Speaker 1: In America. What makes this place great and what makes
Speaker 1: this place miserable is individualism. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is po Valentine, a fiction and nonfiction writer known
Speaker 1: for his novels and especially as essays, many of which
Speaker 1: appear in the Sun. One of Valentine's short stories was
Speaker 1: included in Best American Short Stories, and two of his
Speaker 1: essays have appeared in the Best American Essays series. His
Speaker 1: writing has also appeared in The Coal City Review, Kenyon
Speaker 1: Review and Atlantic Monthly author Tom Robbins said, po Valentine
Speaker 1: is the most soulful, insightful, funny, and altogether luminous underknown
Speaker 1: writer in America. If you're getting value out of this show,
Speaker 1: please go to one you feed dot Net slash Support
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Speaker 1: you're interested in the book that we're discussing on today's episode,
Speaker 1: go to one you feed dot net and find the
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Speaker 1: through there, it's the same price to you, but we
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Speaker 1: and you can buy t shirts, mugs and other things.
Speaker 1: And finally, one you feed dot net slash Facebook, which
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Speaker 1: with other listeners of the show and get support in
Speaker 1: feeding your Good Wolf. Thanks again for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: the interview with Poe Valentine. Hi Po, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hello Larica, thanks for having me. It's a real honor
Speaker 1: to have you on. I've been reading your work in
Speaker 1: a magazine called The Sun for a long time now.
Speaker 1: The Sun is a special magazine to me, a because
Speaker 1: it's a great magazine, and be because I first discovered
Speaker 1: it at a place called Niches, and I think listeners
Speaker 1: may have heard me bring it up before. I always
Speaker 1: bring it up because the gentleman who found it was
Speaker 1: kind of a mentor to me, and he's gone these days,
Speaker 1: so I'm always excited to bring up anything that has
Speaker 1: to do with him. And I first discovered The Son
Speaker 1: at that place. It was sort of a far away
Speaker 1: retreat place, and so it's always been a magical magazine
Speaker 1: for me, and your writings have been a part of
Speaker 1: that good I'm happy to hear that. So let's start
Speaker 1: the show like we always do, with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather
Speaker 1: and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feel need. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. It's a good one. It's a good metaphor
Speaker 1: or set of constructs, if you like. Or to the
Speaker 1: angel of the devil on the shoulder. I'm constantly worring
Speaker 1: with that bad wolf and marveling at how well people
Speaker 1: do by cultivating their pet. Well, that's the part that
Speaker 1: frustrates me. I think I've got my life and where
Speaker 1: I'm bold and I'm humble and I'm poor. So I
Speaker 1: think I've been feeding the right one, but always marveled
Speaker 1: at how well people do who feed the bad one.
Speaker 1: And I wish the world was that way. I suppose
Speaker 1: there's probably an explanation. I hope that's not a disappointing answer,
Speaker 1: but I'm in charge of reality and whatever I get grasp.
Speaker 1: You've written a number of essays and number of novels.
Speaker 1: And you know, most of your life you spent as
Speaker 1: a wandering writer, I guess would be the best way
Speaker 1: to say it. You went from place to place, you
Speaker 1: worked a lot of jobs as a cook, as different ings,
Speaker 1: and we're waiting for your writing to kind of pay off.
Speaker 1: And then it seems like in the last number of
Speaker 1: years you've become a little bit more settled. Is that
Speaker 1: still the case. Oh yeah, I've lived here in this
Speaker 1: small town in uh, Nebraska for sixteen years, and I
Speaker 1: think maybe I think it's sixteen years, and I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be settled. And so one of the things that
Speaker 1: I wanted to explore for a moment with you was
Speaker 1: the theme of the wolves comes up about feeding one
Speaker 1: wolf or the other, but in a lot of your writing,
Speaker 1: and you actually say it pretty clearly in one line
Speaker 1: you say, I was also secretly, as always praying for metamorphosis.
