Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. The
Speaker 1: following episode contains explicit details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion
Speaker 1: is advised. It was the assistant headmaster. He was our
Speaker 1: soccer coach, he was our lacrosse coach, um, and he
Speaker 1: ran the boys acounts. This is Tim Erlick, a fifty
Speaker 1: year old bariatric surgeon, looking back on his childhood. As
Speaker 1: a ten eleven twelve year old boy, Tim was methodically,
Speaker 1: relentlessly sexually abused, along with dozens of other boys, by
Speaker 1: a middle school teacher named Sad Alton at the Pingree School,
Speaker 1: an elite New Jersey day school. This is a story
Speaker 1: about the worst sort of secret, the kind that festers
Speaker 1: and grows over the course of a lifetime until it
Speaker 1: becomes unbearable, impossible to hold. I'm d Ni Shapiro, and
Speaker 1: this is family secrets. The secrets that are kept from us,
Speaker 1: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we
Speaker 1: keep from ourselves. In June, Tim, along with twenty other men, bankers, lawyers,
Speaker 1: real estate developers, a social worker, a high school principal, psychologist,
Speaker 1: approached the Pingree School. They called themselves the Pingree Survivors,
Speaker 1: and they were looking for some kind of justice, if
Speaker 1: justice was even possible. On a fall afternoon, Tim and
Speaker 1: I spent hours and hours on the phone, me hunched
Speaker 1: over my recording equipment and my son's old playroom. My
Speaker 1: son is now a college freshman, but during those hours,
Speaker 1: I looked around the room at football posters, plastic bins
Speaker 1: of legos, dented abandoned boxes of board games, scrabble, Monopoly,
Speaker 1: shoots and ladders, and I thought about what it is
Speaker 1: to be a boy ten twelve, all knobby knees, skinny
Speaker 1: shoulder blades and downy cheeks, still a child just beginning
Speaker 1: to stretch and yearn to be bigger, older. So my
Speaker 1: mom is from Stylingtown. My grandmother family was all from Vienna,
Speaker 1: and almost all of them except for her, her mom
Speaker 1: and her three sisters and my great aunts and my
Speaker 1: great grandmother immigrated to the United States, but the rest
Speaker 1: of the family was all lost in the Holocaust. Tim
Speaker 1: is the fourth out of six kids, part of a
Speaker 1: Jewish family who moved to suburban New Jersey and were
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be able to send their kids to
Speaker 1: private school, the Bucolic campus of Pingree's Lower School. In
Speaker 1: short Hills is about as far away from his mom's
Speaker 1: New York City Stuyvesant Town or his dad's Southwestern Georgia
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. It's a place that looks safe,
Speaker 1: constted by manicured privilege, as if nothing bad could ever
Speaker 1: happen there. I know this because I was also a
Speaker 1: student at the Pingree School during that time. I knew
Speaker 1: many of these boys. I even dated one of them
Speaker 1: when I was in seven grade. This is Tim's story,
Speaker 1: but imagine it amplified by so many boys in this
Speaker 1: one school, and then again in schools all over America.
Speaker 1: Just in the past two years, haras Man Rama's taft
Speaker 1: Hot Guests, St. Paul's, and other institutions charged with the
Speaker 1: education and protection of their students have been embroiled in
Speaker 1: controversies as the truth tumbles out, as truth tends to do.
Speaker 1: Tim entered Pingree in the fourth grade on the heels
Speaker 1: of his older brother Andy. Andy at that time was
Speaker 1: in seventh grade, and Andy was the king of the Hill.
Speaker 1: He was captain lacrosse team, buying for student body president.
Speaker 1: So when I started at Pingery, my mom was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to meet Teddalton, need to be
Speaker 1: a boy Scout and automatically, you know, coming from a
Speaker 1: big family like that, all the teachers know you. Everybody
Speaker 1: at Pingrey knows you. You're little to me early, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's how people still call me that. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of nice because the older girls that you
Speaker 1: know that Andy was friends with, you know, we're talking
Speaker 1: to me, and the older guys are cool to me.
Speaker 1: And he was great. Now. I started with the Boy
Speaker 1: Scouts in fourth grade, when usually it was probably like
Speaker 1: the fifth or sixth grade kind of thing that my mom,
Speaker 1: you introduced me to Ted Alton, gave me Tiddleton, I'm
Speaker 1: a golden platter. One of the things that struck me
Speaker 1: again and again in all of the descriptions of Ted
Speaker 1: Alton was how charismatic and respected and how much he
Speaker 1: was considered to be this kind of golden teacher, and
Speaker 1: also that he was everywhere. That to me was one
Speaker 1: of the most chilling aspects of this was that it's
Speaker 1: almost as if he designed life, or not almost as
Speaker 1: if he It seems like he did design a life
Speaker 1: in which he would be present in every possible way
Speaker 1: for the boys that he was going after. I didn't
Speaker 1: have them to a teacher until sixth grade. He was
Speaker 1: a sixth grade like social studies teacher um, but for
Speaker 1: soccer and lacrosse and obviously both scouts. It was our
Speaker 1: quote unquote tripping counselor, so he was in charge of
Speaker 1: taking us on these amazing I mean, I dream about
Speaker 1: these excursions through the woods and waters of Maine, and
Speaker 1: we would go whitewater canoeing on the Penobscott and the
Speaker 1: Allagash and the Saco River, and running down the bluffs
Speaker 1: at the Socco and and see buried villages Black staff. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's what makes this all again so pray, is that
Speaker 1: they were probably some of the best members of my life.
