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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. All my life,

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Speaker 1: I've been knocking on doors, digging through boxes, grasping for answers.

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Speaker 1: Who were these people? What drove them? How did all

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Speaker 1: of this happen? In our strange lives? Why am I here?

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Speaker 1: And why? And our males? And our love and our

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Speaker 1: stories and savagery and tenderness of all those years together?

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Speaker 1: Did we never remember that? Long is a verb to

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Speaker 1: feel a strong desire or craving, especially for something not

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Speaker 1: likely to be attained, to pine to yearn.

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Speaker 2: That's Amanda Julie, writer and executive editor and publisher of McSweeney's.

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Speaker 2: Her memoir Destroyed This House was recently published. Amanda's is

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Speaker 2: a story of extremes, what things look like on the

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Speaker 2: outside and what they're really like on the inside. It's

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Speaker 2: about being a child of parents who have trouble parenting

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Speaker 2: themselves as well as their children. And it's a story

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Speaker 2: about a child who learns to navigate in a world

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Speaker 2: not of her making, until she grows up to become

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Speaker 2: a woman with a successful, beautiful life while still loving

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Speaker 2: and caring for the people she comes from. I'm Danny

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Speaker 2: Shapiro and this is Family secrets, the secrets that are

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Speaker 2: kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and

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Speaker 2: the secrets we keep from ourselves. So I always begin

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Speaker 2: with the question tell me about the landscape of your childhood,

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Speaker 2: but in your case, Amanda, I feel like I have

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Speaker 2: to phrase it as tell me about the landscape of

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Speaker 2: your childhood.

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Speaker 1: There were many, yes, many homes, many places. I was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen seventy eight in Philadelphia, and my parents

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Speaker 1: soon moved to the New York City area Island where

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Speaker 1: we lived. It is probably the place I lived the

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Speaker 1: longest in my childhood. My dad began getting into every

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Speaker 1: kind of business scheme and everything else, and that led

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Speaker 1: us to a small town in Indiana where my mother

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Speaker 1: grew up, and that didn't last long. Things were difficult there,

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Speaker 1: and then we moved to another place in Indiana where

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Speaker 1: we lived. We lived in Fort Wayne, actually three different places.

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Speaker 1: We had the kind of childhood where we were getting

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Speaker 1: into money trouble pretty much all the time. My dad

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Speaker 1: found a way to not pay the bills or figure

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Speaker 1: something out for us, and so all of these places

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Speaker 1: were really short lived.

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Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit about your parents and who

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Speaker 2: they were, you know, when they met what were their histories,

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Speaker 2: what was they each bringing to the table with them.

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Speaker 1: Well, my mother had been this enterprising, pioneering woman, really

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Speaker 1: a feminist hero, and some ways she started out as

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Speaker 1: someone in this small town who was interested in fashion

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Speaker 1: design and did I think the extremely bold thing of

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Speaker 1: applying to and going to Pratt Institute in New York

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Speaker 1: from this small town in nineteen sixty nine. So she

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Speaker 1: did that for a while, didn't like it. She wasn't

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Speaker 1: a real rigorous student. In nineteen seventies, she worked in

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Speaker 1: the World Trade Center the first year was open. She

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Speaker 1: was at an insurance firm and she was a secretary

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Speaker 1: and she told me later she learned there that she

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Speaker 1: never wanted to be anybody's secretary. But she also learned

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Speaker 1: how to fix typewriters in that job. So when she

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Speaker 1: landed herself back near her hometown in Indianapolis, she was

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Speaker 1: eventually hired by IBM as their very first ever female engineer.

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Speaker 1: She fixed typewriters for IBM, running around, you know, early

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Speaker 1: seventies Indianapolis, fixing office equipment. So that was my mom,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of spirited person, unconventional, did what she

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Speaker 1: wanted always, And then my dad had grown up in Miami,

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Speaker 1: he had been married and had three children, and then

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Speaker 1: was it's a very murky story, but really exiled from

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Speaker 1: that family and everything that was going on with him

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Speaker 1: in Miami. The story that he told is that he

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Speaker 1: was deposited in Indianapolis by his father in law with

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Speaker 1: no winter coat in March in Indianapolis and half a

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Speaker 1: suitcase of whatever he had, and he worked for a while.

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Speaker 3: He did so.

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Speaker 1: Many different jobs. This is a theme in my dad's life.

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Speaker 1: He just he worked always. He was always selling things.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever get to the bottom of, or even

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Speaker 2: part way to the bottom of, why the exile from

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Speaker 2: that first family, because that's such a radical, kind of

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Speaker 2: unusual thing. I mean, he never saw those three kids again.

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Speaker 1: He never saw those three kids again. And my understanding,

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Speaker 1: and I couldn't prove this in lots of research I

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Speaker 1: did on my family, I couldn't prove it. But I

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Speaker 1: believe that those children were told that he was dead

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy so there was no contact at all

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Speaker 1: with Florida. He never went back and by the time

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three or so when my parents met,

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Speaker 1: my dad was actually homeless. Everything he owned at that

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Speaker 1: point was in Tom McCann's shoe box, and he was

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Speaker 1: working at the Indianapolis Press Club running the bar, and

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Speaker 1: he would sleep behind the bar there most nights unless

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Speaker 1: he found a better place to sleep somewhere in Indianapolis.

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Speaker 1: So the night he met my mother, he slept there,

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Speaker 1: and that's how it started. It's so apt for my

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Speaker 1: parents that from the beginning that's how it was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like they had a very kind of

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Speaker 2: intense connection and bond and love for each other that

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Speaker 2: also enabled each other over the years.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I think enabling is a good word. It's not

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Speaker 1: a word I use all the time. I prefer to

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Speaker 1: refer to them as the Midwestern Bonnie and Clyde. They

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Speaker 1: loved each other so fiercely. They were each other's allies

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Speaker 1: in just remarkable ways. No matter what either of them did,

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Speaker 1: the misbehaviors, the lies, everything, they stood up for each other,

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Speaker 1: which itself is you know, it has its beauty. I

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Speaker 1: think I think my dad specialized in self defeating choices. Really,

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Speaker 1: it was his thing. So he'd gotten this job in

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Speaker 1: New Jersey. He was selling janitorial supplies for Johnson Wax,

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Speaker 1: and I think that the houses around there around New

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Speaker 1: Jersey weren't big enough or weren't quite what they wanted,

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Speaker 1: so they kept, you know, going further and further out.