Speaker 1: So can you tell me a little bit about the
Speaker 1: role that changing yourself as played in your life in
Speaker 1: the past and today? Yeah, sure, I can try. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was not very satisfied with myself as a human
Speaker 1: being or as a player, and I lived in the
Speaker 1: suburbs and I was pretty overwhelmed by the world, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to escape that world and have more perhaps
Speaker 1: control over it. And of course I had dreams, like everybody,
Speaker 1: of being, you know, somebody's special magic. So the experiment, theory,
Speaker 1: experiments traveling were ways of trying to be a either
Speaker 1: or both finding myself or becoming someone else, whatever that
Speaker 1: happened to be. I was afraid to find myself because
Speaker 1: I thought it might be as disappointing, you know, as
Speaker 1: I appeared in the mirror. So the better option for
Speaker 1: me was transformation or metamorphosis whatever your life, becoming something
Speaker 1: completely different and you know, the slam bang, like your
Speaker 1: heroes are, you know. But through that process, of that long, process,
Speaker 1: arduous process of moving and working numerous jobs and living
Speaker 1: on great little money and so forth, I suppose I
Speaker 1: could become profoundly different than I was in the beginning. Now,
Speaker 1: metamorphosis can apply to anything, you know, I mean spiritually.
Speaker 1: I was after that too, who And I think some
Speaker 1: extent I discussed that in my work. Although I don't
Speaker 1: think very often in a direct way, it's very clear
Speaker 1: though that it's there, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: my questions actually aim at some of the what I
Speaker 1: would call, you know, spiritual searching that you were doing.
Speaker 1: You have something that you called, I think half jokingly,
Speaker 1: but the moral mechanism of the molecule theory. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, let's to
Speaker 1: say that everything from the beginning is imviewed, but the
Speaker 1: spirit of whatever force created it. And I was having
Speaker 1: this discussion with a friend of mine a week or
Speaker 1: so ago. She's a Buddhist minister whatever those people who
Speaker 1: preside over Buddhist ceremonies are called. But I address most
Speaker 1: of my friends are secular. Most of my friends are nonbelievers,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, they're materialists in one sense or another.
Speaker 1: Science is basically their religion, and so I'm speaking to them.
Speaker 1: And I think the massive people are sort of that camp,
Speaker 1: and so I'm speaking to them, not to try to
Speaker 1: trick them or anything, but just so that I don't
Speaker 1: bias them. I listened to your the major podcast that
Speaker 1: you've got up there. I forgot his name, but he
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, what would Jesus do, and that
Speaker 1: Jesus fish a sort of a symbol, although he's not
Speaker 1: using traditional original Christianity or anything like that as a guideline,
Speaker 1: and so for whatever reason, and perhaps hardly because I
Speaker 1: was in that way of thinking for so many years
Speaker 1: that I'm talking, I'm trying to talk to people so
Speaker 1: they'll listen to me and not just immediately see a
Speaker 1: word that raises a red flag for them. But anyway
Speaker 1: back to the moral mechanism of the molecule, it's all
Speaker 1: it is saying that if something is created in a
Speaker 1: deliberate way, and the world has purpose, and it's interconnected
Speaker 1: and functional and beautiful and graceful, and love is the
Speaker 1: evolutionary product, and so on and so forth, that every
Speaker 1: last particle that those are the things people I could
Speaker 1: talk about my friends like to talk about, the Adams
Speaker 1: and so forth, are imbued with with this force, just
Speaker 1: like you know every cell has miochondria and and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a line where you say, you know that spirit
Speaker 1: and all of its archetypes and guys, is all that
Speaker 1: you will ever possess of worth. Does that line still
Speaker 1: resonate with you? You wrote that it's been a while ago.
Speaker 1: I think it was in a series of essays that
Speaker 1: was early in the two thousands. Yeah, fived one minutes
Speaker 1: of Christ. I think that's from that it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's probably my most directly spiritual essay. You know,
Speaker 1: where I'm talking directly about the influence of spirit and
Speaker 1: the reality is Spirit's easy to talk to say things
Speaker 1: one thing or another recyeliches, but in actuality, in your
Speaker 1: own experience, what what do you know? I mean, what
Speaker 1: do I I can speak for myself and I know
Speaker 1: very little. But there are certain realities that are evident
Speaker 1: to me, that are accessible to me, and those are
Speaker 1: my anchors. And there's things that I've experienced. There's there's
Speaker 1: things that I can see and perceivers in one way
Speaker 1: or another, in one sense or another that I have
Speaker 1: found useful to me over the years where other forms,
Speaker 1: other systems and methods of advice have failed. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think so much of what spirituality for me has become
Speaker 1: when it's working well, is exactly like you said, there's
Speaker 1: very much an experiential piece to it. What is my
Speaker 1: actual experience and less my ideas about what my experience is.