Speaker 1: In the Pingree survivors approached the school in search of answers.
Speaker 1: They wanted the school to take responsibility for the history
Speaker 1: that had so traumatized them. Pingree's lawyers retained a private
Speaker 1: security firm to conduct an independent investigation. The cover page
Speaker 1: of the ensuing report carries a warning that the material
Speaker 1: is sensitive, personal and graphic and not intended for children. Quote.
Speaker 1: The evidence demonstrates that between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, while employed by Short Hills Country Day and
Speaker 1: Pingree Thad Alton sexually assaulted at least twenty seven students.
Speaker 1: Alton's behavior permeated multiple facets of the former students lives,
Speaker 1: since some former students simultaneously attended Pingree, Camp Wacanaki and
Speaker 1: were part of Boy Scout Troop number sixty four that
Speaker 1: regularly met on school grounds in a number of different locations,
Speaker 1: including his office at school during the school day, after
Speaker 1: school in the evenings and on week ends, the school
Speaker 1: gymnasium and the girls locker room, the home of his
Speaker 1: in laws, his own school owned home at times when
Speaker 1: his wife and children were present, the home of a
Speaker 1: former student on Boy Scout camping trips, his summer home
Speaker 1: in Martha's Vineyard, his truck and Camp Waganaki, including on
Speaker 1: camping trips, and inside his own cabin. In particular, the
Speaker 1: sexual contact that occurred inside Alton's office and elsewhere included
Speaker 1: Alton's touching a student's naked penises with his hands, the
Speaker 1: students touching of Alton's naked penis with their hands at
Speaker 1: Alton's request, Alton's placement of student's hands on his naked
Speaker 1: penis to masturbate him, Alton masturbating in front of students
Speaker 1: while encouraging students to masturbate the mutual touching of students
Speaker 1: naked penises. Alton often invited groups of boys into his
Speaker 1: office as well, and had boys touched each other's penises
Speaker 1: and then coaxed them to perform oral sex on him
Speaker 1: and or each other. In addition, Alton used heterosexual pornographic
Speaker 1: magazines and movies to entice the boys to touch their
Speaker 1: own penises, those of each other, and that of Alton.
Speaker 1: For my mom, here's my mom. You know these kids,
Speaker 1: work aholic husband, We've never ever involved in my life,
Speaker 1: never coached any of mine, little league or anything. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't really know him growing up. And so for me,
Speaker 1: Ted Alton was sort of a savior because here's this masculine,
Speaker 1: outdoorsy guy, lacrosse coach, soccer coach. My mom it was
Speaker 1: he's a father figure, you know. And it was probably
Speaker 1: about sixth grade, and she said to me, she said,
Speaker 1: I know Ted Alton. He she had she knew that
Speaker 1: something's going on. She's not a fucking idiot. She knew
Speaker 1: that that Ted Alton, you know, I was doing something
Speaker 1: with boys. But she said to me, she said, Ted
Speaker 1: Alton will never touch you because he doesn't like Jewish boys.
Speaker 1: But it was more important for her to have him
Speaker 1: in my life as a father figure, even though she
Speaker 1: knew that he was probably, you know, doing something sexual
Speaker 1: with these boys. And it really didn't think into me,
Speaker 1: like until last year, of how she sort of navigated
Speaker 1: that situation. At the point when she said that to
Speaker 1: you that he wouldn't touch Jewish boys, had he already
Speaker 1: made an approach to you? Oh yes, I've already been
Speaker 1: two years as a boy scout. I was like, yeah, mom,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, No, he's already made his mark. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. This is a story at its core that
Speaker 1: is about the failure of adults, or, in the words
Speaker 1: of Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph
Speaker 1: of evil is for good men to do nothing. What
Speaker 1: did Tim's mother know? What did other mothers or fathers suspect?
Speaker 1: A question that emerges again and again. How could this
Speaker 1: abuse have gone on right under the noses of so
Speaker 1: many grown ups? Yeah it was. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: short Jewish kid and this powering, six three big guy
Speaker 1: who's in the military, but with a big smile, and
Speaker 1: he was known for his bear hugs. That's how he
Speaker 1: got the nickname Bear. But I remember the pants he wore.