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Speaker 1: They didn't want to live in New York City, so

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Speaker 1: they found My Island. But it did mean this, you know,

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Speaker 1: a commute in the morning through Manhattan, a commute in

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Speaker 1: the afternoon through Manhattan. It was hours he spent on

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Speaker 1: the road. So back in Miami and he worked at

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Speaker 1: hotel and he booked live music and he loved do

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Speaker 1: up music and sort of you know that fifties sound,

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Speaker 1: and he was okay at music himself. Later in his

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Speaker 1: life music became a bigger part of things. But he

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Speaker 1: had a plug into the cigarette lighter piano keyboard, and

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Speaker 1: so he would plug that in and he would just

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Speaker 1: noodle and he'd just sang and play his you know, piano,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he was happy. I think he liked

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Speaker 1: the commute. He was maybe one of the only people

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Speaker 1: who did.

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Speaker 2: And what were some of his other ventures during that time.

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Speaker 2: I mean I recall that he was out telling your

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Speaker 2: mother bought an oil Derek.

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Speaker 1: He did, Yeah in Texas. Yeah, so because he had

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Speaker 1: this commute through the city, but both ways he got

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Speaker 1: into the habit of stopping off in the village and

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Speaker 1: having a drink, which is, you know, very early eighties

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Speaker 1: maybe habit which I don't think we would think now

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Speaker 1: is the best driving, you know, hygiene. But he would

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Speaker 1: stop off and have a drink or two, and he

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Speaker 1: met someone in a bar. He came up and told

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Speaker 1: us he met someone at a bar in the village and

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Speaker 1: they had this deal and he could get in on

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Speaker 1: the oil business and be an oil man, and he

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Speaker 1: wanted to. He always wanted to save us from our

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Speaker 1: financial difficulties. He wanted us to be comfortable. He wanted

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Speaker 1: that status and that comfort. So whatever he paid, I'm

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Speaker 1: not even sure exactly, but he bought an oil derek

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Speaker 1: in Texas, and he thought, he told us we were

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Speaker 1: going to be rich from that day forward, which it

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Speaker 1: turns out we were not. He lost money on that deal.

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Speaker 2: He was a dreamer or maybe a fantasist, but also

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Speaker 2: he seemed like he was ahead of his time in

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Speaker 2: various ways. I mean, he also was visionary. Some of

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Speaker 2: his ideas, it struck me, were ideas that were simply

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Speaker 2: a fantastic idea at the wrong time.

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Speaker 1: Or he had a few like that.

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Speaker 2: So tell me about the soap valve.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so in this janitorial world with Johnson Wack, he

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Speaker 1: had been part of creating this valve for soap. He

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Speaker 1: saw and the people that worked there saw that. You know,

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Speaker 1: back in the seventies early eighties, a lot of times

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Speaker 1: you went to a public restroom and there was like

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Speaker 1: a sliver of gross soap, or there were those things

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Speaker 1: where you had to push it upward. It was like

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Speaker 1: a little stick, you know, and you had to put

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Speaker 1: and touch it. And so he thought, well, what if

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Speaker 1: there was a little valve and the soap would just

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Speaker 1: squirt into your hand. And so he was part of

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Speaker 1: creating this valve. He eventually split off from his day job.

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Speaker 1: He never, i think ever wanted to have a day job,

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Speaker 1: and he became this international marketing consultant entrepreneur. And so

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Speaker 1: we took that valve to other clients overseas. He was

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Speaker 1: traveling Hong Kong, Sweden, and they eventually took that valve

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Speaker 1: and decided it could be a great asset in ice cream.

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Speaker 1: And so it was kind of like the progenitor to

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Speaker 1: what we now know as the flurry, which McDonald says,

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Speaker 1: but these ice cream drinks that have a little scol

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Speaker 1: of cherry syrup or something in it. So he was

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Speaker 1: part of that. But then some of his other ideas

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Speaker 1: were really, I think so similar to things that actually

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Speaker 1: happened later in you know, consumerism and pop culture. We

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Speaker 1: had this idea to have an air freshenair with a

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Speaker 1: little bit of something that smelled good, and then a

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Speaker 1: little fan that went over it that blew the scented

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Speaker 1: air across your room, and I think Glade did something

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Speaker 1: like that maybe ten years after. My dad was trying.

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Speaker 1: He was always trying things. He always had this vision

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Speaker 1: that he could figure it out.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty two, Amanda's little brother, Adam, is born,

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Speaker 2: and in nineteen eighty six, when Adam is four and

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Speaker 2: Amanda is eight, the family moved to Martinsville, Indiana, their

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Speaker 2: mom's hometown, population eleven thousand. There the family buys a house,

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Speaker 2: well not just a house, a mansion.

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Speaker 1: The biggest house you can really imagine. I've been sort

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Speaker 1: of describing this house to people in recent months, and

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Speaker 1: when I say it's large, people are like, okay, how big.

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Speaker 3: But it was.

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Speaker 1: Sixty eight hundred square feet. It was the front yard

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Speaker 1: was a golf course. The backyard was a lake, and

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Speaker 1: it was a sixties house. I don't know exactly what year,

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Speaker 1: but whomever built the house first in that era had

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Speaker 1: been I think a diamond broker. The basement rooms had

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Speaker 1: this walk in safe where apparently diamonds were kept. There

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Speaker 1: was a sauna inside. I mean, it's really kind of

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Speaker 1: like the most ostentatious house you can imagine anyone having.

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Speaker 1: And so we went from a pretty normal, suburban Long

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Speaker 1: Island home to that in a very different place, rural Indiana.

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Speaker 2: The mansion is part of a gated community overseen by

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Speaker 2: a homeowners association. It's a grand, manicured place with a

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Speaker 2: country club at its center. Amanda's father buys a fancy car.

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Speaker 2: He's feeling bullish. He's had a great year financially and

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Speaker 2: has no doubt the great years are just beginning.

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Speaker 1: About everything, I did so much research to figure out

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Speaker 1: some of the truths behind all the things I went

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Speaker 1: through as a kid, and I did find the amount

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Speaker 1: of money that my dad made in nineteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty staggering. That year he made two hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty five thousand dollars, which is so much for

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Speaker 1: that time so much for our family. We'd been struggling

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Speaker 1: various ways forever. But I think the problem was that

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Speaker 1: my dad made every financial decision for the rest of

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Speaker 1: his life based on one really good year, so we

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Speaker 1: couldn't afford to live there or live the way we

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Speaker 1: were living for more than I don't know, four months

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Speaker 1: or six months. Very quickly it was clear that we

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Speaker 1: weren't selling these valves that were going to make ice

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Speaker 1: cream machines or soap dispensers. That wasn't working out. My

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Speaker 1: mother hadn't worked since before I was born, which was

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Speaker 1: eight years earlier, eight years before that house.

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Speaker 2: That was the idea, right was that your mom was

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Speaker 2: going to stay at home and she wanted to be

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Speaker 2: home with her kids. And that was also very much

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Speaker 2: the culture that they were aspiring to was women who

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Speaker 2: worked outside the house were somehow to be pitied or worse.