Speaker 1: And it's easy for me to fall into being completely
Speaker 1: stuck in my head with ideas. But the more that
Speaker 1: I pay attention to my experience, I seem to be
Speaker 1: getting more out of that route, right, Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: have to realize that we're all on different paths or
Speaker 1: different tiers or however you like to look at it.
Speaker 1: And the only way to really validate what's been offered
Speaker 1: to you is reality. Is the only way to sort
Speaker 1: it out is through your own observation. I mean you
Speaker 1: there are other things too, There's instinct, and there's all
Speaker 1: these other things that are very difficult to describe, these
Speaker 1: processes that I've heard people discuss in very eloquent ways.
Speaker 1: But at some point you discount what everybody else that's saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, even I've rejected orthodoxy for a long time,
Speaker 1: even though later in my years I'm finding that my
Speaker 1: experience is doubcaling with with most of what major religion
Speaker 1: has to say to teach the moral codes and so
Speaker 1: of course, but I still think it's more valuable for
Speaker 1: an individual to pursue the path that's set before that individual,
Speaker 1: however that may be. And a few of us have
Speaker 1: a chance to do that. Most of us are, you know,
Speaker 1: eliminated very early by poverty or you know, or by
Speaker 1: the lack of ability in whatever way. Yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: a line in there that I love, where you say,
Speaker 1: Whatever I believe must have the depth and power to
Speaker 1: repel evil, insanity, loneliness, and despair. It must be built
Speaker 1: on the observation of what is good and true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's your good wolf metaphor, again very clearly. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it sounds it sounds simple, you know, But how long
Speaker 1: did it take me to come around to that position?
Speaker 1: And how long was I lost? And and not just lost,
Speaker 1: but viciously and magnificently lost. So that yeah, so that
Speaker 1: wolf was howm most every nime? Yeah, talk to me
Speaker 1: about that process. So in your writings, there's a period
Speaker 1: you can tell very clearly that you are kind of
Speaker 1: at the end of your rope. I think would be
Speaker 1: a safe way to say, you're you're in despair. You're older,
Speaker 1: your your thirty nine or your forty, The writing hasn't
Speaker 1: panned out, You've accomplished nothing in the typical sense of
Speaker 1: the way the world would look at it, and you
Speaker 1: were feeling very despairing. How did you find your way
Speaker 1: from there to where you are now? That's the most
Speaker 1: interesting period of life, a threshold period or the transformational
Speaker 1: period or whatever. Where I fell apart, It literally fell apart,
Speaker 1: and it's because I collided with reality, with the probability
Speaker 1: that I wasn't going to be successful, in the knowledge
Speaker 1: that successful wasn't going to really make that much difference.
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen enough people succeed, however you want
Speaker 1: to define that. And on the on quick aside, we
Speaker 1: live in America, where you're not permitted to pursue a
Speaker 1: humble and impoverished existence. You know that they might have
Speaker 1: respect for you, and in India or something, if you
Speaker 1: had a kind of life, but in America, you know,
Speaker 1: and I and you're reminded of every day if you're
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're cooking, if you have
Speaker 1: a grec apron, or you know, if you live in
Speaker 1: a certain part of town or whatever. So you can
Speaker 1: you can say how noble it is to do one
Speaker 1: thing or another and to have the highest goal of
Speaker 1: beauty and truth and all that's wonderful, But in reality,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna get smashed. You're gonna get very sigmatized.
Speaker 1: And so that's something that you have to deal with.
Speaker 1: And either you're gonna move from America or you're going
Speaker 1: to find a way to deal with that. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't about to just build my own world and go
Speaker 1: live in a TP in Oregon or something like that.
Speaker 1: I was going to try to please my please my
Speaker 1: peers and my parents by by winning something, you know,
Speaker 1: by winning the tournament, at least, you know, one major tournament.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I'm trying to develop spiritually, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to reconcile those two. It really is. It's
Speaker 1: impossible to reconcile those two. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: that's what you're facing in America as a struggling artist
Speaker 1: and just a you know, a human being has to
Speaker 1: have a certain set of you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: have a certain kind of tool kit before you're even
Speaker 1: accepted in society. Otherwise you're just stamp the loser and you' marginalized.
