October 6, 2022 • 37 mins
On Dan’s first date with his wife Nancy, a stranger took their photograph. Nineteen years later, Dan wants the photo back. But to get it, he'll have to face the last person he wants to.
Credits
Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein.
This episode was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane, and Mohini Madgavkar. The senior producer is Kalila Holt. Production help from Damiano Marchetti.
Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Blumberg, Caitlin Kenney, Phoebe Flanigan, and Jackie Cohen. Nancy Updike, who you heard in this episode, is coming out with a new series called We Were Three, which drops on October 13th, from Serial Productions.
The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.
Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Michael Hearst, Blue Dot Sessions, Aaron Paul Low, Tropique, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Yeah, didn't you tell me there was a story where
someone came up to you and said, hey, are you
Jackie from Heavyweight? And you said, no, is that true?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, I've denied it.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
I think it's true.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Why why would you deny it? If people I never
I try not to lie in my life.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
There's nothing you lie about.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
If I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In which situations would you lie?
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Hmm?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I guess when you make your famous couscous and cutlets
and you say, Johnny, do you like it? And I say, mm, yes,
very much? So I love it. I'm so delicious. Oh
it's so good. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh I'm not going to wash my mouth for a week.
Sound familiar Jackie Cohen from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein
and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Dan right after the break.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Hey Dan, Hey, Jonathan, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Dan is a serious journalist, like national security correspondent. Serious.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Sorry, I'm just trying to turn off my phone so
it doesn't be.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Turning off your phone during an interview serious journalism. Actually
I should do the same thing. Dan is a friend
whom I've known for years, but conversation can still sometimes
feel like a game of chess. You're looking well, thank
you arrested. Likewise, good of you to say check and mate.
(01:57):
Given what a serious journalist Dan is, I'm surprised he's
come to me for help. But then his crisis is
not one of national security. His is a crisis of
the heart, and that is an area in which my
journalism excels. Dan's story all begins in the summer of
two thousand and three, the night he and his wife, Nancy,
(02:19):
first met.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
At a dinner party hosted by this American diplomat in Jerusalem,
and Nancy got to the dinner late because she was
out on a date that night.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
A terrible date. I went to see X Men two,
which was unfortunate all the way around.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
This is Nancy, also a friend whom I've known for years,
and also a serious journalist for the podcast serial in
This American Life.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I wasn't even going to go to this party
and just thought, oh, for Christ's sake, why am I
going to this?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But then she met Dan.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
He was quiet.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I noticed that he was just kind of watching and
not being rambunctious. You know, there's a lot of sort
of false hilarity at parties and that was not something
he was engaging in.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
A week later, Dan and Nancy went out on a
date at an Italian restaurant in downtown Jerusalem.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You know, it's July, it was warm. She was wearing
a tak top. I remember I ordered ravioli and a
beer and she ordered a burger and a whiskey.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Because I don't know, that's the kind of hard drinking,
hard eating gal I was.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Nancy says she'd been on a lot of first dates
and rarely got her hopes up. She was wary anticipating
the moment, say, when Dan would ask her to see
X Men three. Still, something about Dan drew her in.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I remember him saying very early on that he was
separated and that he had two kids, and I could
see that he was kind of bracing for that to
be a deal breaker for me, and I didn't feel
that way at all. On the contrary, I felt interested
and excited and yeah, you're a whole person with a
(04:20):
whole person's complications. It was nice, it was fun, but
then something strange happened. Do you want to jump in with.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
A question.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Serious journalism. This must be frustrating for you. You must feel
like I could do both sides of this. What do
I need this tarp before? But yes, indeed, like what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We're still just in the stage where we're getting the
main facts. Where are you from? What are you doing
here so far from home? And a woman who was
sitting with her husband at the table right next to us,
leaned in towards us and said, hey, you know, excuse me,
sorry for interrupting, but I think I know your father. Dan.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It chaired with Nancy that his dad lived in California
and helped invent the breakfast cereal cap'n Crunch. Hearing these details,
the woman realized the connection.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
She said, that's so funny. He's our friend. We live
next to him.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
He throws these great parties. He and his wife are
very generous philanthropists in the community.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
You know, I can't believe it, of all the people
to be next to. And it'll be so great when
we tell him we ran into you. And they went
back to their dinner. We went back to ours, and
Dan looked sort of startled.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But it wasn't just the surprise of being recognized by
a stranger seventy five hundred miles from home.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was also surprising for another reason, which is that
I don't know my father. I have not had contact
with my father since I was very young.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And Dan was very quiet and he said, I actually
don't know my father at all. It was basically like
our date was kind of split into two parts, and
the first part happened before that moment with a couple
next to us, and the second part happened afterward. It
(06:34):
just turned into a completely different conversation that was like,
here's the.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Deal, here was the deal, leaning in so that the
couple wouldn't hear. Dan explained that his parents split up
when he was five. It was a very acrimonious divorce,
and afterwards his father essentially disappeared from his and his
sister's life. Their mother struggled to raise the two kids
(07:01):
on her own. In life with Dan's mother wasn't easy.
