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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Elizabeth Dutton.

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Speaker 2: Zaren, I got a question for you, girl, Yes, sir, okay,

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Speaker 2: So do you know what's ridiculous? I do? All right?

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Speaker 2: Chair it with the brother the Sharman Bears. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: the one is so toilet paper?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Why is that crass? Because they're white bears and you think.

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Speaker 3: About, well, it's like the whole thing is like does

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Speaker 3: a bear in the woods. Oh yeah, that's the subtext.

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Speaker 2: Oh I thought it was because they're so clean, like

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Speaker 2: they're all the thing is and.

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Speaker 3: They're holding up toilet paper being like, look, how clean

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Speaker 3: I am. I don't want to want I don't want

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Speaker 3: that on my television.

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Speaker 2: I don't ever think about the actual use of the

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Speaker 2: toilet paper.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't think about poop all over their hands.

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Speaker 2: I do not think about poop or on the bears.

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Speaker 3: Well, Zaren, are you ready for the ultrasoft.

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Speaker 2: Sharman Comfort You pack?

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Speaker 3: Oh man, This bear hood is the perfect balance for

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Speaker 3: lounging at home and a conversation starter when you're out

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Speaker 3: and about.

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Speaker 2: Uh oh, I got you so cleen, Oh my god, conversation.

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Speaker 3: So Sharman at their online shop, which I did.

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Speaker 2: Not know exist. You don't shop all the time. So

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Speaker 2: I got my socks.

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Speaker 3: It's where all your turlet paper comes from. Well, we

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Speaker 3: got this from Sarah on Instagram. She sent this to

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Speaker 3: us and gave me gave me the old heads up.

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Speaker 3: It's a bear hoodie. And you like hoodies. It's a

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Speaker 3: it's a white hoodie and on the hood or little

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Speaker 3: tiny bear ears, which is just the cutest little thing. Sure,

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Speaker 3: But then on the front there's a bear, a cartoon

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Speaker 3: bear like as seen in the ads, wiping itself. But

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Speaker 3: it's not wiping it on your face. It's like arm back,

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Speaker 3: like really long nails, and you're like, how are you

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Speaker 3: doing that? Anyway? No, it's the bear is standing there

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Speaker 3: with his arms crossed and totally rude dude in it

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Speaker 3: with some sunglasses on. And then next over it in

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Speaker 3: the words are own the Throne and it's twenty nine

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Speaker 3: ninety nine. There's a limited quantity. It's called the Bear

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Speaker 3: Hoodie at Charman dot com.

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Speaker 2: I feel bad for the throne. It got owned. Yeah

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Speaker 2: way a bear, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, that's ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: I know I'm certifying that one.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, Well, if you got a second, you know,

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Speaker 2: if you're just like, can you kill your jets? Because

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Speaker 2: I got one for you.

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Speaker 3: Hold on, yeah, okay, I'm good.

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Speaker 2: All right. Well, just to start off with this one.

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Speaker 2: You take a deeply religious boy, right and boy, you

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Speaker 2: have him grow up to become a deeply religious con man.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, So this deeply religious con man, he's

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Speaker 2: so good at faking things. He basically becomes an impostor.

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Speaker 2: And at one point he finds himself in a predicament

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Speaker 2: where he's the only air quotes surgeon aboard a destroyer

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Speaker 2: in wartime, and then the captain calls on him to

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Speaker 2: operate on nineteen wounded soldiers aboard ship. He's the only

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Speaker 2: one who can save their lives. And I won't tell

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Speaker 2: you was successful or not, Elizabeth, Yeah right, but I

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Speaker 2: will tell you this much, my man Fred, he pulled

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Speaker 2: off so many outlandish crimes that only an impostor can do.

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Speaker 3: That.

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Speaker 2: This impostor became so good that the folks in Hollywood

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Speaker 2: they got the actor Tony Curtis to play him in

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Speaker 2: the movie No Way and Better. Yet, America wasn't mad

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Speaker 2: at him for all of his impostoring ways of anything

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Speaker 2: that people loved him for being the great impostor. This

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Speaker 2: is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers

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Speaker 2: heiss and cons. It's always not a nine percent murder

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Speaker 2: free and on one hundred percent ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: Like fuck Orton Leghorner.

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Speaker 2: I know I was just having fun, Yeah, Elizabeth, did

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Speaker 2: you play make believe when you're a little girl?

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Speaker 3: No, No, of course I did.

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Speaker 2: Would you like to pretend, like what's your thing?

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Speaker 3: I like to pretend that somebody loved me.

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Speaker 2: Other than that, Did you ever have like you play

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Speaker 2: jobs like a job? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I totally loved like playing jobs Like I like to

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Speaker 3: pretend that I worked in an office, okay, And I

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Speaker 3: would like write out paper like forms, paper work, and

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Speaker 3: then like play with the calculator.

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Speaker 2: You had an imaginary organizer.

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Speaker 3: Little did I know? I was like cursing myself to

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Speaker 3: medium labor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, well me, I always imagined a crazy

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Speaker 2: adventure fantasy, as you already well know. I would also, though,

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Speaker 2: I would play make believe my little sister and she

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Speaker 2: liked to play house. She wasn't as business minded.

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Speaker 3: She played office. Yeah, or I played like dog wrangler.

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Speaker 3: I like to pretend that I had a bunch of dogs.

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Speaker 3: I mean I did have a bunch.

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Speaker 2: Of you pretty much just pretended your future pretty much. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you nailed it. Yeah see, yes I did not. I

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Speaker 2: did things like play house with my sister. Okay, I

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Speaker 2: you know, I have no children, I own no home.

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Speaker 2: I didn't really do the stuff, right, So but anyway,

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Speaker 2: my point was that for me to be able to

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Speaker 2: play house with my sister was because if I wanted

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Speaker 2: to play demolition, Derby or whatever with me, I had

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Speaker 2: to play house. And every time I would play house,

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Speaker 2: my whole goal is always to be named John. He's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: call me John, and it was like, those are my thing.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why. My fantasy was to have.

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Speaker 3: A boring name, fantasy John.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I just really wanted to be this guy named

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Speaker 2: John who just did normal things and John.

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Speaker 3: He's like, You're like, look, you're eight years old. My

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Speaker 3: name's John. I got acid reflood.

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Speaker 2: Exactly my fee. The cotton doctors are creeping up. So

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Speaker 2: that was my whole fantasy, right. So the guy I

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Speaker 2: want to tell you about today, he was like the

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Speaker 2: opposite of my fantasy. Okay, So he always wanted a

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Speaker 2: new name which is much like me. But he also

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Speaker 2: wanted a new name so that he could help people,

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Speaker 2: not just become invisible like me, you know. Yeah. So

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Speaker 2: in my research on this story, I came across this

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Speaker 2: really nice passage from the Hammond, Indiana Times newspaper, and

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Speaker 2: it was all about the childish games of make believe

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Speaker 2: we play Do you got a second? Okay? Quote? Simply

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Speaker 2: by donning a cape and mask, little chaps are Superman,

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Speaker 2: a crown of silver paper and some tired pearls transform

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Speaker 2: a baby doll into a princess nurse and doctor kits

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Speaker 2: do medical teams make of youngsters yet unsure of their

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Speaker 2: life's work? Then that old devil reality begins its gnawing business,

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Speaker 2: and suddenly we are dull, circumstantial citizens, dreams gone, illusions, delusions,

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Speaker 2: and all that cloud like vision of greatness melted away

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Speaker 2: in the stern actuality of life. We are actors no more.

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Speaker 2: One role has settled upon us, smothering all glimpses of

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Speaker 2: those enchanting people we might have been.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Nice Right, Yeah, Well, Elizabeth, I want to tell you

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Speaker 2: about my man Ferdinand de Mayer. Yeah, he preferred if

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Speaker 2: he called him Fred, but actually know he preferred if

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Speaker 2: he called him anything but Fred. So really, I'll be honest.

