Episode Transcript
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the holidays. I
1:01
remember every part of his instructions. That
1:04
I had to wet my face down with hot water to
1:06
soften the barely-existent facial hair. Which,
1:09
you know, were not the kind of man's whiskers that needed
1:12
softening, so I wondered if he knew what he was talking about. He
1:15
showed me how to hold the razor, the length of the
1:17
strokes. When it came time
1:19
to demonstrate the actual shaving, he realized
1:22
he couldn't actually do it from the front. He
1:24
needed to stand behind me and then
1:26
reach up to my face at the same
1:28
angle that he was used to shaving his own face with. So
1:31
he got in back of me and sort of reached
1:33
his arms up around me, close and
1:35
intimate, while he did that. Which
1:38
was unusual. He was a conscientious
1:40
dad. A worried dad. A
1:42
caring dad. But we never
1:44
had much physical contact.
1:50
What stands out most about this memory is
1:52
how few I have that are like it. Of
1:55
him actually teaching me something. Taking
1:58
the time to impart some kind of lesson about the world.
1:59
world. To get this
2:02
kind of focused attention from him was rare.
2:05
He grew up without a dad. He
2:08
hated his best, but he didn't have much
2:10
feeling for what his son might want, or
2:12
might get, from a father. Délè,
2:16
his mind didn't seem to be on me or my sister's at all,
2:19
but on his job. He was an accountant,
2:23
stressed out, working long hours at the firm
2:25
he started. Years
2:27
ago, I was invited to contribute a short chapter
2:29
to a book about what men learned from their dads, and
2:31
I wrote something saying that this
2:33
shaving memory is one of the few that I have of
2:35
him passing on some kind of knowledge or wisdom.
2:39
I showed him the draft, worried that
2:41
he would be hurt, that I would think that, whether
2:44
I would say it publicly. But
2:46
his biggest problem with what I wrote was
2:49
that I called him an accountant.
2:51
He was a CPA, he told me. Very
2:53
different. Could I change it? Of
2:56
course I did.
2:59
He died a few weeks ago, at 90,
3:01
with dementia. It's
3:04
weird watching somebody with your same body,
3:07
your same world fat around their stomach,
3:10
same hands, same fingers, same
3:12
skin, go gray,
3:14
and stop breathing.
3:17
Right. That's me, I thought, soon
3:20
enough.
3:22
And I've been thinking a lot about the parts of him that
3:24
I carry in me. My
3:26
dad wasn't very curious about others. If
3:29
he met you, he wouldn't ask you lots of questions to figure
3:32
out who you are or how you tick. Wasn't
3:34
the most talkative. If anything,
3:36
some of the moves that I developed as an interviewer come
3:39
directly from being in the car with him and trying to actually
3:41
get him to speak about something, anything,
3:45
which I guess happens a lot. Kids
3:47
develop personalities to fit into the jigsaw pieces
3:50
of where their parents aren't. I
3:53
honestly see his good traits in me and all of his bad
3:56
ones too, all the time.
3:58
Biggest of those?
4:01
Some deep part of me that
4:04
feels so much more comfortable when I'm alone than
4:07
when I'm around other people. Sometimes
4:09
all I want to be is alone
4:11
and just
4:12
not deal. That
4:15
kind of thing isolated my dad from people who
4:17
cared about him, from love and
4:19
experiences that he could have had. And
4:22
sent that to me as well at times. When
4:26
was the day he taught me that? I
4:28
think most of what we learned from our parents, they never
4:30
intended for us to learn. This
4:32
stuff just shows up inside of us, like a virus.
4:36
One that they never meant to transmit and we
4:38
didn't mean to catch. Then
4:40
we look up later and
4:43
they're in us
4:44
while we watch them. Or morphine. Struggling
4:47
with their breathing.
4:49
And after they're gone as well. Today
4:53
on our show, we have stories where kids grapple
4:55
with their dad's legacies. Stuff
4:58
about them, consciously and unconsciously, good
5:00
and bad, that they left behind. Okay,
5:04
for this next line, I have another recording of my
5:06
dad.
5:07
From WBEZ Chicago, it's
5:09
This American Life. Dad, you are
5:11
such a pro. That
5:23
one?
5:25
Am I my father's trapper
5:27
keeper? Before
5:30
we get to the father in this story, let me play you this ad. It's
5:32
from the 80s. Two teenagers in
5:34
the crowded library, they stand up and
5:37
oops, bump into each other. Bloopers
5:39
fall over the ground. That's
5:43
good acting. Then this realistic
5:45
piece of dialogue. Here you are.
5:48
Say, what is that thing? It's my trapper for me. It
5:50
sure is a lot neater than this. Here's
5:52
an ad for a trapper keeper notebook.
5:55
One of the main selling points, keeps all your papers
5:57
trapped. Get it? So they don't
5:59
fall back.
5:59
And I've got a trapper folder for
6:02
each subject. That's pretty neat. And the trapper
6:04
keeper holds all my trappers. This flap
6:06
even has a velcro closure to keep everything inside.
6:09
Boy, I've got to get a trapper and get my act together. If you
6:11
do, I'll let you carry my books. Now,
6:14
that sign kind of gets to me. What is wrong with me?
6:17
Ads like this are the kind of thing that either evoke
6:19
nostalgia or complete bafflement.
6:22
But if you're around in the 80s, you knew the
6:24
trapper keeper. The velcro
6:26
sound, when you open it, the pictures on the covers,
6:29
the rings of the binder, they sort of smoothly
6:31
slid open and shut instead of snapping so you
6:33
wouldn't catch your fingers. According to a press
6:35
release from the time,
6:36
half
6:37
of all middle school and high school students had
6:40
a trapper keeper in 1989. I don't
6:43
know if I believe that, but there are a lot of them around. Anyway,
6:46
when the inventor of the trapper keeper died last year, it got
6:49
a lot of attention.
6:50
E. Bryant Crutchfield, the inventor
6:52
of the trapper keeper, has died. If
6:55
you were in school during the 1980s or 90s,
6:57
I'd be willing to bet good money you carried
7:00
around the cultural phenomenon of a
7:02
binder created by a man
7:04
named E. Bryant Crutchfield. NPR,
7:06
The Zayshow, The Washington Post, The New York Times,
7:09
the All-Round Stories. And
7:11
then we got this email.
7:13
This is from a woman who was very surprised by this obituary
7:16
because as far as she knew, the inventor
7:18
of the trapper keeper was very much
7:20
alive. And he
7:22
was her father. She said her dad had
7:24
invented it, not the guy in the obit, and
7:27
she was not happy about it. Obviously,
7:30
this is not the kind of tip that a self-respecting radio
7:32
producer can just let go. Thea Benin,
7:34
here on her program, tried to figure out
7:36
what was going on. The
7:38
dad in the email, his name is John
7:40
Wyant, lives in South Carolina.
7:42
He's 83 years old, and I can
7:45
definitely confirm he's alive. How
7:47
do I know? I talked to him. He
7:50
saw the obit when he was looking at his computer
7:52
one day, and there on the screen was his old
7:54
colleague, E. Bryant Crutchfield.
7:57
After I read it, I told my wife, I said, oh,
7:59
poor boy.