She was a Holocaust survivor, and Dan says she carried
the trauma of those years for the rest of her life.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
And because he told that whole story, I then ended
up telling the whole complicated story of my own, my
own parents' divorce.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You know, suddenly we were talking about things that were real.
It created this intimacy that, you know, so you can
go on five days and not get to that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Back at the neighboring table, the couple paid the check
and got up to leave, but before they did, the
woman came over once more.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And said, Hey, do you mind if I take a
photo of you two?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
This will be so funny. Let's take a picture of
you and we'll send it to your father.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And Nancy and I kind of looked at each other.
It was this look of Okay, this is weird, but.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Why not, and we kind of leaned.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
In, I think, and maybe even I put my arm
around Nancy and.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
They took this picture.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Dan and Nancy posed frozen smiles, hiding their real smiles
at the fact that this woman adjusting her camera knew
nothing of what they knew.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
It was pretty funny. I think at some point they
even said, like, we didn't even know he had a son,
and I was like, oh, lady, you have no idea.
It was like we had an experience together right right,
You know, we had this inside joke already.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
After the photo, things moved quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I think I gave Nancy the key to my apartment
within two weeks of that date.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
The photo was a chance, you know, it gave us
a chance to both kind of take the first big
leap of our relationship.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Would you say that the woman sitting beside you was
sort of like a cherub, but rather than carrying a
bow and arrow, she was holding a camera. Would you
say that? Would you say that, Nancy?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
I wouldn't say that, but I would support your saying.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That, And with Nancy's full support behind me, I will
say that because Dan and Nancy have now been together
for nineteen years.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I mean, you know Nancy, so you know how lovely
she is and funny and warm and all that was
on display right away that evening, and I fell in
love with her at that dinner.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And that first spark was captured in the photo. Because
of crashed hard drives, Dan and Nancy have lost the
photos from the beginning of their relationship. So while those
photos have certainly gone, the first photo, the most important photo,
might not be, and so Dan has come to me
to find it. But here's the catch. If the woman
(10:05):
with the camera kept her promise, then the photo is
in the hands of Dan's father, and I am.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Not particularly interested in trying to reach out to my
father directly or indirectly. In other words, This is what
might make it more tricky if he has the photo.
I don't want to go that road.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It's been about fifty years since Dan's father walked out
on the family. Dan isn't looking to make contact now.
But I can't help thinking that as much as Dan
wants a photo, some part of him must also be
wanting something more from his dad. The strange symmetry is
hard to ignore. The thing Dan wants most is in
the hands of the person he wants to talk to least.
