WEBVTT - Taxidermied Duck 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.160 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. You 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.159 ain't never gonna be man enough. Those words would haunt me. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.800 I would hear their echo in his voice, in the 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.800 squish of hunting waiters stepping into a marsh, in the 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:20.400 metallic clinking of his wrenches while he fixed the grain combine. 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:23.720 I would hear those words every morning when I walked 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.680 to the one room schoolhouse and watered the ponderous pine. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.400 I would hear them when I was promoted the CEO, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.720 came out of the closet, got married and divorced, and 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.120 graduated twice from Cornell University with the Masters and doctorate, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.000 Knowing my father was not present for any of it. 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.520 Long after he came home from Vietnam and started fighting 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.879 a different war against cancer, I would always remember that 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:51.400 I ain't never going to be man enough. That's Trent Pressler. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.360 Trent is the CEO of Bedel Sellers, an esteemed vineyard 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.160 on the North Fork of Long Island. He's the author 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.680 of the debut Men More, Little and Often, And Trent 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.880 is also the builder of bespoke artisanal canoes. His canoes 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.160 have been called the most beautiful in the world. This 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.959 is the story of what one man does in order 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:29.880 to make meaning of the secrecy and silence surrounding his life. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.600 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.080 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:44.840 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. Where I grew 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.840 up in South Dakota was flat and void of pretty 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:54.080 much anything. In the extreme western part of the state 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.880 where we lived, it was you know, it's the prairie, 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.320 so it's flat, d aren't many trees. But there was 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.000 also some study done by a Berkeley sociologist in the 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.520 I think in the eighties or nineties. The tin pointed 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.680 the most remote part of the lower forty eight states, 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.440 and his his barometer was which part of the U 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.000 s where does people live? Where their furthest away from 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.120 a McDonald's drive through and the coordinate latitude and longitude 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:25.799 pointed to my family's branch in South Dakota. So we 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.280 were just surrounded by by almost nothing, just grass and cattle. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.520 There were five times more cows than people in that 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.400 part of South Dakota. What you're saying is that you 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.519 could drive for hours and still be on on the 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.720 land of your ranch. Absolutely Yeah. There's even a sign, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.200 like an old billboard in my hometown which is called 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.320 Faith South Dakota, where it's like, if you haven't filled 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.440 up your car with gas now, you should turn around 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.600 and go back because the next station isn't like for 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.240 another ninety round a mile. What was the origin of 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.440 the town being called stas say, South Dakota is just 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.560 so poetic and strange. I know there was a time, 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.079 I believe in the late eighteen hundreds and around nineteen 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.920 o six when my family came from the Ukraine where 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.120 that settlement was the last stop on the railroad. The 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.560 Burlington Northern I think was the name of it. I'm 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.880 not sure which company operated at the time, but if 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.640 you took a train from New York City to Chicago 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.919 and then Chicago West, like, that's kind of where they 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:30.840 That's as far as they had built it at that point. 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.080 And I think that the people got out, you know, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.320 didn't see much when they got out, so it took 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:40.240 an act of faith to sort of settle there. In fact, 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:45.160 the family lore is that my great grandparents got off 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.520 that train in faith and looked around and they felt 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.840 right at home because they came from the steps of 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.840 Ukraine where basically, I mean it's basically Siberian in nature, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.240 and they said it reminded them of home and they 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.480 felt comfortable there, so that they were happy to settle 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.200 in the days. Tell me about your mother, you know, 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.040 from your childhood self, when you were growing up, and 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.400 about your family life. What was it like to be 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.400 in this vast place with many more cows than people 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.880 in a one room school house? Right, Well, it was, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.359 you know, ranch life was rough, and my mother was 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.279 always I think I called it running interference, but she 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.080 always kind of was the conduit of communication between me 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.799 and my father, and she was always kind of softening 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.520 the blow of a lot of the harsh things that 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.080 happened growing up on a cattle ranch. So my family 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.279 had about ten thousand acres of land. My father raised 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.320 a couple thousand head of cattle. He formed wheat, barley, alfalfa, 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.440 many crops, and then my mom's role was to keep 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.159 the home and she had a basically a master class 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.920 in food production, these massive