0:00

There's danger out there. Every

0:02

notification, swipe, social post, video,

0:04

or selfie while driving risks

0:06

your life. So while

0:09

sharks might be scary, what's

0:11

really terrifying and even deadly

0:13

is distracted driving. Eyes

0:15

forward. Don't Drive Distracted, brought to

0:17

you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. A

0:21

quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped

0:23

in today's episode of the show. If

0:25

you prefer a beeped version, you

0:27

can find that at our website,

0:29

thisamericanlife.org. My

0:31

grandfather Melvin ran a hardware store in

0:34

Baltimore that also sold model trains. And

0:36

he had a huge, and I mean huge, train set in

0:38

the basement of his house on Pimlica Road that I loved.

0:41

This thing was vast, with tunnels and

0:43

bridges and towns and street lights that

0:46

lit. And the train engines puffed smoke

0:48

as they scooted around the track. On

0:50

this big wooden platform in the basement in

0:52

the middle of all this epic amount of

0:54

clutter and junk and its tools and for

0:56

some reason a mimeograph machine. And in the

0:59

corner of the basement was the filthiest toilet

1:01

I had ever seen. Like, frighteningly dirty to

1:03

me as a little suburban kid. The

1:05

whole basement was a chamber of chaos and

1:07

it was the most unsettlingly chaotic thing in

1:10

it. But that is

1:12

not the story I'm here to tell. The

1:14

story I'm here to tell is about

1:16

Melvin and one of his sisters. Hello.

1:21

Uncle Bennett? Yes, you got it.

1:24

To be sure, I was getting the facts absolutely right on

1:26

this thing. I called the last person in the family

1:28

who might remember it. My Uncle Bennett. He

1:31

was at home. Wait a moment,

1:33

hold the phone one second. Yeah, I will do. Yeah,

1:36

yeah. Hello. Hello.

1:42

Yeah, Renee? Renee has been its girlfriend.

1:45

They lived together. And it was Renee. She wasn't

1:47

sure if I was home. Alright,

1:50

anyway. Wait, wait, is she in the

1:52

house when she called you? Yeah,

1:55

yeah, yeah. I

1:57

guess you're getting this. These are older people who do not want

1:59

to. to be bothered to cross the house or

2:01

yell from room to room. Anyway,

2:04

the story. The story that I'm here to tell about

2:07

my grandfather Melvin and his brothers and

2:09

sisters. Let me just give

2:11

you the family geography here. He's one of four kids.

2:14

And for the purposes of this particular story,

2:16

you should imagine them in two competing teams.

2:19

There are the two older kids, Melvin

2:21

and Dorothy, and the

2:23

two younger kids, Ray and

2:25

Calvin. Okay. Melvin

2:28

and Dorothy, Ray and Calvin. It's 1964,

2:30

and their mom dies. Four

2:34

kids are out in their 40s and 50s at this point. And

2:37

then, just after she dies. What

2:40

happened was Ray came up from Florida,

2:44

and Calvin and Ray started

2:48

taking things out

2:50

of the house. And

2:53

there was China, right? The

3:04

thing that I always heard is that there was China

3:06

and silverware. Again, the two older kids, Melvin and Dorothy.

3:23

The two younger kids, Calvin and Ray, took

3:26

all the good stuff. Yeah, and then my

3:28

father was really upset about it. Yeah,

3:30

and Dorothy too, right? Yeah.

3:34

Mm-hmm. This, Bennett explained to me, was apparently

3:36

typical behavior for Ray. Ray

3:38

was always, like

3:41

when she was growing up, they used to say that

3:43

at dinner, she would take the

3:45

biggest piece of meat. Yeah,

3:48

yeah. And

3:50

then the way I remember it is that she

3:52

takes the stuff, they fight about it, and they

3:55

never spoke to Ray again. Uh,

3:58

no. Interviewer.

4:01

Didn't. Talk about Her. Nose has

4:03

to aggravated you know? Calvin

4:06

Me mile race partner in the family

4:08

heist chasm his baby in the family

4:10

thirteen years younger, next oldest kid and

4:12

the way the I was heard it

4:14

nobody held this against Calvin because every

4:17

new the record is pretty around and

4:19

get into do whatever she wanted. So

4:22

cabin was around and Calvin Klein around doing

4:24

magic tricks for me. A charity crab see

4:26

said Darcy used organize all through my childhood.

4:30

The next day really was a

4:32

great never existed, was never spoken

4:34

about. Awesome Florida I

4:36

am my sister's matter only one

4:39

time Bennett for own nephew men

4:41

are only met her once on

4:43

a trip to Miami after he

4:45

was married and I called her

4:47

and it awkward him up The

4:50

descendants of the sources are be

4:52

was with less grub down there

4:54

was really have ever had was

4:56

from a whole life. And

4:59

then I remember when Melvin died. rain

5:02

are coming to his funeral. Know.

5:04

Course most. And

5:07

I'm of of being so stunned by that that

5:09

a person could be in such a fight with

5:11

their own sibling that they wouldn't show up at

5:13

a funeral. Out happens

5:15

all the timer. And

5:18

issues a over bully. Story

5:30

really got me when is akin? The first

5:32

heard it because it was the very first

5:34

glance. I had the idea that you can

5:36

destroy things completely. Like totally wrexham beyond repair

5:39

with somebody you know so well. I

5:42

mean I guess I'm lucky you know that

5:44

a good and family was something like this

5:46

would be so rare. but still. For

5:48

me personally, that is when a hard lesson hold on

5:50

to. Win. As

5:53

married. And. Things are going badly and

5:55

we were counseling and kind of hated Get a

5:57

for so many years. Like more years And want

5:59

to admit here. The Radio. Anything

6:01

Part of it was because I just had this feeling

6:03

like we are not people who get divorced. Like.

6:05

We are bigger than that. Somehow I mom

6:07

was a marriage therapist like I just couldn't

6:10

accept. I think we both can accept.

6:12

That. We're just broken things between us so

6:14

badly that there was no coming back from

6:17

it. I just I just didn't

6:19

want to admit that. Which.

6:22

Brings me. To. Humpty Dumpty.

6:25

I didn't know this but some my coworkers with

6:27

little kids at home. Were. Talking about

6:30

how unsettling Humpty Dumpty as to some of

6:32

those kids. Vara said that

6:34

at the doctor's office there's a poster. And.

6:37

A two year old side and after that was like.

6:40

Someone. Can break. And.

6:42

Not go back together. And. Then

6:44

remembered it when they were back to the office year

6:46

later. Zoe Son

6:48

Max. Is. Two and half. Oh.

6:56

You. Want to go back together? Just.

7:00

Say. You

7:02

want to fix Empty tends to. Be

7:09

posted a thing on social media about this

7:11

got a ton of responses from parents because

7:14

we're terrified somebody dumped the ones that are

7:16

preschool couldn't stand to see or crack eggs

7:18

in the kitchen because it reminded of the

7:20

nursery rhyme and other said her to erode

7:22

spent weeks asking if he could recreate the

7:25

story with an egg from the fridge with

7:27

they did like a few times puzzling over

7:29

the impossibility of putting in a back together

7:31

when it's cracked. Of

7:33

you be birds talk about how it mess them up

7:36

as kids to picture Humpty Dumpty left there and pieces

7:38

on the side of the. Road side walk

7:40

on his face. Woman named Isabella

7:42

wrote a letter to the Edu.