Speaker 1: So that's it's a difficult So I I ran into
Speaker 1: that man, I got I got talked out the other side,
Speaker 1: and I fell down and boo hoo hooed for a
Speaker 1: long time. And but at the same time, I had
Speaker 1: probably been writing pretty well and luck came my way
Speaker 1: and I did enough, just enough, I think, to to
Speaker 1: exonerate myself or to justify my existence. And at the
Speaker 1: same time I kept my integrity by not you know,
Speaker 1: writing some garbage bestseller. You know that I do would
Speaker 1: probably you raise me in the esteem of others. But
Speaker 1: so yeah, so that was the razor's edge, as Somerset
Speaker 1: Mom was called. Hey everyone, just a couple of quick
Speaker 1: bits of news. First off, we have a new download
Speaker 1: available on our homepage at one you feed dot net.
Speaker 1: It's the four transformational hacks that make habits stick even
Speaker 1: if you've tried before and failed. So go to our
Speaker 1: homepage at one you feed dot net and or your
Speaker 1: email address and you will get that download for free. Secondly,
Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know that the coaching program
Speaker 1: is now open again. I'm going to keep it open
Speaker 1: kind of in perpetuity right now. We've done big launches
Speaker 1: where we had a bunch of people join, and so
Speaker 1: I've just decided right now that it may be to
Speaker 1: be easier just to kind of keep it open. So
Speaker 1: if you go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: coaching program all one word, you can fill out a
Speaker 1: form there, give me your name and information and you
Speaker 1: will get more details on how that works. And then finally,
Speaker 1: just another plea reminder ask that your support through Patreon
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Speaker 1: It's what allows us to keep the archives open to
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Speaker 1: means a lot to us. Those of you that haven't
Speaker 1: now as a great time when you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash support. Thanks. And now back to the episode with
Speaker 1: Poe Balentine. That line of you know you've done enough
Speaker 1: to exonerate yourself reminds me of Leonard cohen line where
Speaker 1: it's I think it was in an interview I read
Speaker 1: of his, where he he's saying something very similar like
Speaker 1: he's just trying to get enough work done that day
Speaker 1: to to almost justify the day or or something. And
Speaker 1: and so is that kind of what you mean and
Speaker 1: when you say sort of to exonerate yourself, that you
Speaker 1: you did enough good work in your mind, enough good art. Yeah, certainly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look at you go and visit your sister and Je's
Speaker 1: you got friends, and then you go see your parents
Speaker 1: and they've got you know, a couple of neighbors are
Speaker 1: over or they're old. You know, my dad's colleague, the
Speaker 1: dad's teaching college. They're just looking at you, and you know,
Speaker 1: and you're in your late thirties and you haven't done anything,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's a cordial conversation. But everybody knows
Speaker 1: that you're a failure, especially you, you know, And so
Speaker 1: if you don't accomplish something, then I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: really you're gonna have to move to India or or
Speaker 1: commit yourself to a monastery or something like that. And listen,
Speaker 1: when you're writing or when you're doing any kind of
Speaker 1: artistic endeavor, your sentences are wide open. They have to be,
Speaker 1: and you're subjecting yourself to all the vulnerability that it
Speaker 1: pay to be able to understand what's going on in
Speaker 1: your environment so that you can refine it into something
Speaker 1: that's useful to another reader or another viewer. And that
Speaker 1: kind of sensitivity or openness to your environment can't be
Speaker 1: switched off, you know. You don't just switch it on
Speaker 1: when you go sit down and compose and then go
Speaker 1: downstairs and pour a glass of line and switch it off.
Speaker 1: It's always there. It's the same with it's the same
Speaker 1: thing with being honest. I mean, the really good comedians,
Speaker 1: the really good writers, the really good painters, the really
Speaker 1: good podcast interviewers are are honest, and they're honest to
Speaker 1: a fault. Otherwise they're not gonna be any good. That's
Speaker 1: just my observation, but I'm sure it's true. And so
Speaker 1: you can't just switch it off and on and go
Speaker 1: be insincere for a while when you need to get
Speaker 1: something done and then you know, and you could, I suppose,
Speaker 1: be two different people. But that's just a waste of
Speaker 1: energy and it's and it's certainly not going to uh
Speaker 1: redound to your benefit in the long run on on
Speaker 1: any level. I mean we're talking about the spiritual level too,
Speaker 1: which is not independent of a creative effort. Those things
Speaker 1: are tied together as well. Yeah, another thing that happened
Speaker 1: for you somewhere in this window was that you got
Speaker 1: married and you you had a child, and You've got
Speaker 1: a line that I love because this makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to me. It resonates with with my life
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, which was you're describing marriage and
Speaker 1: family and you're saying it has provided a sense of
Speaker 1: concrete responsibility that combined with my lack of free time
Speaker 1: has dispelled that old constant chorus of suicidal demons in
Speaker 1: my head. And I love that line because, to a
Speaker 1: certain extent in my own life, I think that responsibility
Speaker 1: has helped make me into a version of myself that
Speaker 1: is less concerned with my own feelings, I would hope.