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Speaker 2: As the ham and Times put it, Fred de Mara

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Speaker 2: quote was the most successful impostor of our time. He

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Speaker 2: was not content with such dreaming. His roles were not

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Speaker 2: the usual guys as of phony Italian counts or Russian

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Speaker 2: princesses assumed for the all too usual purpose of fleecing

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Speaker 2: rich ladies. Not old Fred, not my man Fred. He

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Speaker 2: was called the great impostor because he never really hurt anyone.

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Speaker 2: In fact, if anything, he was a con artist, just

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Speaker 2: so that he could help people lessen their suffering, right Fred, Hey,

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Speaker 2: I'm with that one. Hah. So my man Fred Demara.

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Speaker 2: What made him so damn special, as I keep basically

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Speaker 2: pointing out, is he conned others to profit others. I

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Speaker 2: love that, right, I thought you'd like this guy. Okay.

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Speaker 2: So he's born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and my family, some

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Speaker 2: of my family currently lives there, so I've recently been

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Speaker 2: back there. I was totally able to picture it, and

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Speaker 2: I was like, I'm imagining those big red brick mill

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Speaker 2: town buildings. So I was loving this story right now?

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Speaker 2: Did you? And you know this? In nineteen twelve, there

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Speaker 2: was the Great Lawrence Textile Strike, otherwise known as the

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Speaker 2: Bread and Roses Strike.

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Speaker 3: Oh right, okay, you know that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So now that phrase bred and roses, it comes

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Speaker 2: from a poem, and I figure you know this. It

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Speaker 2: was published one year prior, in nineteen eleven, written by

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Speaker 2: James Oppenheim, and the verse of the poem said, hearts

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Speaker 2: starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give

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Speaker 2: us roses, right, And I always love that the bread

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Speaker 2: and roses phrase. It became the rallying cry of these

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Speaker 2: textile workers out on strike, give us bread, but give

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Speaker 2: us roses too. Now, while the Brett and Roses strike

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Speaker 2: was led by Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Speaker 2: and all these the International Labor Union, the Wobbles, the IWW,

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Speaker 2: the local leaders were primarily Italian immigrants who'd recently immigrated

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Speaker 2: to the States. Fred Demara's people, right, so he's of

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Speaker 2: this crowd. And that strike was so successful that it

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Speaker 2: led to congressional hearing and the fat cast bosses had

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Speaker 2: to give up raises and give more hours. And if

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Speaker 2: you want to know more, the folk singer you Utah Phillips,

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Speaker 2: he's got a great song all about this. So my

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Speaker 2: point is, nine years after the Bread and Roses strike,

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Speaker 2: Fred Demara is born in Lawrence, born into this hotbed

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Speaker 2: of labor and immigrant pride, and he wants to be

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Speaker 2: a good American, right so his father's rejectionists. At the

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Speaker 2: local cinema. Things are good for Fred Senior and the family.

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Speaker 2: Lawrence has really come along, you know, and his job

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Speaker 2: pays well, and Fred Junior can go to the movies

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Speaker 2: and he sees all these stories of life outside of

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Speaker 2: Lawrence flickering on that screen before him, and he wants

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Speaker 2: some of that big, wide life. So, just like the

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Speaker 2: Mermaid Ariel, Fred Demara longed to be a part of

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Speaker 2: their world. That's for you, Elizabeth. Now all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: all this is going along great and boom, the Great

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Speaker 2: Depression happens, right, you know, that's not a good one.

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Speaker 2: His father loses his job, the Damaras lose their middle

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Speaker 2: class status. They got to go and downsize and move

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Speaker 2: into a cold wa or flat. This is really hard

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Speaker 2: for young Fred Damara, so he decided, you know what,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna go be a part of the world. I

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Speaker 2: can't like my dad. There's is nothing here for me anymore.

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Speaker 2: At age sixteen, he runs off to go become a man.

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Speaker 2: The year is nineteen thirty seven. What's his first stop?

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Speaker 2: Sixteen year old boy out in the world.

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Speaker 3: Wait, okay, thirty seven, nineteen.

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Speaker 2: Thirty seven, where do you go, your sixteen year old boy?

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Speaker 3: You join the navy.

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Speaker 2: It's a good guess. He joined a monastery.

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Speaker 3: Oh, okay, an order.

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Speaker 2: Of Cistercian monks. Now the monastery that he went to

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Speaker 2: was located in producer Dave's home state of Rhode Island.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, it actually makes sense if you're if

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Speaker 3: it's you know, you're in the depression.

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Speaker 2: You need to get fed, yeah, totally. You need a

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Speaker 2: place to stay, you need.

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Speaker 3: A bed, Yeah, well I think food. You and I

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Speaker 3: had a conversation a while back about what would you

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Speaker 3: do if you were completely destitute and homeless, and how

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Speaker 3: would you survive on the streets. So I was like,

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Speaker 3: I would walk to a convent and be like, sign me.

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Speaker 2: Up, where's the pen, where's the pen?

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Speaker 3: Give me the habit I'm in, because then you know

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Speaker 3: you're at least got food, shelter, and people who care

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Speaker 3: about you.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally. And they use some vows to make

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Speaker 2: sure they keep doing it. Yeah, you know you're good now, Fred,

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Speaker 2: he finds a new home with the brothers. He takes

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Speaker 2: your advice of like, just where's the pen? Sign me up? Right, Elizabeth?

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Speaker 2: How much do you remember about all the Catholic orders

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Speaker 2: of monks from what we were taught in Catholic school? Oh? Man,

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Speaker 2: do you remember the different orders of monks and like

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Speaker 2: how they have their own colors like street gangs.

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Speaker 3: I can barely remember my street address. I don't remember.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's play a little game here. I'll name an

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Speaker 2: order of monks. See if you can remember the color

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Speaker 2: that's their color?

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, well, you know, don't forget I went

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Speaker 3: to a Catholic high school with nuns.

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Speaker 2: Yeah so, I mean, okay, what so the nuns they,

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Speaker 2: I know, they don't have the color orders gang colors. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: they're not like like a boy's gang where they're like, hey,

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Speaker 2: here's our colors, here's our secret sign language. Right. Well, okay,

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Speaker 2: let's just go get.

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Speaker 3: The like different colored bandanas hanging.

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Speaker 2: For real, practically different colored rosaries. But yeah, so the Franciscans,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, gray and black, think of Padre Pio. Okay,

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Speaker 2: the Dominicans blue, all white. They're the one with the

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Speaker 2: rosary hanging on their head. Okay, all right. The Jesuits

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Speaker 2: trick question. They have no special uniform. Okay, enough of

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Speaker 2: the guessing. But the other orders, just so we can

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Speaker 2: get through it. The Carmelites they are brown, the Confusians

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Speaker 2: are white, the Augustinians are black, and lastly the Benedictines black.

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Speaker 2: Right now, the Benedictines, they're the wild bunch. They're the

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Speaker 2: ones we're gonna get into because their motto is prey

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Speaker 2: and work, and they were serious about that work part. Now,

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Speaker 2: this is the order that my man Fred decides to

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Speaker 2: join at age sixteen. Now technically he joined in even

255
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Speaker 2: more hardcore order of monks than it branched off from

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Speaker 2: the bed Edictines. They're called the Cistercians, and they're known

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Speaker 2: for their pure white robes and for their cloistered silence.

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Speaker 2: The Cistercians would later become known by a different name

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Speaker 2: because in the seventeenth century at the French monastery trap Abbey,

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Speaker 2: there was this reform movement and they start calling themselves

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Speaker 2: the Trappists and the Trappist brothers. They make the great beer,

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Speaker 2: right right, you know them, right, they were like the

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Speaker 2: most severe street gang of all the Catholic brothers, right,

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Speaker 2: the trap Monks. Right, So the Trap Monks, they're like

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Speaker 2: straight edge monks because they're like practically vegetarian. They're known

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Speaker 2: is the toughest order in the church. They even have

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Speaker 2: their own street like, their own gang signs. Basically, they

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Speaker 2: have their own sign language because they're cloister because they

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Speaker 2: don't take vows of silence per se, but they only

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Speaker 2: speak when spoken to, and they have huge long periods

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Speaker 2: of silence built into their day. So most most of

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Speaker 2: the brothers they speak their own form of sign linbuerge

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Speaker 2: to get through the silent parts of the day. So

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Speaker 2: they go around like you just see, I'm throwing gang

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Speaker 2: signs around the abbey at each other. Not really, but

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Speaker 2: you know, right, So they have a lot of opinions

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Speaker 2: about language, these guys, Like do you know that for them,

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Speaker 2: they considered a lot of jokes evil. Oh really, yeah,

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Speaker 2: because you end up laughing at someone. They think that

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Speaker 2: laughing at the expense of others is evil.