7:44

exists conscious as crack, stay forever

7:46

or if he would slowly die.

7:49

Because you seem to be still alive after he

7:51

cracked. is

7:53

something about that image or some a

7:55

broken so badly the nothing of fix

7:57

it a decent are so wrong Before

8:01

you understand all the bad things that can happen

8:03

in the world, how things come apart, how

8:06

people you love can die, and you

8:08

will die, before you get

8:11

to any of the entropic, messy chaos

8:13

of our world, with these blackened toilets

8:15

and long ago trashed model trains, you

8:18

get this glimpse of this

8:20

fat, cartoon, overdressed eggman, smashed

8:23

to tiny bits of shell and

8:25

goo. Today

8:27

on our program, people who hit a

8:29

moment when things shatter apart, now

8:31

they make sense of it, and not go

8:33

to pieces themselves. From

8:35

WBEZ Chicago, this is American Life, I'm

8:38

Robert Glass. Stay with us. I'm

8:49

Eqan Toyaras. Sometimes

8:52

there's a really specific moment when

8:54

things fall apart. And you

8:57

know exactly what the moment was, but you're left

8:59

with no idea how or why it happened or,

9:01

more important, how to put the thing back together. David

9:05

Kestenbaum found a family that happened too, a father

9:07

and son years ago,

9:09

and the son has thought about it ever since. The

9:12

son in this story, his name is Peter Oco,

9:15

and I don't usually love hearing people's

9:18

dreams, but this is how our interview

9:20

started. Can I tell you my dream

9:22

last night? You

9:24

know I've been sort of worrying about this. I

9:27

dreamt that I pulled

9:29

into a store, ran inside to pick something

9:31

up, and when I came outside, there

9:33

was a guy standing there and he had disassembled my

9:36

entire car, and the pieces were just all over the

9:38

parking lot. And I was like, what did you do

9:40

to my car? Why did you take it apart? And

9:42

he goes, it was broken. We needed to fix it.

9:44

And then I woke up and I was like, okay,

9:47

I'm the car and you're

9:49

the guy. I'm happy to be the guy.

9:52

Let's take the car apart. The whole

9:54

story starts here. When Peter Was

9:57

a kid, his dad got a kind of dream job. The

10:00

late seventies When I was eleven, he

10:02

got a job at the Milton Bradley

10:04

Company. Like the Toy Company Yeah, The

10:06

Toy Company. As a toy inventor. Oh

10:09

My. God. Yeah, I will. That's what

10:11

I thought you. I was in sixth

10:13

grade and this was like, you know,

10:15

super street credit to go in in

10:17

effect. You know my dad works in

10:20

Milton Bradley because they were a big

10:22

deal back then, but they were a

10:24

big deal, you know, for a hundred

10:26

years. In fact, My, my dad, you

10:28

know, moved into his cubicle. And

10:31

he was next to the guy who claim

10:33

to have invented chutes and ladders. sales. As

10:36

I don't think that's true, but the guy was

10:38

old enough that it's possible. The

10:41

job as exciting for Peter's dad to. The

10:43

That is always been searching for way to be

10:45

successful. And success was the thing

10:47

he imagined happening all at once. He

10:50

saw himself as an inventor. And he

10:52

just had the right idea the world would

10:54

notice his ship would come in. Actually

10:56

read a lot of books about ships and captain's. Anyway,

10:59

his previous attempt at conquering world had not

11:01

gone so well. He. Created these

11:04

kind of cardboard models of famous

11:06

landmarks. That. He tried to sell as kids.

11:09

You. Know my mom and I and and Hammer

11:11

I was an only child and with the

11:13

three of us would go out to the

11:15

garage with hair dryers and kind of shrink

11:17

wrap these cardboard model kits and put him

11:20

in U P S boxes and you know

11:22

that with that was our life for a

11:24

few years and then it just died. He

11:26

noticed died and so he was struggling because

11:28

he saw himself as an idea guy and

11:30

so when he got the chance to you

11:32

know go to Milton Bradley and be a

11:35

game designer or toy designer. I think he

11:37

was super excited. The. One bad

11:39

thing about the job was that Milton Bradley

11:41

was ninety miles from where they live in

11:43

Massachusetts, so damages work there the whole week.

11:45

I come home on the weekends. i

11:48

was in sixth grade i hated it

11:50

i hated seeing him leave on a

11:52

sunday and then you know return the

11:54

following week and it was a long

11:56

week and i really miss them so

11:58

friday's when he pulling the drive like

12:00

I was ecstatic. I just was so

12:02

happy to see him. And he'd always

12:04

come home with a box of stuff.

12:07

And the stuff in that box, it

12:09

was kind of magical. This was

12:11

1977, and in that box

12:14

were circuit boards and wires. Milton

12:16

Bradley was making some of the first electronic

12:18

games. Their big hit was

12:20

Simon. Basically an electronic version

12:22

of Simon Says, a kind of

12:24

chunky, frisbee-shaped thing with four big buttons,

12:27

red, blue, green, yellow, that would light

12:29

up. And it made these kind of

12:31

square wave tones that were really

12:33

distinctive. It

12:36

would play a sequence. You'd have to remember it and play

12:38

it back. Okay,

12:50

even back then it was a little boring. I'll

12:53

be honest. I don't think there were

12:55

any parents saying like, I can't get my kid

12:57

off the Simon. But

12:59

it did feel like you were holding some object from

13:01

the future. Just to press the buttons

13:03

and hear these kinds of sounds for the first time. Peter

13:07

and his dad would sit around in this sort of

13:09

attic room at this big table and

13:11

just mess around with this stuff. Opening

13:13

the toys up for me and seeing the circuit

13:15

board and understanding that like, you know, this little

13:17

circuit board was playing the game of Simon. I

13:20

would get in there with a screwdriver, pull it

13:22

out, and then start, you know, playing around with

13:24

it and like changing the resistor here or there.