7:59
Brian, he's gone. But I
8:02
just looked at it and thought, well, I know
8:04
the truth.
8:06
What could I do? I
8:08
was not about to sit down
8:10
and write a rebuttal and send
8:12
it to the New York Times. How come?
8:16
Well, just not me.
8:18
The sense I get from talking to John is
8:20
that he's someone who tucks his feelings away,
8:22
sealed tightly, maybe with Velcro.
8:25
Well,
8:26
that is not true of the rest of his family. His
8:29
daughter, Jackie, the one who wrote us, here's
8:32
how she remembers Obit Day.
8:34
I was sitting in my kitchen and
8:37
my phone rings and my mom calls me
8:40
and she just said, you're not going to believe
8:42
this. You're not going to believe this. It was
8:44
Obit. She's like, and it's everywhere.
8:47
And I'm like, wait a minute. I start this
8:49
Google Trapper Keeper inventor and
8:52
I started looking at all of the results. And
8:54
it was like, all these, all
8:58
these publications, you know, all
9:00
these online people, like bloggers.
9:02
And I just was like, and I didn't
9:04
tell her. I go, you know, OK, I
9:06
see. Yeah, it's out there in
9:08
the universe somewhere. And
9:11
she's like, this is terrible. This is
9:13
terrible. She was on fire. Jackie
9:16
told me John may be too polite
9:18
to say it, but creating the Trapper Keeper
9:20
has been a big part of his identity, his
9:23
legacy.
9:24
A few months before he talked to us, he
9:26
was at his golf club.
9:27
I was talking to a couple and
9:30
I just happened to have a Meade
9:33
jacket on, said Meade on it. And
9:37
this woman looked over and says, did you work
9:39
for Meade?
9:40
And I said,
9:42
yes, I did. Yeah, 36 years.
9:44
And she said, Meade,
9:47
the Trapper Keeper. I
9:49
said, well, it's interesting that you bring that
9:51
up. I
9:53
said I was very involved in putting
9:56
that little turkey together. And
9:59
she said, oh, my.
9:59
Oh, gee, that
10:02
was the neatest school
10:04
supply. I said,
10:06
I'm Trapper John. Trapper
10:10
John.
10:11
That's actually what some of his friends call him.
10:13
Here's how John says the Trapper Keeper came to
10:15
be.
10:16
Back in the 70s, John was working
10:18
as director of new product development at
10:21
Mead. He was the person whose
10:23
job was to build new stuff the company could sell.
10:26
And he says, Crutchfield, the guy in the Obets,
10:28
who worked in marketing, came to him one
10:30
day and asked him to make a binder that could
10:33
hold these folders that
10:33
had vertical pockets.
10:36
John says there wasn't much more guidance than that.
10:39
And so over a few weeks, he put
10:41
together the pieces that would become the Trapper
10:43
Keeper. John says he designed the shape
10:45
of the binder, the shape of the folders, the
10:47
flap closure, the logo, and
10:49
even the plastic clipboard in the back with the spot
10:52
for the pencil. That was something
10:54
he invented earlier with another guy.
10:57
It was a full three-dimensional
10:59
prototype designed, created
11:03
with colors, named the whole
11:06
works. I can remember sitting at
11:08
my desk with a tracing
11:10
pad and tracing out of a typography
11:13
book the logo. And it's
11:15
still the same logo that's
11:18
on the product today. It
11:20
was the exact Trapper Keeper. Here it is.
11:23
John says the whole idea that it would trap
11:25
papers so they don't fall out, like the
11:27
main cell of that commercial. This flap
11:29
even has a Velcro closure to keep everything inside.
11:32
John says that was him too. He
11:34
created the flap closure so nothing
11:36
would fall out. He even came up with the
11:38
name Trapper
11:39
Keeper. Some of the obituaries
11:41
actually give John credit for this. In
11:43
The New York Times, they say over a martini-fueled
11:45
lunch, John suggested the name to Bryant.
11:48
It even quotes Bryant saying, bang,
11:50
it made sense.
11:53
That's the only mention John gets. He
11:55
and his family, they're pretty sure Crutchfield deliberately
11:57
cut him out of the
11:58
story. Grabbed all the Crutchfield. for himself.
12:08
I'm learning all of this. I felt for John.
12:11
Maybe anybody would, but I really
12:13
did. Like, couldn't let it go did.
12:16
I feel a little silly saying this, but
12:18
I identify with John. I'm also
12:21
a behind the scenes
12:21
kind of person. I hardly ever
12:23
talk on the radio. I'm an editor here.
12:26
I love helping make things happen in the background.
12:29
So I saw myself in him. In
12:32
fact, another producer
12:33
started the story, Diane Wu, who
12:35
you hear in some of the interviews. She
12:37
lost interest in it, but I
12:40
wouldn't let it go.
12:41
It felt like if I could get his hard work noticed,
12:44
the world in some tiny little way would feel more
12:46
fair. So
12:53
did some marketing guy do a marketing job
12:56
on his own legacy? Like, convince
12:58
the national press to tell the story he wanted told.
13:02
Obviously, the person who would have answers was Crutchfield
13:04
himself. But since
13:07
that wasn't an option, I found his kids,
13:10
Ken and Carol. I'd
13:12
seen Ken posting about how proud he was of his
13:14
dad's accomplishments. I didn't relish
13:16
the idea of calling these people whose dad had just
13:18
died to say, you know, there's this other
13:21
guy who says he invented the Trapper Keeper, and
13:24
your dad took all the credit for himself. But
13:27
they were open to talking about it. Yeah,
13:29
that sounds like my dad taught me he would do. This
13:32
is Carol, Crutchfield's daughter. I told
13:35
her and her brother what John said, that
13:37
her dad had been a big part of the Trapper Keeper's success,
13:40
did great marketing for it, but that John
13:43
was the one who actually built the thing.
13:44
Yeah,
13:45
that makes sense
13:46
that there were more than one person
13:48
involved in creating a Trapper
13:50
Keeper.
13:52
He took
13:55
all the credit. It
13:57
feels kind of yucky because...
14:01
I feel bad for
14:02
them because I didn't
14:04
know about him, but yeah, yeah,
14:07
it's uncomfortable.
14:15
Would it be out of character for your dad
14:17
to play up his role in something? He's
14:20
always been a talker, you
14:22
know, and he is always somebody who,
14:25
you know, thinks, you know, to talk
14:27
about himself. That's
14:30
one of his favorite subjects.
14:32
Here's what I learned about E. Bryant Crutchfield,
14:34
or Crutch as his friends called him, from
14:37
talking to his kids. Crutch
14:39
was a memorable guy, could be a
14:41
challenging guy, fun living, very
14:44
proud of his kids, big emphasis
14:46
on providing for his family, maybe
14:48
some imposter syndrome, a big
14:50
advice giver, a lover of drink,
14:53
the martinis in the story made sense. And
14:56
Ken says that for most of his life, the
14:58
Trapper Keeper wasn't the thing he talked about
15:00
a lot. Ken wasn't even aware
15:02
of his dad's relationship with the Binder until about
15:04
a decade ago, when a reporter for the
15:06
website Mental Floss wrote a long story
15:09
about the invention of the Trapper Keeper and the piece
15:11
was all about his dad. Ken's
15:13
friends started sending him the article.