Speaker 1: He always worthy, sort of like polyester pants, which we
Speaker 1: had laugh at nowadays, you know nowadays in blue shirts
Speaker 1: and a black tie and a certain smell. When Tim
Speaker 1: is in sixth grade, he runs away from home a
Speaker 1: couple of times, and instead of getting on a train
Speaker 1: or a bus and going to New York, he calls
Speaker 1: Ted Alton, and Ted caused him his parents and talks
Speaker 1: him into going back home. And then in wood Shock,
Speaker 1: I made him a plaque. I said thanks, and he
Speaker 1: kept that in his office, you know, for all the
Speaker 1: you know, probably for years, probably still has it for
Speaker 1: all I know. And how fucked up is that? And
Speaker 1: I guess in some ways he was kind of a
Speaker 1: first love, maybe the father figure who crossed the line.
Speaker 1: But we all felt loved by him. And that's why
Speaker 1: no one said anything, because if we don't want him
Speaker 1: to get hurt, and we also got something out of it.
Speaker 1: It was there was a pleasure to it. What kind
Speaker 1: of a crush in sixth grade. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: I would also being gratified by ten Alton and other
Speaker 1: boys because the boy scouts and it was very confused,
Speaker 1: extremely confusing. There's a psychological theory called imprinting, in which
Speaker 1: a young animal learns the characteristics of a desirable meat.
Speaker 1: Just think of ducklings following their mother. There are key moments,
Speaker 1: vulnerable moments, when his imprinting can occur, and when it does,
Speaker 1: it can have lasting, even permanent consequences. Tim hates this theory,
Speaker 1: which was mentioned to him by a therapist. He quickly
Speaker 1: fired and I get it. He doesn't want to think
Speaker 1: of himself as permanently branded altered forever by the abuse
Speaker 1: of Ted Alton. But what is the sexuality of a ten, eleven,
Speaker 1: twelve year old boy? In many religious traditions, thirteen is
Speaker 1: the age when manhood first begins. What does it do
Speaker 1: to a psyche to have powerful sexual feelings triggered before
Speaker 1: a boy is ready and in the hands of a
Speaker 1: skilled predator who was an honor to be invited into
Speaker 1: t and there would be other boys there, And it
Speaker 1: all started out very tame is game truth or dare?
Speaker 1: And then it was then it became you know, more
Speaker 1: dares and less truths. And what happened is it sort
Speaker 1: of spawns these relationships with these other boys, and for years,
Speaker 1: these other boys do things without head around. I slept
Speaker 1: with multiple sets of brothers, not at the same time,
Speaker 1: but a brother my age, and you know, one kid
Speaker 1: my age and his older brother want the brother who
Speaker 1: slept at each other. So it's really really dark and dirty,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the conversation that nobody wants to have.
Speaker 1: So having all that be so knitted together with love
Speaker 1: for this, you know, seemingly loving a father figure year
Speaker 1: and then everybody else who's in this kind of chosen
Speaker 1: band of boys, I mean, it would be impossible to
Speaker 1: be anything other than just horrendously confused. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I found in in digging into the material
Speaker 1: was the way in which Ted said to many of
Speaker 1: the boys, this is our secret. And there was some
Speaker 1: combination both of loyalty to him and of almost a
Speaker 1: kind of implicit threat of no one can know about this,
Speaker 1: but also the potent combination of I've got the report
Speaker 1: in front of me, um language like reasons for the
Speaker 1: lack of reporting by former students, right, you had in
Speaker 1: the in the mix of UM for me and some
Speaker 1: of the guys, I know you know, the really deep
Speaker 1: doing to loneliness, because again what leads us into Ted's hand.
Speaker 1: But you know, an absent father, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean I came from a large family and who
Speaker 1: had time for me. I mean, thank God for my grandparents. Um,
Speaker 1: but I never felt loved in my house, you know,
Speaker 1: I think my parents ever said that to me. And
Speaker 1: that's that's what he gave you. He showed us love.
Speaker 1: Here's another quote from the report. It is a well
Speaker 1: known and well documented fact that child victims of abuse,
Speaker 1: especially sexual abuse, rarely report that abuse while they're still children.
Speaker 1: In other words, even if they are able to hold
Speaker 1: on to it or remember it, it seems like there's
Speaker 1: just this feeling of responsibility and shame and so many
Speaker 1: complex feelings that are all tied up in it. I
Speaker 1: think I spent thirty plus years of my life, h
Speaker 1: thirty five plus years really thinking that it was my
Speaker 1: own fault, that I thought this out, that I needed
Speaker 1: a father figure, that I enjoyed it, that I wanted it.
Speaker 1: And then there's also to be honest with your boys.
