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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.

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Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power

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Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.

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Speaker 1: Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at

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Speaker 1: gmail dot com.

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Speaker 2: Trust Me, Trust trust Me.

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Speaker 3: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 1: I've never lived.

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Speaker 4: To you, I never had a live.

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Speaker 2: If you think that one person has all the answers,

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Speaker 2: don't welcome to trust Me. The podcast about cults, extreme

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Speaker 2: belief and manipulation from two Girl Scouts who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 2: I'm Lo Lablanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth. Today's part one

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Speaker 2: of our interview with Michelle Doud, professor and author of

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Speaker 2: a book called Forager Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.

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Speaker 2: She is a survivor of a cult called The Field,

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Speaker 2: which was founded by her own grandpa in the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 2: and part one today, she's going to tell us about

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Speaker 2: the origins of the group, which started out as an

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Speaker 2: afterschool program for boys and how evolved into something more

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Speaker 2: sinister as the boys grew up and continued to follow

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Speaker 2: her grandfather, who claimed he'd live to be five hundred

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Speaker 2: years old. Spoiler, he didn't.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about her childhood traveling the country and what

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Speaker 1: the group called the trip, performing plays and circus acts,

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Speaker 1: including being a magician's assistant and a poodle conductor, how

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Speaker 1: children were trained to talk to authorities and outsiders, and

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Speaker 1: how she was taught to prioritize survival above all else.

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Speaker 2: And next week we will talk about life on the mountain,

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Speaker 2: learning survival skills, and how she eventually left the group.

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Speaker 2: There are so many facets to her story it's actually insane.

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Speaker 2: I cannot wait for this interview. But before we get started, Megan,

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Speaker 2: tell me what your cultiest thing is this week?

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Speaker 1: Well, number one, I've just been loving this week. How

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Speaker 1: much you love that she was a poodle conductor. Like

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Speaker 1: every time that comes up, you like light up. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think this is a possible career for you.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's no phrase like poodle conductor. There is

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Speaker 2: no phrase like that. It is a real thing. It

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Speaker 2: sounds fake, it sounds like a cartoon. I love it, y'all.

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Speaker 1: Will hear her speak about it in the interview, Actually,

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Speaker 1: I'm choosing something from her book, which was just a

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Speaker 1: point that I've never really had made before from the Bible,

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Speaker 1: which is, if you want to wear a lot of

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Speaker 1: makeup or jewelry or whatever, sometimes people will call you

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Speaker 1: a jezebel. And she made the point in the book

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Speaker 1: that nature, because she learns everything she does from the wilderness,

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Speaker 1: even nature and plants will make themselves brighter and more

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Speaker 1: beautiful and all of these different things to survive. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, what an amazing point. And you know,

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Speaker 1: you can wear makeup or not. That's not the message

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Speaker 1: I took.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a total Jezebel. I too. Jack

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Speaker 2: and I went to a reptile show in La It's

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Speaker 2: like an expo of like of course Stiles past begin.

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Speaker 2: I fucking loved it. It was one of my Christmas

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Speaker 2: presents because I was so excited about the reptiles. But wow, dude,

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Speaker 2: these frogs, these lizards, these snakes are so beauty. Like

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Speaker 2: the colors. I wanted to eat them because they were

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Speaker 2: so very beautiful colors.

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Speaker 1: Bizarre.

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Speaker 2: Nature is for sure a Jezebel. I mean, every animal

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Speaker 2: is a Jezebel in their own way.

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Speaker 1: Uh huh, Yeah, So I just thought she just makes

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Speaker 1: some amazing points in the book. I really love the book.

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Speaker 1: So that was my takeaway from the week. What about you,

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Speaker 1: what's your cultiest thing of the week.

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Speaker 2: You know, I've met a lobbyist this week and I

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Speaker 2: actually think he's amazing and he is like an ethical lobbyist, but.

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Speaker 3: It's always nice.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But I started just thinking about lobbies and lobbying

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Speaker 2: and how actually potentially incredibly immoral it is. Like we know,

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Speaker 2: for example, that Exon mobil like purposely went out of

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Speaker 2: their way to convince the country that climate change was

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Speaker 2: not happening, even when their scientists were on the forefront

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Speaker 2: of sounding the alarm that it was happening. But because

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Speaker 2: they wanted to continue to make profit, they worked so

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Speaker 2: hard to convince the world that climate wasn't real. And

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Speaker 2: our raide is the same thing. Obviously, there's been a

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Speaker 2: lot of talk right now about APAC, which can teeter

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Speaker 2: on anti semitic sometimes, but also there is something to

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Speaker 2: be said when a lobbying group has such outsized influence

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Speaker 2: on American politicians. Jack was actually telling me that he

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Speaker 2: knew someone who was a soda lobbyist and their whole

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Speaker 2: job was trying to convince people that soda is actually healthy.

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Speaker 2: It's a health food.

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Speaker 1: I would buy that message immediately.

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Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I'm a Celsius. Feels healthy to me

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Speaker 2: when I drink it. I know it's not, but in

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Speaker 2: my brain.

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Speaker 1: Diet coke does something to my body that I know

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Speaker 1: is good.

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Speaker 2: I'm totally for sure true. But it just made me

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Speaker 2: think about how fascinating our politics are. Obviously many countries

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Speaker 2: have lobbyists, but we are constantly Our politicians, as well

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Speaker 2: as the public at large, are constantly being influenced by

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Speaker 2: people whose job it is to convince you of a

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Speaker 2: reality that's not qu actually reality, and that to me

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Speaker 2: is fucking fascinating. That is a like large scale manipulation.

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Speaker 2: That is like a mass media kind of cult, and

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Speaker 2: I want to learn more about it. Maybe we should

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Speaker 2: do a whole episode on it. I would love to that,

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Speaker 2: Folks is my cultiest thing.

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Speaker 1: Wow, I'm gonna look into everything you just talked about

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Speaker 1: because I'm not very well versed in it, but sounds interesting.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk to Michelle. Shall we do it?

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Speaker 2: Let's do it. Welcome Michelle Daoud to trust me. Thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for being here in the studio with us.

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Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. I love being here. It's

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Speaker 5: nice to see you both in person.

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Speaker 4: I know.

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Speaker 2: And for the record, my pants are making that sound,

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Speaker 2: so anyone hears that, that is my leather paint. See

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Speaker 2: you don't mind me. You made a choice, Lola, so

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Speaker 2: I didn't think about this sound. You are here today

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Speaker 2: because you're a beautiful book called forager Field News for

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Speaker 2: Surviving a Family Cults, which is about your upbringing. Can

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Speaker 2: you start us off by telling us what was the

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Speaker 2: Field and who was your grandpa?

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Speaker 5: The Field is the name of an organization that I

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Speaker 5: was raised in that my grandfather started.

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Speaker 3: He was a cult leader.

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Speaker 5: He started the organization in nineteen thirty one in Pasadena,

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Speaker 5: just east of la and long long before my mother

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Speaker 5: was born and before I was born. He ran this

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Speaker 5: as an all boys organization.

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Speaker 3: My mother was his first daughter.

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Speaker 5: He ended up having two daughters after his three sons,

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Speaker 5: and he spent his entire adult life until he died

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Speaker 5: running this organization as his only occupation.

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Speaker 2: This was like an organization for boys, like teaching them

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Speaker 2: stuff like after all, heed it?

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Speaker 3: What was it?

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Speaker 5: So he had started it as originally as a boy

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Speaker 5: Scout troupe, and so when I believe, and there's a

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Speaker 5: little bit of legend around all this, but he started

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Speaker 5: by taking them out into nature, onto the mountains, taking

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Speaker 5: them on the kinds of expeditions that boy Scouts would

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Speaker 5: have done. But he felt that boy Scouts didn't give

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Speaker 5: the boys enough time in this little collective group, and

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Speaker 5: he felt that boys need to be separated from their

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Speaker 5: families in order to really learn what it's like to

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Speaker 5: survive in the wilderness.