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Speaker 1: They saw it as an obligation on their part, an

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Speaker 1: obligation on my dad's part to make enough money for

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Speaker 1: this to be possible, and on my mom's to stay

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Speaker 1: home and raise the kids. Like that was just what

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Speaker 1: was going to happen in our family. We sort of

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Speaker 1: had to perform as rich people, which we certainly weren't

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Speaker 1: or didn't feel like in nineteen eighty six. But you know,

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Speaker 1: my mom. The interesting thing about that move is that

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Speaker 1: my mom had grown up there this very small town.

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Speaker 1: Everyone knew everyone's business, and you know, everyone in that

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Speaker 1: town knew that my mother had bought this plane ticket

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Speaker 1: to New York City in nineteen sixty ninety year she

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Speaker 1: graduated high school and had gone off to be important,

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Speaker 1: to be a fashion designer. And when she came back,

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Speaker 1: she was not a fashion designer. But you know, she

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Speaker 1: was married to how the way they described themselves, a wealthy,

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Speaker 1: successful businessman, and she had this sort of perfect family

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Speaker 1: of a daughter and a son, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: think she was showing that a little bit to her hometown.

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Speaker 1: And part of that part of what developed for my mom,

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Speaker 1: which took many years to develop, she developed a hoarding problem.

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Speaker 1: And it started with things that I think are so

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Speaker 1: relatable and so just easy to understand any of us

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Speaker 1: easing into you know, it was it was two things,

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Speaker 1: clothes and food. So in the clothing front, it was about,

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Speaker 1: you know, her desire to look cute, have a nice outfit,

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Speaker 1: make an outfit. She would buy fabric, zippers, patterns, buttons,

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Speaker 1: all the things she would need for a project. And

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Speaker 1: it was this aspiration she had to make and to

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Speaker 1: wear all these beautiful designs of hers. She bought so

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Speaker 1: much more though than she could ever make. It was

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Speaker 1: an unrealistic match between, you know, what she was acquiring

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Speaker 1: and what she could do. And she did the same

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Speaker 1: thing with food and that it really got bad in

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Speaker 1: those years, in the mid eighties. And when I say

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Speaker 1: it's relatable, you know, speaking for myself, I have in

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Speaker 1: my basement, I have a shelf, and I have a

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Speaker 1: few extra cans of beans, and I have an extra

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Speaker 1: jar of pasta sauce or this or that. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people do that, a lot of people who can

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Speaker 1: afford to have an extra this or that at home,

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Speaker 1: you know, you do. It's normal my mother though, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's how it started. But then it was like fifty

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Speaker 1: two jars of marin Aa sauce sitting around, and the

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Speaker 1: grocery store runs would be she would just feel anxious

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Speaker 1: about bringing home one thing. If she needed one box

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Speaker 1: of Bisquick at the store, she would buy three because

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Speaker 1: she would think, well, maybe I'll use this one up,

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Speaker 1: and maybe we need to have an extra. But then

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Speaker 1: that thinking just like went diabolical, started relatably with non

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Speaker 1: perishable food, and then it went into perishable food. So

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Speaker 1: by the time I was in high school, we had

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Speaker 1: spoiled food all around us, I mean in unbelievable quantities

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Speaker 1: and levels all over.

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Speaker 2: How aware were you? The homes of our childhood and

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Speaker 2: the you know, the nature of our families are all

285
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Speaker 2: we know, and so they seem pretty much no matter what,

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Speaker 2: like you know, quote unquote normal.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, I thought it was very normal. I was probably

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Speaker 1: eight or nine when I started to understand that. For

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Speaker 1: one thing, we never had people in the house. You know,

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Speaker 1: my parents had an instinctive sense of shame about the

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Speaker 1: house and the way it was kept. You know, these

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Speaker 1: bags of my mom's fabric, her extra clothes, they were everywhere.

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Speaker 2: They filled up that led that six thousand plus square feet, Yes.

294
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Speaker 1: It was filled up. It was astounding. In those years.

295
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Speaker 1: My father also had I would say, scheme after scheme,

296
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Speaker 1: although really with my dad, I don't think you can

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Speaker 1: rightly or fairly call them schemes because they were so

298
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Speaker 1: open hearted, you know, all of his ideas he was

299
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Speaker 1: I think almost never few exceptions was he trying to

300
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Speaker 1: be devious or hurt people, or you know, be shady,

301
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Speaker 1: but he just tried things. So he tried to do

302
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Speaker 1: something with Madonna, the performing artist, and he told us

303
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Speaker 1: we were going to have Madonna come over to our house.

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Speaker 1: This is in nineteen eighty seven. I was a ten

305
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Speaker 1: year old. I thought it was incredible. But that never happened.

306
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Speaker 1: So all these all these things didn't happen. Eventually, my

307
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Speaker 1: dad he got kind of wrapped up in selling motivational

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Speaker 1: cassette tapes. We would now call it a multi level

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Speaker 1: marketing scheme, but it was like for Christian businessmen to

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Speaker 1: be successful. He was very into it.

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Speaker 2: You all did a lot of driving around with with

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Speaker 2: your dad, and your dad was loquacious and he did

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Speaker 2: most of the talking. But you know in your book

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Speaker 2: there's this you know, this self help multi level marketing program.

315
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Speaker 2: And the most famous quote your dad often said while

316
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Speaker 2: driving around, whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe,

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Speaker 2: and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he lived that way. I'm so glad that

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Speaker 1: you read that. I think it's Paul J. Meyer said that,

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Speaker 1: and he was a Texas sort of Christian entrepreneur person

321
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Speaker 1: and started this business that my dad just really locked into.

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Speaker 1: It was this vision for you know, an American dream.

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Speaker 1: My dad loved it.

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Speaker 2: And one more venture of his. I mean, I was

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Speaker 2: just so fascinated by what good ideas so many of

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Speaker 2: them were, was shared office space, like like we work.

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Speaker 1: But oh yeah, back.

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Speaker 2: In you know, in the eighties.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't believe that he came up with that,

330
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Speaker 1: because it really it is something that especially now is

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Speaker 1: a pretty standard, pretty I think it's been profitable model

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Speaker 1: for people to share office space and share services that way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my dad was trying it in nineteen eighty eight. He

334
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Speaker 1: rented a sort of strip mall office building. I helped him.