Speaker 1: There's two reasons why you know, boys never talked about this,
Speaker 1: and it's because number one, you're going be accused of
Speaker 1: being gay, and number two, you know you're gonna they're
Speaker 1: gonna think you're gonna be a child molester one day.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy four, seventy five or seventy six
Speaker 1: or whatever, this is being gay is essentially you know
Speaker 1: your death tennis, So that is just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: And you get near forties and your fifties and Eve
Speaker 1: internalize all this stuff. And for me, if I didn't
Speaker 1: deal with it, I probably wouldn't be alive right now.
Speaker 1: When Tim finishes the eighth grade, his family falls on
Speaker 1: hard financial times, which precipitates a move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: But Ted Alton had already done all the damage you
Speaker 1: would ever do by the time the boys hit puberty.
Speaker 1: He was kind of done with them. By eighth grade,
Speaker 1: Tim had aged out. Everybody deals with trauma in a
Speaker 1: different way. Some people turn to sports, some to drugs
Speaker 1: and alcohol. Tim just kept himself busy with his studies.
Speaker 1: He graduated at the top of his class in high school,
Speaker 1: got into a great university. He kept busy with front life,
Speaker 1: government bita Kappa. He eventually went to medical school and
Speaker 1: shose surgery one of the most difficult of all residencies.
Speaker 1: He was involved in everything because if he had free time,
Speaker 1: if he was alone with his thoughts, he would go
Speaker 1: to a very dark place. There's moments when there was
Speaker 1: a holiday or vacation, I'd have a hard time because
Speaker 1: I would just think too much. And I even to
Speaker 1: this day, I don't do well by myself. So that's
Speaker 1: how I sort of coped, which you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's better than most when I look at some of
Speaker 1: the very high achieving guys. But then there's then there's
Speaker 1: also a group of guys. There's two guys who were
Speaker 1: teenagers who killed themselves. They killed themselves when they were teenagers.
Speaker 1: Or you mean they killed themselves later, No, they killed
Speaker 1: themselves when they were teenagers. Correct. Tim embarks on his
Speaker 1: life as a quote on successful adult. At least on
Speaker 1: the outside. He has girlfriends, dates women, enjoy sex with women.
Speaker 1: Eventually he gets married and has three children, but there
Speaker 1: are instances in which he finds himself attracted to men.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, Tim is gay. You know, I
Speaker 1: always had attraction to women. I always had long term girlfriends.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a part of me that was
Speaker 1: attracted two men after I moved. I never acted on
Speaker 1: it all through college. I wasn't still he in the
Speaker 1: medical school. I had one incident and then had such
Speaker 1: negative feelings about it afterwards, felt so much guilt and
Speaker 1: shame and nausea. To be honest with you, I don't
Speaker 1: think I vomited, but I just felt so shitty that
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything again for years. Tim, did you
Speaker 1: at the time recognize that you're really negative? Almost visceral
Speaker 1: physical response was directly tied to that childhood abuse? Not
Speaker 1: at all, Not at all. I still think you know
Speaker 1: my brain when I thought about Ted and the boy,
Speaker 1: I thought about that man. I was lonely, I was
Speaker 1: looking for a father figure. I enjoyed the sexual gratification.
Speaker 1: And that was the script that I told myself. But
Speaker 1: I still probably tell myself, but maybe that was a better,
Speaker 1: a safer place, that narrative and the reality you know
Speaker 1: in nineteen four that I'm gay and that I was
Speaker 1: sexually abused and my family fucking sucks. So for me,
Speaker 1: I think that narrative for me was very self protective
Speaker 1: and un't I don't mean to laugh, but no, I
Speaker 1: think that that's true. And and there's something really powerful
Speaker 1: and interesting about adaptation, you know, being able to be
Speaker 1: adaptive under even really really extreme circumstances. Tim goes through
Speaker 1: the motions he digs into his bariatric practice. He and
Speaker 1: his wife welcomed two girls into the world, and then
Speaker 1: his son is born. But there's something about having a
Speaker 1: boy that really, um kind of rocked my world, remember
Speaker 1: when he was born, and that really led to more
Speaker 1: feelings of my life, of thoughts about me as a
Speaker 1: boy and Pitt and the Voice Scouts and my adventures
Speaker 1: and you know what happened to me. And I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I always, I always knew what happened. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of these people who said, you know,
Speaker 1: I never thought about it, and boom, you know, I
Speaker 1: read about it and all put it back to me.
Speaker 1: Yet I knew every day it happened. I probably thought
Speaker 1: about it every single day in my life. But when
Speaker 1: he was born, it really became pervasive. At the time,
Speaker 1: Tim lived in Westport, Connecticut. Westport is not too far
Speaker 1: from me, I know it well. If you look up
Speaker 1: effluent suburb in the dictionary, Westport's picture would appear, well,
Speaker 1: not really, but you know what I mean. It's a
Speaker 1: place where mom's in Lulu lemon yoga pants, push strollers
Speaker 1: down Main Street and tanned fit dad's take their kids
Speaker 1: to jiu jitsu and tennis lessons on weekends. A place
Speaker 1: where if there is some aspect of your world that
Speaker 1: is secret or painful, you might feel like you're the
Speaker 1: only one. Everybody looks like they're living their best life.