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Speaker 1: The boy Scouts get a little distracted by like tying

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Speaker 1: knots and stuff, and he was like, let's go more

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Speaker 1: into the group.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't want to speak of

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Speaker 5: boy Scouts at large, and I certainly don't know what

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Speaker 5: the Boy Scouts was like in the thirties, but I

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Speaker 5: think boy Scouts are for the most part, normal young

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Speaker 5: men who live in normal families, and they're just learning

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Speaker 5: some skills, bone arrow skills, you know, not tying things

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Speaker 5: like that. My grandfather probably learned quite a bit from

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Speaker 5: the Boy Scouts in.

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Speaker 3: Terms of how to run a group of young men.

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Speaker 5: And then he took those young men and some of

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Speaker 5: the original young men that he had in the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 5: stayed with him until his death, and one of them

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Speaker 5: took over after my grandfather's death in the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 5: And in fact, that man who is now passed, he

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Speaker 5: passed in his nineties. He was there and my birth

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Speaker 5: not my father, because he was my grandfather's right hand

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Speaker 5: man for about seventy years.

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Speaker 2: So was it primarily men in this organization?

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Speaker 5: Yes, it was primarily men, and it was exclusively men

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Speaker 5: for a long time.

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Speaker 3: The men were.

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Speaker 5: Required to be celibate, so it was just boys and men.

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Speaker 5: There were no families. It wasn't until my mother was

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Speaker 5: twenty four that her father, the cult leader, decided to

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Speaker 5: allow her to marry one of his boys, and that

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Speaker 5: was the first family that.

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Speaker 3: Was raised in the cult.

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Speaker 5: My older sister, who's just one year older than I am,

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Speaker 5: she was the very first child born there, and then

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Speaker 5: there were two other girls born between when she was

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Speaker 5: born and when I was born. Because once my mom

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Speaker 5: was allowed to get married, then they started letting other

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Speaker 5: people get married. Anyone who's ever gotten married there, and

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Speaker 5: the very first wedding ever was in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 5: which was my parents. Anyone who's ever been married there,

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Speaker 5: No one's ever gotten divorced ever, oh wow, braided or

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Speaker 5: in any way, and that has been how many years now,

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Speaker 5: you know, fifty five years since the first weddings, and

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Speaker 5: many of the couples they all met there. Nobody was

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Speaker 5: allowed to marry when anyone outside the colt, so the

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Speaker 5: men had remained celibate, and then some of them in

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Speaker 5: their forties were getting married for the first time and

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Speaker 5: ostensibly having sex for the first time.

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Speaker 2: So it's like a pipeline, like he's teaching these boys

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Speaker 2: and then they start to grow up and they're like,

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Speaker 2: I'm sticking with you. Grandpa.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Grandpa. They all called him that.

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Speaker 5: And when you think about it, the thing I didn't

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Speaker 5: maybe stress enough in the book because I was a

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Speaker 5: child and I was trying to do the perspective of

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Speaker 5: the years I was there. So the book doesn't even

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Speaker 5: start until the later seventies, but back in the first

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Speaker 5: three and a half decades, so for thirty five years,

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Speaker 5: not any of those boys ever got married. They just

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Speaker 5: all they became men by following my grandfather, and the

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Speaker 5: ones who were probably in their fifties when I was

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Speaker 5: born just continued to be single men all the way

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Speaker 5: until their death and deaths in the nineties.

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Speaker 3: They're nineties. I have two questions about this.

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Speaker 1: Number One, it feels like this is this very simple

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Speaker 1: boy scout survival whatever, but somewhere and twists to him

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Speaker 1: being like, and I'm going to live to be five

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Speaker 1: hundred years old and I am a prophet becomes a

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Speaker 1: little bit more magical.

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Speaker 3: When did that happen?

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Speaker 5: So in Forger, I don't discuss much of the history

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Speaker 5: because I didn't live it. Off the record, it's not

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Speaker 5: really off this record because I'm on now, but not

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Speaker 5: in not included in the book. I had did quite

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Speaker 5: a bit of research for what the organization was, and

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Speaker 5: I have speculation, and I will say this is my understanding,

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Speaker 5: is that my grandfather ran a fairly normal after school

223
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Speaker 5: style program, weekend taking the boys camping over the summer,

224
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Speaker 5: fairly normal, probably until the nineteen fifties. My father joined

225
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Speaker 5: in the nineteen fifties. So it is my mother's father

226
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Speaker 5: who ran the cult. My father was raised on the

227
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Speaker 5: East Coast, and when he was twelve years old, he

228
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Speaker 5: and his mother escaped her abusive husband, who was also

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Speaker 5: my father's father. That man died when he was forty two,

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Speaker 5: so he was. He had passed long before I ever

231
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Speaker 5: met him. My father never saw him again. When he

232
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Speaker 5: was twelve, he left the East coast. They got in

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Speaker 5: a bus they came. This is tangentially mentioned in Forger,

234
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Speaker 5: but not gone into in detail. So my grandmother, my

235
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Speaker 5: paternal grandmother, arrived in San Gabriel with her son, lived

236
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Speaker 5: in a chicken coop with her son, had no money,

237
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Speaker 5: had an eighth grade education, and that she sent her

238
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Speaker 5: son to public school. He met my grandfather within a

239
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Speaker 5: week of coming to California and became one of my

240
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Speaker 5: grandfather's boys. And I believe that many of the boys

241
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Speaker 5: who joined the organization were boys without fathers, and a

242
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Speaker 5: lot of these mothers were just really happy that some

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Speaker 5: man was taking interest and they would teach their sons

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Speaker 5: to become men.

245
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Speaker 3: Right right.

246
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Speaker 2: I'm so sad, I know.

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Speaker 1: And that was my second question, And this is something

248
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Speaker 1: if you don't want to answer, you don't have to.

249
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Speaker 1: But do you think that was like an appropriate interest?

250
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Speaker 1: Do you think that there was.

251
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Speaker 5: Like absolutely, I think there was a lot of inappropriate

252
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Speaker 5: your reference.

253
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Speaker 2: They would give him massages.

254
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Speaker 5: Right, And I don't think all the boys were doing

255
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:01,599
Speaker 5: that like as just as with the Catholic Church or

256
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:05,439
Speaker 5: anything else. You know, victims are chosen largely for their

257
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Speaker 5: accessibility and for their inability to talk. And there were

258
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Speaker 5: certainly boys who had healthy families, and then there were

259
00:12:13,760 --> 00:12:15,959
Speaker 5: those who did not, and those who had no one

260
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Speaker 5: to talk to, and it is a very common thing.

261
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Speaker 5: So I believe that my father met my grandfather in

262
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Speaker 5: nineteen forty nine, right about then. My father ended up

263
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Speaker 5: being very influential in the way the organization went. He

264
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,800
Speaker 5: was the very first person allowed to get married, so

265
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Speaker 5: he was He was a big, strong, athletic man who

266
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Speaker 5: my grandfather used as a leader. And by the time

267
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Speaker 5: my father, as my understanding, when he was sixteen years old,

268
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:43,280
Speaker 5: he was the bus driver. And he continued to drive

269
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Speaker 5: the bus on all these proselytizing trips until long after

270
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Speaker 5: I left. So he probably drove that bus around tell

271
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Speaker 5: about the year two thousand and so my guess is

272
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Speaker 5: he was driving from my grandfather for about forty five

273
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Speaker 5: to forty eight years.

274
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Speaker 4: Crazy.

275
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Speaker 2: Well, did you have something?

276
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Speaker 5: Well, I mean, there's so many other things I could say,

277
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Speaker 5: but my father's still alive and he will not read

278
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Speaker 5: the book. And I have a witness.

279
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Speaker 3: Of someone who came with me to talk to. I

280
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Speaker 3: talked to my father.

281
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Speaker 5: Before I came out because I didn't want him to

282
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Speaker 5: be sidelined too much. And he said, I will never

283
00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:17,679
Speaker 5: read that, but I will ask, and he mentioned the

284
00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:19,760
Speaker 5: name of the new leader. He said, I will ask

285
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Speaker 5: him and he'll tell me what to think.