(10:50):
But Dan is adamant.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, the mission here is not let's reach out to
him and get to know him. I really just want
the photo.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Are you saying sometimes a photo is just a photo exactly?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, I don't think it's just a photograph.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
No, But I don't think I can know everything that
it means to him necessarily. I think it's hard to
want anything from a parent who has been so thoroughly absent.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, so thoroughly.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Derelict. Does he remember anything about his father?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm hesitating. You know, this is small, but it's personal.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's a sad memory.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I mean to me, it's sad, Okay, to me, it's sad.
He told me he remembered his father rubbing his back.
(12:26):
I rub his back a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
With Dan's father in the no fly zone. It leaves
only one person who might have a copy of the photo,
the woman with the camera. Do you remember what she
looked like?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I think she had curly brown hair, and I can
get Nancy's take on this as.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Well, dark hair like not really a beehive, but sort
of up and kind of pin curlsy or something.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah. I think maybe she said something about the Jewish community,
so I wouldn't be surprised if they're active in the
Jewish community there.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I look at the notes I've been taking, an older
possibly Jewish woman from California who, when traveling to Israel
in two thousand and three, maybe wore her hair in
a beehive. I mean, this is really this isn't really
not a lot, you know.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, it's going to be hard finding her as a
big obstacle. And then eighteen years later, does she have
this photo lying around?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I begin my search for the woman with the camera
where it all began. Buck Facacia Bar, the restaurant in
Jerusalem where Dan and Nancy had their first date. Wielding
what's left of my bar Mitzvalessen language skills. My plan
is to endear myself to the Fakacia bar staff uh shalom.
(13:59):
Is there a manager maybe on second Slussia? Hello shalom? Hello,
how could I have you? I tell the manager about
my two friends who had their first date at his restaurant, yes,
eighteen years ago. Oh nice, Yeah, And encouraged by his interest,
(14:25):
I explained the whole story, how I'm trying to find
the woman with a camera, and how maybe he has
her credit card receipt on file. Luckily, Dan and Nancy
remember the exact day of their date, July first, two
thousand and three. So yeah, you could go back to
the computer just type in two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Oh man, we're not so much technology, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's no shating like seven eight computer, different computers, you know,
so nothing you could do in other words, no nothing nothing, Okay,
thank you for taking the time to your shalom.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So I try something else. Since the woman was a
neighbor of Dan's father, I look up his address and
contact the county assessor's office. I request historical records of
property owners in his town from two thousand and three.
But it turns out that like the catchy bar. They
aren't very technology and don't keep data dating back that far.
(15:28):
Unable to find a list of past neighbors, I decide
to try calling present ones. Maybe the woman with the
camera is still living in the same neighborhood as she
was in two thousand and three, or at the very least,
maybe someone who knows her does. My producer Stevie and
I turned to the white pages and start phoning Hello. Hello,
(15:51):
my name is Jonathan Goldstein. The reason I'm phoning is
I do a pot. Are you familiar with podcasts?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
No?
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I don't have time for anything.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I just not enough to thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I'll get to the point, ma'am. Hello. The neighbors rarely
let me get to the point, and even when they do,
I mostly met with one of two reactions pity.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Good look.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Or non pity.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
I haven't photographed anybody.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I've been in the little bar.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
I know nothing about what you're talking about, so you're
pointless coming here and talking to mean thank you?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Bye?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
All right?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Well, did you say I've never been to a noodle bar?
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
All right, we can cross that one off the list.
After dozens of calls to random strangers, I begin to
lose hope. But since Dan thought the woman with the
camera might have known as father through the Jewish community,
I phone every synagogue within an hour's drive of Dan's
father's neighborhood. I get the rabbis to include a call
out and their e newsletters. It doesn't yield a thing.
(17:00):
With the futility of finding a nameless woman with an
indeterminate address, I reach back out to Dan. It seems
as though it might be impossible without you know, in
some way it kind of connecting to your father.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah. Nancy and I talked a bit about it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Perhaps anticipating the shortcomings of my journalisming, Nancy devised a strategy.
