honestly, this is a get.
Speaker 2: I didn't think this was going to come through. Jim
Speaker 2: Cuddy of Blue Rodeo.
Speaker 4: Oh hi, it's Jim Cutty here.
Speaker 8: How did you swing that?
Speaker 4: Hello? Mary Cook?
Speaker 3: How are you I'm great.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm very good.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: As it turns out, it's not just Mary Cloude and
Speaker 2: my friendship that blossomed in math class. It was in
Speaker 2: a high school math class that the Canadian John Lennon,
Speaker 2: Blue Rote Video's Jim Cuddy first met his friend and
Speaker 2: future Blue Rodeo bandmate, the Canadian Paul McCartney, Greg Keeler.
Speaker 4: That's true, No way, that's true. Greg had moved from
Speaker 4: Montreal and he came into our math class as a
Speaker 4: new kid. It's fun.
Speaker 2: So if math didn't exist, Blue Rodeo wouldn't exist. You
Speaker 2: might say.
Speaker 4: That might be stretching at Jonathan, but I guess you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2: It is all about I'm trying to impress upon young
Speaker 2: Mary Cloude the importance of mathematics. Yeah, as for words
Speaker 2: of wisdom, the lyrics Jim Road for the band's hit single,
Speaker 2: The Canadian Hey Jude Try, which rocketed to number three
Speaker 2: on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart, seemed particularly relevant to
Speaker 2: Marry cloude circumstance caught up in the moment I explode
Speaker 2: into song girl, You've got nothing but time, Oh you
Speaker 2: are a shining star. I wait for Jim to join
Speaker 2: me in an impromptu duet. Oh you gotta try, Try,
Speaker 2: Try Jim. Jim, a consummate professional as well as a Canadian,
Speaker 2: graciously allows me to take the solo try. After my
Speaker 2: big finish, Jim Cuddy leaves Mary Clode with wise words.
Speaker 4: They always make it through, you know, I mean, you will,
Speaker 4: you will, and you obviously have a good friend and Jonathan,
Speaker 4: that's that's helping you out. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks Johnny. My daughter Katie is here. She's a
Speaker 8: huge fan and she's great in math. Can she say
Speaker 8: hi to you?
Speaker 4: Of course? Hi, Hi Katie? How you doing again?
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 4: So you're watching the struggles.
Speaker 1: Of your Mom's gonna learn.
Speaker 2: That Usually I'm the one bothering Mary Clode. But a
Speaker 2: few weeks after my unassisted serenade, I get a call
Speaker 2: from her. She's finally gotten back a grade for the coursework.
Speaker 2: She needs at least a sixty to move on to
Speaker 2: the final exam, and.
Speaker 5: That's what I got.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is complicated because I don't want to low
Speaker 2: ball you and then make you feel like I don't
Speaker 2: have faith in you. But I don't want to high
Speaker 2: ball you and then make you feel as though you've
Speaker 2: let me down exactly. Okay, I am going to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm gonna be optimistic here because I
Speaker 2: think you've been really working hard. I think Suzanne has
Speaker 2: had a positive IMPACT's great. I'm going to say, sixty percent.
Speaker 5: You are such an assoule.
Speaker 2: That's a pass, isn't you. I'm going to say you passed?
Speaker 8: You really have no faith in me?
Speaker 2: Is it higher?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sixty five?
Speaker 8: Keep going?
Speaker 2: Sixty six? Okay, sixty seven, And she wrote like, I
Speaker 2: really think you're making a good effort here. No, come on,
Speaker 2: did you did you get like a good grade?
Speaker 1: Did you?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 8: I did, Yes, I did.
Speaker 5: Honestly, Perhaps you'd be happy to know I got in
Speaker 5: ninety five.
Speaker 2: Oh that you got a ninety five percent?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Mary, have you ever gotten to mark
Speaker 2: that high in math?
Speaker 8: No? No, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: No, no, no on any math test, like even if we
Speaker 2: went all the way back to kindergarten.
Speaker 8: Probably not.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: Itsu then told me that my tutoring session a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago.
Speaker 5: What's that you told me I wanted for brides students
Speaker 5: and that I actually do understand math?
Speaker 2: As Mary Clode tells me about her grade, about Suzanne's praise.
Speaker 2: There's genuine pride in her voice. It's wonderful to hear like.