13:26

You could make it speed up and suddenly it

13:28

was like generating electronic music at

13:31

high speed and flashing lights. It

13:33

just felt halfway between technology and

13:36

magic, you know, and I think

13:38

for both of us that

13:40

was super exciting, you know. They'd

13:42

build little electronic kits together, which

13:45

could get kind of tense. Is that like

13:47

to follow instructions? Peter, not so much. They'd

13:50

share little discoveries with each other. Like when

13:52

Peter realized you could take the spring from

13:54

a ballpoint pen, put it across the

13:56

terminals of a nine volt battery and

13:58

the electricity flowing through it. would make it

14:00

glow like the filament in a light bulb. But

14:04

more than anything, it was a way to spend time together. Week

14:06

after week, when his dad would come home, this

14:09

was their routine. They'd go up to

14:11

the third floor and just be together, sitting

14:13

side by side at this big drafting table. And

14:16

then one day, as Peter thinks he remembers it, a

14:19

kind of remarkable thing happened in that room, something

14:22

that changed their lives. It was

14:24

just Peter there that day in the workshop. What

14:27

I remember is

14:29

he had gone back

14:31

to work on a Monday morning and

14:34

left behind a box of stuff. And in

14:36

that box was a bunch

14:39

of circuit boards for different things, including a

14:42

Simon circuit board. And I

14:44

remember pulling it out and connecting it up to

14:46

some batteries and just tinkering around with it, playing

14:48

around with it. And then

14:51

I remember just looking at the

14:53

lights and thinking, like, well, let me unsolder

14:55

the lights and see if

14:57

a motor will work there. Because we had

14:59

these little hobby motors laying around. So I

15:01

took off the four lights, and then I

15:03

connected two motors to where two of the

15:05

lights had been and tried it again. And

15:07

the motor spun when the lights would have

15:09

lit up, the motors spun. And

15:11

I was like, that's cool. In

15:14

his memory, he then had another idea. I

15:17

wonder if you could use those motors to make

15:19

the wheels turn on a little car. Then

15:22

the Simon board would be controlling a

15:24

car. That would be neat. You

15:26

know, there was a mode in the Simon game where

15:28

you could tell it which lights you wanted. You could

15:30

program the pattern yourself. So I was like, well, you

15:32

could program left motor, right motor. It's just like a

15:34

programmable car. A programmable

15:37

car. You could punch some buttons

15:39

on it, tell it you wanted it

15:41

to drive forward, turn right, drive some more,

15:43

turn left, and it would go and do it. My

15:46

dad came back on the following Friday, and I was excited

15:48

to show him, this little

15:50

thing I'd built. And he took a

15:52

look at it. It wasn't like, the

15:55

symphony started playing. He's like, that's really cool. That's

15:57

a good idea. And I was like, cool. You

16:00

think I have a good idea. That's awesome." His

16:10

dad brought the idea into work and

16:12

Milton Bradley started to develop it as an

16:14

actual toy with Peter's dad leading the

16:16

team. His dad would update

16:18

him when he got home like, our little thing is

16:20

still moving forward. And as

16:22

it got further along, he'd bring home these kind

16:24

of handmade prototypes of it. The

16:27

toy that was taking form was sort of a

16:29

tank dump truck kind of thing. You

16:31

could program it to carry something to a place and drop

16:33

it off, all on its own. I

16:36

remember one problem they had was the they

16:38

couldn't get the tank to go perfectly straight.

16:41

I remember my dad, you know, having this eureka

16:43

moment, you know, one day and being like, oh

16:45

and he put two magnets opposing

16:48

each other on the end of the shaft

16:50

that wasn't on the wheel so that the

16:52

motors lined up with these magnets and the

16:55

magnets grabbed each other without actually touching and

16:57

kept the motors moving at exactly the same

16:59

speed. It was brilliant, you know, and he

17:01

had like those little victories. Imagine that over

17:03

a nine month, you know, period where you

17:05

just keep figuring it out and then it

17:08

works and then it's successful. This

17:10

is Big Track, the computer activated

17:12

truck from MB Electronics. Program

17:15

in up to 16 commands and Big Track

17:17

will advance, turn and fire

17:19

three blasts. Milton

17:22

Bradley sold lots of them, quite a few

17:24

in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. I

17:27

remember them popping up in friends houses after Christmas

17:30

and those ads were all over TV. Big

17:32

Track, rolling across the floor in the

17:35

suburban living room and delivering an apple

17:37

to dad. Big Track for your child

17:39

from MB Electronics. Transporters hold separately. Sales,

17:42

best estimate I was able to find, $40 million.

17:53

This project, it gave Peter's dad the thing

17:55

he'd been wanting, a real

17:57

success, but people

17:59

are complicated. He was on top

18:01

of the world. And I know he

18:03

felt good. He came home and felt good.

18:05

But that started to sour as

18:08

he started to realize how much money the company

18:10

was going to make from this toy. Because

18:13

this was his ship that was supposed to come in. I

18:17

think he saw it at first. I

18:19

think he was perfectly happy to be

18:22

seen as the guy in charge of

18:24

a project within a corporate framework that's doing well.

18:27

And as the stakes

18:29

got higher and the

18:33

kind of calls from his mom, every

18:36

Sunday his mother would call. And

18:39

she was never satisfied with where he was in life.

18:41

I think she would have been really happy if he

18:43

had been a doctor or a lawyer. And

18:46

I think for him, he started to

18:48

sort of see that he could prove

18:50

himself with this project. And

18:53

his self worth, I think became really

18:56

tied up with the success of this

18:58

project. Peter's dad was

19:00

frustrated. He had brought this toy

19:02

into existence. But in the end,

19:04

it would be the company's success, not

19:07

his. The toy was a

19:09

big hit, but it wasn't going to make his dad rich.

19:12

Peter would overhear his parents talking in the

19:14

next room, his dad increasingly unhappy.

19:18

And realizing there wasn't going to be any

19:20

glory for him, he quit the

19:22

dream job. He

19:24

thought about legal action, but of course he couldn't

19:27

sue Milton Bradley for taking his idea. He was

19:29

an employee, so the company owned everything he created,

19:32

which is pretty much how it works with any company. But

19:35

at some point, Peter's dad talks to a lawyer. And

19:38

one of the things he says to the lawyer is,

19:40

hey, you know, the whole idea for Big Track, I

19:43

didn't come up with that. It actually came

19:45

from my son, from Peter, who

19:47

was not a Milton Bradley employee. Then

19:50

the lawyer says to him, well, you know, a

19:52

kid can sue a corporation. A

19:55

kid can sue a corporation. A

19:57

kid can sue a corporation. And I Know this because. My.

20:00

Mom had a had kept diaries

20:02

her whole life and I've found

20:05

the diary from the time this

20:07

was all happening and see it

20:09

does noted in their Steve Says.

20:12

Ah, lawyer said a kid

20:15

consume corporation so mad as

20:17

hell the last. Peter. Ocho

20:19

thirteen year old boy versus the

20:21

Milton Bradley Company. Came to

20:23

be. The.

20:30

Basis of the lawsuit was that if Peter

20:32

as a kid had come up with the

20:34

initial idea for this multi million dollar toy

20:36

and he was owed royalties, could be a

20:38

lot of money. As

20:40

leader of the prospect of being a kid

20:43

suing a giant corporation felt scary. He said

20:45

not really know. maybe it should have. He

20:48

said it felt thrilling. kind of awesome.

20:50

A big fancy Boston law firm that

20:53

their case. And. That from decides

20:55

we're gonna take this case on contingency,

20:57

We actually think this has a really

20:59

good chance. And

21:01

you know you guys won't have

21:03

to pay the anything but the

21:06

court costs were the Xerox costs.

21:08

So at this point my dad

21:10

is ecstatic and we're both ecstatic

21:12

like I'm now playing a really

21:14

important role in. The. both of

21:16

us getting once do for this idea

21:19

you know? Peter. Says looking

21:21

back he was just coming into that age

21:23

where you're really craving some kind of identity.