Dan's fear is that his dad will think this is
an attempt to reconcile, to reconnect.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And so what I said was Jonathan could just call
him and say no, no, no, no no no, I'm
just here for the photo. If you could just give
us the photo, that's all I want.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Dan is comfortable with this approach, but before giving me
the green light, he says, there's one last person I
need to call.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I mean, we share a lot and we probably did
actually raise one another.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This is Abby, Dan's older sister. Given the difficulty of
their childhood, they've always sort of been a team of two,
so Dan wants to make sure she's okay with my
contacting their father. Abby tells me that over the years,
she and Dan have reached out to their father a
number of times, almost always to no response. The last
time for Dan was twenty years ago, when he was
(18:21):
in his mid thirties. For Abby, it was March of
last year. Dan and Abbey's mother had just died, and
Abby was going through her mom's belongings when she found
some photos of her parents taken early in their relationship,
and they were happy pictures.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
They were pictures of love and you know, and passion.
And so I wrote to him and I said, I've
been going through these pictures and I seen lots of
beautiful pictures of you and my mom, and I just
wanted you to know that my mom has passed and
it looks like there were times that were also beautiful.
(18:56):
And then I ended by saying I have a beautiful family,
and I'm very lucky, and Danny is lucky.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Abby sent the letter not expecting to hear back, but
about two weeks later, her father answered, and he said.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Something to the fact of we weren't happy, and he
said family is very important. But he didn't you know,
he didn't say anything about my children, or he didn't
say anything about even my loss. I mean, he didn't
have the you know, the I guess the depths, the
emotional depths.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Which is why she doesn't see the point in asking
her father for help, even though we're only asking for
the kind of small effort you'd expect anyone to make.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I have a photo, you'll call me up and
you'll say, Abby, do you have the photo? And I'll say,
oh my god, this is so difficult. But ultimately I'll
look for it and then he will sense that I
care enough to look. But we're not going to get
that from her father. He doesn't care enough.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
And no matter how old you are or what you
might say to the contrary, that hurts.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
If you look at us, you think, oh, those two
are just regular people. But I don't think we are
a regular I think deep inside, we're still researching and
we're trying to understand, like why why would a parent
(20:31):
not want contact with us? And nobody's going to give
us that answer. So it's really.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Painful in the end, even though Abby is skeptical her
father will help. She gives me your blessing to try.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
I mean, if that's.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
What Danny feels like is the right thing to do,
then I would support that. I want that photo. I
want that photo for Danny, but not at the price
of him being hurt. I don't think the photo is
worth not.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Dan's father is my last chance to score the photo,
and I don't want to blow it, which is why
I've been putting off the call. I don't want him
to hang up on me, and from what Abby told me,
it seems like there's a definite chance he might. But
on a Monday afternoon, a few days after speaking with Abby,
I pick up the phone. Dan's father is in his
(21:47):
late eighties, but he still works. When I phone his office,
a friendly woman tells me he's hard of hearing, and
then she gives me a cell phone number. After three rings,
Dan's father picks up.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
He says, Hello, I say loudly, but not too loudly.
I hope it's okay that I'm calling you on your
cell phone. Well, I don't know what you're calling about,
he says. For the next two minutes, they nervously explain
about Ficacia bar about how twenty years ago his neighbor
took a photograph of his son, and how I'm now
(22:21):
looking for that photograph. When I'm done, I'm met by
a silence that feels long enough to make me wonder
whether he'd hung up somewhere around my explanation of what
a podcast is. Finally, he says, so you're asking me
if I have this photograph. Yes, yes, I say, Dan's
father lets loose a laugh, not a mean laugh, like
(22:45):
and you think I'm going to help you with this.
It's free and amused, sounding a hearty and vigorous laugh.