gardens and canning and preserving 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.680 operations that she was constantly involved in. And I went 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.479 to a in room school house which had eight students, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.400 and I would either walk or ride horse to get there, 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.600 and you know, Mom would pack my lunch box and 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.520 kind of send me along the way. But Dad was 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:18.560 this harsh kind of cowboy, silent, stoic figure in every 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:24.520 quintessential American cowboy way that you can think of. And Mom, 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.719 you know, kind of I think shielded me to some 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.359 extent as much as she could from the brutality of 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.279 ranch life. And we were surrounded by death all the time, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.919 you know, killing chickens for food, or killing beef cattle. Um, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.200 even our pet dogs would get rinnen over by tractors 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.719 or kicked in the head by cows or horses. Like 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.520 it was just this constant um barrage, which I think 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.159 was really traumatic for a young person. So I think 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.280 Mom did the best she could. But in Dad's mind, 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.040 I don't think there was any shielding us for many 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:56.560 of it. I think he kind of wanted us to 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.000 be exposed to it in a way. See how really 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:05.599 is did that violent, kind of raw, kind of punishing existence. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:07.800 Did it feel to you as a kid, like that 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:12.240 was just the world? Yes? It did. I didn't know 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.880 anything else, I mean I had We would go to church, 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.800 where we were told a lot of hell fire and 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.200 brimstone kind of things. But it was a very sheltered life, 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.279 and it didn't seem all that abnormal that we had 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.039 to get water from a pump that came out of 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.320 a window and you know, the water kind of ran 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.679 brown for two seconds before it turned clear. That didn't 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.719 seem abnormal to me. Nothing did. It was just like, well, 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.880 if you wanted to watch television, Dad had to climb 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.039 up on the roof of the house and turn the 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.320 antenne to face the cities in the east, and then 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.800 we'd watch the TV. And then he'd go back on 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.080 the roof and take the antennae down. Trent shared this 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.760 upbringing with his sister Lucinda, who was just two years older. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.120 But Lucinda's health began to deteriorate quite rapidly when she 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.480 was ten years old, and she fell down and had 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.040 a seizure right in front of Trent on a dusty 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.560 barn yard. Not only did her mysterious illness add to 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.800 the constant barrage of trauma, but it also set in 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.559 motion a family pensiant for silence and secrecy. Difficult things 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.600 were not spoken of. There were a lot of mysteries 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.360 and secrets in our family, and that was one of 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.400 the first ones I remember where we just didn't know 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:29.120 what's wrong with Lucy? Why is she suddenly, you know, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.120 unable to do the things that she could always do? 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:38.600 And did you talk about it? No? No, it was 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.560 sort of mm hmm, well she's having a hard time. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.760 There was no specificity or clarity, like here's a medical 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.520 definition of what's going on with her until much later 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.040 in life, when I had to press for it and say, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.640 is there a name for this and what's wrong? And 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.800 by that point, she was you know, she died when 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.720 she was and you know, by the time I really 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:03.840 understood what was going on, I felt like I had 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.320 already missed out on our whole childhood together, you know, 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.560 kind of with all the uncertainty about what was happening. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.600 Was it something I was causing? I would have these 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.560 nightmares where I felt like I wasn't doing enough to 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.240 help save her, and I began to kind of blame myself. 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.040 I think my aid or ten or twelve year old 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:29.440 self really somehow believed that maybe I caused it, or 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.920 there was this sense that maybe I wasn't doing enough 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:40.120 too to help her. That's the thing about silence. Where 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.680 there are secrets, there is inevitably silence, and without even 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.360 knowing we're doing it, we fill that silence with our 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.800 own stories, our own narratives, to try to make sense 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.480 of what isn't being said. In Trench's case, the stories 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.840 he spun in his head made him feel guilty and helpless. 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.240 Lutherans aren't big talkers, was what my dad always said, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.920 and we weren't. And I think the unfortunate thing was 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:11.240 that children have to fill that silence with their own imagination. 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.720 And if it's not a loving environment or a warm environment, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.360 you fill that silence with negative things, and you start 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.040 to blame yourself and wonder is this silence sort of 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.880 an indication that they're upset or is it just how 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.040 just how it is. That's exactly right, it's it's turned inward, yes, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.520 because it's this kind of shapeless thing. It has nowhere 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.760 else to go but boomerang back at the child. Yeah. Absolutely. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:46.000 I think the first time my parents ever normalized secrecy 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.080 was with Santa Claus. I mean it was like the 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.760 first time your parents lie to you is when they 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.679 say Santa Claus is real and he's gonna slide down 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.600 this chimney and give you presents. And I remember, you know, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.000 I think was eight or something, and I discovered a 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.320 bunch of wrapped presents in the floor and my parents 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.440 shoe closet, and I was shocked. Wow, this whole thing 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.160 was a myth, and they've been keeping this secret for 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.720 me this whole time. Wait, sand is not real. And 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.120 so then when I became a teenager, like I got 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.920 my first copy of Playboy magazine or something, what did 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.200 I do? I put it in the closet, in the 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.520 shoe closet, on the floor, because that's where you that's 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.000 where you put your secrets. Did your parents discover it? 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.800 They did. When I was in high school, I had 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.840 like one single VHS tape of porn and one Playboy 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.960 magazine and like a glass bottle of vodka and it 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.200 was like my secret vice corner. And I hid that 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.440 all on the shoe closet and I put like a 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.439 box of fish aquarium supplies on top of it or something. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.680 But my mom found it one day and was furious 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.440 and what is all this? And she threw it all away. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.200 But that Playboy magazine isn't the real secret, which is 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.000 the Trent is gay. He hides it from every especially 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.480 his parents, even after he goes east to college, far 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.120 far away from South Dakota. At first, he tells very 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:13.560 few friends. I kept up appearances for so long. My 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.200 parents belonged to a very strict sect of Lutheranism, where 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.520 um it was fundamentalists, and the judgmental ideals of the 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.920 Scripture to them were rock solid. And we were told, 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.040 point blank, you know, in certain terms, that homosexuals were 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.160 condemned to hell forever, and that if you were gay, 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.760 you were an enemy of God. And so my whole childhood, 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.040 I had been told this, even while I inside knew 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.800 I was gay, and I had started experimenting sexually with 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.640 boys when I was a teenager. But I always had 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:49.360 a girlfriend, and I always brought girlfriends to family events, 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.360 even if I never kissed the girl, just but like, 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.640 if there was a girl beside me, I would feel 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.559 like I was fulfilling some sort of cultural milestone and 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.480 a scent that I wouldn't be judged. And you know, 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:07.240 queer people don't grow up as ourselves, you know, we 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.800 grow up playing a version of ourselves. And when we 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.840 do these mental somersaults to try to justify who we 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.400 are and present one thing to the world and another 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.920 thing that we keep inside, and all of that erodes 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.840 our authenticity and our sense of self. And it totally 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.240 has one purpose, which is to minimize our own humiliation 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.760 and our own shame. You know, I knew that if 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.240 I came out, my parents would not be okay with it, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.760 and I knew it would cause a rupture. And it's 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:45.080 not until Lucy dies and you go home for the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:51.360 funeral and you bring a boyfriend of yours. Yes, of course, 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.920 I was very distraught and I wanted to bring someone 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.520 for support, so I brought him with. You know, in retrospect, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.280 I think, gosh, a straight person probably would never have 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.320 to think twice about bringing a significant other to a 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.160 family event. It's just kind of what you would do. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.080 You wouldn't have to ask, I guess, permission maybe, But 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.559 I just showed up. And it was a devastating experience, 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.400 just because my sister had died, full stop. But then 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:23.360 I added in this layer of complexity. I didn't consciously 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.240 think that this would be the moment that I revealed 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.800 my big secret. It just felt like I was so 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:32.600 desperate for some kind of affection in some sense of 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.880 security and love beside me that I didn't really feel 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.960 like I had any other choice. You asked for your boyfriends, 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.040 as far as your parents were concerned, your friend to 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.440 sit with you during the service, and you were told 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.440 that's just for family, and he was relegated to the 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.680 back row. Yes, you know, I'm there in the front 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.439 row with family, and they wield my sister's casket down 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.440 the aisle and I look in the back and my 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:03.000 boyfriend's like twenty pews behind us, sitting there staring at me, 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:08.600 and just breaks my heart, my grown up self, just ah. 