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Speaker 3: Interesting.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, wayward sixteen year old Fred Demara is like

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Speaker 2: this is for me, So I spend the rest of

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Speaker 2: high life on earth.

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Speaker 3: Here he was Ferdinand. Why didn't he go by Ford?

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Speaker 2: That's a good call. I don't know, Ford, We should

287
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Speaker 2: go back to him, be like, look, man, you should

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Speaker 2: have been Ferdy the birdie.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Soga.

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Speaker 2: He's living with the brothers. And I remember I told

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Speaker 2: you they're the crazy, hardcore structured ones that they have

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Speaker 2: a schedule. They wake up every morning at three thirty am. Oh,

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Speaker 2: they had ten prayers, private prayers from four am for

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Speaker 2: an hour and a half, and then have breakfast at

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Speaker 2: five thirty, then Mass at seven thirty every single day

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Speaker 2: of their lives. Then they after their daily doses of

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Speaker 2: the adventures of Jesus and his twelve underemployed buddies, they

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Speaker 2: start the Great Silence, right, and then they work in

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Speaker 2: silence until lunch, and then then then after that they

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Speaker 2: take a little siesta, then another lunch period, another work

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Speaker 2: period after lunch for three hours, then some more prayers

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Speaker 2: and then you know whatever. They finally around eight o'clock,

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Speaker 2: after they do you know, three hours of bruin beer

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Speaker 2: and banging coffin nail because apparently they're really good at

305
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Speaker 2: making confidence. They it's off to dinner. Time, more prayers

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Speaker 2: bed by eight o'clock.

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Speaker 3: I love it.

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Speaker 2: I figured you would. This is a schedule.

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Speaker 3: I love you. I wouldn't get up at three thirty.

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Speaker 3: I beg you guys. I pray in my sleep so

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Speaker 3: I'll see you at se.

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Speaker 2: I have a very holy sleep. Well Fred to Mary,

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Speaker 2: He's like, he's like, this life is the life for me.

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Speaker 2: But it turns out he was wrong because after two years,

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Speaker 2: the brothers were like the man, you are not kind

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Speaker 2: of he got kicked out. The head monks like, you

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Speaker 2: are not a Trappist, my brother. So he's like shipped

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Speaker 2: off to a different monastery in Montreal, and then it's

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Speaker 2: back to the States in Massachusetts where he works as

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Speaker 2: a monk. He's teaching English and to fourth graders. He

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Speaker 2: loves it. Kids love him.

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Speaker 3: Wait, how old is he at this point? Eighteen?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, he's basically a kid, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But he once again he gets in a spat with

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Speaker 2: a superior monk. So he steals the station wagon and

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Speaker 2: he takes off, leaves his life as a monk.

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Speaker 3: Behind is a stolen monk station.

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Speaker 2: He exactly rolls out the stolen monk wagon.

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Speaker 3: He like takes the rosary off the rear view.

331
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Speaker 2: So after this, what does he do? What does Fred do?

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Speaker 3: Elizabeth grows in the bald's body shaved offs good call.

333
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Speaker 2: He joins the army. He shaved it all because it's

334
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Speaker 2: nineteen forty one and it's what everyone's doing thing today.

335
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:08,000
Speaker 2: So my man, the religious con man, he's now about

336
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Speaker 2: to enter the next phase of his life. And after

337
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Speaker 2: this little break, I'll tell you about Fred deamer hit

338
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Speaker 2: in the military and the military.

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Speaker 4: Going ooh oh, okay, Elizabeth, So I talked about my

340
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Speaker 4: man Fred Demara aka.

341
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Speaker 3: Third He after.

342
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Speaker 2: He's taking his monk wagon. Then he stole and rode

343
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Speaker 2: off and said hey, and you know, basically tossed the

344
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Speaker 2: keys and somebody said, this is your car. Now, where's

345
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:50,440
Speaker 2: the army recruitment office? And he goes and he joins

346
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Speaker 2: the army. He's only in the army for a little while.

347
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Speaker 2: He doesn't really like the army life. He's like, I

348
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Speaker 2: want to get back with the monks.

349
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Speaker 3: Man, what does he do to make these people so irritated?

350
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Speaker 2: No, he's irritated with them.

351
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Speaker 3: Well, I know, but the monks kicked him out.

352
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Speaker 2: He has a problem with authority jabber. No, No, he

353
00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:08,440
Speaker 2: has a problem with authority. Mostly it seems like he's

354
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,879
Speaker 2: very smart, he's a photographic memory. He has a restless mind,

355
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:14,440
Speaker 2: and he doesn't do well with like because I told

356
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Speaker 2: you so? Kind of okay, So the army is not

357
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:19,560
Speaker 2: for him either. No, it takes a little while to

358
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:21,480
Speaker 2: figure that out. And once he figures it out, he's like,

359
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:23,959
Speaker 2: hey man, he has this army buddy he's becomes friends with.

360
00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:26,520
Speaker 2: He's like, hey man, Anthony Ignolia, I love it. How

361
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:27,920
Speaker 2: do you spoil that name? And he wants He gets

362
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:29,760
Speaker 2: some dispeled, He's like okay, and he takes off. He

363
00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:33,320
Speaker 2: goes a wall. He tells everyone he's Anthony Ignolia. So

364
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Speaker 2: he becomes Tony Ignolia.

365
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Speaker 3: Right.

366
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Speaker 2: Fred Debara now finally feels like he can beat himself.

367
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Speaker 2: Is this guy? So what does he do now? Elizabeth?

368
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Speaker 3: I have no idea.

369
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:45,400
Speaker 2: He goes right back to the Trappist monks, this time

370
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Speaker 2: in Kentucky, and he's like, hey, I sure would like

371
00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:50,320
Speaker 2: to become a monk. What would you? What do you

372
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,560
Speaker 2: fellows call yourselves? He acts like he doesn't know anything,

373
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Speaker 2: and he tries to go in as a as an officiate. Right,

374
00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:58,840
Speaker 2: second go around also fails. Still not cut out to be.

375
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Speaker 3: A moody, so he went in as Tony. It's like,

376
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Speaker 3: I don't know anything about this, but then he's thinking,

377
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Speaker 3: like I'll show them I'm.

378
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:08,000
Speaker 2: Really exactly still doesn't work.

379
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Speaker 3: It's like when I was in college, you have to

380
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,240
Speaker 3: have like your language acquirement, and I had taken French

381
00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:15,560
Speaker 3: all through high school, and I instead of testing out

382
00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:19,800
Speaker 3: of it, I just wanted a's yeah, And I actually like,

383
00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:20,240
Speaker 3: what is.

384
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Speaker 2: This jem Apple Elizabeth?

385
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:28,000
Speaker 3: And then I'm just like rocking all the tests. It's awesome.

386
00:18:28,359 --> 00:18:30,240
Speaker 3: I like that I'm kind of I got a little furred.

387
00:18:30,280 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 2: And because I'm some similarities between you two. Well, see

388
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,560
Speaker 2: if you can guess what he does once he's the

389
00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:39,879
Speaker 2: trap Monk's second round it fails, right, So now what

390
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:41,040
Speaker 2: does Tony Ignolia do.

391
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:42,000
Speaker 3: And he's in Kentucky.

392
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:44,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. He goes and tries to become

393
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Speaker 2: a monk in Iowa. He's like, I'm gonna keep with this.