15:15
You know, I got a bit of a chuckle out of
15:17
it, but I didn't really think much more of
15:20
it than that because, you know, I think my dad
15:22
has always been somebody to have
15:25
certain narratives and things that he would talk about.
15:27
So I managed to talk about Harvard
15:29
in that article. You know, if he was talking
15:31
to a perfect stranger, you know, there's a couple
15:34
of topics that would come up and one of them was
15:36
he would find a way to work into the conversation,
15:38
something about Harvard. What did he do at Harvard?
15:41
It was basically like a semester of an
15:43
MBA program. So I
15:45
think that was a proud thing for him,
15:48
especially having grown up in Alabama
15:50
and somebody that was the first to go
15:53
to college, really, I think in his family.
15:55
The Mental Floss story and the Obits explain
15:58
Crutch's role in creating
15:59
the Trapper Keeper.
15:59
that Crutch
16:02
was the one who spotted a need for something
16:04
like the Trapper Keeper. The copy
16:07
machine had made its way into schools, kids
16:09
had lots of papers, they needed a way to keep
16:11
them in place, and Crutch had also
16:13
learned that there was a different kind of folder that
16:15
he thought would sell well. It had vertical
16:18
pockets. He put those things
16:20
together and sold it to the world, which
16:23
with this kind of product is everything.
16:26
As Ken puts it, the imagery,
16:28
the pop culture, the finding
16:31
the trends, being able to reach
16:33
the audience, you know, what frankly
16:36
is kind of a complex sale, how
16:38
many kids were able to buy their own product,
16:40
who had disposable income to
16:42
buy it versus had to influence their
16:45
parents to get the binder
16:47
that they wanted.
16:49
Talking to Ken, reading Neobits, I
16:51
do think Crutch played a really significant role
16:54
in the creation of the Trapper Keeper. I
16:56
found this case study all about Crutch's approach to
16:58
the project. I talked to a former boss.
17:01
It really seems like the Trapper
17:02
Keeper wouldn't have happened without him. I think
17:05
he does deserve credit.
17:07
Does that build a bit? That
17:14
Mental Test article seemed like it was
17:16
the inspiration for all those obituaries
17:18
when Crutch died, both the New York Times
17:21
and the Washington Post Obits link to it. And
17:24
Carol says the Mental Test article stirred things
17:26
up for her dad back when he was still alive.
17:29
He was in his 70s when that reporter called him up.
17:32
Before that, Carol agreed with her brother.
17:34
The Trapper Keeper wasn't a big topic
17:36
for him. In the last like probably
17:39
five years of his life, it was very much
17:42
would turn everything around to try to
17:44
show that he had a legacy. Mmm. He
17:46
would stop people in the restaurant,
17:48
say, I invented the Trapper Keeper. Oh really?
17:51
Yeah, and I would find him over here talking
17:53
to somebody asking them what they're eating. And
17:55
I'd have to go get him, you
17:57
know, and say, leave these people
17:59
alone.
17:59
eating. Oh, but they want to hear about the Trapper Keeper.
18:03
Really? Yeah. And I think that that
18:06
came about after that whole mental floss
18:09
interview. And
18:11
that got him thinking, Oh, I do
18:13
have a legacy. And,
18:16
and then he's just kind of went
18:20
with that
18:21
and focused on it. And look how good looking I used
18:23
to be. And look,
18:24
you know, I did this. So, all
18:27
ego. I'm sure
18:30
my mother would love to hear that from me. Carol
18:33
wanted to make it clear that she loved her dad. He
18:36
was warm. Very funny. Her
18:38
friends loved him. She didn't think
18:40
he was trying to be mean or steal anything. He
18:43
was just the star of his own show. Like
18:45
if my dad was here right now and I asked him
18:48
about John, he would say, Oh yeah,
18:50
John did this and John did that and John did this. You
18:52
know, like he wouldn't,
18:54
I don't think he would lie about it,
18:56
you know, like purposefully because my dad
18:58
wasn't like that. I
19:01
think
19:02
his brain just kind of twisted
19:05
facts to meet his own neat,
19:09
you know, ego needs there
19:12
towards the end. I was
19:15
struck by how honest and thoughtful both kids
19:17
were
19:17
about their dad. And after
19:20
talking to both of them, I got back in touch with John
19:22
and Jackie, relayed what the Crutchfield
19:24
kids had said. And they told
19:26
me it made them feel better. Turns
19:28
out Crutchfield's son wants to write a book about
19:30
the Trapper Keeper and really
19:33
wants to talk to John.
19:35
I sent them each other's emails.
19:38
It's funny. As I worked on this story,
19:40
I realized the reason I love the Trapper
19:42
Keeper actually has nothing to do with John
19:44
or Crutch.
19:46
It was a cover art. Those
19:47
rainbows and Lisa Frank images and puppies
19:50
and palm trees. I'm pretty sure
19:52
mine had an outer space scene with geometric
19:54
shapes.
19:55
I tried to find out who the artist was who deserves
19:58
credit for that, but I haven't had a
19:59
And then you luck.
20:01
If that happens to be your dad or mom,
20:04
parent,
20:05
please write me.
20:15
Thea Bennon hates being on the radio.
20:18
Now anyway, we're working on her. She's
20:20
an editor here at our show.
20:24
Coming up, explaining the sex
20:26
robots of the future to your great grandkids.
20:29
And other legacy issues we have yet to face, but
20:32
will someday. That's in a minute
20:34
from Chicago Public Radio.
20:36
When our program continues.
20:38
Support for this American life comes from BetterHelp
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slash NYT.
21:46
This is American Life from Hourglass. Today's program,
21:49
how I learned to shave, stories of our
21:51
parents' legacies, and what we learned from our
21:53
dads, whether it's intended or not,
21:55
we've arrived at Act Two of our show, Act Two,
21:58
Raised by Wolf.
22:00
So now turn to this father and son who
22:02
go hunting together, have all kinds of adventures, and
22:05
then things get complicated.
22:08
Both of them were raised by wolves.
22:10
Because they are wolves.
22:11
Here's Lily Sullivan. Rick McIntyre
22:14
has spent more time watching wild wolves
22:17
than anyone in the world. He's
22:18
been doing it for over 40 years.
22:21
His focus on them is singular and complete.
22:24
He lives alone
22:25
in a little cabin just outside of Yellowstone. And
22:28
every day,
22:29
seven days a week,
22:31
he gets up before dawn,
22:32
figures out where they are,
22:34
watches them,
22:35
writes down what they do. It's
22:37
now over 13,000 pages of field
22:40
notes,
22:41
single spaced. And he's turned
22:43
those notes into books.
22:45
Reading them, it's like you're out there
22:47
with him, seeing what he sees.
22:50
And you just
22:52
watch the wolves.
22:54
Lots of scientific papers have been based on his
22:56
observations. Before
22:59
Rick and others started doing this work, we
23:01
really didn't know much about wolves. Well,
23:05
except for one thing.
23:06
That we didn't want them around. Even
23:09
in Yellowstone. The early Rangers
23:11
back in the 1920s, like pretty
23:13
much everyone else in America
23:16
at that time felt that wolves were
23:18
no good and that they should all
23:21
be killed off. And
23:23
those early Rangers did that job in a
23:25
very thorough manner.