286
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Speaker 3: Ooh, I wow. I have that on recording.

287
00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:27,839
Speaker 5: So my father still won't And I did discuss with him,

288
00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:29,480
Speaker 5: and he was very, very very angry because he had

289
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:31,080
Speaker 5: heard the word cult was on the front. And I

290
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:33,000
Speaker 5: tried to say, well, maybe we could talk about it

291
00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:35,559
Speaker 5: ahead of time, and he said, I divorced myself from

292
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Speaker 5: you all when you were children, and I do not

293
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Speaker 5: want to talk about this.

294
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Speaker 4: That's awful.

295
00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:45,439
Speaker 2: Well, let's bring it back to your experience. So many

296
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Speaker 2: wild stories.

297
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Speaker 3: Wild is the perfect word.

298
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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, wild in more ways than one. I mean,

299
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Speaker 2: tell us about life before you moved to the mountain, Like,

300
00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:54,960
Speaker 2: what was the setup, were you going to school?

301
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Speaker 3: What was your life like?

302
00:13:56,360 --> 00:14:00,400
Speaker 5: So when when I was born, we lived right next

303
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Speaker 5: to the field. We actually also lived we bordered a dump,

304
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Speaker 5: a city dump, and as far as I understand, the

305
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,679
Speaker 5: field itself was a cleaned out city dump.

306
00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:14,319
Speaker 2: So the field is the name of the cult Head borders.

307
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Speaker 5: It's basically the location that is centered on, So it's

308
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Speaker 5: on the border of Elmonte and Arcadia, east of Pasadena.

309
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 5: So my understanding again on this is that that specific

310
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,840
Speaker 5: location was created in the nineteen fifties and my father

311
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:30,840
Speaker 5: was one of the key boys. My father's a lot

312
00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:35,160
Speaker 5: of stories about this, who literally physically dug out this dump.

313
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Speaker 5: It's at a cul de sac, like there's a suburb

314
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Speaker 5: and then there's this cul de sac and they cleaned

315
00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:41,640
Speaker 5: it all out, and then they planted fields so the

316
00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 5: boys could play sports. And then they built clubrooms and

317
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Speaker 5: they built them themselves. My father's a teenager, used cinderblocks,

318
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Speaker 5: and they built these clubrooms so that they could have

319
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Speaker 5: their religious meetings and then play sports. In this there's

320
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Speaker 5: only one little entrance in and then there's this like

321
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Speaker 5: whole huge almost.

322
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Speaker 3: Well it's a basin.

323
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Speaker 5: It is a base in li a basin, and then

324
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Speaker 5: but it's just a basin of fields. And then you

325
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:07,040
Speaker 5: could drive in and you can drive out. There's regular

326
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Speaker 5: houses on the way in and we were all required.

327
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Speaker 5: They call it Quiet Street, so all the streets that

328
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Speaker 5: go in when the buses would come down and bring

329
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Speaker 5: the boys. Nobody's allowed to speak, so that they don't

330
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Speaker 5: disturb neighbors, but also so that no one knows what's

331
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Speaker 5: going on, And so the neighbors don't really know what's

332
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 5: going on in this basin that's at the edge of

333
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:27,040
Speaker 5: this cul de sac. And so when I was born,

334
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:32,960
Speaker 5: that was already well underway, and my mother was one

335
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Speaker 5: of the first female leaders there and she was coaching.

336
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Speaker 3: They started bringing teams together.

337
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Speaker 5: I believe the first year they had a team was

338
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Speaker 5: nineteen seventy three.

339
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Speaker 2: None of the neighbors really knew what was going on.

340
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Speaker 2: It was kind of the secretive area.

341
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Speaker 5: So one of the things the organization was really good

342
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Speaker 5: at that the field was good at, is they had buses,

343
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Speaker 5: and my father was in charge of all the buses.

344
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Speaker 5: He was a mechanic, he was the driver, he was

345
00:15:57,840 --> 00:15:59,960
Speaker 5: the planter, he was a physical he was a field

346
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Speaker 5: My father was.

347
00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,240
Speaker 3: The primary field hand. He ran the grounds.

348
00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:06,280
Speaker 5: And one of the big things is when young boys

349
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:08,640
Speaker 5: would come here, and most of the young men who

350
00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 5: stayed were in the organization by the age of seven,

351
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 5: many of them.

352
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:13,040
Speaker 3: By the age of five.

353
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Speaker 5: So they came to this organization that came to the

354
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:19,520
Speaker 5: field really young. There were a lot more boys there

355
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Speaker 5: than stayed, so there was kind of a funnel. It's

356
00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:24,200
Speaker 5: almost like a pyramid scheme in the sense that a

357
00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:26,360
Speaker 5: lot of a lot of people enter, but then only

358
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:30,480
Speaker 5: the ones who are who gravitate towards the really deep

359
00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:34,760
Speaker 5: religion and the nature of needing a family are really

360
00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:37,480
Speaker 5: the ones who stayed. So I'll give the example because

361
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:38,040
Speaker 5: he won't mind.

362
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:40,280
Speaker 3: The man I married. I married an older man when

363
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:44,040
Speaker 3: I was very young. He came there in the nineteen.

364
00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:47,400
Speaker 5: Sixties when he was seven, and he was a wonderful

365
00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:49,040
Speaker 5: example to me even as I was writing the book,

366
00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:51,560
Speaker 5: because I could ask him questions what motivated you, Like

367
00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:53,680
Speaker 5: what did you think about my grandpa? What did you

368
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:56,360
Speaker 5: because you know, we're obviously not related. I mean, you know,

369
00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:59,040
Speaker 5: we had very different experiences, but he knew me since

370
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:02,960
Speaker 5: I was a baby, and my parents were very central

371
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,080
Speaker 5: to their organization, and so a lot of the young

372
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:10,520
Speaker 5: men who were being groomed to be my grandfather's right

373
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:11,240
Speaker 5: hand men.

374
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:13,359
Speaker 3: They all took care of us. We were raised.

375
00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:16,000
Speaker 5: My mom wouldn't let women take care of us. For

376
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:18,280
Speaker 5: the most part. There's some exceptions. I did meet one

377
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:21,000
Speaker 5: who left I think when I was five, and a

378
00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:23,080
Speaker 5: lot of former members have come out of the woodwork

379
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:26,200
Speaker 5: and talk to me about the experience when they knew

380
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:28,399
Speaker 5: us when we were little kids, and a lot of

381
00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:32,680
Speaker 5: very very diverse stories in terms of their memories of

382
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:36,800
Speaker 5: my grandfather. But in any case, we were raised primarily

383
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:39,520
Speaker 5: by men because my mom thought that women were too

384
00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,080
Speaker 5: soft and she didn't want us to be coddled, so

385
00:17:42,119 --> 00:17:45,280
Speaker 5: we had mostly the young men babysitters. And the man

386
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:48,399
Speaker 5: I married did actually live in the house that we

387
00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:50,359
Speaker 5: were raised down on the mountain when we were gone

388
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 5: on these trips, and he stayed in my sister's room,

389
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:54,880
Speaker 5: and so he was kind of as many of them

390
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:56,320
Speaker 5: were raised as my older brothers.

391
00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:09,040
Speaker 2: How many buildings are on the property? Can you kind

392
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:10,520
Speaker 2: of paint the picture of what I love?

393
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:13,080
Speaker 3: These specific questions I want to see.

394
00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:14,520
Speaker 2: Is it a commune?

395
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:17,840
Speaker 5: Like I will speak to what it was rather than

396
00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:20,159
Speaker 5: what it is now At the field at the time,

397
00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 5: there were approximately four buildings depending on how you differentiate.

398
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:31,280
Speaker 5: So there was the center block clubrooms, which had multiple doors,

399
00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:34,600
Speaker 5: so there was like six rooms, but it was one building.