Speaker 1: My point is Tim tried really hard to wrap up
Speaker 1: his secrets and put them away. I've gotten the therapy
Speaker 1: in two eight, right around Thanksgiving, really triggered by marital problems,
Speaker 1: work problems. Everything is sort of coming to a head,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of a taking time bomb. I
Speaker 1: couldn't keep this sort of house of cards I built.
Speaker 1: I couldn't keep it together any longer. I was really
Speaker 1: really struggling. If I hadn't of gotten into therapy and
Speaker 1: really done the work that I need to do, um,
Speaker 1: I probably would not be alive today. And I know that.
Speaker 1: I know that. But either I was going to know
Speaker 1: myself or I was going to run off the road
Speaker 1: driving to New York at three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: to meet somebody asleep with them after working a twelve
Speaker 1: hour day and putting my kids to bed. We're going
Speaker 1: to pause for a moment. Even though Tim felt comfortable
Speaker 1: with his therapist, he didn't talk about the sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: By that Alton, he was trying to keep it all going,
Speaker 1: his marriage, his family, his practice, his attraction to men.
Speaker 1: And I was in a lot of denial. And I
Speaker 1: didn't and I didn't want to talk about it. I
Speaker 1: wanted to deal with the problems at hand. I didn't
Speaker 1: really see this that you were that they were all related,
Speaker 1: but obviously they were just really hard to admit that.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't so much much later that I realized
Speaker 1: that I liked being with men because I liked being
Speaker 1: with men and had nothing to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that that I was molested as a child. Tim's therapist
Speaker 1: asked him to create a timeline of the abuse. The
Speaker 1: writing unleashes his memory and also begins to give him
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose. So every Friday I started taking
Speaker 1: off and I would sit at the Westport Library and
Speaker 1: I was basically writing for therapy, and it would lead
Speaker 1: me to sort of finding people. Well, let me think, well, man,
Speaker 1: that kid was next to me in the tent, and
Speaker 1: this guy went to camp with and you know, Wow,
Speaker 1: where where are they all now? And so I accumulated
Speaker 1: a list of fifty or sixty names. Half were other
Speaker 1: children that I knew for a fact were abused, noe,
Speaker 1: more kids I suspected the restaurant or parents who I
Speaker 1: felt probably knew. And then there were teachers who was
Speaker 1: extremely cathartic to put it on paper. And I started
Speaker 1: reaching out to people. I traveled, and I went to
Speaker 1: visit some of these guys that I grew up with
Speaker 1: to connect, to bond with him, to talk about this,
Speaker 1: because I've been thinking about this in my brain for still.
Speaker 1: It was like a like a tape cassette's on a loop. Finally,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be able to talk to somebody
Speaker 1: about who was there to validate because I thought I
Speaker 1: was going crazy. So I was starting to really be
Speaker 1: aware and read about stories. I'm somebody who hates picking
Speaker 1: up the phone to call a person who may not
Speaker 1: want to hear from me, which is why I'm a novelist,
Speaker 1: a memoirist, and now a podcaster and not say an
Speaker 1: investigative journalist. So when I think about what Tim did next,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty blown away by the courage it took. I
Speaker 1: think you will be too. But that's what sort of
Speaker 1: led me on the path. And I did talk to
Speaker 1: a few of these guys, some of them who told
Speaker 1: me to funk off. Who is my number. One of
Speaker 1: the guys have become like a brother to me, like
Speaker 1: one of my dearest friends in my life, who when
Speaker 1: I actually ended up hiring this law firm, this one
Speaker 1: friend basically told me, he said, look, I'm I'm proud
Speaker 1: of you, but I can't talk to you anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't want this in my life. Good luck to you,
Speaker 1: but do not ever call me. And it was hurtful,
Speaker 1: but I also knew that I needed to go forward
Speaker 1: and do this. And fast forward a year later and
Speaker 1: being his brother, both point us and it has been
Speaker 1: the best thing that he has ever done in his life.
Speaker 1: And I'm so proud of him. So the Pingree Survivors,
Speaker 1: the band of boys who had once been methodically groomed
Speaker 1: by Ted Alton, become a band of men hell bent
Speaker 1: on transcending their history of abuse. And it all started
Speaker 1: with Tim reaching out, picking up the phone, trying to
Speaker 1: make contact. You remember, I was out in Napa at
Speaker 1: a friend's wedding, and I took the time out to
Speaker 1: drive down to Monterey to have drinks with one of
Speaker 1: these guys. And that was the first time I've seen
Speaker 1: him with sweer children. I had actually, you know, paid
Speaker 1: like people finders dot com or something like that to
Speaker 1: figure out where he lived prior to that, and I was,
Speaker 1: I guess I was sort of cyber stalking these people. Um.