23:27
US Park Rangers killed off the last of the
23:29
wolves in Yellowstone. Then,
23:32
in the 1990s, we realized
23:34
that was a big mistake.
23:35
So we decided to reintroduce
23:37
them by capturing
23:38
three families of wild wolves from Canada
23:41
and bringing them back to try to get
23:43
them to settle in and repopulate the park.
23:46
They put tracking collars on them so they could find
23:48
them and watch them. Which
23:49
meant we could really learn what these animals were like.
23:52
Like in a way that hadn't been possible for most of history.
23:56
That's what Rick's job was.
23:58
And of all the things he observed,
24:00
This is the story that got to him
24:02
most, of two wolves,
24:04
a father and a son.
24:07
We're going to start with the father, who was one of the
24:09
first wolves to be reintroduced to Yellowstone.
24:13
As Rick puts it in his book,
24:14
if Shakespeare were telling the story,
24:16
he'd start deep in a forest,
24:18
deep in a wolf's den.
24:20
Three pups come running out of the den, all
24:22
robust and strong like their father. And
24:25
then a fourth pup tumbles out after them, like
24:27
an afterthought. A scrawny gray
24:29
pup. The pup who seemed least likely
24:31
to amount to anything.
24:33
He was the runt of his litter.
24:36
His three brothers were all
24:38
bigger and stronger than him.
24:42
And he looked different from everyone else
24:44
in his family. He had a very
24:47
dull, drab, gray
24:49
coat. His mother had
24:52
a beautiful whitish coat, his
24:54
father was jet black, and all
24:56
of his brothers looked exactly like the father
24:59
wolf. They also had black coats. So
25:01
he really stood out, but stood out in a really
25:03
bad way. His
25:06
brothers constantly picked on him. He
25:08
ate last, they would chase him around the pen,
25:11
they would pin him and beat
25:13
him up. And it was really a tough
25:15
time for him.
25:17
They named the pup Wolf 8.
25:19
Because the collars they gave the wolves,
25:22
each one had a number. And his was
25:24
number 8.
25:25
And that became his name.
25:27
These pups were all new to the park.
25:29
Rick was kind of new to his job too. This
25:32
was the first time he'd ever gotten to watch wolves so closely.
25:35
Rick felt for 8 immediately. Started
25:37
calling him the little guy.
25:39
Worried about him. But then one
25:41
day, he
25:42
was watching 8 out playing with his brothers.
25:44
And they were just fooling around chasing
25:46
each other. And suddenly they
25:48
stopped and they stared into
25:50
a pretty thick forest. And
25:53
then they suddenly just ran at
25:55
full speed into those trees.
25:59
Then
26:00
they came darting back out, the three bigger
26:03
pups
26:03
in the lead. And then last in line,
26:05
as usual, because he was the slowest, was
26:07
eight.
26:08
One of the big pups was carrying a dead elk
26:10
calf.
26:12
At first, Rick was impressed that such
26:14
young pups had taken down an elk.
26:15
But it turned out that they had not killed
26:17
that elk because just
26:20
behind eight, as he ran out of the
26:22
trees, was a huge grizzly
26:24
bear. And it was really
26:26
the bear's elk calf.
26:30
The bear was gaining on
26:32
little eight. He was getting closer
26:34
and closer. He was looking back over his shoulder.
26:37
And it looked like at any moment the bear would pounce
26:40
on eight. Eight
26:42
was maybe 60, 70 pounds at that time.
26:44
The bear was maybe 400 pounds. But
26:48
then little eight just
26:50
stopped,
26:51
turned around,
26:53
and confronted that huge grizzly. And
26:56
somehow it worked. The
26:59
bear stopped. It looked at
27:01
this little thing that was standing up to him
27:03
like he didn't understand. And
27:07
as the bear was confused, he
27:09
had lost sight of eight's brother who had
27:11
the elk calf. So now the
27:13
bear literally didn't
27:15
know what to do. It basically just
27:18
shrugged his shoulders, turned around, and walked
27:20
off the other way. But
27:23
that made me realize that there was really a
27:25
lot more to this wolf than
27:28
any of us had ever realized.
27:31
His bigger, beautiful brothers didn't
27:33
see this act of heroism. No
27:35
one showed the elk with him. And
27:37
they kept picking on him.
27:39
As the months passed, eight started
27:42
spending more and more time alone to get away from them,
27:44
just kind of wandering the forest. Like
27:46
a high schooler might do, to get away from
27:48
your family.
27:50
And again,
27:51
Rick felt for him. Small
27:53
like that, out there all by himself. With
27:56
a family that didn't get him.
27:58
Then one day, wolf ate with him.
27:59
It was out, wandering alone as usual. When
28:02
he ran into these wolf pups,
28:05
their mother was in a rough spot.
28:07
She'd had a litter of eight pups, and
28:09
she was all on her own. Because the same day
28:11
she gave birth to her pups, her mate was
28:13
illegally shot and killed. And
28:16
the thing is, it's really hard to raise
28:18
wolf pups alone. In
28:20
order to produce milk to feed them, she
28:23
needed to
28:23
hunt and eat. But
28:25
that would mean leaving them alone.
28:27
And newborn pups can't regulate their
28:29
body temperature
28:30
on their own. So, starve
28:32
or freeze. She
28:35
and her pups were screwed.
28:37
The wolf project staff was so worried, they
28:39
even captured the family for a bit,
28:41
so they could feed them.
28:43
But then, wolf eight came
28:45
along. The little guy, just
28:48
a yearling, just out by himself. He
28:51
saw these pups, and he started playing
28:53
with them.
28:54
And the mother
28:56
wolf was watching that from a distance.
28:59
And she was desperate. She needed
29:01
whatever help she could get. And
29:04
he'd already made friends with all of her
29:06
sons and daughters. So,
29:08
a moment later, she
29:10
ran to him. They greeted
29:12
each other, they played a bit. Eight
29:15
liked this family.
29:16
Over the next days, he started hunting
29:19
for them, bringing them back little snacks.
29:22
Little tangent I learned from the books. A
29:25
wolf often feeds pups by regurgitating the
29:27
meat it's hunted. A wolf can carry
29:29
up to 20 pounds of meat in its belly, which
29:31
is easier than carrying that much in its jaws over
29:34
a long distance. And
29:36
once back at the den, the pups then
29:38
trigger regurgitation by licking its face.
29:41
That's why your dog licks your face.
29:43
He's trying to get you to puke. Good,
29:46
right? So, wolf
29:48
eight's going out hunting and bring back
29:50
these little snacks, as I said, off
29:52
to these little pups.
29:54
That was the first time they'd ever documented
29:56
something like that.
29:57
A male wolf, caring for another
29:59
pack of meat.
29:59
pups who
30:01
he wasn't related to.
30:02
And he
30:04
was invited into the family, meaning
30:07
now he went
30:09
from being a picked-on, bullied, undersized
30:13
wolf to being a big-shot alpha
30:15
male. Perhaps her first impression
30:18
of seeing this undersized yearling wasn't
30:21
that he was the best candidate, but
30:25
he had shown up. He was there.