394
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Speaker 2: That goes nowhere for him.

395
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Speaker 3: Aren't really like monk hotspots.

396
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 2: I mean, monks are everywhere. You know, you can find

397
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:54,760
Speaker 2: a monk anywhere.

398
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:59,240
Speaker 3: It's usually like real humid, quiet.

399
00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:01,720
Speaker 2: Places for what I find. But anyway, he returns home

400
00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:04,119
Speaker 2: because he's still a young man. He's basically at this

401
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen years old. So his father is surprised to

402
00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 2: see his son because last he heard he joined the army.

403
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,159
Speaker 2: It's wartime. They don't just let you out of the

404
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:13,160
Speaker 2: army in wartime. So he's like, son, you know you've deserted.

405
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:16,439
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, poppy, all these awol terms people keep

406
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 2: throwing around. His pops is like, son, you can't be

407
00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:21,000
Speaker 2: a wall. They'll lock you up. Now, go back to

408
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:22,720
Speaker 2: the army and say you got lost or something. I

409
00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:25,679
Speaker 2: don't know. And so Fred's like, okay, Pop, I'll do that,

410
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:27,399
Speaker 2: and he promises he'll go back to the army. So

411
00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 2: what does Fred do. He goes and joined the navy.

412
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:34,679
Speaker 2: He got close. He was wrong office right, So he

413
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:36,919
Speaker 2: gets a spot, this time as a hospital corman.

414
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:39,000
Speaker 3: So he is his neighbor. Did he call himself Tony

415
00:19:39,119 --> 00:19:39,480
Speaker 3: once again?

416
00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:40,240
Speaker 2: He's Fred. He's back.

417
00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:40,960
Speaker 3: He's back to Fred.

418
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Tony's already in the service. Yeah, Tony. So

419
00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:46,000
Speaker 2: they'll catch up doing till he's like Fred again, but

420
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:49,119
Speaker 2: different service. He's like okay, So Fred gets medical training

421
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:51,560
Speaker 2: as a hospital corman. But again he has a problem

422
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:55,000
Speaker 2: with these small minded superiors. So what does Fred do

423
00:19:55,119 --> 00:19:58,240
Speaker 2: this time? He does what Fred does best. He borrows

424
00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 2: the name of a sailor he knows. This time, instead

425
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:01,879
Speaker 2: of going a walk because that didn't work out for

426
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 2: last time, he fakes his death. He's like, I gotta

427
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:06,920
Speaker 2: go a step further, So he pretends to be somebody else,

428
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,480
Speaker 2: fakes his death. He leaves a goodbye note as Fred

429
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:11,359
Speaker 2: puts it by the water's edge and just lets the

430
00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 2: military figure it out.

431
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 3: Oh my god.

432
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 2: So now boom, he is Robert Linton French and he

433
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:18,320
Speaker 2: goes off. He professes there.

434
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:20,400
Speaker 3: Are two Robert Linton French is in the navy.

435
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:22,960
Speaker 2: Now yeah, well, no, he's doctor French. He just takes

436
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,439
Speaker 2: doctor French. Yeah, he's so what does Fred do is

437
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,320
Speaker 2: doctor French? Well, you know, he decides, I've done the Navy,

438
00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:32,480
Speaker 2: I've done the army. I don't know. I'm gonna go

439
00:20:32,640 --> 00:20:35,520
Speaker 2: back to a monastery. This is where I'm probably the best.

440
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,000
Speaker 2: So he tries to become a monk again, this time

441
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 2: as doctor French. He's like, maybe they'll respect the doctor

442
00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:42,080
Speaker 2: and they won't get me so much. Lip.

443
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:44,160
Speaker 3: Yes, at first he's gonna go in like I don't

444
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,400
Speaker 3: know anything. Now he's like, no, I I know everything.

445
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 2: The problem was I was I was too low on

446
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:50,480
Speaker 2: the totem pole. I need some letters in front of

447
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:53,399
Speaker 2: my name. So now he's doctor French. He tries to

448
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:55,000
Speaker 2: be in the in the monastery. This works for a

449
00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 2: couple of weeks until he's accused of having faked documents.

450
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 2: They're like these documents are forced. He's like, what how

451
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 2: dare you? And he leaves.

452
00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 3: He's like, I am third French EMPD.

453
00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 2: What name did I tell you? Turn? So he goes

454
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 2: to a brother in Chicago. That doesn't work. Then he

455
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,480
Speaker 2: goes to Milwaukee. That doesn't work because in Milwaukee they

456
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:14,480
Speaker 2: tell him's cooking sucks and he's like, yeah, the hell

457
00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 2: with you monks, I'm out here. Fred bounces east. He

458
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 2: finds a spot in Erie, Pennsylvania. At this point he's like,

459
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:24,239
Speaker 2: I'm over the whole monks. The monks are jerks. I'm

460
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 2: time dombe with the monks. He's like, I'm gonna go

461
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 2: get a gig teaching. I'm doctor French. So he goes

462
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:31,000
Speaker 2: to Gannon College. He gets he gets he gets the job.

463
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:33,879
Speaker 2: What is he like twenty yeah, pretty much. So he

464
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,399
Speaker 2: talks his way into becoming the dean of the School

465
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 2: of Philosophy. So now he's like twenty one years old.

466
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:41,760
Speaker 2: He's the dean of the School of Philosophy in a

467
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 2: tiny college. Yes, and he decides, you know what, that's

468
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 2: not enough, because if I'm the dean, I should probably

469
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 2: be publishing. So he publishes a book.

470
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 3: So he's saying he's a medical doctor, although maybe.

471
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,080
Speaker 2: He's like a psychologist. He's saying the psychology.

472
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:55,719
Speaker 3: Well either way, so he's okay, huh, all right.

473
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:58,800
Speaker 2: So as a doctor French, by the way, he's no

474
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 2: more of a parent than I am, right, But Fred

475
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 2: doesn't let that stop him. So he writes a book

476
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 2: called How to bring Up Your Child.

477
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 3: No, it is barely out of childhood.

478
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 2: Exactly, baby's wading babies. So the book does reasonably well.

479
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,879
Speaker 2: But then again he's accused of this time forging checks.

480
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 2: So Fred's like, hey, what's that over there? He blows

481
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 2: with the wind. He's gone, right, So Fred disappears. He

482
00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 2: finds himself on the West coast. He drives all the

483
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 2: way across the continent. He's out in Los Angeles. He's like,

484
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of wackos out here. Nobody will follow me.

485
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:28,879
Speaker 2: He gets a gig at a sanitarium. Literally just like

486
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 2: hanging out in the sanitarium being doctor French. Ok. So

487
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 2: he moves on, moves north to Seattle. He gets a

488
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 2: job at another small college. I liked college life. That

489
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 2: was good for me. And he gets he's working. It's great.

490
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 2: Things are gangbusters up in Seattle, sleepy area, small college.

491
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 2: But then one day the FBI comes calling because they've

492
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: been looking for him since he's a deserter. So we've

493
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 2: been after him for a month. So Fred gets arrested

494
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 2: for desertion. They take him back to the Navy. He

495
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 2: gets tossed into the Barracks Disciplinary Barracks in Sampedro, California.

496
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,160
Speaker 2: He spends eighteen months behind bar. So he's like, okay, well,

497
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 2: he needs to think about what he's done.

498
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,080
Speaker 3: It's like the longest time he's done anything anytime.

499
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 2: Yes, it's pretty much since he's been in his mother's womb.

500
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 2: This is the longest time he has sat still. Right.

501
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 2: So Fred's like, okay, I'm going to think about what

502
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:14,719
Speaker 2: I've done. Hopefully that's what you would want for him.

503
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 2: Maybecome out rehabilitated. Not so much for Fred. He comes out.

504
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 2: He's like, I got a lot of catching up to do.