335
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Speaker 1: We decorated it in full nineteen eighty eight style. Everything

336
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Speaker 1: was like moth. It was sort of shades of pink,

337
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Speaker 1: dusty pink and you know, magenta hell pink. But we

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00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:33,040
Speaker 1: set this up and my father hired a secretary who

339
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:35,439
Speaker 1: sat at the front desk and filed her nails and

340
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 1: answered the phone, and then he tried to rent out

341
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Speaker 1: these little rooms within this building to business people. I'll

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Speaker 1: call it a failure in my dad's business record. Although

343
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Speaker 1: it's funny when I talk about my dad this way

344
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 1: and I think about the word failure, I don't ever

345
00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:56,480
Speaker 1: remember my dad getting down about these things not working out.

346
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Speaker 1: He really just went on to the next thing with

347
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Speaker 1: a you know, he just was like, well, let's try

348
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Speaker 1: something else.

349
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Speaker 2: And your mom you describe at one point as recklessly tolerant,

350
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Speaker 2: which which just felt so right. I mean more than tolerant,

351
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:17,479
Speaker 2: I would say recklessly enthusiastic about, you know, whatever was next.

352
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Speaker 2: In this way, that comes across as really you know,

353
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Speaker 2: as really lovely in a lot of ways. But at

354
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:29,160
Speaker 2: the same time, the house is falling apart. Your parents

355
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:31,480
Speaker 2: both get real estate licenses so they can be the

356
00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 2: ones to sell it and not have to pay commission

357
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Speaker 2: to other realtors. And the letters from the homeowners association

358
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Speaker 2: are just piling up, and the hoarding has become more

359
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 2: and more intense.

360
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Speaker 1: Yes, the grass in that home was at my waist

361
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Speaker 1: in the front yard. In the backyard, they just stopped

362
00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:54,600
Speaker 1: mowing the grass. Something happened to our front door, and

363
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 1: a chunk of the bottom was covered in plywood. We

364
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,720
Speaker 1: had fallen into great disrepair because my parents just were

365
00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:04,679
Speaker 1: never they weren't into consequences, right, They just sort of lived.

366
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Speaker 1: They just did what they wanted to do. So, yeah,

367
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Speaker 1: we were in a bad place and my father really

368
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Speaker 1: didn't have any work at that point. It was a low,

369
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Speaker 1: low moment.

370
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Speaker 2: And that seems like it's sort of dovetails was during

371
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Speaker 2: this whole period of time when your family is living

372
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:25,160
Speaker 2: in luxury land, your dad is kind of on this

373
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Speaker 2: shift right ward both politically and religiously. He was raised Lutheran.

374
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Speaker 1: He was raised Lutheran. He tells a story or used

375
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Speaker 1: to tell a story about going to a Lutheran camp

376
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Speaker 1: outside Miami and getting really interested in what the Lutheran

377
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:48,119
Speaker 1: pastor that ran it did for a job, and you

378
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 1: know what that was like. But then, you know, we

379
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:54,879
Speaker 1: spent all these years where we were a very casual

380
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: church family. We went to church. I'd say we went

381
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: to church most weeks, but we didn't stress if we

382
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:05,800
Speaker 1: missed a week. Sometimes we would not go on Christmas

383
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: because we wanted to open presents. You know. It wasn't

384
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Speaker 1: like a core part of just how our family operated

385
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty nine, which is when my dad decided

386
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:20,680
Speaker 1: to leave the house that was in shambles and moved

387
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: to Fort Wayne and entered this seminary and become a

388
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Speaker 1: Lutheran pastor himself. So he was forty six when he did.

389
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Speaker 2: That, and you were going into sixth grade. How did

390
00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 2: that feel for you? You went from this kid trying

391
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:40,439
Speaker 2: to kind of find your way in Indiana after having

392
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 2: grown up prior to that in Long Island, like these

393
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 2: really different cultures, and turned out that you were a

394
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 2: really good swimmer and really excelled at the backstroke when

395
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 2: you were in Indiana. And so you had that, you know,

396
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,199
Speaker 2: you had that life. But even the way that you

397
00:22:56,280 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 2: describe different cuisines were the way that you had never

398
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 2: really had soda, but then suddenly when.

399
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Speaker 1: You were in Indiana, all you drank was soda.

400
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Speaker 2: I Mean, one really really stark example of I would

401
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 2: call it benign neglect of you know, not necessarily taking

402
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 2: care of things in a particularly responsible way, would be

403
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 2: that you ended up like kneeding dentures for your baby

404
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 2: teeth because your mother gave you apple juice in a bottle, right, she.

405
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: Just gave me apple juice in a bottle. In my

406
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,439
Speaker 1: mom's way of thinking, she would just say, well, you

407
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: wanted apple juice, and of course I had apple juice.

408
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 1: I was a baby, and it was sugar, and so

409
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 1: it just tasted good. It, you know, stopped me from crying,

410
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: and she just put me to sleep with a bottle

411
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: of apple juice. But that caused my front teeth to

412
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: be completely rotten on the back, and so they were

413
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: rotten for years. The fronts of my teeth looked white

414
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 1: and I guess normal, but it was painful, and I

415
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 1: didn't know that that was wrong, you know, I just

416
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: thought that's how teeth felt like you were saying before,

417
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: this sense of normalcy, whatever is going on in your house.

418
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: However the adults around you behave when you're young, you

419
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 1: just think that that's the way it is. So yeah,

420
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: So it was discovered that I had these rotten forefront

421
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 1: teeth and I had to have them pulled when I

422
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: was four, and then I got dentures when I was

423
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: four as well. You know, in some ways you can

424
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 1: see it as my mom fitting into the parenting of

425
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one nineteen eighty two that was maybe a

426
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: little bit more standard, But so many of their choices

427
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 1: were that they leaned toward this sense that consequences didn't

428
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: exist and that they just wanted to do what they

429
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 1: wanted to do.

430
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

431
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:04,479
Speaker 2: When Amanda is eleven, her father is in seminary and

432
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 2: the family is now living in a small house. She's

433
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 2: a p K, a pastor's kid, and she's becoming more

434
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 2: aware of the family's precarious finances. Everyone needs to pull

435
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 2: their weight. Amanda needs a job.

436
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: So this was an advertisement in you know, the seminary

437
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: where he was attending. They had a lunch room and

438
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: a little photocrappied daily newsletter and it's very much of

439
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: the era. So someone had posted in that I need

440
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: a teenage babysitter to take my kids to the pool.

441
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: And of course I had been swimming and I was

442
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: a good backstroker. I was eleven, so I wasn't a teenager.

443
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: And my dad takes me on this job interview and

444
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: he tells the person, now, I got to tell you,

445
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:50,880
Speaker 1: she's not a teenager. She's twelve. And I was standing there,

446
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: eleven years old, you know, watching him stretch the truth.