Speaker 1: So I think it's just perfectly natural for human beings.
Speaker 1: So me alone in America, what makes this place great
Speaker 1: and what makes this place miserable is individualism. We have
Speaker 1: to really pay a big price for it, but it
Speaker 1: makes us a fascinating nation, and it makes us a
Speaker 1: very creative and technology dynamic nation because you've got people
Speaker 1: that are just going their own lives and they're doing
Speaker 1: exactly what they want to do, and they come up
Speaker 1: with fantastic stuff, you know, But eventually that being on
Speaker 1: your own, it's just not natural. In my mind. Well, now,
Speaker 1: there are some people who put for it, but I wasn't,
Speaker 1: and I had resigned any possibility of having children, are
Speaker 1: being married. I was saying at forty I don't allow all.
Speaker 1: I was forty six or something like that. So it
Speaker 1: all came as a big surprise to me. And I'd
Speaker 1: always been willing to participate in something like that. I
Speaker 1: really didn't want it about it just sort of sacrificed
Speaker 1: everything at the altar of being a good writer. And
Speaker 1: maybe I didn't need to do that, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that was downright satanic. But but whatever providence was out there,
Speaker 1: I guess they felt sorry for me and gave me
Speaker 1: another chance. I know that a lot of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of creative, very creative people, can't make that part
Speaker 1: of their lives work, and so I know that I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: But I still think that without that anchor, it's very normal,
Speaker 1: you know, don't want to have a family and want
Speaker 1: to have a family and to raise children and to
Speaker 1: be responsible and be part of a community. I guess
Speaker 1: it's rejected because it sounds so conformist, you know, but
Speaker 1: it's very normal and helpful and and and it's life saving.
Speaker 1: And I promise you I wouldn't be alive now if
Speaker 1: I hadn't, you know, settled down here and and entered
Speaker 1: into this this arrangement. So are you still married today?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're out there now, trying to be quiet.
Speaker 1: My sub piano less it's here. In a few minutes,
Speaker 1: you might be you know, I already be gone, oh no, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm still very happily married. I wouldn't. These two just
Speaker 1: came down with si illness is my son got mono
Speaker 1: and she buy virtue of that got some sort of
Speaker 1: ungodly upper respiratory. So I played nursemaid and it was
Speaker 1: just very enjoyed the hell out of it, just you know,
Speaker 1: every four hours going in and administering medications and and
Speaker 1: you know, ice acting blankets and the nurse outfit I
Speaker 1: think was just a little over the top. But but
Speaker 1: but I really enjoyed. I just really enjoyed being responsible
Speaker 1: for other people's lives and as you say, not especially
Speaker 1: the diminution of your own ego. Yeah, because even when
Speaker 1: you hit it big, if you hit it big, or
Speaker 1: if you can see it and especially see it in others,
Speaker 1: you realize it's not that important being a big shots
Speaker 1: just not you know, and maybe it is important, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to bring you any kind of kind
Speaker 1: of happiness or any kind of contentment or any kind
Speaker 1: of real purpose. It's just going to make you want
Speaker 1: more because that bad wolf barks. Yeah, I've experienced that
Speaker 1: for sure. I was very touched by in the writings
Speaker 1: how much effort you put into your marriage. Your your
Speaker 1: wife came from I believe it was Mexico, spoke a
Speaker 1: different language, and you guys certainly had some challenges that
Speaker 1: you write pretty frankly about. But it was also very
Speaker 1: touching to see you just keep slugging away at it,
Speaker 1: not in the not slugging her, but you know, just
Speaker 1: slugging away at at trying to really make this work
Speaker 1: for both each of you and your son. And it's
Speaker 1: just interesting for me to read a It was touching
Speaker 1: and be after reading so much of your life and
Speaker 1: so much of your time being sort of a loan
Speaker 1: or a drifter or it was such a revelation that
Speaker 1: that was all inside you. At least it was to
Speaker 1: me as I was reading it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I
Speaker 1: put a lot of time into being a father. I know,
Speaker 1: Tom and I were just having a discussion. And I've
Speaker 1: just known a lot of kids who have had these
Speaker 1: major parental fail years and sometimes they are unavoidable, you
Speaker 1: know that or divorce or whatever, but that's kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that's really traumatic to children. And I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of friends who have been psychically permanently damaged, you know,
Speaker 1: they've just stopped growing at certain periods or they and