I'm not sure what to make of it. Dan's father
says he has no memory of any photo, but he
does remember the incident, being told by his neighbor that
she'd seen Dan. He tells me she since moved away
(23:08):
and he doesn't remember her name, but that he'll look
for it try and reach me tomorrow. He says. When
I pick up the phone to call Dan's dad a
second time, I'm pretty sure I'll get blown off, that
he'll screen my call or maybe tell me sorry I
couldn't find her. But just as he'd promised, Dan's father
looked for his old neighbor's name and found it. I'll
(23:31):
tell you her name, he says. But that's all I know.
I haven't spoken with her, so if you can find her,
you can ask her directly. I ask him if he
remembers anything more about the conversation years ago when she
told him she'd seen Dan. Was he surprised, you know?
He says, I was honest with you. I got you
(23:52):
the name of the person. That's all I can do.
All right, Yes, yes, I say, sensing. Well, thank you
so much, and have a good day you too, he says. Bye.
When I get off the phone with Dan's dad, I
(24:13):
look at my notes where I've written down the name
of the woman with the camera, and that name is Deborah.
Once I have Deborah's name, it's not hard to find her.
She still lives in California. At first phone debraah a
few days ago. She was on her way out and
asked if I could call her back on Thursday.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Very nice timing.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Oh good good, I'm glad I caught you. It turns out,
Deborah remembers clearly the night she and her late husband
ate at Facacia Bar, seated next to Dan and.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Nancy, I'm a terrible eavesdropper. I just can't help it
because I love people's stories. Yeah, and I said to
my husband, I'm betting first date. And he said something
to me like stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
But Deborah couldn't stop it. She kept listening for what
Dan would say.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Next.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He said, my father invented the flavor for Captain Crunch.
Huh so much. Okay, there can't be two of those
people in the world. You know. My recollection is that
we printed a copy of the picture and took it
to give his.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Father, despite Dan's father not remembering any photograph. In Debra's telling,
she did show it to him.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
But my heart memory is that he didn't really want it,
which was, you know, made me really sad.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It turns out Debra snapped the photo knowing more than
Dan and Nancy imagined. She knew Dan's father had remarried,
and she knew he was estranged from his old family,
but a photo of his son seemed like something that
might warm him. Deborah was a second wife and had
seen her fair share of difficult family dynamics.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And my husband went through periods of being estranged from
his son, and one time someone came up to us
in a restaurant and said, oh, you must be Jeffrey's father,
and Russell was tickled. You know, he's still his son,
so you know, I don't know. What we hoped was
(26:20):
the charming story of a sweet coincidence received a very
still reception, if you know what I mean, Yeah, these
stories of estrangement. I think one of the hardest things.
(26:42):
One of the hardest things is that we think we're alone.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
For years, Deborah worked at a healing center, helping residents
there as they approached end of life. One day at
a volunteers meeting, someone told the story of an elderly
estrangement from their children.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
And pretty much everyone around the table had some variation
of estrangement from someone that they thought they'd been very
close to who was suddenly gone from their lives, and
it was just very quite. The word is liberating to
(27:23):
know that this is a human condition that we don't
talk about much. There are some relationships that you just
kind of, I don't know, on a cellular level, that
you that you long for even if you know you
can't have them. So when you talk to Dan again,
(27:45):
tell me it's not alone.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Deborah says that as requested, She did a search for
the photo and.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I found it.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
You believe it.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Deborah had cared enough to look.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Hi, Hello. So the.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Long and short of it is, we found the photo.
Get the fuck out?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Wow? What come on?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah? We found it?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Okay, I did not expect you to say that at all.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, and I didn't think. I didn't think we would.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Frankly, how the fuck did you do this? How did
you pull it off?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I tell Dan and Nancy about Deborah, who for almost
twenty years held onto the photograph of an estranged son
of an old neighbor. Deborah says she kept it because
she was touched that Dan, who must have held such
anger towards this father, had still been so gracious with her.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
So that that changes my sense of what was happening,
because I thought I remembered her having said I didn't
know he had a son, that she really had no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But Deborah did have an idea. So while running into
Deborah was pure luck, her snapping of the photograph hadn't been.