21:26

Now. He had one teenage with get

21:28

and you know, just about to go

21:30

into high school. Ah and suddenly you

21:32

know I have to take time off

21:34

from school to go meet with lawyers

21:37

you know, and give a deposition. And

21:39

now everybody ah you know at my

21:41

school knows what's going on and it's

21:43

really exciting. You know it's like I'm

21:45

at the center of it. Two

21:48

years went by of preparation, legal back

21:50

and forth and finally the court date

21:52

approached. Peter and his dad would take

21:54

long walks around the block with the

21:56

dog. both kind of excited by at

21:59

all. over the story he would tell

22:01

in court. And then there

22:03

was one night, the night Peter's thought

22:05

about and puzzled over for years. We

22:08

had a dinner conversation that like changed

22:11

my life. I'm

22:14

not trying to be dramatic. I just, I, it's like,

22:17

I look back at the sort of

22:19

the little pieces that had to move

22:21

into place for this all to go

22:23

South. And they're so small to understand

22:25

what happened. You need to know two things. First

22:28

was that before bringing the lawsuit, Peter's

22:31

dad had signed a document making it

22:33

so that legally he no longer had

22:35

financial responsibility for Peter. This

22:38

was at the recommendation of the lawyers made

22:40

it so that as far as the jury would be

22:42

concerned, this would be about Peter, not his dad trying

22:44

to get money through him, even though

22:46

it kind of was. It would also

22:48

help protect any money they want. That's

22:51

the first thing you need to know. Here's the

22:53

other thing. My mother and father didn't

22:57

have a smooth marriage and that's

22:59

an understatement. They fought a lot.

23:02

By the time I was born and certainly by

23:04

the time I was a teenager, they spent a

23:08

lot of time and energy trying

23:11

to upset each other. And

23:15

if you put that into the soup along with the

23:17

fact that my mother now has

23:19

taken financial control of me and

23:21

I am the plaintiff in this

23:24

lawsuit, we all sit down

23:26

to dinner soon after that agreement

23:28

my mom signed. And

23:31

we're sitting around the table. It's

23:33

the three of us. It's a tiny family.

23:35

We're all sitting there staring at each other.

23:38

And my mom says something to the effect

23:40

of, well, if you win now

23:43

Peter, this money will be yours to

23:45

control. I'm just your guardian, but it's

23:47

not the family's. It's really yours. And

23:50

I think she knew exactly what she was

23:52

saying. She was absolutely using it to get

23:54

under my dad's skin. And my

23:57

dad was not a drinker, but... If

24:00

he had a beer or two, he would

24:02

get very grumpy and he'd had a couple

24:04

beers and he looks

24:06

at her and then I sort of

24:09

missing what's going on, pick

24:11

it up and I'm like, yeah, dad, maybe I'll share

24:13

the money with you if I win. But you know,

24:15

it really is. I am the plaintiff. And

24:19

I don't know, I guess if you

24:21

could see a fuse blow in my

24:23

father's head, you would have seen

24:25

it because he kind of took a breath.

24:28

He said, you know,

24:30

the real truth, Peter, is

24:33

that I invented Big Track, not

24:35

you. I just told you you did

24:37

it so that we could bring this lawsuit. And

24:42

I just remember

24:44

the bottom falling out.

24:49

And you

24:52

know, I don't know, it's at

24:56

that moment to be, I think I was

24:58

14 and have my dad look at

25:00

me and say that it

25:03

was amazing how easy it was

25:05

for me to question everything and

25:08

just feel like everything

25:10

that had led up to that moment was

25:13

a bunch of BS. There

25:15

was something about him staring at me and saying

25:18

that, that I just doubted

25:20

everything. Like

25:22

that moment he remembered, hooking the Simon board

25:25

up to the motors. When

25:27

exactly did that happen? Was it

25:29

really before his dad had started on the project at

25:31

work or was he doing it

25:33

after his dad began working on Big Track? Like

25:36

maybe what he remembered was him trying to copy the

25:38

thing his dad was doing. Also

25:41

at this point, this is a family story

25:43

they had told many times. Maybe

25:45

it has grown in the telling and the

25:47

telling had created its own version in his head. He

25:51

had all these doubts. You know,

25:53

I'm not a whiz kid, you know, this

25:55

is, I've, I've been,

25:59

you know. I

26:02

don't know. It's really

26:04

hard for me to talk about. I guess what

26:06

I felt at the moment was outrage because

26:10

I believed

26:12

that I had done it, but also

26:14

at the same exact moment, tremendous doubt.

26:18

I remember going later to my mom that night

26:20

and being like, what's going on? What

26:23

do you remember? And the thing

26:25

that drove me crazy was rather than instantly say

26:27

like, oh, that's a terrible thing your dad did.

26:32

He's just in a bad place or whatever I would

26:35

have wished her to say. Instead, she

26:37

got super vague and she's like, I don't

26:39

know what happened. The

26:41

court date got closer and closer. His

26:44

dad had said this confusing and upsetting thing. Peter

26:47

didn't know what to make of it. And he

26:49

was all alone with that. The hardest

26:51

part about it was there

26:54

was no third party grown up

26:56

to weigh in and help me.

27:00

I couldn't tell the lawyer, hey, listen, my dad said this.

27:03

What do you think? Like I

27:06

had to keep that absolutely to

27:08

myself and move forward. And my dad

27:10

did the same thing and my mom did the same thing. And

27:12

we kind of moved on

27:14

from that dinner conversation as

27:18

if nothing had happened. I

27:25

would be in public with my dad and

27:27

we would be telling the story of the

27:29

trial and talking about how excited we were.

27:31

And he would be smiling with

27:34

genuine pride at the fact that his kid

27:36

was the reason we were, you know, he

27:38

was able to sue the company and we

27:40

were going to get justice. Like he was

27:42

genuinely proud of me in those moments. And

27:45

then, you know, we'd be alone together

27:47

and I'd bring up the

27:49

conversation. He just couldn't

27:51

talk about it. finally

28:00

happened. His dad very invested in

28:02

it, hated the opposing lawyer,

28:04

saw him as truly evil. Peter

28:07

said the whole trial he wasn't really wondering if they would

28:09

win. He was looking for clues

28:11

to what his dad had said and what the truth

28:13

was. Eventually Peter

28:15

took the stand and swore on the

28:17

Bible. He says at

28:19

that moment it was the part of him that believed it

28:22

swearing the oath. He told

28:24

the story he remembered to that moment in their little workroom

28:26

at home. His lawyer had

28:28

him take apart a Simon with a screwdriver

28:30

on the stand, pull out the circuit board,

28:33

which seemed to impress the jury. It's

28:35

worth noting that the trial was around

28:38

the time the movie War Games came

28:40

out. That's the one where a kid

28:42

saves the world from nuclear catastrophe because

28:44

he understands the computers controlling the nuclear

28:46

weapons better than the adults do. Not

28:48

surprisingly, the press showed up to the trial. The

28:51

headline writes itself, teenager

28:53

sues Milton Bradley. Let's

28:56

see, a datum mass. A 16-year-old high

28:58

school boy from Brookline claims

29:00

that the toy maker, Milton Bradley Company, owes

29:02

him royalties for a robot tank he claims

29:04

he invented when he was 12. Oh my

29:08

God, that's you. That's me. Okay,

29:11

now read the other headline. Royalties

29:15

denied to boy who claims toy his

29:17

idea. A 16-year-old high

29:20

school student who claimed he invented a toy

29:22

robot tank at the age of 12 has

29:24

lost his bid for two million in royalties

29:26

from Milton Bradley Company. A

29:28

Norfolk Superior Court jury decided there was

29:31

no valid written contract between the toy

29:33

maker and Peter Oco, son

29:35

of Stephen Oco, who worked until 1978

29:38

as a senior game designer for Milton

29:40

Bradley. So

29:42

you guys lost. We

29:44

did. What do you remember about

29:46

that day? Oh,

29:49

dark day, literally, it was raining. After

29:52

the verdict came down, they went out the back of

29:54

the courthouse to avoid the press. The

29:56

three of them, mom, dad, and him.