Speaker 1: I don't think they understand it themselves because they're too
Speaker 1: young get perspective on it. And so I've just vowed,
Speaker 1: you know, I vowed that if I ever had a child,
Speaker 1: but I would put everything I could into it so
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't cause that child any more pain than
Speaker 1: the world that we know it has to offer. And
Speaker 1: there's plenty of that kind of pain waiting. And so
Speaker 1: when you devote yourself to the child, you also have
Speaker 1: to devote yourself to the family that the source of
Speaker 1: the child, and you have to set an example and
Speaker 1: all that so that you can set this chain of
Speaker 1: events found in good faith and makes eventually idealistically at
Speaker 1: least makes the world a better place and not a
Speaker 1: more confused and painful place. Hasn't been too long ago
Speaker 1: that I saw my son off to college, so um well,
Speaker 1: which was a pretty uh great moment. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: sad and also but but in so many ways a
Speaker 1: great moment my mind. I'm gonna go with I don't
Speaker 1: care if he goes to France. I saw him mother,
Speaker 1: I know, but I just wouldn't know what to do
Speaker 1: without him. So, um, yeah, with college, he's at the
Speaker 1: University of North Carolina in Nashville, Okay, and you're in Ohio. Yep, yep, Columbus, Ohio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that is a long way. Yeah, yep, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a ways. He was looking at read in Oregon
Speaker 1: Portland's so this is a little bit better than that.
Speaker 1: So good words. Hop in a car and see him
Speaker 1: with an eight hour window. So how old is your
Speaker 1: boy now, Tom Jesus fifteen? Okay? Wow, yeah, you're getting there,
Speaker 1: I know. And he's talking about school and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I told me you look, you're not gonna get it
Speaker 1: and probably not gonna get an academic scholarship. You need
Speaker 1: a scholarship because we don't have that, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get one. That then if you're not gonna get one,
Speaker 1: sports with either music or speech. So he's been concentrating
Speaker 1: on music and he's gifted. So how that means maybe
Speaker 1: in a scholarship. That's good. One of the things in
Speaker 1: your writing sort of referencing back to marriage and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that you are still happily married because you
Speaker 1: wrote about how difficult it is to be married in
Speaker 1: such wrenching detail. I've been there before, in the places
Speaker 1: that you were in, and I'm just gonna read this
Speaker 1: because I just thought it was a beautiful way to
Speaker 1: talk about what can happen in a relationship when it's
Speaker 1: not working. Having no shortage of disagreements to choose from,
Speaker 1: we have nevertheless argued so much. The real conflicts have
Speaker 1: grown too large and distorted to confront or even recognize,
Speaker 1: so we hiss and snarl at each other over trifles,
Speaker 1: each hoping to land that final blame lane testimonial blow.
Speaker 1: And when I read that, I was just it's it's
Speaker 1: beautifully written, and it's just heart wrenching that we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in those spots and very true to reality. Very gradually,
Speaker 1: I've learned that you can talk about anything in detail
Speaker 1: and reveal a lot more than you probably want to
Speaker 1: and strike a chord because if not more, married people
Speaker 1: will identify with that. I wasn't afraid to confess some
Speaker 1: things there, and I also hope that they would be
Speaker 1: useful to married couples, because marriage is not what it's
Speaker 1: It's not how it's painted, at least if you're if
Speaker 1: you're not willing to examine the thing. All your friends
Speaker 1: and your parents and all the struggles that they went through,
Speaker 1: and your aunts and uncles. So it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It's more work than your job. And I don't care
Speaker 1: who you are, So I just thought I would be
Speaker 1: useful by, you know, by describing those things on a
Speaker 1: lighter note. You say, even a marriage and turmoil has
Speaker 1: its benefits. It wards off for example, weird women, bad dates,
Speaker 1: late night visitors, pointless binges, impetuous trips to Montreal, and
Speaker 1: questions and insinuations about what kind of gringo ferry am I? Anyway? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a powerful social institution. And even in America where
Speaker 1: marriage is losing ground and do losing respect, it seems
Speaker 1: to be erodic, but I think that most people have
Speaker 1: tremendous respect for it because it is the sort of
Speaker 1: molecular foundation if you want to society, and it needs
Speaker 1: to be protected. So yeah, you gotta work, man. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's not all this business about love that
Speaker 1: people keep talking about. You know, love is hard work.