400
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,639
Speaker 5: And then there was my grandfather's office that was like

401
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:42,080
Speaker 5: above up. There was a boy's bathroom underneath, and then

402
00:18:42,119 --> 00:18:43,960
Speaker 5: there was these stairs that went up and you had

403
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:45,679
Speaker 5: to be one of his official leaders to go up

404
00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,560
Speaker 5: the stairs to his office. And then he had those

405
00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:52,080
Speaker 5: mirrors one way mirrors where it looked like a mirror

406
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:53,840
Speaker 5: going in, but he could see out and he could

407
00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:57,280
Speaker 5: see the whole property. Creepy, yeah, And so as a kid,

408
00:18:57,359 --> 00:18:59,160
Speaker 5: I used to climb those stairs to go up there.

409
00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 5: Because he was my I was allowed to go up

410
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:04,520
Speaker 5: and I could see the whole property. And then there

411
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:07,360
Speaker 5: was the main office where people would check in.

412
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:08,520
Speaker 3: So that's three buildings.

413
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,320
Speaker 5: And then there was Carolyn Hall, which was where they

414
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,639
Speaker 5: had the church service, which was also a cinder block building.

415
00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:16,359
Speaker 5: And then in the fifth building they built in the

416
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:18,560
Speaker 5: early eighties when I was there, and that was a

417
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,000
Speaker 5: pavilion where they started playing basketball.

418
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:23,680
Speaker 3: So if you had the pavilion, that's five.

419
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:26,359
Speaker 2: So it wasn't like a ton of people lived on

420
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:27,920
Speaker 2: the property necessarily.

421
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:31,400
Speaker 5: No, that the young leaders, once they started getting married

422
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 5: in the sixties, would live on the banks. So they

423
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,679
Speaker 5: started buying up the homes that bordered the property of

424
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:40,560
Speaker 5: the suburb. So then they would open up their gate

425
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,359
Speaker 5: and to the field, So then there started being less

426
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:45,640
Speaker 5: people who would have to know about it because they

427
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:49,359
Speaker 5: owned almost all the surrounding properties. Right now, we didn't

428
00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:51,680
Speaker 5: live there because I didn't come. My family didn't have

429
00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:53,919
Speaker 5: any money because my mother was born there and my

430
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,920
Speaker 5: father was very poor, and so we were in some

431
00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,520
Speaker 5: ways a little bit of an exception because we had

432
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 5: no other family. My father was an only child, his

433
00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 5: father died when he was a teenager. His mom was

434
00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:08,840
Speaker 5: working minimum wage jobs until her eighties, and so we

435
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,320
Speaker 5: didn't have any other source of income. But some of

436
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:15,720
Speaker 5: the families had, you know, like it's maybe another cult

437
00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:18,120
Speaker 5: that I've read about, like if you could send in

438
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:20,239
Speaker 5: like care packages, or you could send money so your

439
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:24,160
Speaker 5: grandkids would maybe have some food or some extra clothes,

440
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:26,320
Speaker 5: And so a lot of them had money coming in

441
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:28,639
Speaker 5: and they had to tie and give, you know, they

442
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:31,040
Speaker 5: were supposed to, you don't give their resources to the group.

443
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,920
Speaker 5: But I certainly knew children my age and a little

444
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,440
Speaker 5: bit younger who had other resources than we did.

445
00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:38,439
Speaker 2: One of the key things in your book, I mean,

446
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 2: your book is yes, it's your story, but also doubles

447
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:44,719
Speaker 2: as this kind of nature guide in that you know,

448
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 2: each chapter begins with like an herb or a plant,

449
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:49,960
Speaker 2: and you talk about how to eat it or cook

450
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,520
Speaker 2: it or handle it. Yeah, which I love. By the way,

451
00:20:53,840 --> 00:20:55,760
Speaker 2: Like I've talked about this recently, I'm like, I want

452
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 2: to become a survival person. I have zero survival skills

453
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:02,119
Speaker 2: right now, but I want to then them. Absolutely teach

454
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 2: me again the survival dreams. I give you two hours,

455
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 2: I swear to God, and I give myself thirty.

456
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:12,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

457
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:13,800
Speaker 2: I did grow up on a farm though, so I

458
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:18,439
Speaker 2: do have that three hours. So can you kind of

459
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,119
Speaker 2: talk about how your mom set you guys up to

460
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 2: have these survival skills from a very young age.

461
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,919
Speaker 5: So one of the things about the location, there's the field,

462
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 5: but there's also the mountain, and they're two different locations.

463
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,320
Speaker 5: My grandfather leased the mountain in the nineteen forties. So

464
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:38,160
Speaker 5: after World War Two, I think that there was well

465
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:40,720
Speaker 5: I know that the WPA built like the messhole that

466
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:45,160
Speaker 5: was there. There are similar buildings in Pasadena that were

467
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,680
Speaker 5: built during that time. But anyway, the government owns the land,

468
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:51,639
Speaker 5: but my grandfather leased it. For my understanding is one

469
00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 5: hundred dollars a year in the nineteen forties.

470
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:53,959
Speaker 2: Wow.

471
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:56,680
Speaker 5: But he would just bring boys up there during the summers.

472
00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 5: So in the nineteen seventies we didn't have anywhere to

473
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,920
Speaker 5: live because we lost where we were living. There was

474
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 5: a fire, some other things happened, but our nuclear family

475
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 5: didn't have anywhere to go.

476
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:09,200
Speaker 3: So our grandfather he tried not.

477
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:11,640
Speaker 5: To be very nepotistic in the sense of I think

478
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 5: he liked to keep people poor, but also he didn't

479
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 5: want He wanted us to be example of God providing,

480
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 5: and so we didn't. He did not give us resources,

481
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:22,199
Speaker 5: so we were very poor, and he said that we

482
00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 5: could live on this mountain. So my father got a

483
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,719
Speaker 5: station wagon. I'm not exactly sure how he ended up

484
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 5: getting a jeep also from the army surplus store.

485
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,200
Speaker 1: I mean that your grandpa and your father just talked

486
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:35,200
Speaker 1: people into giving them absolutely time.

487
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:36,600
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's so amazing.

488
00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think I'll do that.

489
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:39,360
Speaker 3: It's amazing.

490
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think it was partly the era. My

491
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 5: father was drafted into the army, so he had some

492
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 5: army experience, and I think he had just grown up

493
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 5: poorous whole life, so I'm sure he knew how to

494
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 5: ask for things.

495
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 3: And he.

496
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,120
Speaker 5: Drove us up to this mountain and so our nuclear

497
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:03,160
Speaker 5: family lived there, and it was about a little less

498
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,959
Speaker 5: than a two hour drive from the field to the mountain,

499
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,120
Speaker 5: so we were more isolated up there. And my grandfather

500
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,480
Speaker 5: would then send young men he called them boys, but

501
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 5: to be fair, they were in their twenties. He sent

502
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 5: those boys up to live with us, certain ones, especially

503
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,679
Speaker 5: if they were having some difficulty. And then he also

504
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,680
Speaker 5: had this dream then that my mother could help create

505
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,639
Speaker 5: a school and it would be a boarding school on

506
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 5: the mountain.

507
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 3: And so these boys and.

508
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 5: My father were going to build buildings and have this.

509
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 5: This never happened, by the way, but the idea was

510
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 5: that there was going to be a boarding school up there. Instead,

511
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 5: what happened is they did start a school, a private

512
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,200
Speaker 5: school and religious school that they didn't really tell people

513
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 5: was as religious as it is. And then all the

514
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 5: kids would have to come up by bus onto this

515
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 5: mountain and they would do something called science camp, and

516
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 5: my mother would teach basic survival skills.

517
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 3: And so she had.

518
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 5: Worked with some indigenous people up there and learned a

519
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 5: lot of skills, and officially, you know, and this is

520
00:23:57,920 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 5: if she didn't go to school for this, but she

521
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 5: learned the particular region and she became renowned in the

522
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 5: area for understanding.