29:59

There was a phone. booth on the way out. And my

30:01

dad, because he couldn't

30:03

wait, stepped into

30:05

one and called his mom. And

30:10

then he came out and we all

30:12

just got in the car. We drove home and we

30:15

pulled into the driveway and we

30:17

got out of the car and my dad just

30:20

kind of walked to the porch and he sat down

30:22

on the steps and

30:24

he just burst into tears. And I'd never really

30:26

seen him cry before. And,

30:33

you know, it was hard. But

30:35

I do

30:37

remember feeling a weight

30:40

lifted. Not just

30:43

that the trial was over and we didn't have

30:45

to worry about that, but

30:48

that all the stuff that had swirled around the

30:50

truth and the real truth and my

30:53

dad and me and that we could

30:55

just move on. You know, I'm

30:58

pretty sure this isn't the goal of the U.S. legal

31:00

system, but losing this case, it

31:03

made their lives better. Peter

31:05

says losing saved them from being the worst

31:08

versions of themselves, freed them from

31:10

something bad. And like

31:12

three programmable cars, everyone

31:14

was on a new trajectory. His dad

31:16

turned left, his mom went right, they got

31:18

divorced. Peter finished high school and

31:21

moved away to college. His dad

31:23

began a whole new life after that, where he seemed

31:25

much more at peace. He

31:27

remarried, got a degree in education, worked

31:30

with kids and Legos and venting stuff. But

31:33

that moment, it really broke something.

31:36

Peter says there was always a hint of competitiveness

31:38

between him and his dad. He

31:41

would come up when they talked about where he might go

31:43

to college. Was his dad better than his dad or

31:46

when he was little, when they'd rough house. They

31:48

both kind of wanted to win. There

31:51

was a tinge of aggression to it, he

31:53

says. And that night at dinner, it was

31:56

like it flipped some switch between them. Those

31:59

moments they used to have. hanging around in

32:01

the workroom, happily tinkering together. Those were

32:03

gone. And what was left was the

32:06

feeling that they were not exactly on the same

32:08

team anymore. It

32:10

was this kind of

32:12

lingering sense that we had been thrust

32:17

into something that made us

32:19

adversaries and competitors, and

32:21

we never came out of it. And

32:25

I came to hate

32:27

that. I hated that when

32:29

I would sort of achieve something

32:31

in my life, like get a new job or

32:33

whatever, I would hesitate telling

32:36

my dad, because it almost

32:38

seemed to wound him. What

32:41

we had been through, I think, had

32:43

changed both of us, and kind of

32:45

broke something that we never got back.

32:48

You know, we never got back an

32:50

empathy. Peter

32:58

is pretty sure he knows what the truth is about

33:00

who came up with the idea for Big Track. Maybe

33:03

it was clear at the time, but it was hard to see as

33:05

a kid. Hard to feel it

33:07

with confidence, anyway. The truth,

33:09

the only thing that really makes sense, is

33:12

that Peter had come up with the idea for the toy. In

33:15

the trial, some of his dad's co-workers testified that he

33:17

had come into work and said as much. And

33:20

it was the thing that, as a family, they had talked

33:22

about before the lawsuit, that this

33:24

little idea Peter had was being turned into an

33:26

actual toy, and how cool that was. But

33:30

that night at dinner, it was a hard

33:32

fact for his father to have thrown in his face. And

33:35

so he said what he said. His dad's

33:37

way of moving past it was just to keep moving.

33:41

Years past, Peter had kids.

33:43

His dad would come visit. Really

33:45

enjoyed being a grandfather. And

33:47

I remember thinking, like, this is

33:49

the dad I remember before that

33:52

trial. You know, before all

33:54

of that started, I remember a kind,

33:58

you know, sharing opal. and

34:01

curious guy. And

34:04

it was nice to kind of revisit that. But

34:07

I would occasionally say to him, do you

34:10

ever want to talk about this? Because I think

34:12

about it a lot. And the few

34:16

times I would bring it up, he

34:18

would just, he would just block,

34:20

he would just say, I don't, I

34:22

can't. There's

34:25

nothing to talk about. Why

34:28

do you think he wouldn't just tell you which

34:30

was the truth? I

34:35

don't know. Part

34:37

of me feels that, you

34:40

know, he did something

34:42

that he was ashamed of and

34:46

just couldn't talk about that piece of it. The

34:56

lawsuit did come up one last time in

34:58

a very strange way, almost

35:00

like the universe was trying to put the pieces back

35:02

together. After my dad got

35:05

cancer, he came out a few times to visit. And

35:08

one of those times I, we had a great

35:10

visit and I took him to LAX and

35:13

it was back when you could go to the gate with people. And

35:15

I went to the gate with him and we're sitting at the gate

35:18

and I hear this voice across

35:21

the room and it's the

35:24

attorney for Milton Bradley. No

35:27

way. And he's standing there with

35:30

a younger woman, I'm assuming his daughter, and

35:33

my dad just tenses up because he

35:35

sees it and I

35:38

see it. And I

35:40

don't know why, but I just stood

35:42

up and I walked over to the guy and

35:45

I shake his hand and I introduced myself and

35:47

he's like, oh, Peter, how are you? And I

35:49

say, You know, oh, I'm

35:51

fine. My Dad's here. And He's like, oh,

35:53

wonderful. And He walks with me over to

35:55

my father and my father at this point

35:57

is kind of a deer in the head.

36:00

headlights and I help my dad you know

36:02

stand up and they shake hands and I

36:04

mention you know I live in Los Angeles

36:06

and he says he or might you know

36:08

my daughter's out here now and it's because

36:10

I always knew you'd be a success Peter

36:12

that's wonderful and you know my dad said

36:14

yep I'm really proud of him and you

36:17

know been We just sit, said goodbye and

36:19

we sat down and the thirty get called

36:21

to first class is when on board and

36:23

then. We. Sat there and

36:25

didn't really say much and then my dad

36:27

got call on to Coats and. Off

36:30

he went. and that was you know, one of

36:32

the last times I saw. The

36:41

earliest known version of the Humpty Dumpty. It's

36:44

not the same as the when you know. It

36:46

may have been a riddle about nag or it

36:48

may have been a poem about a person. It

36:52

when like this. Humpty Dumpty

36:54

sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a

36:56

great fall. For. Score

36:58

Man and four score more. Could

37:00

not make Humpty Dumpty where he

37:02

was before. which

37:04

I read differently from Illinois now. You

37:08

can put a broken thing back together. Is

37:11

just. Did

37:20

a cast and I'm a senior editor. Coming

37:23

up a man not an Aids

37:25

father a very high wall and

37:27

he was that was around for

37:29

either King's Horses or King's Men

37:31

Maginot. That's a minute. And. Skies

37:34

above grade ago when our program continues.