Speaker 1: You know, to listen to you talk, there's a traditional streak,
Speaker 1: I guess I would say, there and and from your
Speaker 1: early years of of wandering and writing and drinking and
Speaker 1: you know, hanging out with the various different misfits of society,
Speaker 1: did you see yourself settling into some degree a more
Speaker 1: traditional mindset? Oh? Yeah, yeah. My goal, My goal early
Speaker 1: on was to acquaint myself with America in the briefest way,
Speaker 1: ride a little freight, hitchhike and drive a truck and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and then you know, right the great American novel, and
Speaker 1: then retire up the hills and then not have anything
Speaker 1: to do with society. Where I never had any idea
Speaker 1: I would become ensnared permanently in a permanent loop fashion,
Speaker 1: into the lifestyle that I had created, which was just
Speaker 1: marvelous for me because that's humility is really what I needed.
Speaker 1: I was getting all the lessons that I needed. I
Speaker 1: just wasn't my goals weren't being that because humility it
Speaker 1: was not my goal. You know, I was going to
Speaker 1: be wise, and I was going to be cool, and
Speaker 1: I was going to be knowledgeable, and I was going
Speaker 1: to be a loof you know, I was gonna be
Speaker 1: John Steinbeck just at the edge of town, living at
Speaker 1: you know, wherever there was a town down there. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be in balls. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: that was what happened with that. And uh and I
Speaker 1: never did look at people. I would be at the
Speaker 1: sheet metal house, you know, with a band aid on
Speaker 1: my head because I had my uh doorhead cut open
Speaker 1: by some sheet metal or something, and it would be like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? You know, you look like
Speaker 1: a teacher? Where are you? Where are you here? You talk?
Speaker 1: You don't talk like us, You're not like us. And
Speaker 1: I could go home and go home and read and
Speaker 1: take notes, and I guess I didn't. I didn't fit
Speaker 1: very well. But at the same time, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I grew up in a lower middle class neighbor
Speaker 1: working class neighborhood, and I had every week and uh
Speaker 1: and I drank you know, true my Polish heritage, and
Speaker 1: so uh, I don't want to try to portray myself
Speaker 1: as something I'm not. I'm sort of like those two
Speaker 1: different people, you know, a self taught and uh maybe
Speaker 1: entitled to some gifts that the people that I was
Speaker 1: down there within the factories and the warehouse or whatever
Speaker 1: didn't have, you know, didn't have the benefit of. So
Speaker 1: you wrote a book called Love and Terror on the
Speaker 1: howling Planes of Nowhere, which is both a story of
Speaker 1: your marriage, of growing up with your son, and of
Speaker 1: the horrific death and your investigation into it of the
Speaker 1: local college math professor that was written. It's been a
Speaker 1: number of years ago, maybe four or five years ago.
Speaker 1: Has any more known about what happened with him than
Speaker 1: then when you finished the book. I've gathered lots of
Speaker 1: them and um, and it's all circumstantial and nothing really
Speaker 1: has opened this or shown any more light on it, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And I really was confident that it would get some
Speaker 1: kind of confession or secondary confession or something like that,
Speaker 1: but nothing is like that has happened. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to believe that a town this small would be
Speaker 1: able to keep a secret like that. So well, capt Ye,
Speaker 1: all you're writing is wonderful and um, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if i'd recommend people to start there or on one
Speaker 1: of the book of essays, but it's a true crime
Speaker 1: story that is fascinating, and it's also um, you know,
Speaker 1: weaving your life into it, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad well, Pa, thank you so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time to come on. I've really enjoyed preparing for
Speaker 1: the interview. Like I said, I've read you for a
Speaker 1: long time. I was happy to dig deeper into your
Speaker 1: work and uh, I've enjoyed this conversation a lot. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: well now thanks, the pleasures all been mine. I hope
Speaker 1: this works out way all right, Thanks so much. Bye bye,
Speaker 1: all right, take care bye. If what you just heard
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