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.040 It was such a sad and devastating moment that there 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:17.720 was a physical representation of what our place was in 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.960 the world and in society, and in particular in my 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.680 family's structure, and in the church. We were inside, the 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:29.040 very church that I knew condemned people like us. And 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.880 so when you then are moved to come out to 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.360 your parents, what does your father say? He said, we 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:41.080 ain't never going to talk about that again. And it 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.360 was like taking a big gulp, and he was not kidding. 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.120 I mean, we never spoke about it again until I 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.280 saw him about a week before he died. So he 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.320 doesn't blink, doesn't you know, doesn't seem to be register. 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.600 He just is kind of blank and still, and he says, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.360 let's not talk about that again. And you go back 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.760 east and back to graduate's clown, back to your life, 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.760 and you receive a letter. Yes, I got a letter 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.560 from the Church of the Lutheran Confession, and it was 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.080 essentially an excommunication letter describing that my name had been 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.480 removed from the roster of membership at the church. And 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.840 there was no in classic Lutheran passive aggressive style, there 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:32.440 was again no specific mention of why, but I knew why. 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.400 There could only be one reason why, you know. It 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.600 just said you're no longer remember, and if you'd like 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.640 to have individual Bible study to read scripture again. They 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.880 gave me the number of some minister in Buffalo, New 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.720 York who I could go see, which I thought, you know, 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.080 their goal probably would be for me to come around 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.040 to being straight or something. But again it's the silence 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:58.880 of like even being excommunicated was not clearly articulated to me, 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.200 Like it's not a secret to me. I know precisely 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.640 why this is happening, but people were just afraid to 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.800 say things that occurs to me too, that that means 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:13.760 that your father must have told someone the church. He 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.960 did somehow speak of it, But then your understanding afterwards 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.480 was that he and your mother never spoke of it together. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.080 They didn't, and that was equally as devastating, because I'm thinking, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.560 how could you not have talked about me, your only son, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.840 and how to fall unfolded? But they didn't. I asked 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.080 Mom later in life, did you guys ever bring this up? 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.160 And she just kind of sat there silent, like there 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.760 was nothing to say. Day people were just I don't know, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.640 something to be swept under the rug. And I knew 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.880 in my heart of hearts that that's how it would go. 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.600 I thought, if I come out and when I come out, 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.280 it's going to go down in such a way where 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.360 I am the black sheep of the family, or where 0:16:57.440 --> 0:16:59.920 we're just gonna put this pot on the back burn 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.120 and let it simmer for thirty years and never really 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.400 check inside to make sure that the water is still there. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:36.080 We'll be right back. Trent earns a doctorate and a master's. 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:38.960 He works his way up in the wine world and 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.240 ends up the CEO of an esteemed vineyard. He's living 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.640 a successful life, but he never goes home again. After 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:51.359 Lucinda's funeral and his excommunication, he's completely estranged from his father, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.400 so he and his mother still talk. Then one day 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.240 his phone rings and it's his mother asking him to 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.040 come home for Saying Giving for the first time in 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:09.639 fourteen years. Mom again acting as the great intermediary between 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.000 me and my father. She and I did speak through 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.879 those fourteen years. Often she would talk when she was 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.119 at work on her landline at the University of South Dakota, 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:20.960 so that she wouldn't have to talk I think at 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.879 home when Dad was around, and we would have a 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.720 relatively normal conversation once in a while. But I had 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.840 almost no interaction with my father whatsoever for those fourteen years. 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.280 Maybe once or twice if we spoke, it was, you know, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.919 five words were spoken, like hello, how are you, and 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.640 Merry Christmas, and then he'd hand the phone back to Mom, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.240 very cold. You describe it in your book as a 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:53.320 silent battle of the wills. Yes, it was. And I 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:55.720 don't know if he thought of it that way. I'll 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.879 never know, but I certainly did. Um I was angry 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:02.679 and how I had been treated. I was angry that 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.800 they couldn't bring themselves to talk about what it meant 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.360 that they had a gay son. I think more than that, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.359 I was angry that they never said I love you, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.919 and I wanted so badly for them to say it 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:20.359 first that it became like this grainy undercurrent of my 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.879 life where if I say I love you first, it 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.720 would lose value, or if I asked them to say it, 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.240 it would lose value. I kind of wanted them to 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.000 think of the idea on their own and say it. 