523
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 3: All the plant wildlife that was up there.

524
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 5: And there was a ranger station not too far from us,

525
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 5: and my mother started volunteering there and she became the

526
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 5: president of the Interpretive Society or something, and she was

527
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 5: like working, and we didn't go with her to do this,

528
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:21,919
Speaker 5: but I went up to visit. I mean, when I

529
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 5: was researching the book, I went up to the ranger station,

530
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 5: was asking questions. My mom created a coloring book and

531
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,440
Speaker 5: like a nature guide that people like citizen science, where

532
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 5: people could check off birds that they saw or things

533
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 5: like that and turn it into the ranger station. So

534
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 5: she became somebody that the rangers often relied on for

535
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,199
Speaker 5: information because she lived up there and she would just

536
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:46,160
Speaker 5: spend all her time researching everything about the plants. And

537
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 5: she believed that when the apocalypse happened that she and

538
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 5: those who were in the Army of God presumably us,

539
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 5: would be able to survive when everything else failed.

540
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:58,439
Speaker 2: How old were you when you moved to the mountain.

541
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 3: I was almost eight, But prior to that.

542
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 2: You were not really dealing in the survival skills stuff.

543
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 2: That was only once you moved.

544
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 5: Correct, we really didn't start doing that until we moved

545
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 5: to the Mountain, and I did go to school for

546
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 5: three years. I went to public school from kindergarten first

547
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 5: and second we were all pulled out of school. None

548
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 5: of the kids went to school ever again after that,

549
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 5: not just our nuclear family. But you couldn't be a

550
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 5: leader's kid is what they called us lks and go

551
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 5: to school. But they did put together a one room schoolhouse.

552
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 5: So there was in the Carolyn Hall where they did

553
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,160
Speaker 5: the church, and so all the kids, maybe ages five

554
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 5: through twelve would be schooled, and then eventually they did.

555
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 5: My mom was the principal of a school and which

556
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 5: still exists to this day. My sister is now the principal.

557
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 5: And they started this and they eventually got accredited. I

558
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 5: believe they got their first accreditation in the late eighties.

559
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 3: So my mom really did put together all of this.

560
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 2: But she was teaching you a lot of very uncom science,

561
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 2: shall we say.

562
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 5: I would say that my mother's methods for survival were

563
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 5: very scientific, honestly.

564
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 2: Survival, you right, yes.

565
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 5: Because she I mean, none of us died and none

566
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 5: of us got sick. She was very good at knowing

567
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:10,479
Speaker 5: what U can can't eat, and teaching us.

568
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 3: The difference between.

569
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: She likes hippy, who would have just loved knowing this anywhere,

570
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: just like it's almost the apocalypse, I gotta do this.

571
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 5: My mom looked like a forest ranger. She did not

572
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 5: look like a hippie. She wore like khaki pants. I actually,

573
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 5: I have a really good friend. She's a professor with

574
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 5: me at Shafey College where I teach, and she used

575
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,199
Speaker 5: to be my student. But she had been raised in

576
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 5: Rightwood and in the nineteen eighties after I, well, right

577
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 5: around the time I left.

578
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 3: Probably she's ten years younger than I am.

579
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 5: She remembers going to a talk with my mom and

580
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 5: she was like putting this together. She's like, oh my goodness,

581
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 5: I like with her girl Scout Troupe as part of

582
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 5: the nature concerned, like the nature talk that she did

583
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 5: at Ranger Station. And she said she was so mesmerized

584
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 5: because my mom.

585
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 3: Had so much intelligence and intensity.

586
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 5: But also she was scared of her. My mom looked

587
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 5: very masculine. That's she didn't look at didn't She never

588
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 5: had long hair. She had a hair that was really short,

589
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 5: like a boy's that she got done sometime before she

590
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 5: got married. And she had that exact same haircut till

591
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 5: she died. So she always had very short, boyish hair.

592
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 3: She was very masculine in the way that she moved

593
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 3: in the world. So my grandfather was all the women

594
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 3: had short hair once they became so interesting because the

595
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 3: opposite of religship.

596
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: A lot of the things that you followed were like

597
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: no makeup, no whatever, and it was essentially biblical. I

598
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: love what you say about jaza alsomwhere on the book

599
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: the hair thing. I wasn't allowed to cut my hair,

600
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: and most women raised in these denominations aren't.

601
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 3: So the short hair is so interesting.

602
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 2: It isn't well, they're saying you're supposed to be submissive,

603
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 2: whether or not your mom is actually teaching you that. Yeah,

604
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 2: you would think it would be the long hair and

605
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 2: the femininity, and it really seems like it was the opposite.

606
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:47,719
Speaker 5: They wanted their people to look different than outside people,

607
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 5: and so one of the things that I have heard

608
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,479
Speaker 5: from multiple men is that they all were really short hair.

609
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 5: No facial hair was ever allowed. And during the seventies,

610
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 5: I think things obviously changed in the eighties. With the

611
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 5: sixties and seventies, there was a lot of long hair

612
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 5: and a lot of facial hair and women, which is

613
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 5: why they weren't allowed to do it. And so the

614
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 5: boys all looked military and then the women. I think

615
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:10,479
Speaker 5: they were taking away their feminine news so they wouldn't

616
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 5: be temptation to the boys or the men. And I

617
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 5: think that was very, very important, because there was always

618
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 5: more boys than there were girls, and there was never

619
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 5: enough girls to go around to marry these men.

620
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 3: And I think it was my.

621
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 5: Grandfather really tried to keep He didn't like women, in

622
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 5: my opinion at all. So there's many sex cults. A

623
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 5: lot of form my members have said to me, this

624
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 5: is like an anti sex cult in the sense of

625
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 5: they taught you all the time, had the horrors of sex,

626
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 5: and you boys were tall all the time. They weren't

627
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 5: allowed to masturbate things like that, and they weren't supposed

628
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 5: to ever have sex unless they were going to get

629
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 5: married and they just needed to have children, but it

630
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 5: was only for procreation, and so women were really taught

631
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 5: to that it was our fault if boys were tempted

632
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 5: by us, and so we would bind.

633
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: Our breasts a class our bodding. Yeah, that's not an uncommonation.

634
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: Binding your breast. So the minute you had breast, did

635
00:28:58,680 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 2: you have to start binding them?

636
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 3: Yes? And I don't know that everyone was taught this.

637
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 5: My mom are our physical like genetic compositions. Like all

638
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 5: my sisters and my mom, we all have large breasts,

639
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 5: and so I think that was particularly important for our

640
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 5: family to do that. I was so ashamed of my

641
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 5: body because and it's one of the reasons I starved

642
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 5: myself is because I didn't want breast because they were

643
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 5: really looked it down upon. And the more masculine you

644
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 5: could be, the better. And if you are built kind

645
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 5: of curvy, you really have to keep stick thin in

646
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 5: order to get rid of your curves.

647
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.

648
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 2: So when you were in this period, when did the

649
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 2: trips begin? How old were you or was that from

650
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 2: when you were a baby.

651
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 5: It's interesting I found out after the book came out

652
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 5: that the first trip I personally went on was when

653
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 5: I was about seven or eight months old, and that

654
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 5: my older sister and I, so she was talking about

655
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 5: at our mom's service, that the two of us who

656
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 5: were under two, both of us, that my mom just

657
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 5: took us on this proselytizing trip with all the men

658
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,239
Speaker 5: and we were just sort of raised by whomever, you know,

659
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 5: like happened to be there around because my mom wasn't

660
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 5: really attentive in those ways, but she didn't have anywhere

661
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 5: else to put her kids, so she just kind of

662
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 5: brought them along.

663
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 3: And so I was raised on these trips ever since

664
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 3: I was a baby.