Speaker 8: I'm actually really kind of enjoying that.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad. That's really great, shocking but true. With
Speaker 2: no more assignments to worry about, all Mary Clode has
Speaker 2: left to do is study for the exam. It seems
Speaker 2: like I'll be in Montreal in no time with a
Speaker 2: big bowl of poutine.
Speaker 8: You keep forgetting the whiskey and whiskey okay, I'll get
Speaker 8: myself to the exams.
Speaker 2: And you've gotten yourself to the Advertising break a voluntary
Speaker 2: public service that I provide out of the goodness of
Speaker 2: my heart and for money to companies, corporations and conglomerates.
Speaker 2: But only the good ones like Bonobos that sell products
Speaker 2: like well fitting Ya sweaters and Penguin socks, as opposed
Speaker 2: to not so good companies like Gimlet that only sell
Speaker 2: advertising space wrapped in a flimsy narrative, Oh Sweet Montreal.
Speaker 2: As I walk past the fromageries, perfumeries and haw Key eries,
Speaker 2: I can't help it reflect on how far Mary Cloud
Speaker 2: has come these last five months. For the first time
Speaker 2: in her life. Mary Clode has done well in math,
Speaker 2: but she's had her tutor, Suzanne helping her along. Now
Speaker 2: she faces a much bigger challenge the final exam, and
Speaker 2: she's going to have to do it alone. Are you
Speaker 2: excited about the big Chester?
Speaker 5: I'm excited for it to be over.
Speaker 2: I'm over at mary clothes house this morning as she
Speaker 2: gets ready to leave for the exam. And you want
Speaker 2: to do some last minute cramming.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I either know it or I don't.
Speaker 2: Despite Mary Clode being too cool for adult education online schools,
Speaker 2: I can tell she's nervous every time I try to
Speaker 2: get us out the door so we can make it
Speaker 2: to the exams am on time.
Speaker 5: She stalls, Oh, I have to make the children of smoothie.
Speaker 2: Is that what you do each morning? Yes, it's very nice. Well,
Speaker 2: Mary Cloude makes the smoothie. I plug our destination into
Speaker 2: the GPS. When she finally finishes, we head out. Helen
Speaker 2: and Katie see us off. Good luck.
Speaker 6: You're gonna do ry.
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Just see calm. Easier said than done.
Speaker 5: I mean maybe I'll get in there and I'll read
Speaker 5: all the questions. So I want the answer and not Annic.
Speaker 2: I asked if Suzanne had any tips for staying calm
Speaker 2: during the test, Mary Cloude doesn't think so. But the
Speaker 2: mention of Suzanne's name reminds Mary Clode of something that
Speaker 2: happened during one of their last sessions.
Speaker 5: Did I tell you that She told me I was dyslexic?
Speaker 2: WHOA wait?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she because one time I did something and
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I fucked that up. She goes, well, yeah,
Speaker 5: well that of course, I mean, you're dyslexing.
Speaker 2: Susanne was a matter of fact about it. Certain Mary
Speaker 2: Clode must have already known, and as soon as Suzanne
Speaker 2: said it, it all clicked.
Speaker 5: You know, when I meet a family and to make
Speaker 5: funeral arrangements, they verbally say their address.
Speaker 1: At the postal code, and like, my brain just goes like.
Speaker 5: Or if they tell me their home phone number, I
Speaker 5: can't write it down. I know, Like I have to
Speaker 5: enter payments, you know, at work, and I always screw
Speaker 5: up the numbers, Like my friend Mary Louis always like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I fixed it because you entered the numbers backwards. I
Speaker 5: also can't spell New French or English.
Speaker 2: Mary, that's wild. You end up like looking back at
Speaker 2: your entire past differently. I think back to what Mary
Speaker 2: Clode told me about missyr spirit in saying she understood
Speaker 2: the math, that she was smart, but got the answers wrong,
Speaker 2: about the disconnect between how simple math seemed on the board,
Speaker 2: but how impossible it was to apply. Mary clothes problem
Speaker 2: wasn't a math problem after all? How do you get
Speaker 2: from point A to point B when you can't even
Speaker 2: keep the letters straight.
Speaker 5: Upon an exemit?