37:38

Support. For this American life comes from

37:40

Square space. Square Space is the all

37:43

in one website platform for entrepreneurs to

37:45

stand out and succeed online. Whether you're

37:47

just starting out or managing a growing

37:49

brand, Square Space makes it easy to

37:51

create a beautiful website, engage with your

37:54

audience, and sell anything from products to

37:56

content to time. all in one place,

37:58

all on your terms. Had you

38:00

Square space.com for a free trial

38:03

and when you're ready to launch

38:05

that he Square space.com/american to save

38:07

ten percent off your first purchase

38:09

of a website or domain that

38:11

Square Space Dot Com/american. The less

38:13

your business spends, the more margin

38:15

you keep. But today, everything costs

38:17

more. So smart businesses are graduating

38:19

to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is

38:22

the number one cloud financial system,

38:24

bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR

38:26

into one proven platform, helping you

38:28

reduce IT costs, maintenance costs, and

38:30

manual errors. Over 37,000 companies have

38:32

already made the move

38:34

to NetSuite. Now through April 15, NetSuite is offering

38:37

a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program.

38:39

Head to netsuite.com/earnings right

38:41

now. netsuite.com/earnings. Net

38:44

sweet.com/n Y T. Hi

38:46

I'm Wendy Door and an editor with

38:49

New Times Audio. For me, that magical

38:51

thing about audio is how it can

38:53

take you closer to somebody else is

38:56

less. you feel like you're getting to

38:58

know somebody that you might never normally

39:00

neat. And the New York Times Audio

39:02

app is all about bringing those voices

39:05

to you with news stories to explore

39:07

every day. Download the New York Times

39:09

audio amp at N Y times.com/audio app.

39:12

No need a new subscription to listen.

39:18

To smirk and my request this program

39:20

all the king's horses. About

39:22

things broken so badly. They. Cannot be

39:24

put back together. We've. Arrived to

39:26

of our program at to. The.

39:29

Ninety Five. The

39:31

Sex or is by somebody examining something very

39:33

broken. Something. Documented and list.

39:36

Assembled by The Committee To Protect Journalists. Of

39:38

journalists has been killed and the Israel Hamas

39:41

war. Is the largest number

39:43

of journalists who died in any conflict since

39:45

they started counting. The. Risk

39:47

is each person's name where they worked.

39:49

Circumstances. Of the death. Some.

39:51

As a few more details but half a metre. Reported

39:54

in a Blue is really about the people on the

39:56

list. Watching the work, Talking.

39:59

To to college. trying to be

40:01

together who they were and what was lost when they

40:03

died. Here she is. I

40:06

first started noticing the journalists dying on

40:08

Instagram. I'm a journalist, I'm

40:10

Arab, and I've reported on war. A

40:13

big part of my community is other Arab

40:15

journalists who do the same thing. And when

40:17

someone dies, news travels fast. Recently

40:21

I pulled up the list that the Committee to Protect

40:23

Journalists has been keeping and looked at it for the

40:25

first time. There are 95 journalists

40:27

and media workers on it as of today.

40:31

Almost everyone on it is Palestinian. Scrolling

40:34

through, I started to get angry. These

40:37

were the people carrying the burden of

40:39

documenting this whole war. Israel

40:41

is not allowing foreign journalists into

40:43

Gaza, except on rare occasions with

40:45

military escorts. These

40:47

people's names are being buried in a giant

40:49

list that keeps growing. What

40:52

I want to do is lift some of them off the

40:54

list for a moment and give you a

40:56

glimpse of who they were and the work they made. I'll

41:00

start with Sadi Mansour. Sadi

41:02

was the director of Al-Quds News Network,

41:05

and he posted a 22-second video on

41:07

November 18. That was

41:09

a report from the war, but it also

41:11

gave me a picture into his marriage. Sadi's

41:14

wearing his press vest and looks

41:21

exhausted. He's explaining that cell service

41:23

and the internet keep getting cut

41:25

off, and it's often impossible to

41:27

text or call anyone, including his

41:29

wife. So they've resorted

41:31

to using handwritten letters to communicate while

41:34

he's out reporting, sending

41:36

them back and forth with neighbors or colleagues. He

41:39

ends the video with a picture of one

41:41

of these letters from his

41:43

wife. In

41:49

it, she writes, Me and the

41:51

kids stayed up waiting for you until the morning, and

41:53

you didn't come home. We were really

41:55

sad. I Kept telling the kids,

41:57

look, he's coming, but you didn't show up. May

42:00

God forgive you. Come. Home

42:02

tomorrow and eat with us to make you

42:04

kebab or may be kept them. Bring.

42:07

Your. Friends with you it's okay and give as he

42:09

is the battery to charge. What

42:11

do you think about me sending you

42:13

handwritten letters with messenger pigeons from now on?

42:16

Ha. I'm just kidding. I want to

42:18

chris at you, but we're living in

42:20

a war. Too bad. Okay, I love

42:22

you say. A

42:24

few hours after he said that letter said he

42:27

and his coworker as soon as city and were

42:29

outside his home. When. They were killed

42:31

by Israeli airstrike that had his. His.

42:34

Wife and kids were in theory

42:36

surprised. Cause

42:42

as tiny and the journalists community

42:44

is really close. Reading.

42:46

The less to conceal the connections between

42:49

people. Like. With the him

42:51

lassie. But. He was a

42:53

photo journalist when of the first journalists to

42:55

dive. He. Was killed while reporting

42:57

on Oct. seven. He

42:59

was just twenty one, still new to journalism.

43:02

On. His Instagram you can see that and

43:04

his posts. Just a few years ago,

43:06

he was still practicing his photography, taking

43:08

pictures of coffee cups, and two years.

43:12

Since. He started doing beautiful portraits

43:14

and action suits. He. Can really

43:16

feel him starting to become a journalist. Clicking

43:19

around on Instagram I found a tribute

43:21

post about the him from his coworker.

43:24

Sister said guys in this photo the

43:26

him staring intently at the back of

43:28

a camera. His face lit up by

43:30

the light from the viewfinder. He looks

43:33

so young. The

43:35

caption reads my sister is

43:37

going to. Him is going. To

43:40

Dusty himself was a beloved journalist and

43:42

filmmaker, and I know that because he's

43:44

also on the list. He

43:46

was killed just two weeks after that

43:48

he I read the tribute post to

43:50

him to I saw this over and

43:52

over again. Journalists. Pissing tributes

43:55

for then killed. Themselves soon

43:57

after an. attribute because of for them

44:00

And then the pattern continues. Something

44:07

else I saw over and over on the list. Journalists

44:10

later in the war who'd become aware

44:12

that they could be making their last

44:14

reports. They'd say it at

44:16

the beginning of their videos and those

44:18

were the hardest to watch, especially when

44:21

it was true. One video

44:23

like that was posted by Ayat Hadooda.

44:26

Ayat was a freelance journalist and video blogger.