665
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 5: Tell us what the trip, the trip, which is capital

666
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 5: T and they were never never plural, it was always

667
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 5: the trip. The trip started as us all boys, all men,

668
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 5: and I believe the first one was I mean, so

669
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 5: I was definitely on trips by the time, by the

670
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 5: late sixties, so I think the first trip was probably

671
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 5: about nineteen sixty five, before my parents got married, before

672
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 5: we were born. But in any case, my father had

673
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 5: my grandfather had taken boys to play ball and stuff,

674
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 5: so he was always traveling with boys. But at some

675
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 5: point he started taking these trips. And we had these

676
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 5: little booklets they called them, but they're kind of like

677
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 5: you know, pamphlets that you'd give out like tracks, like

678
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 5: religious tracks. But we put on plays and the plays

679
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 5: would teach people about God, and we would go to

680
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 5: campgrounds and we'd stayed at different campground every single night,

681
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 5: and the trip was ten weeks and it would be

682
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 5: all the kids were taking away from their parents, and

683
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 5: it was so all these boys would.

684
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,479
Speaker 3: Go and they would learn how to be godly.

685
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 5: And my grandfather would speak on a little microphone thing

686
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 5: in the bus and he would give devotions, and your

687
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 5: eyes had to be on him.

688
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 3: The whole time.

689
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 5: And so I was a little girl raised on these

690
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 5: all boys trips. In the nineteen seventies, at some I

691
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 5: think seventy four probably, they started having an all girls trip,

692
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 5: but they would bring some men to drive the vehicles

693
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 5: and to help put up the set for the plays,

694
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 5: And so we would go on the all girls trips

695
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 5: as well, but my dad was in charge of driving

696
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 5: the bus. So even though it was supposedly girls, it

697
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 5: was my grandfather and my dad and lots of other

698
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 5: men who had lived with us who would be driving vehicles,

699
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 5: putting up sets, and making sure the girls were, you know,

700
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 5: under control.

701
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 2: When you started talking about the trip in the book,

702
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 2: I imagined what a number of our guests have done,

703
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 2: like Moses Storm, which is like just driving around and

704
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 2: kind of like walking out and preaching. But then you

705
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 2: say there was a semi truck, there was a whole

706
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: caravan full of lighting equipment, and sound equipment like these

707
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 2: were elaborate productions. Can you tell us about those? And

708
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 2: also about being a poodle conductor.

709
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can't tell you why my grandfather decided to

710
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 5: do this. I think he really was a very dramatic

711
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 5: man and he loved the drama of this. But they

712
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 5: would use this circus that started on the field property,

713
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,959
Speaker 5: which I can talk about, as a fundraiser, and then

714
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 5: they would use the funds to go teach people about

715
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 5: God all the way across the country. And I don't

716
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 5: know why these sets became more and more elaborate, but

717
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 5: they were like we had lighting trusts, and he really

718
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 5: was basing this on Broadway and he wanted to have

719
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 5: us rival Broadway. There were musicals my mom wrote them.

720
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 5: We sang, we danced, we you.

721
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 3: Know, performed.

722
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 5: When I first got to college, I did start working

723
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 5: in theater. I knew how to welds, I knew how

724
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 5: I knew how all the lighting things were.

725
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 4: It was.

726
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 3: It was actually some of it was.

727
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 5: Really high quality, to be honest. My uncle did all

728
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 5: the sound equipment and we ate out of a concession stand,

729
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 5: so like a you know, cleared out van kind of

730
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 5: like a food truck.

731
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 3: And so we all.

732
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 5: There was generally I would say it varied, but between

733
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 5: fifty and seventy people, wow would all and we would

734
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:34,959
Speaker 5: just together every single and we would sleep in tents.

735
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 5: But we had generally eight vehicles, about eight vehicles including

736
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 5: one bus, and fifty to seventy five probably was the

737
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 5: highest amount of people.

738
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 3: And we just you know, ate.

739
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 5: Together, slept together, talked to each other, and we would

740
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 5: only proseetize to other people under supervision. So we weren't

741
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 5: like going out and talking to other people. And we

742
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 5: were learning a script, and.

743
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 3: The script was very fire and brimstone, yes, but we

744
00:33:58,800 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 3: hid a lot.

745
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 5: And I think this is common and cults, where there's

746
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 5: a very big difference between the way you present to

747
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 5: the outside worlds. I remember when I first heard the

748
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 5: term code switching. I'm like, oh, I've been doing that

749
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 5: since I was a baby. You know, there's one set

750
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 5: of rules of how you speak to the people inside,

751
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 5: and then there's the things you say to the outside people.

752
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 5: So we were taught to never talk to authorities, for example.

753
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 5: And since I was like sort of the beginning of

754
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 5: the very beginning of this sort of experimental We're going

755
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,439
Speaker 5: to raise babies in this like strange community. I think

756
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 5: the Children of God cult has a lot of this too.

757
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 5: Is that you learn what to say to authorities. And

758
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 5: we were told never give our real name, never to

759
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 5: talk about where we came from, not to tell them

760
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 5: the name.

761
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 3: Of the organization.

762
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 5: We were taught to say, okay, I'm leaving now, and

763
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 5: then to like, if we're in a building, like to

764
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 5: go down to the next floor to you know, and

765
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 5: like how to escape. And so I learned all that,

766
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 5: and I people still tease me now, but you know,

767
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 5: sometimes the commed and Irish exitor about a lot of

768
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 5: times the Kamya ninja, I just disappear all the time.

769
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 3: It's very difficult for me to understand that you're supposed

770
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 3: to say goodbye. I'm like, I know, it's a thing, right,

771
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 3: I'm allowed to do that.

772
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do it fully sober I can get out

773
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 5: of anywhere. But yeah, we were taught that. So I

774
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 5: feel like there's a lot of difference between being inside

775
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 5: of the parameters of a cult and then the way

776
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 5: that again that the parents maybe are present. So the

777
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 5: parents who sent their kids there often did have no

778
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 5: idea what was going on, because kids were never allowed

779
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 5: to call home ever. Really, yeah, nobody called home. And

780
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 5: they could write a letter, but they would read the

781
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 5: letters before they sent it out. So they would send

782
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 5: letters once a week, and those letters would be it's like,

783
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 5: you know.

784
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:37,760
Speaker 3: In prison. I've taught in prisons. It's very similar.

785
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 5: It's like it felt to me like being in prison. Later,

786
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 5: when I understood what prison was, I was like, oh, yeah, well.

787
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 2: That is complete isolation and complete control of all of your.

788
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 5: And complete control with what you eat anything. There's no

789
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 5: there was no media consumed. We weren't listening to radios

790
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 5: or obviously there was no phones, but it was prior

791
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 5: to computers and phones.

792
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 3: Anyway.

793
00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 5: I think once those things came about in the eighties,

794
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 5: these trips stopped, and my grandfather died in the eighties

795
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 5: and so things started shifting in terms of the way

796
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 5: they managed to control. Now my opinion, they still as

797
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 5: an organization are very controlling, but it has certainly loosened.

798
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 5: And I tried very hard because I'm not there to

799
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 5: not speak to what they are.

800
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 2: Now that's understandable. So a poodle conductor.

801
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, So the man who played Houdini, I mean

802
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 5: he was Houdini as far as I knew, like he

803
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,479
Speaker 5: was the reincarnation of Houdini, he was.

804
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 3: Actually literally did you literally think that?

805
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: I really thought that. Oh really, I really believe that.

806
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: But I was a child, right, But were you told that?

807
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: I mean, was that yeah part of the Oh I didn't.

808
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that.

809
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

810
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,320
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And he actually kind of looked like him. And anyway,

811
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 5: he came out of the woodworks after this book came

812
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 5: out and wrote me several letters and just you know,

813
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,479
Speaker 5: told me what his experience was, how they had gotten

814
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 5: rid of him, what had happened because he was I

815
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,399
Speaker 5: just I hadn't known what had happened to a lot

816
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 5: of these people who were excommunicated when I was young.

817
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 5: I think I was probably eleven or twelve well when

818
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 5: he was excommunicated. So I just hadn't heard fromhim again

819
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 5: until the book came out. Too.

820
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 2: He was a magician.