447
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: And then I watched him say that I knew CPR

448
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: and I was a lifeguard, and it's like my dad

449
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: took the the kernel of the fact that I was, like,

450
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, an adolescent and good at swimming, and he

451
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 1: made that into the story that this family wanted to

452
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: hear all for I think it was two dollars an

453
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: hour that I earned that summer, and in the end,

454
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: my dad ended up keeping that money. I didn't have

455
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: a checking account, and this person wanted to write checks,

456
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: and so she wrote them to my dad, and my

457
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: dad was going to give me the money at the

458
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: end of the summer or at the end of the month.

459
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: So in some ways you can say, God, what a

460
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: horrible thing it was that he took your babysitting money

461
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: from the whole summer. You were eleven and you did

462
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,880
Speaker 1: that job. But yeah, I sometimes I feel that way,

463
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: and sometimes I feel like, well, the fact that I

464
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: was making two dollars an hour, however many hours a week,

465
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:47,640
Speaker 1: and he hung on to and he must have needed

466
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: it a lot more than I did.

467
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: There's also, I mean, two really interesting things around that

468
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 2: time that really struck me. And one is the really

469
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 2: big difference in the way they treated you and saw

470
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 2: you and what they expected of you and the way

471
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 2: that they treated your brother. You were like on two

472
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 2: different tracks.

473
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: Absolutely the gendered thing of what daughters do and are

474
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: expected to do versus sons is well documented beyond my family,

475
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: I think. But also he's the youngest, and I mean

476
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: my theory is that my mom she so just loved

477
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: that role of having kids to take care of instead

478
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: of having a job. I think that that was like

479
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 1: such a central part of identity for her that she

480
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,719
Speaker 1: kind of didn't want my brother to grow up. And

481
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: whereas in my case, any sort of responsibility that I

482
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: might take on that might alleviate my mom and dad

483
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: from responsibility, they embraced, like, please, Amanda, do you want

484
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: to cook dinner or do you want to you know,

485
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: whatever thing I whatever role I stepped into, they were

486
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: very happy to see that and just watch me take

487
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: it on, take on their kind of obligations and things.

488
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 1: It was fully the opposite for my brother. They really

489
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: wanted him to remain little, you know, My mom especially

490
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: wanted him to be the baby of the family. And so, yeah,

491
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: we definitely had different childhoods. Different childhoods.

492
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, your mom also have had a very interesting way

493
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 2: of kind of dealing with sexuality, and you're you know,

494
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 2: like she started talking to you about it very young

495
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 2: and even when you needed braces, was like, well, it's

496
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 2: good to you get over this with this now before

497
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 2: you're a teenager, because that way you'll be able to

498
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:41,479
Speaker 2: kiss boys.

499
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: And they never got my brother braces, and I think

500
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: objectively my brother's teeth were worse than mine. But it

501
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: was about marriage ability for them. They were very concerned,

502
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: my mom, especially that I wouldn't be appealing to boys.

503
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: I think they saw in me I was like a

504
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: little strident and a little they called it bossy, but

505
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: they were worried that I wouldn't be like docile enough

506
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: or pretty, and that was a concern because I think

507
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: that for both of my parents they saw success and

508
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: maturing and coming into adulthood that was all part of

509
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: finding a person, finding a mate, and for women it's

510
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: having children and all those things that they really treasured.

511
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 2: Do you think that that was true of your mother

512
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: back when she was repairing typewriters and wanting to be

513
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: a designer, and this very unusual for her to have

514
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 2: gone to New York City from Indiana at that time.

515
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 2: Do you think that was always the case for her

516
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 2: or do you think it sort of developed.

517
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: I think something must have changed, because I really see

518
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,959
Speaker 1: in my mom. I see two people. I see this

519
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: young person, and there's these beautiful clips. I have a

520
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: lot of newspaper clips of my family, things that happened

521
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: to make the news. And there's one of my mother

522
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: when she was working at IBM nineteen seventy four. She

523
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: has this long, glossy red hair. She's got plaid bell

524
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: bottoms on. She's a stunning woman with this tool belt on.

525
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: You can't imagine a more inspirational young woman. I feel

526
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: like that really was her. But then I have to

527
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: compare that with the mother that I knew all through

528
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. She really got so far away

529
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: from that pioneering spirit that I loved so much in her.

530
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: I will say what she hung on to. My mother

531
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: did whatever she wanted, like she just did. She really

532
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't be stopped, and she didn't care if it was

533
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: the norm, and she didn't care if it made other

534
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: people mad. She just did it. And so this is

535
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: a bit gross, and there are in the story of

536
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: my family there are some things that are kind of gross.

537
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: A lot of them are about expired food. But my mother,

538
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: I think she didn't really like brushing her teeth and

539
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: when she was about fifty maybe fifty two, she just stopped.

540
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: She was just like, make your own choices. I don't

541
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: like doing it. It's like a deranged thing to say.

542
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 3: Of course, people.

543
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: Should brush their teeth, even if they don't like doing it.

544
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: It's a short task that we all figure out how

545
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: to do. It's how she operated, and I think that

546
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: that was a constant in her life that she she

547
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: wanted to learn to be a fashion designer, so she

548
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: just went to New York. So she just did it.

549
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: And I think that that's how she was a parent too,

550
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: And it was just how she was.

551
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 2: First the tooth brushing stops. Then Amanda's mom and dad

552
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 2: stopped paying taxes forever.

553
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, they stopped paying taxes in nineteen ninety four, pretty much, so,

554
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: and that was the year we moved from Fort Wayne.

555
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: He finished the seminary program and took a position as

556
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: a Lutheran pastor in the Detroit right suburbs. So I'd

557
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: started high school in Fort Wayne, was to finish the

558
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: last two years in Detroit. But yeah, they just I

559
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: think they got to a point where they were out

560
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: overspending like they always did. They were spending more than

561
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: we had or would get, and they kind of were like, well,

562
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: we're going to leave the state of Indiana soon, and

563
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: so they just they just thought maybe these things wouldn't

564
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: follow them. And in a way that's true. I think

565
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: that in that time things were so much less digital, right,

566
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: so they just they just didn't pay for things. Bill

567
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: would come in, they just didn't pay it. And it

568
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: was in a different county in a different state, and

569
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: so I found records that they were being sued for

570
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: you know, dental work and other expenses that they had

571
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: incurred in those years. They just stopped paying for thanks

572
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: in ninety two and ninety three, and then we moved.

573
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: So how they did it?

574
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 2: It also seems like, well, would you say, you started

575
00:32:54,760 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: to try to mitigate some of especially the whole which

576
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 2: of course your family never called hoarding, but when you

577
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 2: started to kind of order the marinerisauces from oldest to

578
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: newest by date of expiration or like just become like

579
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: try to contend with the mess, and which earns you

580
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 2: as a nickname Martha a lah Martha Stewart, which they

581
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 2: mean in a totally derogatory way.