44:29

Her videos before the war covered a wide range

44:31

from what I can tell. Interviews

44:33

about women in politics. She even appeared in

44:35

a commercial for Ketchup Flavor Chips. She

44:38

clearly liked being in front of the camera. Once

44:42

the war started, Ayat pivoted to covering

44:44

bombings and food shortages. On

44:46

November 20, she posted a video report from

44:49

her home. You can hear

44:51

the airstrikes hitting very close to where she is. It's

44:54

scary. She said, this

44:56

is likely my last video. Today

45:05

the occupation forces dropped phosphorous bombs

45:07

on Beit Lakhia area and frightening

45:09

sound bombs. They dropped

45:11

letters from the sky ordering everyone to

45:13

evacuate. Everyone ran into the

45:16

streets in the craziest way. No one

45:18

knows where to go. My

45:28

family and I are split up. Myself and

45:30

a few others are still at home, but

45:32

everyone else has evacuated. They

45:34

don't know where they're going. The situation is

45:36

so scary. What's happening is so

45:39

tough and may God have mercy on us. And

45:49

then she begins to cry and the video stops. She

45:53

was killed later that day. During

45:59

the abuse journalists, in case you didn't know,

46:01

is a war crime. So

46:04

far, the Committee to Protect Journalists has

46:06

found that three of the journalists on

46:08

the list were explicitly targeted by the

46:10

IDF, the Israeli military. Investigations

46:13

by the Washington Post and Reuters,

46:15

Human Rights Watch, and the United

46:17

Nations have also raised serious

46:19

questions in these three cases, and

46:22

the Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating

46:24

ten other killings. When

46:27

we reached out to the IDF for comments,

46:29

they said, quote, the IDF has

46:31

never and will never

46:33

deliberately target journalists. That's

46:36

the answer they always give in these situations. Meanwhile,

46:44

dozens of seasoned reporters have fled

46:46

Gaza. Journalists who worked

46:48

for Al Jazeera, the BBC, the

46:50

New York Times, the Washington Post,

46:52

Reuters, Jean-Franz Pris. So

46:55

many media offices were demolished in Israeli

46:58

airstrikes that the Committee to Protect Journalists

47:00

stopped counting. It's not

47:02

just individual lives that have been destroyed,

47:05

it's an entire infrastructure. The

47:14

name on the list that was hardest for me

47:16

to look at was Aisam Abdullah. Because

47:19

I'd crossed paths with him once.

47:21

Aisam was a Lebanese journalist, a video

47:23

journalist for Reuters for many, many years.

47:26

He had just won an award for coverage of

47:28

Ukraine. I'm Lebanese

47:30

and still report there sometimes, and I'd

47:32

worked with Aisam a couple of summers ago. He

47:35

helped me film a sort of random story in

47:37

Beirut. I was interviewing

47:39

this entrepreneur who'd started a sperm

47:41

freezing company after an accident where

47:44

he spilled a tray of hot coffee on his

47:46

private area, burning himself. I

47:49

know, ridiculous. It

47:51

was a really silly shoot. Right

47:53

after we said cut and started to rap,

47:55

Aisam started this whole bit about being in

47:57

his late 30s reconsidering his own sperm. and

48:00

everything he now realized he was doing to hurt

48:02

it, and no one could

48:04

stop laughing. It was a

48:06

really good day that felt good to remember

48:10

and to remember him that way. Aisan

48:13

was killed by the IDF on October 13. His

48:16

death was one of the three that the Committee to Protect Journalists has

48:19

identified as a targeted killing. He

48:21

was fired upon by an Israeli tank

48:23

while standing in an empty field on

48:25

the Lebanon-Israel border with a small group

48:27

of other journalists. Everyone

48:30

was wearing press vests with cameras out. They

48:33

were covering the Hezbollah part of this war. A

48:36

few other journalists were injured in the attack, which

48:38

was captured on video. The

48:41

IDF says they were responding to firing

48:43

from Hezbollah, not targeting the

48:45

journalists. But multiple investigations,

48:47

including by Reuters, the United Nations,

48:50

Amnesty International, and the AFP, found

48:53

no evidence of any firing from the location

48:55

of the journalists before the IDF shot at

48:57

them. The journalists

48:59

in the group and video footage confirmed

49:02

that there was no military activity near them.

49:06

I'd only met Aisan once, barely knew

49:08

him, but it affected me so much when

49:10

he died. I know

49:12

that he understood the risks of his job, but

49:14

somehow it still felt so random and unfair that

49:16

he would be struck down like that, following

49:19

the rules, wearing his press vest

49:21

and helmet, and a pack of

49:23

reporters on a sunny day in an open field.

49:27

I find myself thinking about him all the time.

49:31

His last Instagram post was commemorating

49:33

another journalist, this iconic reporter, Shirin

49:35

Abou-Hakle, who'd been killed by the

49:37

IDF. When

49:39

I first saw that post in October, I thought,

49:42

how ironic, because a week later, Aisan also

49:44

was killed by the IDF. But

49:47

then, after spending time reading the list, I

49:49

realized how common this had become. I

49:54

still haven't finished going through the list and looking

49:56

up the people on it. I

49:58

keep finding things that stick with me. Like

50:00

the funny way this one radio host would cut off

50:03

a caller who was rambling on for too long, a

50:06

tweet from reporter Allah Abdullah that quoted

50:08

Sylvia Plath. It read, What

50:10

Ceremony of Wars Can Patch the Havoc. I'm

50:14

going to keep going down the list, even though

50:17

this radio story is over now, just

50:19

for myself, my own way

50:21

of bearing witness, which is,

50:23

in the end, all that these

50:25

journalists were trying to do. Reporter

50:37

Dana Ballou, a journalist and documentary

50:39

filmmaker. Her story was produced by Diane

50:41

Wu. This

51:18

song is by Lena McCool, a

51:20

Palestinian musician. It's called Recording 801. Act

51:25

3, A Great Fall.

51:27

Okay, so there are lots of ways to break something. Skateboarding

51:31

is a pretty good one. David Kestenbaum, who,

51:33

of course, you heard earlier in the show, has

51:35

been obsessed with this one short video of

51:37

the skateboarder that keeps watching over

51:40

and over. The skateboarder stands

51:42

at the top of a ramp. The

51:44

wall of the ramp goes straight down at first, then

51:46

curves into a flat section, then up again on the

51:48

other side. It's like an enormous U.

51:51

You could easily break something from that height. He

51:54

leans forward. It's 13 and

51:56

a half feet down. One

51:58

other number you should know. 52.

52:01

That's how old he is in this video. 52 years old.

52:05

It's Tony Hawk, trying to land a trick that he used to

52:07

do all the time when he was younger. He

52:10

goes down the ramp, up the other side, spins

52:13

in the air, and... ...falls

52:17

onto his knees. He's

52:19

wearing pads, slides to the bottom, then

52:22

climbs the stairs to try again. But,

52:25

same thing. I

52:33

was never a skateboard kid. They were too cool for me.

52:37

I know Tony Hawk is like the most famous skateboarder in

52:39

the world, but I've only gotten into him now that

52:41

he's over 50. On social

52:43

media he writes these funny little scenes from his life,

52:45

like this one. Kid

52:47

at Skatepark. Are you Tony Hawk?

52:50

Me. I am. Him. No

52:54

you're not. Okay, I'm not.