821
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 5: He was a magician, not musician, although he probably might

822
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 5: have been that too. He was a magician and he

823
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 5: was the most talented magician that we had, And so

824
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 5: he performed as Houdini, call himself Hudini too, and no

825
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 5: one used his real name too.

826
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 3: With the Roman numerals and.

827
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 5: He had a straight jacket, and he had this big trunk,

828
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 5: and he would have all these different tricks, and eventually

829
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 5: he had a helicopter and he'd hang down upside down

830
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 5: from the helicopter and.

831
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 3: Production.

832
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 2: This is expensive, yes, oh my gosh.

833
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 3: Yes, very expensive.

834
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 5: But this was all part of now that was that

835
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 5: was later actually probably in the eighties, but right before

836
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 5: he left probably it was insane. But anyway, he would

837
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 5: do underwater tricks. And so I was this little girl

838
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 5: that would be his either you sometimes I was called

839
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 5: the magician's assistant, and that's so I called myself an assistant.

840
00:37:58,239 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 5: And I would come up there, and of course, if

841
00:37:59,920 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 5: you take a little girl and you're gonna sar in half,

842
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 5: are you going to do it? It's, you know, kind

843
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,439
Speaker 5: of theatrical. I don't think I was very tricky because

844
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 5: it wasn't very much I had to do except for

845
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 5: be told. Like for the example something I wrote in

846
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 5: the book, there was this trunk, and I would get

847
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 5: into this little trunk, and they'd bring audience members to

848
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 5: check the trunk and make sure that it was indeed solid,

849
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 5: and then they would poke these steel rods and holes

850
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 5: all the way through the truck, so like you're spearing

851
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 5: this child who's inside, and it's a real trick, but

852
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 5: it's been done, you know, I think in lots of

853
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 5: magic shows. But really the trick is just the person

854
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 5: inside has to move around, like it's kind of a

855
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 5: you don't really need a solid space if you can

856
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 5: move all your limbs.

857
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 3: I did not realize, oh wow wow.

858
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:39,720
Speaker 5: And there was no trap door. There wasn't like anything.

859
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 5: I wasn't like hiding anywhere.

860
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 3: I was literally terrifying.

861
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 5: Oh it was, Yes, I still have nimaries about that.

862
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,319
Speaker 5: So being the poodle conductor was a much easier job.

863
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 5: But all I did my grandmother owned the poodle. The

864
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 5: poodle's name was Swap and he had I don't know

865
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 5: how he learned to do this, but he'd get up

866
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 5: on his hind pause and so then I pract this

867
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 5: all the time, and we had this little piano and

868
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 5: he would play the piano with his pause, and I

869
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 5: would stand up there, being very theatrical, like six seven

870
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 5: eight years old and older too. I think I did

871
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 5: it chill. I was probably twelve, and I would have

872
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,839
Speaker 5: this conducting thing and like I was doing an orchestra and.

873
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:17,919
Speaker 2: A real song.

874
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 3: I mean he tried to make it sound like that.

875
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 5: I was like, you know what we would do though,

876
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 5: is we put some background music in it.

877
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 3: So it I mean, he was playing his own real song.

878
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 3: I feel like it was real thing.

879
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 2: I grew up doing ventriloquism and cheering.

880
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 3: You did yeh, well we did that.

881
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 5: I didn't even say that in the book, but yeah,

882
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 5: I did ventlo you know in the pre show. Okay,

883
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 5: so why were you doing this?

884
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 2: This is unrelated to my cold experience. My mom, My

885
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 2: mom at the time was doing a lot of beauty

886
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 2: pageants and like motivational speaking, and she would learn these

887
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 2: skills to incorporate into those things. So she learned from

888
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 2: triloquism motivational speech because she wanted it to be like

889
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: creative and like different, and so she would learn these skills.

890
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 2: So she learned some magic and did My brother and

891
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 2: her did some magic and some very light escape art.

892
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 2: And then I started learning ventriloquism just along with her,

893
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 2: because she'd be playing the tapes in the car.

894
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 3: Can you please say something so we can see you

895
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 3: do this?

896
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 2: I only ever do the pledge of allegiance because that's

897
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 2: just what I'm used to doing. Me at this point

898
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 2: I can do more. But okay, I pledge allegiance to

899
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 2: the slag of the United States in America.

900
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 1: Should I be the person?

901
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 2: Okay, when I squeeze over your mouth and two very

902
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 2: plus it stands one nation.

903
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 3: Okay, this is beautiful because you cannot see this. It's

904
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 3: a work of art that's really good.

905
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: Thank you.

906
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really is.

907
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 2: So I feel very connected to you on this because

908
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 2: I have the cult connection with a lot of people.

909
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: I do not have like circus like skills in common.

910
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: In addition to that with a lot of people.

911
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: I mean, the circus is its own like secret cul

912
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: te experience, you know, magic. But you guys, yeah, I

913
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: have a lot to discuss. I'm sure that Layman can't

914
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: be heavy too.

915
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 2: I know. Well, I mean ours was just we went

916
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 2: to the ventral Quis convention and it was really dorky.

917
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 2: That's pretty much the excited but I just like, I

918
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 2: still am trying to wrap my head around it. So

919
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 2: like you're doing the circus and that was going to

920
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 2: like subversively convert people.

921
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: I would have converted if I saw a poodle playing

922
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: the piano.

923
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 5: Right, I guess more simplistically, I would say this.

924
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 3: It's difficult thing to explain.

925
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 5: But the circus itself was only one weekend a year.

926
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 3: It was the annual Family Circus.

927
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 5: And we did this huge thing. And then we took

928
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 5: the circus acts on the road and we call them

929
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 5: pre shows. And the pre shows were to get people

930
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 5: interested in us.

931
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:56,280
Speaker 3: Now they were acts from the circus.

932
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 5: So they were elaborate, I see, But that would lead

933
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 5: the people in the campground to watch us. And then

934
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 5: it was like a bait and switch. We would put

935
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 5: on religious plays after the pre show.

936
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: I'd be so mad and not hearing that when people

937
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: just leave, they all feeling.

938
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 3: And then we would ask for donations.

939
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:18,439
Speaker 5: And so then we'd go around with a hat and

940
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 5: we'd sing the song and like I'd have this mic

941
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 5: and walk around and like we talked to all the grandparents.

942
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 5: We sing the special song, you know, to grandparents for

943
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 5: like all that they've done and for everyone. So I

944
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 5: think it was and that the grandparents song was the

945
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 5: end of the pre show.

946
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 3: So it really warmed them up right.

947
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 5: And the thing is we were trying to convert them,

948
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 5: but honestly, I think we're mostly trying to get money. Yeah,

949
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 5: And so people like to give money to religious groups

950
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 5: if they think that they're doing the word of God

951
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 5: or that they're doing moral work in this country. And

952
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 5: so the idea was that this country is going to

953
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 5: hell in a hand basket.

954
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 3: But we are the light of the world and we

955
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 3: are the army of God.

956
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 5: And so it was an interesting I mean, I feel

957
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 5: like it's taken me so much years. And all the people,

958
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 5: the former members too, they're like, you can't even though

959
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 5: someone will be like I've I've been married for twenty years.

960
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 5: My husband still has no idea what I'm talking about, Like, like,

961
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 5: thank you for writing your book, because at least I

962
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 5: can hand them and say, look, I'm not making up.

963
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 5: One woman said, She's like I just kept telling my

964
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 5: husband forever and I'm like.

965
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 3: Look, it's in a book. I promise I wasn't making

966
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 3: it up. Wow. But it was really weird. I mean

967
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 3: it was very strange juxtapositions.

968
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like you were like, our profit is

969
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 2: going to live to be five hundred years old and

970
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 2: the end of the world. You know, it was just

971
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 2: general Christian teachings, right.

972
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 5: So the people on the inside were told the five

973
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 5: hundred they were told that on the trip in the

974
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 5: bus on a microphone. But the people who we were

975
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 5: preaching to on the outside, we didn't tell them all

976
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 5: that we told them.