30:27
He
30:28
adopted those pups like they were his own.
30:31
This is one of the things they were seeing while monitoring
30:33
wolves, by the way.
30:35
Wolves, like lots of creatures.
30:37
They're
30:37
really distinct personalities.
30:39
And now they could see. Some
30:42
wolves are aggressive. Some are aloof.
30:46
And eight seemed really... I know
30:48
how this sounds. They seemed
30:50
really nice. So
31:00
that's it. Which brings us
31:02
to the second wolf in the story. One of
31:04
eight's adopted pups,
31:07
known as 21. When
31:10
eight came along and started feeding the family,
31:12
he and 21 really bonded.
31:15
Father and adopted son. Part
31:18
of it was that eight was young for a father, just
31:20
a year older than the pups.
31:22
So still puppy-like in lots of ways.
31:24
Eight would do things like let all the pups attack
31:27
him, roll on his back and pretend to lose to them.
31:29
Or they might chase him around and eight
31:31
would pretend to be scared and run away. Not
31:34
all father wolves play with their pups like this.
31:37
Some are standoffish or dominant.
31:39
But 21 seemed particularly connected to
31:41
eight.
31:43
As the years went on, the other pups
31:45
in the litter wandered off, joined other packs. It
31:47
was just what wolves do. 21
31:50
though stayed. First
31:52
one year and then another. There
31:55
was one spring that their den was especially visible
31:58
and Rick's spotting scope had a clear
31:59
of them. So that whole season
32:02
Rick was able to watch them every day for hours
32:05
on end as they chased and played.
32:07
And
32:07
that's where I really began
32:09
to understand the depth of
32:11
the relationship between 8 and 21.
32:14
It was the peak of my wolf
32:19
watching career to be able to watch
32:21
that.
32:22
They were a funny couple because 8 was so small.
32:25
In 21 his son grew huge, became
32:28
significantly larger than his dad. Rick
32:31
describes 21 as an almost cartoon
32:33
version of a wolf. Like if you wanted to draw
32:35
a wolf as a Marvel superhero it
32:37
looked like 21. They'd go hunting
32:40
together. 8 would decide what to go
32:42
and if 21 wasn't around 8 would
32:44
howl and wait and then they'd head
32:46
out together. When they found
32:48
the prey 21 so
32:49
muscly and fast would
32:52
usually get their first and grab hold.
32:53
Together they'd take it down.
32:56
So they would go off and hunt, they would come back
32:58
with food, they were just inseparable.
33:01
They were buddies. They did everything together.
33:04
With 8 being
33:06
the older guy, the one in charge, 21
33:09
essentially being the apprentice.
33:13
Another season passed
33:14
and still 21 stayed in the path. He
33:17
was nearly 3 at this point. Which
33:19
honestly is like too long for a grown-ass
33:21
wolf to be living with his parents. It'd
33:23
be like a 24 year old with no friends except
33:26
for his mom and dad.
33:27
Eventually 21 did
33:29
leave
33:30
and here's where things get complicated. He
33:33
went to the path right next door.
33:35
What Rick and his team had been calling the Druid
33:37
Peak Path. The path that their family
33:39
did not get along with.
33:41
They battled in the past.
33:43
There was still a lot of tension. The
33:45
Druid Peak Path was led by a female who
33:47
was like notoriously violent and
33:50
seriously she was wild. She
33:53
drove her own mother and sister out of the pack. Rick's
33:56
pretty sure she killed entire litters of her sister's
33:58
pups. Two years later, Rick
33:58
and his family were killed. in a row. To
34:01
this day, Rick calls her the psychopath.
34:05
And she was the leader. The whole
34:07
alpha male running the pack thing, by the way.
34:10
One male beating all the others into submission. That's
34:13
a myth.
34:14
A pack is usually just a family of wolves. And
34:16
the
34:17
lead male is just a father. The
34:19
one calling the shots is actually a female.
34:22
She's in charge of strategy and decisions. And
34:25
this female is terrifying. Like
34:28
one year after 21 joined her pack, 21's
34:31
sister wanders into the pack's
34:32
territory. The psychopath
34:35
just went off on her. Someone
34:37
from the wolf project was in a plane, saw
34:39
it all happen.
34:40
The researcher in the plane
34:42
took photographs of what was happening. And
34:45
I later looked at every one of those photographs.
34:49
It was not a pretty sight. There was snow on the
34:51
ground. And as
34:54
the photos were taken, you could see more and
34:56
more blood on the snow
34:58
as she was biting
35:01
at the helpless opponent. 21
35:03
was there, but he was
35:05
in her pack. And she was the leader.
35:08
He didn't intervene. As
35:11
the years went by, he got bigger. And
35:13
their pack thrived. He
35:15
became the lead male of the pack, and he had pups
35:18
of his own. His true love
35:20
seemed to be wolf 42. A real
35:22
sweetheart, Rick says. They'd bed down
35:24
together all the time. And his pack
35:26
grew huge too. Someone
35:28
shot a documentary. A lot of the footage
35:30
focused on 21. And 21
35:33
actually got famous for being this
35:35
amazing, majestic wolf. People
35:38
would travel to Yellowstone to see him.
35:40
No one really came to see his dad.
35:49
One winter, the tension started to
35:52
escalate between 21's pack, the
35:54
Druid Peak pack, and his father, Wolf
35:56
8's pack. Rick would be at home
35:59
and hear the pack's howl.
35:59
at each other from across the valley. You
36:02
could tell from their radio collars that they were encroaching
36:05
on each other's territory. Neither
36:07
side seemed to be backing down.
36:09
The main way wolves in the park die is
36:12
in fights with other wolves. They
36:14
could seen wolf fights. They could
36:16
be brutal. And if a clash
36:18
came, 21 and a further eight
36:20
would be pitted against each other. 21's
36:23
job was to protect his pack, and
36:25
eight's job was to protect his.
36:28
I was very worried about eight. He
36:30
was now very old. He
36:32
had a lot of health problems. He
36:35
was losing his strength and his speed. 21 was
36:39
middle-aged at that point. He
36:42
was at the peak of his strength
36:45
and fighting ability. He
36:48
had never lost a fight in his life.
36:51
He was the undefeated heavyweight champion
36:53
of Yellowstone.
36:55
And there was the lead female.
36:57
That is just fine. We need to be
36:59
at the guess for our kids.
37:07
I was in Lamar Valley. I
37:10
was getting signals from both
37:13
the Druid Peak pack to the
37:15
east. I got the signal
37:17
from eight's family
37:20
to the west. Both of those
37:23
packs were traveling toward
37:25
each other.
37:28
It looked like they were both traveling
37:30
on the same ridge, specimen
37:32
ridge, on the south side of
37:34
Lamar Valley. They were moving
37:36
toward each other,
37:38
meaning that
37:40
there was going to be a fight.
37:44
One side held.
37:45
The other side held.
37:47
It was January. There was snow out. Rick
37:50
pulled over in his truck. Got a spotting scope
37:52
on the wolves. Eight's pack was
37:55
up on the ridge. 21's pack was running
37:57
uphill through forests and meadows. 21 was
38:01
out in front of his pack.
38:02
8 was in front of his.