Speaker 1: But I called him up, said, hey, look, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be in California. I want to come down there and
Speaker 1: I want to go out of the beer And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we did, and quickly, I don't know how
Speaker 1: it started, um, but I brought it up. I said,
Speaker 1: do you ever think about what it was like when
Speaker 1: we were kids or the effect has had in your life?
Speaker 1: And and that became two three four or final I
Speaker 1: don't even remember, of alcohol and tears and hugs and
Speaker 1: a little bit laughter. Tim continues his detective work. His
Speaker 1: children are wondering why their father is all of a
Speaker 1: sudden taking trips, spending late nights talking on the phone
Speaker 1: behind closed doors. So finally he decided that he's going
Speaker 1: on a reconnaissance mission, and he returns to Pingry, the
Speaker 1: scene of the crime with his oldest daughter, Zoe, I
Speaker 1: took her one weekday during the must have been off
Speaker 1: school school break, and we went down to pingry Do.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go look at old yearbooks to remember
Speaker 1: names and faces and teachers that I couldn't remember. So
Speaker 1: we were driving down there and I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a little research. When I went to the school,
Speaker 1: I told him the story that my brother had died,
Speaker 1: which is true, and I wanted to find some old
Speaker 1: photos of my brother at his time at Pingary It's
Speaker 1: a really important time from So that was my execuse
Speaker 1: to get into the school library. And Joe and I,
Speaker 1: my my oldest daughter, we went down to the school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been there since, you know, the sixth grade
Speaker 1: or seventh grade or whatever it was, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was really really uncomfortable. But they had renovated the school,
Speaker 1: so at least his office was gone. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to see that, but they were the cross fields and
Speaker 1: the soccer fields and the building and this sweet little
Speaker 1: wonderful school. We're always awful has happened. Tim begins to
Speaker 1: understand that Ted Alton's abuse is not lim did to
Speaker 1: a small group of boys. The yearbook photographs Joga's memory
Speaker 1: and he reaches out to another boy, now grown man,
Speaker 1: who he remembers from that time. The two men reconnect
Speaker 1: and for the first time Tim hears and understands that
Speaker 1: there were adults, many adults, not only his parents, but teachers, administrators,
Speaker 1: board members who had suspected Ted Alton of abuse and
Speaker 1: done nothing. Once Alton's behavior had become impossible to ignore,
Speaker 1: a meeting of prominent fathers was called for in a
Speaker 1: board member's home, and a psychiatrist was brought in to
Speaker 1: advise them, and we actually have a notes and meeting,
Speaker 1: and basically a psychiatrist his recommendation that these fathers was
Speaker 1: that bas need to get the scuy at the school
Speaker 1: and not discuss it and just move forward, but basically
Speaker 1: deny the whole thing. Don't put the kids through the
Speaker 1: trauma of a trial. Remember earlier when I said that
Speaker 1: this story is ultimately about the failure of adults, Well,
Speaker 1: this is even more than a case of good men
Speaker 1: doing nothing. These men, and they did all seem to
Speaker 1: be men, knew they needed to get rid of Alton.
Speaker 1: So they passed the trash in Tim's words, and write
Speaker 1: Alton a glowing letter of recommendation to another new Jersey
Speaker 1: Prep School, essentially making Alton somebody else's problem, and not
Speaker 1: seeming to consider that this would mean he would continue
Speaker 1: to abuse kids elsewhere. And these were dads, who fathers,
Speaker 1: who worked on Wall Street, who were the CFO of
Speaker 1: huge companies. And I think that there is a part
Speaker 1: where they wanted to let's just put this to bed.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be the father who is working while
Speaker 1: their son is off in the woods being abused. Here's
Speaker 1: where a very strange coincidence enters the picture. While I
Speaker 1: was working on this story, I happened to run into
Speaker 1: a man who had been a teacher at Pingree long ago.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this never happens. I can count
Speaker 1: on one hand the number of times I run into
Speaker 1: anyone I had known it Pingry in my entire adult life.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen. This guy was well aware of
Speaker 1: the controversy and the twenty one survivors. I asked him
Speaker 1: if he had ever suspected anything. And here's what he said.
Speaker 1: We knew, he said, We all knew that something very
Speaker 1: wrong was going on in Ted Alton's office. I debate
Speaker 1: about whether to tell him this because it's just such
Speaker 1: a slap in the face. But I have to, I
Speaker 1: have to tell him, well, you know, he just gave
Speaker 1: me chills, and and and I don't really if this
Speaker 1: stuff get me angry anymore, But this is what makes
Speaker 1: me so angry, so angry, because we know they all knew.