582
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: Not nice. Yes, it was before Martha had her problems

583
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: and everything, but Martha was so popular nineteen ninety four

584
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: ish when we moved to Detroit. I really, as anyone

585
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: who's lived with a hoarder does, you have a period

586
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: of time and for some at last forever where you

587
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: think the problem here is the stuff. It's not that

588
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: my loved one has an emotional or a mental health problem.

589
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: The problem is the stuff. So I'm going to fix

590
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: the stuff. And it's a very tangible way to I think,

591
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: think about these issues. So, as a sixteen year old,

592
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: I had been plucked yet another move. I didn't have

593
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: any friends. I was sixteen, school hadn't started. It was

594
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: that summer. So I just thought, I'm I'm going to

595
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: make order out of this madness of all all this food.

596
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: We'd been moving food from Long Island to Indiana to

597
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: the other place in Indiana, all this stuff. I tried

598
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: organizing it and got in some trouble. My mother was

599
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: very annoyed that I'd kind of magnified the issue of

600
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: how much of this food we had and what a

601
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: problem it was. And I was kind of a punky

602
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: teenager and I worked these bright blue Doc Martins all

603
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: the time. My hair was a little bit purple. I

604
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: had this maroon some nineties hair thing going on, and

605
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: at the same time I did become really fascinated with

606
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart, who had a TV show at that same year.

607
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: It was becoming very big, and man, I just saw

608
00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: in Martha this classic sense of keeping home, putting a

609
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: nice meal on the table. It was just everything I

610
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: didn't have at home, everything I didn't see, but gosh,

611
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: I just thought, what a person Martha. And my mom

612
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: picked up on my interest in Martha Stewart and my

613
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: annoying to her, deeply annoying, and to her just judgmental

614
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: and really bad behavior on my part of doing things

615
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:31,320
Speaker 1: like tidying up the food in the basement or trying

616
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,479
Speaker 1: to clean out the refrigerator sometimes, and if she would

617
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:38,439
Speaker 1: clean something up that was a massive mess that needed

618
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: immediate attention, she would say, oh, is that good enough

619
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: for you, Martha. So when we got to Detroit, it

620
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: was sort of like this yet again reinvention. Suddenly my

621
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,839
Speaker 1: father is a Lutheran pastor and a place we've never been,

622
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: so there's no history of his business failings or anything,

623
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: and there's no history of my mom is this fashion

624
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 1: design person or horror or anything. She's a nurse, so

625
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: she got a job at a hospital, and he had

626
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: his job at the Lutheran church. It's very different, and

627
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:11,280
Speaker 1: we did that all the time. We really reinvented ourselves.

628
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: I think my parents liked that ability to just start again.

629
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 2: So are you just like dying to get out of

630
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 2: there and go to college?

631
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: That's too light a phrase to describe my desire to

632
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: just leave. I just really thought I just had to

633
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:32,720
Speaker 1: get out. I had been having this dream about my house.

634
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 1: I had this dream night after night after night. I

635
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:37,800
Speaker 1: just would obliterate my house.

636
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 2: Was it whatever house you were in at the time,

637
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 2: or was it always the mansion.

638
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: Whatever house we lived in at that time. I had

639
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: it a lot in high school, which my last years

640
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,919
Speaker 1: of high school was this Detroit area house. And yeah,

641
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: the dream, it's like a very simple dream. It doesn't

642
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: require much psychological analysis to say I was uncomfortable with

643
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: all the stuff in our house. But I just would dream.

644
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: I just go to sleep. It was like a comforting

645
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: thing to think about. I'm going to take all this

646
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: fabric that's on our dining table and I'm going to

647
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 1: throw it out the window. I'm going to open our

648
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: refrigerator and pour out the ketchup and throw the meat

649
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: on the floor, and whatever I could do to just

650
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: destroy the house. And it was a very satisfying kind

651
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: of ritual in my sleep and in my mind. And

652
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 1: I can tell you honestly, I truly thought every person

653
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: had that dream when I was young. I really thought

654
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: that was like a very normal thing to do. And

655
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: a way to think about where you live is that

656
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: you want to ruin it.

657
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 2: That house was owned by the church, so as far

658
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 2: as they were concerned, anything that ever went wrong in

659
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 2: the house was not their responsibility because they didn't have

660
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 2: equity in the house and the church owned it, so

661
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 2: they didn't have to do anything about it.

662
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: There was a bathroom upstairs and they didn't clean it.

663
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:02,280
Speaker 1: They did wipe down the shower or clean the toilet

664
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: for six or seven years. They started out doing it

665
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: in the nineties and then they just stopped. They just

666
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: didn't want to. We had when I was in high school.

667
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: I don't even exactly know how it happened, but there

668
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: was crack and then a hole in our kitchen window.

669
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: This is in the Midwest, so we're not in Florida

670
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: or a place where there's good weather all year. This

671
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: is in Detroit area, and there was a large hole

672
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,760
Speaker 1: the size of a standard slice of pizza, pretty big hole,

673
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: triangular hole, looking out in the backyard. And they refused

674
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: to address it in any way. They would just say, well,

675
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: the church owns the house. What good does it do

676
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: us if we go out and spend money on a

677
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: piece of glass or a repair. And I lived with that.

678
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: I mean I lived there maybe eight or ten months

679
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: of when that hole was there, because I was in

680
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: high school and I was leaving. But every time I

681
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 1: came home, the slice of pizza hole was still there.

682
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: They just let it be. At certain points they had

683
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:12,760
Speaker 1: a garbage bag and duct tape over, but they couldn't

684
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: they couldn't conceive of investing a dollar or a moment

685
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: in that house. Things became very run down and almost scary.

686
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: The garage caved in eventually. The garage was not something

687
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: they put cars in. It was just full of boxes

688
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: of stuff, you know, my dad's cassette tapes from the

689
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 1: multi level marketing scheme, and books and old winter coats

690
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: and food. Of course, there was food. There was everything

691
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: in there in that space, and it was deteriorating before

692
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: our eyes over all that time, and they just refused

693
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: to do anything about it. And one day, I think

694
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: it was in college at this time, I had watched

695
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 1: the sort of undulation of the room of this garage.

696
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 1: I could see it was not doing well. And I

697
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: arrived one day and it just all the way caved in.

698
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: And I came into the house just I was alarmed.

699
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: It's like a structure caved in and just all this

700
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: stuff in there. And I said to my dad, like,

701
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: oh no, the garage fell in. What are we going

702
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: to do? And he was kind of like, yeah, it

703
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: happened Tuesday. Do you want pancakes or waffles? Like he

704
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: was making breakfast? He didn't. He just they just moved on.

705
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,239
Speaker 1: And their attitude was so often like Amanda, why are

706
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: you getting so worried about everything? Okay, there's a hole

707
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: in the window. Okay, the garage fell in.