38:04
Both packs were charging at each other.
38:06
So here I was watching the two wolves
38:08
I admired the most in the world, father
38:11
and adopted son, running at each other. They
38:15
started to come together. They
38:18
were charging at each other. 8, he
38:21
wasn't running as fast, but he was still out in
38:23
front of his family and nothing
38:25
was going to stop him. I
38:32
mean, even now thinking about it, I'm
38:38
in great
38:41
distress because I remember how
38:43
I felt then. I
38:48
did not want to see 8 killed.
38:52
I did not want to see him torn apart.
38:55
Of all the deaths that
39:00
could be fall 8, in
39:02
my mind this would be the very worst.
39:06
This would be such a horrible ending to their
39:08
story. 21 could
39:15
just pin 8 down and let him go.
39:22
But no, that wouldn't work. The
39:25
psychopath was right behind 21.
39:26
She'd surely jump in
39:28
and kill 8. No question. And
39:31
I was just helpless. But
39:33
there was nothing that I could do as a researcher
39:35
other than just watch
39:38
and document what was about to happen in front
39:40
of me. They
39:43
got to within 40 yards, 30 yards, 20 yards, 10 yards.
39:49
And I knew just in a moment
39:52
it was all going to be over. So
39:57
there I am standing there looking through my spotting
39:59
scope. So the moment arrives, they're
40:02
just a couple of feet apart from each other.
40:08
Well in that moment, 21 did
40:12
something, ran
40:16
right past 8
40:18
without stopping. Just
40:22
in the very slightest way, 21
40:25
angles away and just shoots past 8.
40:28
It was the strangest thing,
40:31
two sides heading into battle and
40:33
then running right past each other.
40:35
21's pack kept following 21
40:39
because, you know, he's leading the charge.
40:42
So when he sprinted past, they just
40:44
kept following him.
40:46
All the other Jeweled wolves ran past 8
40:48
and all the other wolves. And 8
40:50
didn't have the ability to turn around,
40:52
he just kept on going as well. Wolves
40:55
from both packs, they were just running back and forth,
40:57
they were howling at each other. It was
41:00
a confusing situation. No wolves
41:02
were harmed, no wolves were fighting. And
41:05
that was the end of the fight that never was.
41:15
This happened 23 years ago, but
41:17
Rick still thinks about it all the time, wondering
41:20
what happened that day.
41:22
Rick's
41:22
convinced that what 21 did that day was
41:24
intentional. He thinks that 21
41:27
changed the battle into a game of chase,
41:30
knowing that the other wolves would keep following
41:32
him. And also that
41:34
he could outrun them all.
41:36
21 had just come up
41:38
with this genius solution
41:41
to save the wolf
41:43
that had raised him. It
41:49
was probably the most emotional
41:51
moment of my life.
41:54
It was the most emotional moment of your life.
41:58
Yes.
42:00
By that time I had known 21 and
42:02
eight for so many years
42:05
and I respected admired them for so much
42:09
I
42:10
Was rooting for eight to somehow
42:13
survive But
42:15
the reality was I I didn't
42:17
see any way that that could be the end of the story
42:20
and somehow 21
42:24
Figured it out
42:26
He saved the day
42:29
Rick had been watching 8 and 21 day
42:31
after day for years their whole lives
42:33
and
42:35
8 was such a nice wolf.
42:37
I know how that sounds, but I really can't think of a better
42:39
word for it You'd think
42:41
that in a world as brutal as theirs niceness
42:44
could get you killed But
42:46
in the end there's a thing that saved
42:48
him after all 21 learned
42:51
how to be a wolf from 8
42:53
It's
42:54
like a dad who just poured out all this love
42:57
and the Sun inherited it
43:07
Really so in is a producer on our show
43:10
Rick McIntyre told the story of 8 and 21
43:12
in his book the rise of wolf 8 Rick
43:15
says wolf 8 died a few months after the fight
43:18
that never was From what it looked like he
43:20
died taking care of his pack an elk
43:22
kicked him in the head while he was out hunting for
43:24
them
43:29
Factory story car the
43:31
post-apocalypse edition
43:33
Because that I showed today with Simon rich
43:36
who has this story about a dad who
43:38
was also a grandfather and a great-grandfather
43:41
So it's a very strong ideas about what he wants family
43:43
members who come after him show about him
43:45
and his wife I
43:47
Interviewed my great-grandfather Simon because
43:49
he is the oldest person in my family who is still
43:51
alive He was born in a country
43:53
called America on Earth He
43:56
said he used to be a writer. I asked
43:58
him if he wrote spider-man and he said
43:59
know.
44:00
He wrote other things that have all been lost.
44:03
My great-grandfather was one of the only men to escape
44:06
from Earth. The rest of the people who got
44:08
seats on the escape pod were women and children.
44:11
My great-grandfather says they let him on because
44:13
they needed one man to row the spaceship. I'm
44:16
not sure what he means because there are no oars on a spaceship,
44:18
but that is what he said. My
44:21
great-grandfather told me how scary it was when
44:23
Earth became too hot to live on. The
44:25
skies burned with fire day and night, and
44:27
I couldn't walk across the street without collapsing.
44:30
I asked him if he had any kind of warning about climate
44:32
change, and he said yes. There had been articles,
44:35
movies, and books about how it was going to happen.
44:38
I asked him if he tried to stop it from happening,
44:40
and he said yes, of course. I
44:42
asked him how, and he said that he had done something
44:44
called recycling, which is where you
44:46
throw your garbage into different colored boxes.
44:50
I asked my mom what he was talking about, and
44:52
she explained that when people become as old as my great-grandfather,
44:55
their brains start to break down, and it's almost like
44:57
they turn back into babies. Since
45:01
my great-grandfather is going to die soon, and
45:04
he is one of the only survivors of Earth, I
45:06
decided to ask him what his favorite memory of the
45:08
planet was. I thought he might tell
45:10
me about the end of World War IV, or going
45:12
to see Spider-Man, but instead, he
45:14
told me about the first date he went on with his wife,
45:17
my great-grandmother Kathleen. They
45:19
met in college, which is a place people used
45:22
to go to after high school to drink alcohol. My
45:25
great-grandfather said that when he was in college,
45:28
online dating hadn't been invented yet. Instead
45:30
of matching with someone through a dating app and
45:33
sending a series of nude photos to each other before
45:35
eventually meeting up for sex, you would
45:37
meet them in person before doing anything else.
45:40
This meant that when my great-grandparents went out for the
45:42
first time, they had no idea what each other looked
45:44
like naked. At this point, my
45:46
mother, who is recording our interview, told
45:48
my great-grandfather that he was being inappropriate
45:51
because this was a project for school. He
45:53
apologized, but said that the naked stuff was crucial
45:56
to the story and that he was going to keep bringing
45:58
it up whenever it was relevant. My
46:01
great grandfather explained that not only had
46:03
they not seen each other naked, he wasn't
46:05
sure if my great grandmother wanted that to happen. Sometimes
46:09
in those days, when someone agreed to go out on a date
46:11
with you, they were still undecided about the naked
46:13
thing, and wanted to learn more personal information
46:16
about you before making up their mind. Since
46:18
this was before social media, the only
46:20
way to get this personal information was by asking
46:23
people questions to their face, like
46:25
as if their actual living, breathing face
46:27
was their social media profile. Sometimes
46:30
this would get embarrassing, like you might say, what
46:33
do your parents do? And they would say, my
46:35
parents are dead. And then you would have to
46:37
say something like, I'm sorry, I didn't know
46:39
that because I have no information about you. We're
46:41
strangers. The
46:46
point my great grandfather said is that he
46:48
had no idea what my great grandmother thought about him.