52:57

But are you for real? I am

52:59

for real. I thought you'd look

53:01

younger. Me too. So

53:13

the trick he's trying to do in this video is

53:15

called an Ollie 540. Basically

53:18

you go down the ramp, up the other side

53:20

of the U, then down again, that a couple

53:22

times, until you get enough height. Then,

53:25

through some kind of magic, at like 15

53:28

feet in the air, you

53:30

spin one and a half times with the

53:32

board turning underneath you. But

53:34

without grabbing the board, you don't

53:36

touch it with your hands. Like you

53:38

and the board are just rotating at exactly the

53:40

same speed. And then somehow

53:43

you try to land on your skateboard without

53:45

breaking any bones. Hip.

53:50

Hip. I think he says there. He's

53:53

written that the trick has gotten scarier as he's gotten

53:55

older. Just committing to the landing at

53:57

the end. He wrote, slam

54:00

unexpectedly into the flat bottom has waned

54:02

greatly over the last decade. One of

54:06

the things I like about this video is

54:08

it's basically a collection of failures. Over

54:11

and over. It's edited so you

54:13

can't see how many tries, but it's a lot. He

54:16

looks tired and just so human. After

54:20

one fall, he sits there on the ground, looks

54:22

up, and swears. The

54:28

next attempt literally goes sideways. He

54:30

slides out the end of the ramp and takes out

54:32

a camera there that's filming. Sorry.

54:43

I broke everything. Shy

54:46

grin. He checks to see if his finger is

54:48

okay. Cut to Tony Hawk

54:51

at the top of the ramp again. Deep

54:53

breath. Skateboard over the void

54:55

again. Plunges down, up

54:59

the other side, down, up

55:01

into the air, around, and he

55:04

lands it. Let

55:07

the board go flying. Covers

55:11

his face with his hands, drops

55:13

to his knees, and says this.

55:17

What's that? I'm kind of

55:19

sad, he says. One of

55:21

the film crew fist bumps him. Oh,

55:24

dude. Perfect. I'm like a little

55:26

sad. That was the last push. Yeah. I

55:29

never had much finality to

55:31

anything, but that definitely was

55:33

the last one I'll

55:36

ever do.

55:41

Fuck it. Happy I made it.

55:44

Thanks, guys, for

55:46

hanging in there with

55:48

me. The

55:55

title of the video when it got posted was Tony

55:58

Hawk Lands His Last Ever, Alabama. age 52.

56:10

I tear up every time I watch this, in

56:12

part because we're basically the same age. He's

56:15

one year older. Something

56:18

happens when you're around 50. You

56:20

can't do things you used to do. Because

56:22

stuff hurts. I

56:24

used to love to run, really love it. I

56:27

can't anymore. More knee surgeries.

56:30

And walking around, I noticed things I didn't used to. So

56:34

many people with little hitches in their steps, working

56:36

around some bit of pain in a

56:38

knee, a hip. I

56:41

reached out to Tony Hawk back when the video came out. I

56:43

wanted to talk about it. Apparently he

56:45

did not decline my interview request.

56:48

So this is going to be a short story. I'll

56:51

just say this. A

56:53

friend told me recently about a doctor who'd gone to work

56:55

in a small town. He ended up

56:57

treating a lot of older people. And he noticed that

57:00

the way it would go was that first one

57:02

thing would go wrong. You'd fix it. Then

57:05

a different thing would go wrong. You'd

57:07

fix that. Then two things

57:09

would go wrong at once. And

57:11

then another. Eventually enough things

57:13

would break that that's the end.

57:17

He also said something else. That's

57:20

the good version, he said. That's

57:22

the one you want. Even where you

57:24

get to keep going. Wrong enough that

57:26

all the parts break. David

57:42

Kestebowm is still making video stories at

57:44

54. Tony Hawk,

57:47

the year after that video, broke

57:49

his femur. But after surgery,

57:51

he's still skateboarding. break

58:02

all these love baby you know you can't

58:04

keep me all

58:07

the people I see are you you're

58:10

so are you you're so are you all

58:14

the people I see are you

58:18

baby Well,

58:21

welcome to Spudu's Today by Fia Ben

58:23

and Lola Sullivan and it is my

58:25

Morist Dierczewski The people who put together

58:28

our chalet and could be Allumini Chris

58:30

Ben-Driev, Zoe Chase Sean Cole, Michael Comitey,

58:32

Vivi de Kornfeld Bethel Habte, Cassy Howley,

58:34

Val Ritipness Rudy Lee, S Marines, Toblin

58:36

Lowe, Catherine Raimondo, Nadia Raymond, Sophia Riddle

58:38

Ryan Rommery, Alyssa Shipp, Christa Rosotaro Marisa

58:40

Robertson, Textor, Matt Thierny and Nancy Abdyk

58:44

Our managing editor, Sarah Abder I'm our senior editor, David

58:46

Kestenbaum Executive Editor, Emmanuel

58:48

Barry Sam Geller, we wrote the song

58:50

you're hearing right now for this

58:52

episode Special thanks today to

58:54

Sharif Mansour Rushdie Abululuv, Yumna El

58:56

Sayed, Anand Kuzmar Rejah

58:59

Abdur-Rahim, Ahmed Mukadama Kerry Love, Clayton

59:01

Love, Howard Palitzer Randy Murray, Karen

59:03

Glass, James Ben-Driev Matthew

59:05

Snyder, Michelle Kan and

59:07

everybody who wrote to us about Humpty Dumpty

59:09

trauma including Ann Mastu, Heidi Shin, Brendan Schiff

59:13

with Skye Wenhold, Kelly Garthseit, Julie Davidson and

59:15

Isabella Gower Our website, thisamericanlife.org

59:17

where you can stream over 800 episodes

59:19

of our show for absolutely free This

59:23

American Life is delivered to local public

59:25

radio stations by PRX Public

59:28

Radio Exchange Thanks as always

59:30

to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia You

59:33

know, he has started saying my name so much like

59:35

at the end of every sentence he says I'm trying to tell

59:38

you, people do not usually talk to each other this

59:40

way He said Oh,

59:42

it happens all the time, I heard I

59:44

heard Glass, back next week with more stories of This

59:47

American Life All we need are

59:49

the American Life Next

1:00:20

week on the podcast of This American Life, whenever

1:00:23

Michael and his three sisters got in trouble as kids, their

1:00:25

mom gave him two options. First

1:00:27

punishment, or take the case to trial,

1:00:30

in the den. But they would say

1:00:32

stuff like, what was illegal was eating the

1:00:34

candy, not having the candy. Why would they

1:00:36

have a bag of candy and not be

1:00:38

eating it? A true

1:00:40

family court. Lessons we learned

1:00:43

and do not learn from breaking the rules. Next

1:00:45

week on the podcast, we're on your local public radio

1:00:47

station. Time

1:01:02

for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

1:01:05

up and bagelize. Get your taste

1:01:07

buds ready for McDonald's breakfast bagel sandwiches. Now

1:01:09

just three dollars, only on the app. Choose

1:01:12

from a delicious steak egg and cheese bagel, bacon

1:01:14

egg and cheese bagel, or sausage egg and cheese

1:01:17

bagel. Just three dollars when you order ahead

1:01:19

on the app. Hurry and seize this

1:01:21

breakfast steal before it's gone. Offer

1:01:23

valid one time daily March 11th through April

1:01:25

7th, 2024, participating McDonald's. Stop

1:01:27

into rewards.