708
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment. With more family secrets.

709
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 2: Amanda goes to college in Chicago in nineteen ninety six.

710
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 2: She falls asleep that first night in her new dorm

711
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 2: and wake up in the morning to a vivid, remarkable absence.

712
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 2: She has not had the dream in Chicago, she sleeps

713
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 2: through the night. In fact, the dream goes away for

714
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 2: years as she moves into young adulthood. When she's in

715
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 2: her mid twenties, she falls in love with a man

716
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 2: named Frank and they marry. While she stays in close

717
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 2: touch with her parents, their lives have continued to slide

718
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 2: into further chaos. Her father is renting himself out as

719
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 2: a pastor for hire working funerals, and her mother is

720
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 2: working as an RN at a hospice. Amanda is living

721
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 2: her own very different life, but then in two thousand

722
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 2: and six, she gets a call from her mother. Amanda's

723
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 2: father has had a nervous breakdown.

724
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: So the story that I heard from my mother that

725
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: day is that he stood up Sunday morning to do

726
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: the first service. He went into the pulpit at early

727
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: service and started speaking. He prepared these sermons. My dad

728
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: was a great sermonizer in all parts of his life,

729
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: not just in church. But he looked forward to it.

730
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,959
Speaker 1: He got there and said a few words. I don't

731
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: know exactly where he was going with it, and then

732
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: he said, I can't do this anymore. And he turned

733
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: around and he took his vestments off in the Socristy

734
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: area and got in a car and picked up my

735
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: mom who was at home. They got in the car

736
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,799
Speaker 1: and they just drove around and my dad said he

737
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: wasn't able to continue. He just had In retrospect, I

738
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: think it was called sort of a nervous breakdown by

739
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: people that were caring for my dad. It was a

740
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:46,920
Speaker 1: breaking point of some kind where he just couldn't do

741
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: it anymore. So at that point, they're living in a

742
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: house that is owned by this church that he's just

743
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: said I'm done with, I can't do it anymore. And

744
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 1: they had lived there eleven years, so so much had

745
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: to be dealt with emotionally and then tangibly with all

746
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: the stuff. And then my parents were moving out of

747
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: the house and I was helping them. That dream came

748
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 1: back when I went back into grappling with all the stuff,

749
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: all the mess in their house.

750
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 2: One of the things that really struck me is that

751
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 2: in that next stretch of years, which is not a

752
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 2: small number of years, you're building your life, you're making

753
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 2: your home, you're married, you're working. You become pregnant and

754
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 2: discover that you're having a girl, and you say to Frank,

755
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 2: I don't know how to be a mother to a daughter,

756
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: which was so moving to me because so much about

757
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,439
Speaker 2: do you break a cycle or do you not break

758
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: a cycle? For all of us at at any given moment,

759
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 2: Can I do it differently?

760
00:43:58,800 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: Right? What's possible?

761
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 3: Right?

762
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 2: Right?

763
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:07,240
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, That's how I felt for sure, and she does.

764
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 2: She does do it differently. In the background, though her

765
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 2: parents continue to not do things differently, and now, on

766
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: top of all else, they are ailing, both facing a

767
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 2: number of illnesses. There was her dad's nervous breakdown in

768
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, and then in two thousand and

769
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 2: seven he has a debilitating stroke and then cancer. Having

770
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 2: grown up under the Miami sun, He's been diagnosed with

771
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 2: melanoma before, but now it's returning with consequences.

772
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: He could have and did once have part of it removed.

773
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: They could have treated it, but he didn't want to

774
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: because they they did what they wanted to do and

775
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: it was not interesting for him to spend time. It

776
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: was difficult for him to get around because of this stroke,

777
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't do You wouldn't face it, and that

778
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: was very characteristic and very just classic of my dad.

779
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: But it really was this reckoning of all of their choices,

780
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: and similar things happened to My mom developed kidney disease.

781
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 1: She said she had lupus. Turns out she never did,

782
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 1: but she had diabetes. She had other problems. So what

783
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 1: was hard. I think what was frustrating for me is

784
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 1: that I could see from the era that they were

785
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: calling me Martha. When I was sixteen in nineteen ninety four,

786
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: and even before then, I could see these problems, and

787
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: I could see the financial choices they were making, the

788
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 1: health choices, the social choices. They were really kind of

789
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 1: terrible friends to people. I could see that they would

790
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: have an endgame like that it would. I could see.

791
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: I could see it falling apart. Maybe when I was

792
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: like eleven, I thought, well, how is this going to end?

793
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: And I had periods in my life where I thought,

794
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that their adults and I'm a separate adult.

795
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: I have my marriage and I have my life, and

796
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: I'm just not I don't need to fix their problems.

797
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: But then I had other periods where I thought, I

798
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:18,439
Speaker 1: probably do need to fix their problems because they can't

799
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: fix them themselves. But the end of their lives, it

800
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: really was this beckoning of all those things coming true.

801
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:29,879
Speaker 1: They had terrible financial troubles. They were living in sort

802
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: of a low income assisted living place for a while.

803
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:37,240
Speaker 1: Their house in Pontiac, Michigan was repossessed by the bank.

804
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: You know, they were not able to run their own lives,

805
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: and just like they did for decades before, they really

806
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 1: hoped I would run them. You know, they turned to

807
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: me for physically cleaning things up. They wanted me to

808
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:58,359
Speaker 1: pay for things. My mom wanted my you know, name

809
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 1: on her banking so that she could have better credit,

810
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: which would have been catastrophic. I think for me, I've

811
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: always worked in nonprofits. I don't have like the wealth

812
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: that could be helpful in that way. We really struggled

813
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: through those last years. It was about ten years and

814
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 1: the metaphor of my father having this cancer that sort

815
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,919
Speaker 1: of ate away at his face. It's really so much

816
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: like just what happened in our family. It just was

817
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: this series of almost impossibly hard years together and they

818
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: passed away within about a year and a half of

819
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 1: one another.

820
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 2: And this was the endgame. You know, this was what

821
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,840
Speaker 2: you saw, not in its details, but in a moment.

822
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:44,479
Speaker 2: You know, after your mother dies, and before she dies,

823
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 2: she's kicked out of hospice because you're supposed to ask

824
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 2: for absolutely any kind of medication there. Everything's very strictly monitored.

825
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 2: And she has her duffel bag that she has. Instead

826
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 2: of it being full of clothes, it's full of morphine.

827
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 2: And this gets discussed, so she's kicked out of there,

828
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 2: I mean. But then after she dies and you go

829
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 2: to the funeral home and you're there with the funeral

830
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 2: director who also it was the funeral home where your

831
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 2: father was, and he's going over the funeral classes with you,

832
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 2: and then he stops in.