46:51
He had no idea what she thought about anything. He
46:53
had zero information about her, other
46:55
than what she looked like wearing clothes, and also
46:57
how it sounded when she laughed, which he had done
46:59
a couple of times on their long, slow walk through
47:02
campus with a cool fall breeze
47:04
whipping through the scattered leaves. My
47:07
great grandfather said that all dates began with
47:09
the same custom. The two people
47:11
on the date would take turns verbally listing
47:14
all the TV shows they liked. If
47:16
they both liked the same show, they'd exchange
47:18
memes from it. But here's the thing,
47:21
gifts did not exist yet. So
47:23
instead of texting the other person a funny moment from
47:25
the show, you would say out loud, do
47:28
you remember the part when, and then
47:30
you would perform the meme yourself, using
47:32
your face and body to imitate what an actor had
47:35
said and done. Exchanging
47:37
memes in person was much scarier than doing it
47:39
by text. Because when you text someone
47:41
a meme and they don't respond, you can
47:43
tell yourself that maybe they liked it but just didn't have
47:45
time to text you back. But when you performed
47:47
a meme with your body and the other person didn't
47:49
like it, you would be able to tell. Because
47:52
instead of laughing, they would just kind of sadly look
47:54
away and say, yeah, I remember that part.
47:57
And you would have to just keep on walking to the restaurant.
48:00
Luckily though, my great grandfather's meme performances
48:03
went over well. Or at least well enough
48:05
to keep the conversation going. And while
48:07
he still had no idea whether they would ever see each other
48:09
naked, he knew it was at least technically still
48:12
possible. My great grandfather
48:14
invited my great grandmother to a Spanish restaurant
48:17
because it was the only restaurant he knew that served line
48:19
to people under 21. But when
48:21
they arrived, it was too crowded to get a table. They
48:24
needed to find some other place to eat, but
48:26
neither of them had internet access. So
48:28
their only option was to physically search for food
48:31
by walking around and looking in random directions,
48:33
like truly the same process used by animals.
48:37
Things grew tense. The sun had set,
48:39
and my great grandfather was fearful that they would not
48:41
be able to find alcohol. But
48:43
after a few stressful minutes, they followed the
48:45
scent of fried food around a corner and found a
48:48
Chinese place that served beer. And
48:50
they were so proud of themselves that they spontaneously
48:52
high-fived. And that was the first time that
48:54
they touched. My
49:01
great grandfather told me they stayed at the restaurant
49:03
so long that by the end they were the only customers
49:05
left. Because they were strangers,
49:07
they asked each other very basic questions, like,
49:10
who are you? Where did you come from?
49:13
What kind of a person are you? They
49:15
ended up having a lot of things in common, which was exciting,
49:18
because that didn't usually happen on a first date. Often
49:21
the other person would dislike things he liked, or
49:23
love things that you hated. Or things would
49:26
seem to be going pretty well, and the person would
49:28
seem really nice. But then out of the blue they
49:30
would say, what is your relationship with Jesus
49:32
Christ? My
49:34
great grandfather said the main thing he talked to my
49:36
great grandmother about was how nervous they both
49:38
were about the future. I asked if
49:40
he meant climate change, and he admitted that
49:43
the imminent climate holocaust hadn't come up much.
49:45
And instead they mostly talked about their careers. It
49:48
turned out they both had the same dream—to
49:51
write stories down onto pieces of paper. In
49:54
fact, they were both already trying to do
49:56
that. Every day they would
49:58
each type out stories on computers and
50:00
then print them with ink onto pieces of white
50:02
paper. Their goal was to get better
50:04
at making these paper stories, in the hopes that someday
50:07
they might be able to persuade someone to reprint
50:09
their paper stories onto multiple pieces of
50:11
paper, and then sell those pieces of paper for
50:13
pieces of money,
50:15
which were also made of paper.
50:17
At this point, my mother whispered to me that it was time
50:19
for my great-grandfather to take a nap, and
50:21
she gave him some medicine which made him sleep for about
50:23
four hours. When he woke up,
50:26
though, he was still insisting all this paper stuff
50:28
was real, and that it was their actual shared
50:30
ambition to write stories down on paper, and
50:32
then sell the paper from more paper. And
50:35
my mother smiled and rubbed his hand and said
50:37
she believed him, but while she was doing that
50:39
she buzzed for the doctor, and he brought in this huge
50:41
syringe that was almost like a gun, because
50:43
it was made out of metal and it had this trigger on the bottom,
50:46
and the doctor explained that he was going to shoot this
50:48
thing into my great-grandfather's brain to make
50:50
him less confused. And my great-grandfather
50:53
laughed weirdly and said that he'd been joking
50:55
about all that paper stuff, and that really
50:57
what he and his wife had talked about on their first date was
50:59
climate change, because that's what any sane person
51:02
from that era would have prioritized, being
51:04
a climate warrior. And the doctor
51:06
looked into my great-grandfather's eyes with his finger
51:08
on the trigger and said, are you sure?
51:10
And my great-grandfather swallowed
51:13
and said, yep. And
51:15
so the doctor left. But on his way out,
51:18
he told my mom that he would stay nearby in case
51:20
my great-grandfather got confused again, in
51:22
which case he would come back and give him that gunshot right
51:24
in the middle of his brain. My
51:27
great-grandfather was quiet for a while, almost
51:30
like he was afraid to keep going with his story. But
51:32
I pressed him for more information, and he said the
51:35
main thing he wanted me to know before was not
51:37
what he and my great-grandmother talked about. It
51:39
was how they talked, because even though
51:41
they were basically still strangers, who had
51:43
never even seen each other naked, they somehow
51:46
believed in one another from the start. My
51:49
great-grandfather told me that all dates ended with the
51:51
same custom. After the two people
51:53
finished all the alcohol they'd been served, one
51:55
person would ask the other to come over to their dorm room
51:58
to watch Arrested Development. Arrested
52:00
Development was a non-Spider-Man show that you
52:03
played by putting small round discs into
52:05
a machine. The reason it existed
52:07
was to create a way for people on dates to gauge
52:09
each other's interests in becoming naked, without
52:11
having to directly ask them. The
52:14
way this worked was a little complicated, but my great-grandfather
52:16
was able to explain all the steps. First,
52:20
you asked the other person if they had seen Arrested
52:22
Development, and they would respond, some
52:24
but not all of it. This would be your
52:27
prompt to ask them if they wanted to come to your dorm
52:29
room to watch the episodes they'd missed. If
52:31
they didn't want to see you naked, they would say
52:33
that they had to finish a paper, which
52:36
was an expression that meant that they were not attracted to you.