505
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 2: So he starts a new life. This time he starts

506
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 2: his own university. He's like, I don't want to mess

507
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:28,479
Speaker 2: around with having colleges hire me. I'll hire them. So

508
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,879
Speaker 2: Fred he assumes a new fake identity. He becomes a

509
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 2: Catholic monk again because he knows all the rights. Okay,

510
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 2: so this time he's in Maine. He becomes Brother John

511
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 2: Payne of the Christian Brothers of Instruction. Right, so his

512
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 2: brother Payne with a why Brother Payne? He decides to

513
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 2: found his own university. He moves up to the town

514
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:48,479
Speaker 2: called Alfred, Maine, and this small college it becomes official.

515
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 2: He gets a state charter, the whole thing. Oh yeah.

516
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty one, he decides to leave his new

517
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,160
Speaker 2: university after starting at about that a year earlier because

518
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 2: the administration decides not to name him is either the

519
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 2: college is rector or as the chancellor. That that bums

520
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 2: him out. He's like, you, guys, I started his place.

521
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 3: Is the college still in existence?

522
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 2: Oh yeah? And by the way, he hated the name

523
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 2: of it, so that was another reason he wanted to leave.

524
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 2: He's like, this is the name you guys chose what

525
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,719
Speaker 2: La MiNet College? But they've since changed their name and

526
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 2: moved states, so they moved else Muto Island are now

527
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 2: known as Walsh University, and Walsh University still exists, just

528
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 2: not in Maine. And the president and CEO of FedEx,

529
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 2: Ramona Hood, is the alumnus of Walsh University.

530
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 3: Really go cavaliers, there you go?

531
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 2: So anyway, nineteen fifty one is a year America is

532
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 2: once again at war, this time the Korean War. So

533
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 2: Fred Damara, who's with the Christian Brothers before he left,

534
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 2: you know, the university he founded. He meets a man

535
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 2: named Joseph Sire and this guy's nice enough fellow. He's

536
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 2: a Canadian. They get along well, the two men. They

537
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 2: play chess for like a week of each night, hanging out,

538
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 2: they're conversing with each other. Things are going great. The

539
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 2: doctor tells like him his whole life story. Right, he's

540
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 2: just asking him questions. He's just so flattered. This guy

541
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,479
Speaker 2: wants to know so much about him. Little you know,

542
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 2: does the doctor ever think of that exchange? Once they

543
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 2: part ways. But meanwhile Fred Demara decides he's now going

544
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 2: to become doctor Joseph Sire. So it's March nineteen fifty

545
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 2: one and the recruitment office for the Canadian Royal Navy.

546
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 2: The door swing open and walks a young man and

547
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 2: says he'd like to join up. Go over here's there's

548
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 2: a war going on. He says he's a doctor and

549
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 2: he thinks he could be of assistance in the war effort.

550
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 2: So Canada had recently joined the fight with the NATO

551
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: forces in Korea, and young doctors a welcome sights. So

552
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 2: they're like, soir, oh my good, we'd love to have it.

553
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 2: And he's like, yeah, like do you have some Paperworkan,

554
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 2: of course I got paperwork. Pulls out doctor Joseph Sire's

555
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 2: paperwork which happened to stick to his hand when he

556
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 2: was hanging out with the good doctors, and the medical

557
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 2: diploma too apparently, and his birth certificate. So and now

558
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 2: suddenly doctor Joseph Sire becomes Lieutenant Surgeon Joseph Sire.

559
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 3: This man has trouble with authority and he just keeps

560
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 3: getting authority exactly.

561
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 2: It'd be like if me somebody's allergic to be is

562
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 2: like I want to become a beekeeper. I'm really into it.

563
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 2: So anyway, the young doctor, he he goes through training

564
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 2: to become a lieutenant surgeon. This training would normally take

565
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 2: about two months. It takes a day because it's wartime,

566
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 2: so they rush him through training. They get him out

567
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: on a ship and boom, Sergeant Lieutenant Doctor Joseph Sire

568
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 2: is out to.

569
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 3: Sea and he condenses a two months training into one day.

570
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the Canadian Navy does because they're in such

571
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 2: a rush. And he's a doctor. He's got all the paperwork.

572
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 2: What do we need to tell of just you know,

573
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 2: he knows how to die. Shoes get on the boat, sir.

574
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 2: So he's now the only surgeon, the only doctor for

575
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,360
Speaker 2: a ship of two hundred and eleven sailors and aid

576
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 2: officers headed to war. It doesn't take long for Fred

577
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 2: to be called into action, so it's the captain of

578
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 2: the ship. Fred stalls as long as he can, but

579
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 2: mostly so he can speed read a medical textbook so

580
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 2: we can know what he's going to do before it

581
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 2: wants in operation. He's I swear to God. So from

582
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: the San Francisco Examiner, the March fifth, nineteen sixty one edition,

583
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 2: quote his first assignment was to pull the skipper's tooth

584
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,400
Speaker 2: a feet, which he accomplished by staying up all night

585
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 2: studying dentistry. He shot the captain's jaw full of novacane

586
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 2: as a precaution against taking a painful false move.

587
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 3: Oh that sounds easy enough.

588
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 2: Ye, well that becomes Fred's basically his mo. He he

589
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 2: had a heavy hand with the novacane. Yes, and with

590
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 2: the penicillini one jab.

591
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 3: That's the thing, you know, you just with those two

592
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 3: you can't go wrong. Yeah, if you're pulling a tooth, like,

593
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 3: come on, yeah.

594
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: He's like, if ten c seas is good, fifty see

595
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: seas is way better. Exactly, so the captain's please, he said,

596
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: quote it was the nicest tooth pulling job I've ever had,

597
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: So apparently Fred does great work.

598
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 3: Right.

599
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Fred, whenever he has a chance, he's speed reading

600
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 2: all the medical literature on the boat, everything he can find.

601
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 3: Right.

602
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 2: So, now, of course what he fears will come to

603
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 2: pass comes to pass. There is a medical emergency, a

604
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 2: real medical emergency, not just a tooth pulling. They arrive

605
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 2: in the theater of war and nineteen wounded soldiers are

606
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 2: brought out board the ship and boom, it's Fred de Maritime.

607
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 2: Now all of a sudden, doctor Joseph Siers moment to

608
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 2: shine is here. He is, as I might remind you,

609
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 2: the only doc on board. It's up to him to

610
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 2: save all nineteen lives. And Fred tells the kreman aboard

611
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 2: the ship to prepare his operating room in the captain's quarters,

612
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: and then he hides in his office and he starts

613
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 2: speed reading on open chest surgery.

614
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: I would be doing that already. If you're going out,

615
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 3: he's probably looking up like ingrown toenails. No, get to

616
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 3: the gory stuff first.

617
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 2: This is the great impostor's greatest test yet.

618
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 3: Well, i'd say, I mean, if you're going to be

619
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 3: an autodidact, start with what's most important and then work

620
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 3: you with you.

621
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I'm right there with you. Start brain surgery

622
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 2: and get to heart, and then work your way out

623
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 2: exactly so. From the Bridgeport Post newspaper, Sunday, July fifth,

624
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine. This is a comes this quote. Three

625
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 2: soldiers of the nineteen were seriously hurt. All of them,

626
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 2: unless they received competent surgery within the next day, would die.

627
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 2: Never before had he felt at the same instance, such

628
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 2: an impostor and such a complete, lonely, isolated fraud. There

629
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 2: was no place to run and no place to dodge,

630
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 2: no assurance that he could find the courage or whatever

631
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 2: ingredient it would take to begin surgery of the three

632
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 2: Koreans who lay on bunks drugged by heavy doses of morphine.

633
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,239
Speaker 2: So can he fake it until he makes it? As

634
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 2: a field surgeon, Elizabeth, I'd like to close your eyes and.

635
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 3: Picture it all right.

636
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 2: You're a board the RMS Cayuga as it powers across

637
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean somewhere just off the coast of Korea.