Speaker 1: We know the athletics director who hired Ted to be
Speaker 1: his coach, who who owned the camp at Loganoki. We
Speaker 1: know he knew. Fathers spoke to him about this, but
Speaker 1: nobody did anything. Camp Waganaki is perhaps the darkest part
Speaker 1: of a very dark story. Waganaki was owned by Pingree's
Speaker 1: Director of Athletics, award winning soccer coach, biology teacher. In fact,
Speaker 1: he had been my biology teacher and responsible for bringing
Speaker 1: in some of the largest donations in the school's history. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for four years, um from fourth to you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, fourth to seventh grade summers, I my
Speaker 1: two brothers spent at Camp Waganoky in East Waterford, Maine,
Speaker 1: which was owned by uh, you know, Pingree athletic director.
Speaker 1: You know, so you have this wonderful, rich summer and
Speaker 1: I was up there for seven weeks every summer. My parents,
Speaker 1: you know, need to get rid of all the boys,
Speaker 1: you know, building his wonderful relationships. And on the flip side,
Speaker 1: it was having had all non steroids because you know,
Speaker 1: gave him a free license to for five days in
Speaker 1: the woods with him. Trip you know was to be
Speaker 1: five days at a time the Alegash I think trip
Speaker 1: was almost a week and there was no adult supervision
Speaker 1: other than him. So um, it was really this very
Speaker 1: strange time because it was so wonderful, but then it
Speaker 1: was also so dark, and I remember falling into this
Speaker 1: sleep in his tent with the cries from one of
Speaker 1: my friends who was abused for the first time. I
Speaker 1: was a kid from Pennsylvania, you know, if he didn't
Speaker 1: go to Pingary and where the rest of us was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is all that We've been doing this for years
Speaker 1: as boy scouts, So what are you crying about? Get
Speaker 1: used to it. After the school's independent report, the survivors
Speaker 1: were each interviewed by Pingree's attorneys and insurance provider. They
Speaker 1: were questioned as to why they hadn't complained at the
Speaker 1: time to a responsible adult. So when when they had
Speaker 1: that argument of why didn't you complain to somebody who
Speaker 1: knew They all knew who were going to complain to
Speaker 1: you know, Ted Dalton's mother in law was the vice
Speaker 1: principal of the school. Who we're going to complain to you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna plain the administration. He was the administration. It's
Speaker 1: ludicrous to think that that we had any voice whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So finally, at you know, efty years old, I finally
Speaker 1: have a voice. And that, for me is what this
Speaker 1: has all been about, is giving me a voice. That
Speaker 1: the writing was about. That's what our conversation is about,
Speaker 1: is giving you know, a boy who never had a
Speaker 1: voice in his home, this family, in the school. That's
Speaker 1: that's what I think about. Pingry also sent a letter
Speaker 1: to the whole school community. I received one myself. In it,
Speaker 1: the school denied prior knowledge of its history of abuse. Ironically,
Speaker 1: this denial is ultimately what made many of the men
Speaker 1: step forward. They had understandably been reticent about being public
Speaker 1: about reliving the worst chapter of their lives. But the
Speaker 1: letter was a punch in the face to some very
Speaker 1: strong willed people. We had a joint call, and maybe
Speaker 1: only eight of us were on a call. We all
Speaker 1: went around and you know, people all live all over
Speaker 1: the place, and men on for like two hours and
Speaker 1: everybody told their stories and just hearing you know, these
Speaker 1: guys some of them, somebody didn't know something. These guys
Speaker 1: didn't know it all. Some of them. I remember, God,
Speaker 1: he was the guy who was like, you know, he
Speaker 1: was my water skia coach at camp, and I thought
Speaker 1: he was the coolest guy. You know, and he's on
Speaker 1: the call and you know, and you're talking to me.
Speaker 1: The guy who was the captain of the football team
Speaker 1: is great athletes. He was on the call. But hearing
Speaker 1: everybody's stories and it just made me so freaking sad.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's somebody that finally, for the
Speaker 1: first time for many of us and in all these years,
Speaker 1: like people that can we can identify with. Because as
Speaker 1: much as you can explain this to your friend and
Speaker 1: you know, your your wife or your lover or whoever,
Speaker 1: you hear the same things like, oh well, I hope
Speaker 1: you get closure, And you never get closure on this stuff,
Speaker 1: you evolve. The Band of Men came to New York twice.