52:39
If they did agree to watch Arrested Development, it
52:41
meant that they probably did want to see you naked. But
52:44
here's where it gets complicated. Sometimes
52:47
it did not mean that. Sometimes it
52:49
just meant that they wanted to watch Arrested Development. That's
52:52
why there was a third part of the custom. After
52:54
walking back to your dorm room and putting one of the discs
52:56
into the disc playing machine, you would sit side
52:59
by side on the small couch. Your
53:01
eyes would be facing the screen, but your attention
53:03
would be focused entirely on each other. As
53:06
Arrested Development played, you would physically
53:08
move closer to the other person, inch by
53:10
inch, without making any sudden movements. The
53:14
idea was that if you both moved incrementally
53:16
towards each other, eventually your hands would
53:18
touch. If the other person pulled
53:20
their hand away, or laughed and said sorry,
53:22
that meant that they had really, truly come
53:24
to watch Arrested Development. But
53:26
if they did not pull their hand away from yours, that
53:29
meant it was time to start kissing. Which
53:31
is what my great-grandparents did, even
53:33
though they had never exchanged even the most rudimentary
53:35
of nudes. And at this point, my mother
53:37
told my great-grandfather to stop telling the story.
53:40
And he had to admit that the next part was genuinely
53:42
inappropriate.
53:49
My great-grandfather said that their marriage wasn't perfect.
53:53
Because they argued, and in the 2050s they
53:55
both had full-fledged affairs with sex robots. But
53:58
they ultimately forgave each other. because nobody's
54:00
perfect. And also by the 2050s, sex robots had
54:04
become extremely advanced, as well
54:06
as incredibly persuasive. Like
54:08
if you refused to have sex with them, they would start
54:10
making really high level philosophical arguments
54:13
about why it wasn't wrong, using
54:15
logic that was essentially bulletproof, while
54:17
their boobs and dicks lit up and spun and stuff.
54:21
And eventually it got to the point where the UN had to regulate
54:23
the sex robot industry, because they needed
54:25
people to leave their apartments again, so we could go
54:27
back to being a society. The
54:30
point is, my great grandparents rekindled their
54:32
romance in the 2060s, and
54:34
they even ended up renewing their vows while riding
54:36
on the escape pod to New Earth, surrounded
54:39
by their daughters and their grandchildren. And
54:41
my great grandfather asked my mom if she could remember
54:43
the ceremony, and she said she was only four
54:45
at the time, but she did vaguely recall
54:47
how weird it was to see him on the spaceship, when
54:50
it was supposed to be just for women and children. And
54:52
my great grandfather said that they needed to bring one
54:55
man to help the women lift their bags
54:57
into the overhead compartments. And I reminded
54:59
him that earlier, he'd said he'd been on the ship to Roanor,
55:03
and there was a long pause. And
55:05
then he said that he was tired and had to go to sleep. And
55:08
he closed his eyes, but it didn't really look like he was
55:10
sleeping, because every few seconds he would
55:12
open his eyes to check if we were still there. And
55:15
when he saw we were, he would quickly close his eyes again.
55:21
And
55:24
it was around this time that my great grandmother rolled up
55:27
in her wheelchair. And my great grandfather
55:29
stopped pretending to be asleep, and he sat up and smiled,
55:32
and she smiled back. And then he lowered his voice
55:34
and said, do you want to watch Arrested Development?
55:37
And my mom reminded my great grandfather that Arrested
55:39
Development has been lost, along with everything
55:42
else on Earth, because of his generation's crimes
55:44
against humanity. But my great
55:46
grandfather ignored her and motioned for his
55:48
wife to wheel next to him, and he flipped
55:50
through random channels, while their hands inched slowly
55:52
towards each other. And
55:54
that's when I finally figured out what the Earth was really
55:56
like. It was kind of like Arrested
55:59
Development. It was something people
56:01
talked about and praised and
56:03
maybe even tried to save. But
56:05
the whole time what everybody secretly actually
56:08
cared about was the person sitting next to them.
56:11
That's where all mankind's effort went, the
56:13
sweat and the toil of billions. Not
56:16
to saving the world, but to the frantic
56:18
desperate quest for love. And
56:21
that's why the earth is gone because it was nothing
56:23
more than a conversation starter. It
56:25
wasn't what we really truly cared about. We
56:28
never even really lived there. We
56:31
lived in the presence of each other. And
56:39
when my mom read my first draft of this, she said
56:41
that I shouldn't end it this way. Because
56:43
it's glib and defeatist and seems
56:46
to absolve my great-grandfather for his political
56:48
inaction. But it's not
56:50
like anybody's gonna read this stupid essay anyway. And
56:53
even if they do it'll eventually be lost like
56:55
everything else besides Spider-Man.
56:59
So I'm just gonna stop it right here because
57:01
I want to go out and the
57:03
night's still young. Simon
57:14
Ridge reading a short story history
57:16
report. His most recent collection of short
57:18
stories is called loot. It is the first that he
57:20
spent most of his entire life younger.
57:25
When I was a kid my
57:27
dad brought on my guitar.
57:30
He got poncy. I
57:34
took glasses from the neighbor
57:36
lady but it wasn't going
57:39
anywhere. He
57:42
went and got me a good
57:44
teacher. I was getting better
57:47
I can play it
57:49
just fine. I
57:54
still practice a lot
57:56
but now this bunch is no
57:58
place. So, oh my
58:01
dad, oh my
58:03
dad, oh my
58:05
dad, oh my
58:07
dad,
58:08
oh my dad,
58:11
oh my dad. Our
58:13
program is produced today by our show's Senior Editor David
58:15
Kesterbaum with James Bennett II. People
58:18
who put together today's show include Bimatouwumni,
58:20
Chris Bendre, Abendaiy Ban, Sean Cole, Michael
58:22
Comite, Aviva de Kornfeld, Miki Meeks, Stone
58:24
Nelson, Catherine Ray Mondo, Nadia Raymond, Ryan
58:26
Romry, Ike Sreese, Kanta Raja, Francis Swanson,
58:29
Christopher Sertalum, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker, and
58:31
Diane Wu, our Managing Editor Sara Abdurrahman,
58:33
our Executive Editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special
58:36
thanks today to Nicole Wolf, Rodriguez Robbins,
58:38
Tarek Fuda, Mark Johnson of Global Wild
58:40
Right Resources, David Meach of the U.S.
58:42
Geological Survey and University of Minnesota,
58:45
and Bill White. Our website, thisamericanlife.org,
58:48
where you can stream our archive of over 800 episodes
58:51
for absolutely free. Also, there's
58:53
merch for your holiday shopping needs,
58:56
lists of favorite shows, tons of other stuff there too.
58:58
Again, thisamericanlife.org. This
59:01
American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX,
59:04
the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks to
59:06
Zoe Stropogam's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia, you
59:08
know, who's helping his little nephew with a
59:10
school project, this 3D
59:13
topographical map of the Ottoman Empire,
59:16
which is very nice. That's why we called the
59:18
kid's teacher to brag.
59:20
I said I was very involved in
59:22
putting that little turkey together. I'm
59:25
out of glass. Back next week with more
59:27
stories of this American Life.
59:46
Make
1:00:01
me feel the best of you while you
1:00:03
can.
1:00:27
He's
1:00:31
everywhere!
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