638
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 2: You're currently in a makeshift operating room. You are the

639
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 2: coreman responsible for assisting the Lieutenant surgeon, Doctor Joseph Sire

640
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 2: Demara aka Doctor Sire. Anyway, he tells you his plans

641
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 2: for the nineteen operations before you. Just before he begins,

642
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 2: he says, quote, the less cutting you do, the less

643
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 2: patching you have to do afterwards. Hey, and with that

644
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 2: into the surgery you too. Hop Now you nod and

645
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 2: hope that he means everything about not too much cutting,

646
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 2: because you also are not really ready for this. But

647
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 2: you buck up and you're ready for it, so you

648
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 2: have no reason to suspect it. But the doctor's just

649
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 2: as nervous as you. He looks really calm, but inside trembling.

650
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: So no strike that you're more nervous than here. I'll

651
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 2: take that back. So anyway, the lives are in both

652
00:29:58,240 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 2: your hands. And as you begin to operate in the

653
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 2: first wounded soldier, you hear the familiar surgical refrain scalpel,

654
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: followed by hemostat, and then he repeats that hemostat. You're

655
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 2: the lookover, and you hand him the scissor style clamps.

656
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 2: He starts clamping off blood vessels and then blood spurt,

657
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, the doctor Sire is quick amostat.

658
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 2: He's got another clamp, and you're able to stay with him.

659
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: He's able to staunch the bleeding once it stops flowing.

660
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 2: He's able to dig into the fresh wound. After a

661
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: tense moment of mining for metal in another man's gut,

662
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 2: he pulls out a foreign body a bullet. He sutures

663
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: up the gaping wound. It's on to the next one.

664
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 2: Eighteen more to go. The second soldier needs his lung collapsed.

665
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 2: You help the doctor to relieve the pressure. You hold

666
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 2: the patient as he perforates his flesh. With a careful

667
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 2: puncture into the lung tissue, the lung kisses and boom.

668
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 2: Just like that, the patient can now breathe normally. It's

669
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 2: on to Patient seventeen. It's an amputation. It's a messy,

670
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 2: bloody affair. Patients sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen gunshot wounds pretty easily.

671
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 2: Mostly clamps, sutures, some bandaging. Patient thirteen is finally stable

672
00:30:57,560 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 2: when he's ready for surgery. He has a bullet lodged

673
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 2: in his chest. It's dangerously close to the man's heart.

674
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 2: It's pinched deep into his chest, right next to the

675
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 2: a orda fred aka. Doctor Sire tells you this one

676
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 2: will be a million to one chance, and then he

677
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 2: dives in. He wipes the nervous sweat from his face.

678
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 2: His smock already looks bloodstained. It looks like a Civil

679
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 2: War field surgeon. Doctor Sire pries open the chest of

680
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 2: the soldier. You open up your mouth and gape with

681
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,479
Speaker 2: just a shock at the look of the splintered ribs.

682
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 2: Oh God, that's gonna make things dicey. You hear doctor

683
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 2: Syre call out coagulating agent. You hand it over to

684
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 2: the surgeon. He practically pours it all over the open

685
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 2: chest wound. After much delicate handiwork, doctor Sire manages just

686
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 2: delicately pulled the bullet from the soldier's chest. He saves

687
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 2: his life and it's on to patient twelve as the

688
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 2: destroyer continues to pitch and y'aw in the rough seas

689
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 2: watching it all go down right there before you even

690
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: you can't believe it, but doctor Sire saves them all.

691
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 2: None of the soldiers die as a result of Fred

692
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: Deda Mari's amateur surgeries. All of the wow all nineteen Elizabeth.

693
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 3: I gotta say it, if I'm really picturing it, I

694
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 3: would have passed out at the first guy. I don't

695
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 3: do blood. I'm sorry, I know you don't.

696
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 2: I try to keep that pretty dry, right, bad other

697
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 2: than the splendid ribs, not like Albert Einstein's brain. Okay,

698
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 2: so let's take a quick break and I'll be back

699
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 2: to tell you what happens that is a result of

700
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: him saving nineteen lives. All right, Elizabeth, we're back, yes now.

701
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 2: After his miraculous performance, doctor Joseph Syer aka Fred Damara,

702
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 2: he becomes a hero back home in Canada, I mean,

703
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 2: like a minor celebrity of the war. And he should

704
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 2: be right an incredible feat a board ship performing nineteen

705
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 2: open heart surgery. Come on now, now, also the fact

706
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: he's an amateur, but people didn't even know that. It's

707
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 2: even more miraculous than they know. But anyway, he also

708
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 2: becomes a hero, and not just in Canada, but in

709
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 2: the United States, Like, people are really blown away by

710
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 2: this effort, and they're also reading about the Korean War

711
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 2: because of America's very involved, right, But one day there's

712
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 2: this one person up in Canada who was reading the

713
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 2: morning paper and they spit out their Canadian bacon and

714
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 2: they're like, what in the name of Nova Scotia is

715
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 2: going on here? And that person, mind you, was the

716
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 2: mother of doctor Joseph Sire. She didn't send her boy

717
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 2: to actual real medical school just to see some schlamil

718
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 2: take credit for her being a life saving Canadian and

719
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 2: her son's name. So what does she do. She calls

720
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 2: up the local paper and says, that's not my boy.

721
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 2: She gives them the scoop. Oh wow, Now there's a

722
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 2: counterwave to the story that just slept across Canada and

723
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 2: that counterwave sweeps back in the other direction. Eventually that

724
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 2: wave reaches a destroyer way out at sea and the news.

725
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: When the news reaches the Cayuga, the Canadian naval destroyer

726
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 2: where Fred Damara has just saved all nineteen soldiers and

727
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 2: everyone's still celebrating. The captain remember his first patient, who's

728
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: he's become really close friends with. He comes up to

729
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 2: Fred and he wants to tell him about the cable

730
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 2: he's just received because he doesn't believe it. Yeah, Captain

731
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: James Plumer, He's like, head headquarters must have made him

732
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,399
Speaker 2: stake here, doctor, I don't know. I mean this must

733
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 2: be of a kind of foul in the paperwork. They're

734
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 2: saying that you aren't you? And he's like, yeah about that.

735
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 2: When do we get to a doc?

736
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 3: I just want to pluggs his nose and jumps out.

737
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 2: If only he could. Right now, at this point, this

738
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: is the thing Fred Deamhra has long feared. He has

739
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 2: nowhere to run, nowhere to go. He is stuck on

740
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 2: a boat with all the people he's disappointed. Yeah, so

741
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: it's pretty much a nightmare for him in the middle

742
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 2: of the Pacific. So he tells his friend the captain

743
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 2: the truth, and now Fred Deamara is Fred Namara again

744
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 2: and he's transferred to a British ship man. She's then

745
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: headed to Japan, which is then he's given speedy transfer

746
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: and sent back to Canada to face charges. So from

747
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 2: The Windsor Star November twentieth, nineteen fifty one quote in

748
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty word statement, it announced last night

749
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 2: that the man who was acclaimed for a series of

750
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: brilliant operations while serving a board the Canadian destoryeror Cayuga,

751
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,800
Speaker 2: is being discharged for misconduct. That's all they wanted to

752
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: quiet story like that. Oh, by the way, look over

753
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 2: there is that. Milton burrel So. The Windsor Star also

754
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: reported and I quote that the hoax was brought to

755
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 2: light a month ago through DeMar's fame. Publication of a

756
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 2: story dealing with his surgery and identifying him as doctor

757
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 2: Joseph Sire of Edmondston, New Brunswick led to a wave

758
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 2: of inquiries in New Brunswick. Subsequently, it was found that

759
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 2: the authentic doctor Sire is now practicing at Grand Falls,

760
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: New Brunswick. He reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

761
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 2: his certification documents had disappeared mysteriously. So no matter what

762
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 2: any of all the reporters and like you know, newspaper

763
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: men and women say doctor sire. Everyone who they go

764
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 2: and speak to, they have only glowing remarks for the

765
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 2: fake doctor sire, they say. And I quote, all the

766
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 2: medical authorities in the United Nations forces in the Far

767
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 2: East with whom Demer came in contact of testified as

768
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 2: to the extensiveness of his knowledge of medicine and surgery.