977
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say it's general Christian stuff.

978
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 5: In me, some of it sort of was, but it

979
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 5: was more allegory, you know, like, what is that book?

980
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 5: Christian is the name of the every man. Well, there's

981
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 5: every man, but then there's Pigram's Progress.

982
00:43:57,840 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know.

983
00:43:58,719 --> 00:43:58,959
Speaker 1: Oh.

984
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 5: Oh, for listeners, some of you will remember phil Worker's Progress.

985
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 5: I think it was written in the eighteen hundreds, no

986
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 5: earlier than that even, But Pilgrim's Progress is this allegory

987
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 5: of Pilgrim, whose name is Christian, goes on this journey

988
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 5: and he has to overcome all these things and like

989
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 5: get out of a pit, and like cross the quicksand

990
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 5: and climb a mountain and all that.

991
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 3: So we were doing more allegories for our.

992
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 5: Audience to teach them that they could overcome the devil.

993
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 5: But we didn't like give We didn't quote Bible verses.

994
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 5: And my grandfather, for the most part, try to separate us,

995
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 5: like he really hated Jimmy Carter because Jimmy Carter was

996
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 5: a watered down Christian, you know that kind of thing.

997
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 5: So we needed to separate ourselves from the way the

998
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 5: world saw Christians.

999
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 3: Transferred that too.

1000
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: They would rather be hang out with like atheist family

1001
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: than a Christian family because the Christian family wasn't the

1002
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: right kind of Christian and that's worse, right, just being

1003
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:49,240
Speaker 1: an atheist.

1004
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 3: I'm glad to understand that.

1005
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:52,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like that happens in Mormon. I feel

1006
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 2: like that happens with a lot of religions. Yeah yeah,

1007
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 2: because you're betraying the correct way versus not knowing the

1008
00:44:58,640 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 2: correct Yeah.

1009
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 3: Right, and those who no but don't adhere.

1010
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: Okay, Michelle, I have to have you tell this story

1011
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 2: because I laughed out loud. Can you explain jumping out

1012
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 2: of a bush bank?

1013
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:15,320
Speaker 5: So I spent a great deal of time. So we

1014
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 5: really did need money because we didn't have regular jobs.

1015
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 5: And I was one of those kids who was sent out.

1016
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 5: And there's still lots of kids out there selling candy.

1017
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 5: I don't know what they do with all their money.

1018
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 5: But in the years that I was selling candy, I

1019
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 5: would be alone at a bank, and you know, there's.

1020
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 3: At least there used to be a lot of hedges.

1021
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 5: I think there still are at banks, if anyone even

1022
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:34,760
Speaker 5: goes to banks anymore. But there's these hedges around the banks,

1023
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 5: and I would watch the people come in, and I

1024
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 5: got very good at like the seeing who would have

1025
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 5: money or would be most susceptible to this, And.

1026
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: So I'd be coming a little cult leader, a little.

1027
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely absolutely so we I'd have a box of

1028
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 5: candy and I would hide it in the bushes and

1029
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,760
Speaker 5: then I would just take like one box of peanut

1030
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 5: brittle for example, or we'd have toffee peanuts as well,

1031
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 5: or saltwater taff even like there was four different types

1032
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 5: of candy. And then I would jump out and scare somebody,

1033
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 5: and I'd be like, hey, out there, here's your chance

1034
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 5: for joy singing dance nobody for in this story. Man,

1035
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 5: it's match the softfer and no one can. It's the

1036
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 5: greatest offtfertunity. You miss it down, Acroyd to me, so

1037
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 5: step right up the first in line. Just place your

1038
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 5: name on the dotted line and like, yes.

1039
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: I would be so confused, I give you money just

1040
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:23,479
Speaker 2: on a sheep exactly, And.

1041
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 3: They did very often. Did you make up this? I

1042
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 3: don't know. If I don't know who made it?

1043
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 4: Up.

1044
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 5: I don't know if everybody even did it, and then

1045
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 5: I would keep going and follow them just signed, just

1046
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 5: signed out. Waste my time.

1047
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 2: It's like a nightmare.

1048
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely.

1049
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: I mean, but the resilience you're getting through all this

1050
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: is like unbelievable.

1051
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, rejection just doesn't matter, right.

1052
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 5: I felt like I was always rejected, so I mean

1053
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 5: not necessarily from the money, but like in life, and

1054
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:54,919
Speaker 5: so it just felt.

1055
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 3: I don't know that. I think I was.

1056
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,399
Speaker 5: A shy child in most ways, but I think that

1057
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 5: that yeah, code switching between like having like I wasn't

1058
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 5: allowed to talk to people, and then I was given

1059
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 5: the script basically and said get this money and they

1060
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 5: would come back after ten hours. Generally i'd get there

1061
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 5: before the bank opened, and i'd be there when the

1062
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 5: bank closed, and so I would.

1063
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: Just be alone there yourself.

1064
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 4: Wow.

1065
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1066
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 5: And starting at about age seven, and so I would

1067
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 5: have this this envelope of money. I never spent the money.

1068
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 5: I just turned it all over and you would just

1069
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 5: be there. You weren't allowed to use the bathroom anywhere.

1070
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 5: Of course, I would like try to figure out, you know,

1071
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 5: the best way to deal with that.

1072
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 3: But I think they're talking to people.

1073
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 5: Was it was an act, and it was you know,

1074
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 5: it's like learning to perform.

1075
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 3: It is performing.

1076
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:38,839
Speaker 2: And that's where we'll leave that for this week. Stay

1077
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 2: tuned next week for part two. It remains fascinating and

1078
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 2: also harrowing. Megan a question for you. Have you were

1079
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 2: you ever in the Girl Scouts.

1080
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great question. Actually, we weren't really allowed

1081
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,280
Speaker 1: to be. It was considered kind of a Christian group

1082
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: that we weren't allowed to join. So no, I was Brownie.

1083
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: I was never a Girl Scout, and I really wanted

1084
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 2: to be. Oh really wanted to be. What what what

1085
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 2: was appealing about it to you?

1086
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: That every single other girl in my class was in

1087
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 1: it and all had the like patches and the uniforms,

1088
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: and I felt like it was a it. Well, it

1089
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: was a literal club that I wasn't allowed to join.

1090
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I really I really wanted to.

1091
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: I really wanted to be a Brownie and a Girl Scout.

1092
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: And I definitely did not want to take that to

1093
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: the farthest denominator and go live on a mountain or

1094
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: anything doing it, but to wear the little outfit, Yeah,

1095
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: I wanted it.

1096
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 2: I really feel like I girl Scouts. Stuff like just

1097
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 2: never even occurred to me as a kid. Maybe it's

1098
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 2: because we moved a lot, so I wasn't in one

1099
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: place long enough to really encounter many girl scouts. All

1100
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:47,720
Speaker 2: I knew was the cookies, and I wanted the cookies,

1101
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 2: but that that was kind of the extent of it

1102
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 2: at the time. Yeah, yeah, Now I want to be

1103
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 2: a girl scout. Yeah, I would love to be a

1104
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 2: girl Scout now, I guess I kind of am. I

1105
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 2: have like a girl group that I like to get

1106
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 2: together with and eat cookies. Do you learn about wildlife? No?

1107
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: Okay, let me just answer you before you finish anything.

1108
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: We're about learning. No, we do not, But next week's

1109
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 1: episode with Michelle we do learn a lot more and

1110
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: I can't wait for y'all to hear it. And as always,

1111
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flags.

1112
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 2: And never ever trust me.

1113
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 3: Bye.

1114
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 2: Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and

1115
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 2: Steve Delamater.

1116
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 3: With special thanks to Stacy Para.

1117
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,399
Speaker 2: And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1118
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,

1119
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me cult pod, or on TikTok at

1120
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.

1121
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1122
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham

1123
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:53,760
Speaker 1: Hicks on Twitter.

1124
00:49:53,920 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word.