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.520 But those fourteen years were the Cold War. Then Mom 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.840 called in two thousand fourteen, and and Mom and Dad 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:40.800 were kind of on the phone together, and they invited 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:46.520 me home for Thanksgiving. And I thought about it, and 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:48.960 I went. And I had just got a new puppy 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.320 in a new car, and I hadn't been to South 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.359 Dakota in a very long time, and I thought, you know, 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.320 maybe I'll just road trip out there. And I needed 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.240 a break anyway. It was the holidays, and so I 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.359 got in the car and I drove west. What made 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:08.679 you do you think at that moment and the silent 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:13.480 battle of wills? Why then I knew from years prior 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.120 that my dad had calling cancer, but I hadn't heard 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.600 much about it, and I thought he had gotten better. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.560 But the sound of his voice on that phone call 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.119 was terrifying. It was like this gruff cowboy of a 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.480 man that I had always known had been reduced and 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.120 his voice was like feeble and hacking, and he was coughing. 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.280 It's sent sort of shock waves of terror for me 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.920 that this the strong man that I had hated for 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.679 so many years was in a weakened state. And I 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.399 think that was a big part of my motivation for 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.080 going back. So by the time you get this call 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:53.520 from both of your parents on the line saying would 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.080 you come home for Thanksgiving, you've moved out of New 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:01.600 York City. You've got this great line somewhere out being 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.560 like two country for the city and not city, and 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.200 what Yeah, I always felt like I was too gay 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.840 for the country, but two country for New York City. 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:15.880 So just this feeling of, you know, sort of being 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.920 a fish out of water wherever you were, Yes, yeah, absolutely, 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:24.320 But then you do sort of land this really fabulous 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.280 job as CEO of this vineyard, this winery, and you 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.080 moved to the water on the North Fork of Long Island, 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.879 which is very beautiful and kind of somewhat wild and 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.880 desolate place. Even though it's you know, a stone's throw 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:45.200 from the Hampton's, it's a very different world. Yeah, it 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.920 was so reassuring to leave the city, and even though 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.960 it's still Long Island, it does feel the world away 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.240 from New York and you can see the horizon. Living 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.000 on the ocean was such a reassuring thing for me 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.879 because I realized that being among all the tall building 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.679 I kind of would have this claustrophobic feeling like where's 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.520 the horizon? Because in South Dakota, on the ranch, you know, 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:12.280 you're always confronted with this flat, uninterrupted, horizontal plane in 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.840 front of you. And somehow that's comforting for me, I think, 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.560 because it means I can escape and I know, like 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.640 where all the exits are in the city. I don't 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:27.119 know where the exits are. And that's where you're living 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.720 at the time that you get the call. And you 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.239 have a dog who you adore, named Caper. And one 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:34.600 of the things that you write in a book is 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.040 every dog of your childhood, and you you mentioned the 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.720 violence on the ranch and what that life was like, 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:42.880 that every dog was named Walter, and so like one 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:44.800 Walter would get run over by a tractor, and then 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.320 another Walter would appear, and I found that so evocative. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:50.520 But so you have your own dog, and that dog 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.679 is not named Walter, right, I was determined he's going 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.440 to have a unique name. But yeah, that was the 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.240 sort of brutality of ranch life. Also, like, oh, well 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.840 that dog got run over by the tractor. Here's another one. 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.160 He's also named Walter. Just brutal. So I never really 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.159 formed an attachment to any of our dogs growing up. 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:13.200 I don't remember even how many we had. Um, they 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.080 were just all one sort of generic Walter. So you 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.520 pack paper in your car and you drive west. Yes, 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:26.879 I drove back and got there and they had Thanksgiving 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:29.440 dinner ready, and my dad had asked me to bring 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:31.520 a bottle of my fancy wine with me. So I 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.000 had this Merlot which was served at President Obama's inauguration. 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:37.679 And I was so proud of this wine and I 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.159 uncorked it and portous glasses, and you know, I was 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:45.000 just searching Dad's space for any sort of acknowledgement or 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.480 recognition that he liked it, or that I did a 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.880 good job making it or anything. Um, But his first 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:55.920 response was that he said, I ain't drinking no Obama wine, um, 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:59.360 because he's a he was a staunch Republican, and there's 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.160 a lot of red state, blue state kind of things 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.320 in our dynamic as well. And but he did take 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.720 a sip and he said it was pretty dang good, 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:13.320 which was high praise from him. So I got there 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:18.920