769
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 2: And nothing has occurred to indicate, either to the Royal

770
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 2: Canadian Navy or to the authorities of other forces America

771
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 2: serving in Korea that he did not possess the competence

772
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,720
Speaker 2: of a fully qualified medical man. So no one's willing

773
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 2: to back down on this, right, So it wasn't just

774
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 2: but you know, apparently it wasn't just his speed reading.

775
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 2: Before he's surgery. He had actually compiled an extensive medical knowledge,

776
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:15,720
Speaker 2: or so people claim.

777
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 3: Now.

778
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 2: He also was giving talks like he at the Canadian

779
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: Naval headquarters. He gave seminars to other doctors about internal

780
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 2: medicine like he was.

781
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 3: You're kidding, Oh yes, yeah.

782
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 2: The newspaper man and newspaper women they eventually tracked down

783
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 2: his father, and they get some great quotes from him

784
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 2: about his son, the great impostor, and his father, Fred

785
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: Damer Senior said of his Boyfred that quote, he was

786
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 2: bright to the point of genius. Things came easily to him,

787
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 2: and he read constantly. There was nothing bad in him.

788
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 2: He always wanted to help others, especially those who were suffering.

789
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 2: I have no doubt this attitude led him to the

790
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: trouble he is in humhm right, which is obviously very true.

791
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 3: Yeah so.

792
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 2: And also his father points out that Fred was quote

793
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 2: always a deeply religious boy until he was sixteen. From

794
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 2: then on he traveled the world in a world of

795
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 2: his and he would confide in no one. Huh, A

796
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: little sad, right, yeah. So on the Canadian shores. Now

797
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 2: Fred has to face a Naval Board of inquiry, and

798
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 2: that's not good. So the panel of uniformed officers ways

799
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,479
Speaker 2: service record and his scope of crimes in the year

800
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 2: that he was in the navy, and they have to

801
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: decide on his punishment. So what do you think they're

802
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 2: gonna do with this life saving hero Fred de Merra.

803
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 3: I don't know. I hope they like give him an

804
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 3: actual education and let him do his thing.

805
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's pretty good. I like it. You

806
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 2: have a good heart. Well, I'll tell you this much.

807
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty one, the Hollywood makes a movie about

808
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 2: him called The Great Impostor, and its stars Tony Curtis

809
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 2: as Fred dea Mera. Right towards the end of the movie,

810
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 2: they you know, they dramatize this scene and Tony Curtis

811
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 2: faces off against the Naval inquiry board, and Tony as

812
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 2: Fred gives this impassioned speech on his own behalf. But

813
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: the rousing speech is also the opposite of the sort

814
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 2: of appeal that someone like me would make. Like if

815
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 2: I was guilty, I'd be talking about it in much

816
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 2: different terms. Yea. He he centers his guilt and innocence

817
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 2: on It's very Fred. So Tony Curtis, person in the

818
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 2: room right, and the naval officer are all around this

819
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: big oak table, and he says, I think I have

820
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 2: a possible solution to this situation right in the naval

821
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: brass They agree to hear them out. They seal the door.

822
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 2: So Tony Curtis says, and I quote, gentlemen, there sometimes

823
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 2: exists a real conflict between the letter and the spirit.

824
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 2: Of the law. It is the letter of the law

825
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 2: that the guilty should be punished, but it is also

826
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 2: the spirit of the law that the innocent should be protected. Unfortunately,

827
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,840
Speaker 2: some innocent people are involved in this case, good people

828
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 2: whose only fault was that they accepted and believed in me.

829
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 2: I've heard them one in particular enough. Now a prolonged

830
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 2: trial would only cause them and the Navy further embarrassment. Sir,

831
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 2: I beg you drop the case against Fred W. Demera.

832
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 2: So he asked them to drop the case for others

833
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 2: to protect themselves.

834
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 3: And that I don't want you guys to embarrass yourselves.

835
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:53,439
Speaker 3: You better stop.

836
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, he ended up with He's like, let me walk

837
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 2: out that door, and I promise you within an hour,

838
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 2: I will be on a train and out of Canada

839
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,360
Speaker 2: for good. And I one d percent believe him on that.

840
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he'll steal a station wagon if he has.

841
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he'll blow down when it comes to it.

842
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:06,919
Speaker 2: So that's basically what I like to think went down.

843
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 2: Because inside this closed door military meeting room, which we

844
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 2: do not have record of, all we know is that

845
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,839
Speaker 2: Fred Demara goes in, is doctor Joseph Sire comes as

846
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 2: Fred Demara and he's granted an honorable discharge as doctor

847
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 2: Joseph sire to get him out of the Navy. He's

848
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 2: then sent back to America with a few hundred bucks

849
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 2: that they call backpay. And once he's back in the States,

850
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 2: Fred de Merra becomes a minor celebrity as the Great Impostor.

851
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 2: Everyone hears this story so as a touch of accuracy

852
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 2: for the Korean War, the TV show mash would later

853
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 2: have an episode called Dear Dad Again. It was about

854
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 2: Captain Adam Casey, who was this fake doctor who did

855
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 2: real surgery in Korea. Oh cool, right, Fred?

856
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 3: I wonder did the real doctor? Did he get to

857
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 3: like collect benefits and stuff?

858
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 2: That's interesting? I don't think so, I don't. I don't think.

859
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 2: I mean, well, what was Fred? Demara's back in the

860
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 2: US and he's once again Fred. He now has to

861
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 2: make a new life for himself. But the problem is

862
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 2: is everyone's onto him now. They've seen his face. His

863
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 2: face is everywhere on the new So what does he

864
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:01,839
Speaker 2: do if he can't run away?

865
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 3: Just goes right into the spotlight.

866
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 2: He decides to sell his life. Yes, so he sells

867
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 2: his life story too appropriately enough? Life magazine perfect. So

868
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 2: the magazine does this big glossy feature on him. They

869
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 2: bill him as public Rascal, Number one, Public Rascal. I'm

870
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 2: in a hype sheet for the new issue of Life.

871
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 2: They had a description what was inside, and they said, quote,

872
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 2: if you act like you belong somewhere, even people who

873
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 2: know you don't belong are hesitant to call you on it.

874
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 2: People are so insecure deep in their souls they feel

875
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 2: they don't belong either. This shrewd appraisal of human weakness

876
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 2: helped make Ferdinand Waldo Demera Junior the most successful and

877
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 2: most daring impost of our day. Although he never graduated

878
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 2: from high school, Deamarra has brilliantly lived many roles, including

879
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: those of a college dean of philosophy, assistant warden of

880
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: a large prison, a Benedictine teacher, and the surgeon of

881
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 2: the Royal Canadian Navy. Reperform major operations with the aid

882
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 2: of a surgery handbook.

883
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 3: Act like you know exactly I knew you would love.

884
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 2: That it is so. Once again, capitalizing on this rollicking

885
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 2: and fit nature of fame, Demera gives the press a

886
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,399
Speaker 2: few memorable quotes. One of my favorites was quote where

887
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 2: about in America could a man do all I've done.

888
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: That's what I call freedom, Yes, rubbing it in the

889
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: face of the Constitution. So around the same time, he

890
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 2: starts an episode of the TV quiz show You Bet

891
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 2: Your Life with Groucho Marks. Oh right, okay, and Groucho

892
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 2: Marks is old, but he's still ever quick. So the

893
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 2: two of them are go battering back and forth and

894
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 2: having a good time. And Fred de Merra, he's an

895
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 2: amiable guest and he shows flashes of why he is

896
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 2: Fred Dama. If you watch it, you go like, oh,

897
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 2: I can think guy's charming. Right. He makes a thousand

898
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 2: bucks on the game show. He tells Groucho that the

899
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 2: money's going to his favorite charity. It would be donated

900
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 2: to the Quote Feed and Clothe Fred Demea fund. So now,

901
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 2: the funny as it was, there was a lot of

902
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 2: truth to that statement, because, as I said, what does

903
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 2: an impostor do once they've been caught? Now they're on

904
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 2: TV and in magazine, there's nowhere for Fred to run,

905
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 2: so no one he can become. So Luckily for Fred,

906
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 2: he'd cross paths with this writer, the one who wrote

907
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: about the Life magazine article. He'd come to him and

908
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 2: basically given him that story because the guy once looked

909
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 2: after Fred when he was down and out and look,

910
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do you a solid. Here's my life story.