Speaker 2: Good luck, Mary, I believe in you. Mary Clode follows
Speaker 2: a woman down the carpeted hallway. She steps into a
Speaker 2: small room and looks back one more time, could you
Speaker 2: lease please? Then the exam room door closes and her
Speaker 2: test begins. The exam takes three hours, so in the
Speaker 2: meantime I borrow mary clothes car to get the poutine
Speaker 2: and whiskey. Upon my return, I scout the best place
Speaker 2: in the vestibule to assume a squatting position, whiskey bottle
Speaker 2: proffered like a rolled up graduation diploma and scalding bowl
Speaker 2: of poutine balanced the top my head like a graduation cap.
Speaker 2: But before I can take a knee, Mary Clode appears.
Speaker 7: I finished.
Speaker 2: When did you finish?
Speaker 5: Like ten minutes ago?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding. I'm not sure if this is a
Speaker 2: good sign or a bad one. How did it go?
Speaker 5: I'll see.
Speaker 2: I show Mary Clode the whiskey. You want to have
Speaker 2: some now? Yes, I do, straight from the bottom.
Speaker 5: Yes here.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether the whiskey we're about to drink
Speaker 2: is victory whiskey or consolation whiskey. But maybe it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: After all, Mary Clode made it this far. Maybe I
Speaker 2: had to get into the finish line kicking and screaming,
Speaker 2: but we crossed that finish line.
Speaker 5: You had a hard time with all this.
Speaker 2: I want to make a toast to you to getting
Speaker 2: from point A to point B. A big hug get
Speaker 2: get the mic against the scuffing sounds. I don't know
Speaker 2: why Mary Clodes put up with me for so many years,
Speaker 2: from the constant nagging to the bear hugging. I drive
Speaker 2: mary Clod crazy, I know that. But I'm also able
Speaker 2: to make her laugh through the good times, but through
Speaker 2: the bad times as well, especially through the bad times,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's why we've stayed friends. Or maybe I
Speaker 2: just know when to bring the whiskey.
Speaker 5: That's really good, isn't it good? That's good?
Speaker 2: It's like high school again, skipping class, sneaking booze. It
Speaker 2: feels like being kids, which at fifty is quite a thing.
Speaker 2: Uh oh uh oh, someone's coming. Security is coming. We
Speaker 2: gotta go.
Speaker 5: That's that true.
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, yeah yeah, let's go. Keep moving here. It
Speaker 2: feels so much like being kids that I actually lose
Speaker 2: sight of the fact that the adult coming our way
Speaker 2: is at least twenty years my junior, and not a
Speaker 2: security guard at all, but just a normal guy who
Speaker 2: happens to be twice my size. Oh I thought a
Speaker 2: big guy like that with security. They're really nervous.
Speaker 1: She is dead.
Speaker 9: Oh you did it.
Speaker 5: I did the tests.
Speaker 9: Yes, do you feel relieved?
Speaker 5: Yes, you have no idea. It's over.
Speaker 2: Back at mary Clodes, Helen and Katie are waiting to
Speaker 2: congratulate their mom. She said she'd follow through, and she did,
Speaker 2: but Mary Clode isn't sure she even passed. It's an
Speaker 2: anxiety her daughters, who are so committed to school, just
Speaker 2: aren't familiar with.
Speaker 5: I can't relate to them. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 5: I really can't. Like they work when they're tired, they
Speaker 5: work when they don't want to, Like I beg them
Speaker 5: to watch my own family with me or something, and
Speaker 5: they're like, no, I have to study, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: come on, come on, I'm just really not that motivated.
Speaker 5: But they have a motivation that I lack. I feel like,
Speaker 5: even as an adult, I lack it. You know.
Speaker 2: As Mary Clode speaks, Helen tries to interrupt, I don't know.
Speaker 9: I like, do you always say that, like, oh, I
Speaker 9: don't do things I don't want to do, But like
Speaker 9: that's not true at all. Like you do things you
Speaker 9: don't want to do every day. It's just not maybe
Speaker 9: it's not school, but it's other things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 9: It's like you worked hard at the store all those years.
Speaker 9: Like I'm sure you didn't want to like be there
Speaker 9: all the time.
Speaker 10: Katie joins in too, like running, like she decided a
Speaker 10: couple of years ago she wanted to like get healthy
Speaker 10: and all that, and she has ran like every day
Speaker 10: for the past I don't know, five years or something.