833
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: What happens, Well, this is this very kind man who

834
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: had arranged my mother and I had gone in a

835
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,720
Speaker 1: year and a half ago and dealt with my father's passing.

836
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:34,240
Speaker 1: And this man named Ken was so understanding, so thoughtful

837
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,879
Speaker 1: about every detail. You know, in a funeral home, you're

838
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: in this very quiet, somber setting, thick carpet, you know,

839
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,919
Speaker 1: sort of absorbing everything. So I was sitting across from him,

840
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 1: as I had sat across from him eighteen months before

841
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: we settle everything, and I stand up to go and

842
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: to shake his hands. I put my hand out and

843
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: he kept sitting and he's said, I'm so sorry but

844
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: I have to tell you your mother never paid the

845
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: bill for your dad. And that was we had arranged

846
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 1: this that my mom was due some life insurance money

847
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,360
Speaker 1: when my dad passed in twenty thirteen. The funeral was

848
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: about seven thousand dollars I think, and she was to

849
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: get around twenty four or twenty five thousand dollars from

850
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 1: this policy. So she had shown this man the paper

851
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,280
Speaker 1: she said, as soon as this money comes in seven

852
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: thousand of the whole bill will come to you. And

853
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: just as you would expect, you know, she never did that.

854
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: And so then when it came time from my mother's

855
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: funeral arrangements had to pay for two. My mom had said, oh,

856
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: they haven't put the headstone on your dad, saying that

857
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: because the ground is stiff in the winter. Like she

858
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 1: had a whole story about it, and I realized in

859
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: that moment she was gone. I thought, Okay, well she

860
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: just left me with this too. She left me with

861
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: a lot. That's how could I have expected anything else?

862
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: You know, this is like my dad took my babysitting money.

863
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: I mean, there were so many times where my parents

864
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: just they just couldn't seem to do better, and they

865
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: left me with it.

866
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:19,320
Speaker 2: So in terms of leaving you with it, you literally

867
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 2: are left with it. You're left with receipts, both literally

868
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,399
Speaker 2: and metaphorically. You are left with so many questions, some

869
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 2: of which you can answer and some of which you'll

870
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:35,839
Speaker 2: never be able to answer. But what I'm wondering is

871
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 2: you went down this road of really deeply researching, reporting,

872
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 2: you know, coming to learn anything that you could. It's

873
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 2: almost like there was a split screen. There was your

874
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 2: childhood and what you were experiencing during your childhood, and

875
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 2: then there's adult Amanda looking back with the skill set

876
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 2: that you have, going like what was really going on

877
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 2: that year? What was really going on that year? And

878
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 2: you were able to fill in a lot of those gaps,

879
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering what that was like for you and

880
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 2: how it felt.

881
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: I forever will say my parents betrayed me in a

882
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: lot of ways, disappointed me. That said, we all loved

883
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: each other, our home that I lived, and even though

884
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: it had this darkness and these secrets, it did have

885
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: joy and humor in it.

886
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:37,279
Speaker 3: And telling their story accurately was it was sort of

887
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 3: like a lifelong mystery that I had that I wanted

888
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 3: to solve and I was so fortunate it So few

889
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 3: these exist anymore, but the paper in Martinsville where we lived,

890
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 3: reported on everything.

891
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: Just everything, and it's on newspapers dot com. So I

892
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 1: was able to dig up lots of things about how

893
00:51:56,719 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 1: we lived in the eighties that made the paper that

894
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 1: clip of my mother in the Indianapolis Star with her

895
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 1: IBM prepare kit, and I found a lot of things

896
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: that helped me understand in an objective way who my

897
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 1: parents were, and that was I think that was the

898
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: most important thing to me, just to know who they

899
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: really were, because if you had just listened to their stories,

900
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,959
Speaker 1: you would only have part of the answers, and that's

901
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: all that I had growing up. So I felt amazing

902
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: getting the whole story. And I think I got most

903
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, it's only a few things that

904
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 1: were murky enough I just couldn't quite pin down.

905
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 2: It's like you were able to color them in for yourself.

906
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 2: And I think being able to see our parents as

907
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 2: full human beings is something that many of us never

908
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 2: get to do.

909
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think another aspect of this that

910
00:52:56,280 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 1: felt so good to me is that I was prepared

911
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 1: haird to be wrong. For instance, the story about my

912
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: father buying the oil Derek. I looked back on that

913
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: and I thought he he just loved to tell a

914
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: tall tale. So maybe that didn't happen. Maybe that was

915
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: just I remembered it. I was four. I did remember

916
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: that he from this western bar. He brought home a hat,

917
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:23,879
Speaker 1: and I thought, maybe he bought a hat and told

918
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: a story. Maybe he didn't buy an oil Derek. And

919
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 1: you know, looked into it, and as an adult, I

920
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: was able to find not the paperwork, but I did

921
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 1: find photos of him in Texas with an oil Derek

922
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: behind him, wearing the same hat, and I, you know,

923
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 1: I'm pretty convinced that he did it. So I was

924
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:47,359
Speaker 1: able to flesh out things and I was able to

925
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: prove myself right. So my memory of all these years

926
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 1: with my parents, who were just extraordinary people, even in

927
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: their betrayals, even in all the ways they disappointed, I mean,

928
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: they were just ordinary people. I was able to tell

929
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: the whole story and feel correct in it. So I

930
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:09,759
Speaker 1: wasn't wrong. I missed a few things, or there are

931
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: some things I didn't know, but I wasn't wrong. I

932
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 1: didn't find anything where it was a total mis Remember.

933
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 2: Here's Amanda reading one last passage from Destroy This House.

934
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: Trying our best is the one indisputable thing I have

935
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 1: in common with my parents. Their best fell frustratingly short

936
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 1: of what I needed and wanted. Their best was bizarre, craven, outlandish, deranged,

937
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 1: hilarious when it wasn't dangerous, confounding. If there was another

938
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: key to unlock the mystery of Long's Island, I don't

939
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:56,480
Speaker 1: have it. To thoroughly report on the madness of their

940
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 1: forty year reign. I've had to piece together not just

941
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:04,399
Speaker 1: their document actions, but also their inferred and imagined motivations.

942
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 1: Why did they act so strangely? Why defeat their own

943
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 1: best interests constantly? I won't know that boldly, as is

944
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,400
Speaker 1: my birthright, I will guess this is what their best

945
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:15,880
Speaker 1: look like.

946
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly z Accur

947
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,720
Speaker 2: is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

948
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

949
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

950
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

951
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

952
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:50,399
Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder and if you'd

953
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 2: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

954
00:55:53,200 --> 00:56:03,359
Speaker 2: check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

955
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

956
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.