Speaker 1: The first time they were individually deposed. After those depositions
Speaker 1: were taken, there was a lot of stalling until the
Speaker 1: two sides agreed to discuss the matter. Kingley knew that
Speaker 1: the survivors had a strong case. Some of the survivors
Speaker 1: wanted to go to court, some didn't. We had to individually,
Speaker 1: over the course of the week tell our stories to headmaster,
Speaker 1: representatives from the boarders, trustees, attorneys for the school, attorneys
Speaker 1: for the insurance company, representatives from the insurance company, and
Speaker 1: then our attorneys that we're all in this room sort
Speaker 1: of reliving our story specifically. And also we were asked
Speaker 1: to write our what they call our impact statements. How
Speaker 1: did this abuse affect your life? Is what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do, and they're trying to meet a settlement and
Speaker 1: figure out what is this case worth? Does this guy
Speaker 1: have a case? And I'll tell you writing that impact
Speaker 1: statement was really was trouming them of itself. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the similar things is depression, anxiety to a side attempts,
Speaker 1: ex editions, huge sexual identification problems, marital discord, job failures.
Speaker 1: The list goes on. But so that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing we had to talk about, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: hard enough to do with our therapists, but then to
Speaker 1: do it with in front of a people, a group
Speaker 1: of people who obviously, for me, I would target on
Speaker 1: my back because I know they all hate naked. I'm
Speaker 1: the one who brought all this diffruition in the end
Speaker 1: Ingry settlement. Yes, right, yes, and yet there is a
Speaker 1: thorn in the side of that settlement, one that may
Speaker 1: never be put right. The owner of Camp Waganaki, who
Speaker 1: just had the most expensive building in Pingree's history named
Speaker 1: after him. Right, that is one of the first things
Speaker 1: that was discussed amongst the plaintiffs, and it's a recurring
Speaker 1: theme in all of our stories, is that how could
Speaker 1: he have not known? And you know, we we know
Speaker 1: that one of the fathers spoke to him know about Ted,
Speaker 1: and everybody at the camp knew, and so we did.
Speaker 1: We asked, we said, have some compassion for us. You know,
Speaker 1: let's let's do our investigation. Let you do your investigation.
Speaker 1: Please don't shove it in our face. And the name
Speaker 1: of sixty million dollar building after someone that let this
Speaker 1: go on. I'd like to quote from the letters signed
Speaker 1: by the survivors and addressed to the Pingree community after
Speaker 1: the report first came out. So in it it's written
Speaker 1: that we hope that revealing the truth about the abuse
Speaker 1: of Pingree will serve as a first step in the
Speaker 1: healing process. Do you feel now that there have been
Speaker 1: steps taken towards your personal healing, towards the healing of
Speaker 1: the men who were those abused boys? Absolutely, I um.
Speaker 1: But it's really about I think the conversations and connections
Speaker 1: between us, which is all elevated everybody else up. I
Speaker 1: spoke to one gentleman today and talked him a few
Speaker 1: months and you know, he had written that he had moved.
Speaker 1: You have to be closer with son and and so
Speaker 1: I know that he connects with you know, another planet,
Speaker 1: become good friends, and they traveled together. And then this
Speaker 1: summer I spent a week in Florida with the one
Speaker 1: guy went the Jersey Shore was another one. And I
Speaker 1: think it's those moments of that camaraderie, you know. And
Speaker 1: again I think if you look at us, a lot
Speaker 1: of us don't have strong family connections or um and
Speaker 1: maybe some resentment. I mean, hey, where are my parents
Speaker 1: when this is going on? The last thing I would
Speaker 1: ask is like now moving forward, like moving forward in
Speaker 1: your life where this is starting to be something that
Speaker 1: you feel ready to move on from in the sense
Speaker 1: that you've had There's no such thing as closure, but
Speaker 1: you do have a certain degree of what would you say?
Speaker 1: You know, I just said, there's one day where my
Speaker 1: and my kids have been through a lot because of
Speaker 1: all this um and I hope there's one day where
Speaker 1: they can really get back and reflect and think, Hey,
Speaker 1: my dad as much a bad guy, he did a
Speaker 1: lot of good and maybe here's a reason now why
Speaker 1: he wasn't there. He was disconnected. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a survivor. I want to be a
Speaker 1: thriver and I need to and I want to move
Speaker 1: from this and I feel good about that every single day.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful feeling. I'd like to thank my guest,
Speaker 1: Tim Rlick for his courage and sharing his story with
Speaker 1: us today. You can find out more about Tim's work
Speaker 1: to make the Pingree School and other institutions safer and
Speaker 1: healthier for children at Pingree survivors dot org. Family Secrets
Speaker 1: is an i Heeart media production. Dylan Fagan is a
Speaker 1: supervising producer, Andrew Howard and Tristan McNeil are the audio engineers,
Speaker 1: and Julie Douglas is the executive producer. If you have
Speaker 1: a family secret you'd like to share, you can get
Speaker 1: in touch with us at listener mail at Family Secrets
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com. You can also find us on to
Speaker 1: Gram at Danny Writer, and Facebook at Family Secrets Pod,
Speaker 1: and Twitter at Fam Secrets Pod. That's fam Secrets Pod.
Speaker 1: For more about my book, Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot
Speaker 1: com