Speaker 10: You know, she eats healthy, she works out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else is something that she started and she's
Speaker 2: seen through.
Speaker 9: I mean she raised us.
Speaker 10: I mean yeah, we're always she always makes sure we
Speaker 10: have food. No, for real, you're always like making sure
Speaker 10: we have stuff to eat. We know, like wherever we're going,
Speaker 10: how we're getting home. Like there's never been a time
Speaker 10: where I'm like, oh, mom, just like forgot about me.
Speaker 2: The most important commitment Mary Cloude made, she kept about
Speaker 2: A month later. I get word then Mary Clodes got
Speaker 2: the final exam back. It's Friday, so I phone up
Speaker 2: for one last check in. Mary Clode picks up and
Speaker 2: delivers the news.
Speaker 5: I got a whopping fifty seven.
Speaker 1: You're kidding.
Speaker 2: My heart sinks. If only I'd pushed Mary Clode three percent.
Speaker 5: Harder and it passes fifty.
Speaker 6: Oh, oh, that's great, you made it.
Speaker 10: I passed.
Speaker 2: I thought sixty was a pass.
Speaker 5: No, you have to get fifty on the exam, Like
Speaker 5: I guess the assignment. I think the assignments were worth
Speaker 5: fifty percent and the exam was worth fifty percent, So
Speaker 5: that's why you had to get at least fifty out
Speaker 5: of the math.
Speaker 8: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Are you proud of me?
Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm really I'm tempted to say a great many things,
Speaker 2: joky things, but in the end, I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: know what to say. I'm just it just makes me
Speaker 2: feel really happy.
Speaker 8: Thanks friend. It means a lot to me.
Speaker 2: Mary Cloude is happy she passed, but the thing she's
Speaker 2: most happy about is that today is Friday, and for
Speaker 2: the first time in months, she doesn't have to worry
Speaker 2: about math. She has the whole day to herself, and
Speaker 2: she knows just how she wants to spend it.
Speaker 5: I'm so excited. I'm going to go shopping for the
Speaker 5: girl's birthday. Helen had her birthday, but we're having her
Speaker 5: party tomorrow with the family, and I have to go
Speaker 5: get the cake for both of them and a birthday
Speaker 5: presence for Katie. And then Katie is texting me.
Speaker 7: Now that the fern entures returning to its goodwill home,
Speaker 7: now that the last month's rent is scheming with.
Speaker 1: The damage that possible take this moment to to so.
Speaker 7: If we meant him, if we tried, he felt around
Speaker 7: for far too.
Speaker 1: From things that accidentally t.
Speaker 2: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane and
Speaker 2: me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Khalila Holt and Ba Parker.
Speaker 2: The show is edited by Jorge just Special thanks to
Speaker 2: Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Lulu Miller, mime O'Donnell Nabielle Chullompot,
Speaker 2: Drew Zimbruski and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode
Speaker 2: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst, Edwin,
Speaker 2: Hailey Shaw, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
Speaker 2: found on our website gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by the Weaker Thands courtesy of Epitaph Records,
Speaker 2: and our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at
Speaker 2: gimletmedia dot com to see photos from this week's episode,
Speaker 2: as well as all of our episodes this season. We
Speaker 2: can visit our show page on Spotify. This was our
Speaker 2: final episode of season four, but we're already starting to
Speaker 2: look for stories for season five. So if you have one,
Speaker 2: email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com, and if
Speaker 2: you want to support the show, please, for the love
Speaker 2: of God and all that's holy, follow us for free
Speaker 2: on Spotify. Boy, am I thisty must be those pretzels? No,
Speaker 2: I don't think so, don't do that. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5: What's the name of your podcast?
Speaker 2: You don't even know the name of my podcast, do you?
Speaker 5: I want to say, weebles. What's it called?
Speaker 2: You think that the name of my podcast is Weebles,
Speaker 2: like I weebel. But I don't fall down. You literally
Speaker 2: don't even know the name of my podcast.
Speaker 5: I'm literally blanking unbelievable. I expect you to send me
Speaker 5: like T shirts or stickers in the male hats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it'll be a good way for you to
Speaker 2: learn the name of my podcast.
Speaker 5: I have no time to listen to podcasts, Okay, I'm
Speaker 5: very busy steadying math