911
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: Totally works for him. Yeah, he not only gets the

912
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 2: Life magazine, he's able to spin it into a book.

913
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 2: Of course. Exactly. So this writer, Robert Crichton, he hangs

914
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 2: out with Demea a bunch for the magazine story. They

915
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 2: get along well, and it's such as epic series of

916
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,919
Speaker 2: hangs and chill sessions that Crichton ends up writing two

917
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 2: books about Fred.

918
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah.

919
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 2: The first was the biography The Great Imposter, which would

920
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 2: become the movie and a New York Times bestseller. And

921
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: then the second book was called The Rascal on the

922
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 2: Road and it documented their eight week cross country road

923
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 2: trip as they revisited a lot of Fred Demara's past

924
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 2: like haunts, like they're like, yeah, this is the prison

925
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 2: where I was a pretend Ward.

926
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 3: Travels with third exactly.

927
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 2: Apparently it was a phenomenal trip. Life magazine called it

928
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 2: a quote hilarious eight week cross country tour. Oh yeah,

929
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: it was like like you know, some Hunter s Thompson

930
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 2: level road trip and energy. So during his two month

931
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 2: long trek with Fred Demara, he learns a great deal

932
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 2: about Fred, and he also learns what made the mystery

933
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 2: want to be monk tick right. So he has a

934
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 2: couple of things I thought i'd tell you one, he said,

935
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 2: quote Damara had come to two beliefs. One was that

936
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 2: in any organization there was always a lot of loose,

937
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 2: unused power lying about, which can be picked up without

938
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 2: alienating anyone. The second rule is, if you want power

939
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 2: and want to expand, never encroach on anyone else's domain,

940
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 2: open up new ones. Now that's really key idea. Yeah,

941
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 2: for any group dynamic, whether it's work or school, or

942
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 2: friends or even family, it's always true and Damera basically

943
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 2: is He further elaborates on this idea. The way you

944
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: expand your power and is like finding the vacuum or

945
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 2: in the absence of others as Fred might put it,

946
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: and he says, quote, if you come into a new situation,

947
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 2: don't join some other professor's committee and try to make

948
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 2: your mark by moving up in that committee. You'll one

949
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 2: have a long haul and two make an enemy. Instead,

950
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 2: Fred says, you either want to find or make your

951
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 2: own committee. Remember this is a man who started his

952
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 2: own university. You know what he's talking about. So, as

953
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 2: Deamera continued, quote that way, there's no competition, no past

954
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 2: standards to measure you by. How can anyone tell you

955
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 2: aren't a top outfit? And then there's also no pass

956
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 2: laws or rules or precedents to hold you down or

957
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 2: limit you make your own rules and interpretations. Nothing like it. Remember,

958
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: expand into the power vacuum. So there you go. Now,

959
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 2: however you like it, said, he would prefer that you

960
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 2: not fully imitate him as an impostor. That part he

961
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 2: still thinks is just for him. So as he found

962
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 2: it hurt a lot more people than he intended, and

963
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: he really came to regret that. As Damara said, quote,

964
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 2: in this little game I was playing, there was always

965
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 2: comes a time when you find yourself getting in too deep.

966
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 2: You made good friends who believe in you, and you

967
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 2: don't want them to get hurt and delusion. You begin

968
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 2: to worry about what they'll think if somebody exposes you

969
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 2: as a phony. Now, after his moment the spotlight faded,

970
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 2: Fred became a drinker. He moved to Texas, He got

971
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 2: a job in prison working as a pastor, but then

972
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 2: an old copy of Life magazine bubbled up to the

973
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 2: surface in the prison library. Someone recognized him as Fred

974
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:53,919
Speaker 2: to Mara because he wasn't using that name at the time.

975
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 2: He lose his job, he moves on, he goes to

976
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 2: southern California. Eventually he ends up giving last rights to

977
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 2: one of my heroes. What I swear to God, Elizabeth,

978
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: can you guess which of my heroes I'm talking about.

979
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 2: I'll I'll narrow down. He's a Hollywood actor and he

980
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 2: died in nineteen eighty. Steve McQueen. Fred Demara gave Steve

981
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 2: McQueen his last rights on Earth. They became tight friends,

982
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 2: and he went down with him when he went to

983
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 2: get like a canter treatment in Mexico. So in November

984
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, Steve McQueen passes away. Fred de Mera is

985
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 2: there at his bedside. He's with the family down in Mexico,

986
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 2: his wife, children, the whole bit, all right, Now, Tony Curtis,

987
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,439
Speaker 2: he played a bunch of amazing roles, right. I really

988
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 2: love Tony Curtis. I loved him in the Billy Wilder

989
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 2: movie something like one of my favorite parts him is

990
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 2: Josephine or Joe. But if you ask Tony, his favorite

991
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 2: party ever played was Fred Demara and the great impostor. Yeah.

992
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 2: In my research, I found one last thing that I

993
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 2: wanted to tell you about that Fred said. It was

994
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 2: particularly heartbreaking. It was something i'd kind of suspect Hien

995
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 2: I was reading through his stuff, he said, And this

996
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 2: because from the July fifth, nineteen fifty nine issue of

997
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: the Bridgeport Post Sun quote what I hated most was

998
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 2: being Demera. Again, who was Demera? Anyway you looked at it,

999
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 2: Doctor French? Was somebody good or bad? Good or bad Demea?

1000
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 2: That guy was a bum. Right. So here was this

1001
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 2: guy trying desperately not to be himself. And it was

1002
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,319
Speaker 2: all due to what I imagine was some economic shame

1003
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 2: from the Depression era when his father lost status and

1004
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 2: that's when all his life gets broken up, right, And

1005
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 2: from that point on, Fred just longed to help people

1006
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 2: and to cure people, and to soothe people, and to like,

1007
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 2: you know, care for strangers, and to do it he

1008
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 2: broke all kinds of laws, you know, but he was

1009
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 2: basically the Robin Hood of imposters.

1010
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:29,359
Speaker 3: It sounds it was like Fred de mera crime to.

1011
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 2: Give back to the unfortunate. Yeah, you know, so, what's

1012
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 2: our ridiculous takeaway?

1013
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 3: Elizabeth, I think it again? Act like you know right,

1014
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 3: it's your rule. Always act like.

1015
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 2: He's the best example.

1016
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:40,280
Speaker 3: I could find it, perfect example.

1017
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 2: And he did like you did it. He did it

1018
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 2: for others. He didn't do like I do, which is

1019
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 2: for the ziksters, for Dizzy exactly.

1020
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 3: Well.

1021
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 2: You can always, always always find his online ridiculous crime

1022
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 2: on Twitter and Instagram. Uh, you know, do it? Go

1023
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 2: over there, do it? Do it the talkback app on

1024
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 2: the talk bag do that too, Huh. And you can

1025
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 2: email us if you want a ridiculous crime at gmail

1026
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 2: dot com. Do it now. Thanks for listening. We always

1027
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 2: enjoy having your company. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth

1028
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 2: Dutton and Zaraburnette, produced and edited by our brother superior

1029
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,319
Speaker 2: Dave Kustin. Researches by Marissa Sure you can call me

1030
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: Doctor Brown and Andrea I too am a doctor. Song

1031
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 2: sharpened t hear heart theme song is by our onboard

1032
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 2: surgeon Thomas Lee and our visiting thoracic specialist Travis Dutton.

1033
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Ben founder of Bolan University Bolan and

1034
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 2: College of the Noel brown Red, Why say It one

1035
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:48,280
Speaker 2: more time?

1036
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 3: Crime?

1037
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts

1038
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1039
00:47:57,640 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.