It was well intentioned.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
God bless this lady.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
Man.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I know, Yeah, I fe feel very warm towards Deborah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Of course, Dan wants to know how I found Deborah
in the first place. I ended up calling your father
to ask, which brings me to his father, who answered
my call.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I find it very surprising. I mean, he has never
been responsive to communications with my sister and I, so yeah,
I'm surprised.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I will also say that I talked to to Abby
just a few days ago and I told her about
the whole thing.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
I mean, I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised that he
went to look for the name. I didn't think it
was possible. I thought he wouldn't bother Maybe for just
a brief moment, he recognized a need.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, you know, like you see though at the
same time, like it's small.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
It's significant. Hmmm, it means something I don't know, in
a Hollywood dream movie. He did it for Danny and
he thought about it and he imagined him. But I'm
not so sure this is a Hollywood moment. Yeah, but
(30:52):
maybe he did see Danny in this.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I don't know what you make of that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
That's his I'm not buying it face.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I don't. She's
she might be a little more charitable about it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, It's been decades of radio silence from Dan's father,
and in that time Dan has come to wonder less
about how someone could do that to a son and
more about how someone could do that to himself.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I feel intuitively that this must plague my father. I
kind of think that to turn away from, you know,
a five year old and a seven year old and
just cut yourself off requires really sort of emptying out
your heart. And it is just baffling to me that
(31:47):
still at this age, he wouldn't figure out how to
do something about it for his own good so that
he doesn't take this with him.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Dan says that when he split up with his first wife,
his son was the same age as he was when
his parents divorced. Dan wanted to do things differently.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I was just very conscious of doing everything we needed
to do to be a presence in his life, for
both his mom and for me to be always a
presence in his life. And we did crazy, crazy things.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Crazy things like multiple transatlantic moves from Israel to the
US and back, all five of them, Dan, his ex wife,
his two kids, and Nancy. Things like living in neighboring
towns as the kids grew up celebrating Thanksgiving as one
big family. It wasn't always easy.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
But in every way I can explain or think of,
it has made a difference. And it was very conscious
and very much a kind of a reaction to the
way that he went about things. They went about things,
And just.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
To say, there were a lot of things I loved,
and I knew that I loved about Danny, but his
relationship with his children was at the center of it.
And his ex wife Tommy, we're all kind of in
a big, big stew together. We have been the whole time.
And she's been game for the weirdness too.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Shout out to my ex she's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
They don't normally do shout out. It's not that kind
of radio show, but serious journalism. Do you want to
see the photo?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yes, yes I would, Jonathan, I'd like to see the photo.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Before our conversation. I had it framed and wrapped.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Oh my god, Oh Jesus, my god, this is so
much better than I thought even, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
In the photo, Dan and Nancy are sitting next to
each other at a round wooden table. Dan's body is
angled towards Nancy, Nancy smiling and leaning towards Dan.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Look at you, Jesus Christ. Nancy. Oh my god, man, wow,
I totally remembered that tank top. It's smile.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Dan is often so serious, but in the photo he's
smiling so wide you can see all his teeth. He
looks unencumbered at ease.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah. No, it's it's sort of remarkably not awkward.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Yeah, we just look very relaxed.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
We look awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I guess sometimes a photo is just a photo, or
in this case, a really great photo.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, Nancy, I oh my god, you just you look
fucking adorable. You marry me all over I would marry
you all over again.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Dan's daughter is getting married this summer in Israel, and
Dan and Nancy will be there, along with Dan's son,
his ex wife Tommy. Shout out to his ex wife Tommy,
and his sister Abby two, who just recently became a grandmother.
Dan says whenever he visits there's always a lot of
requests for stuff from America, but along with the Sephora
(35:23):
makeup and Adida sneakers, he'll be bringing the photo to
share with his whole family. Now that the Fernituers returned.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
To its goodwill home, now that the last month's rant
is scheming with.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
The damnage, take this moment.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
To do so, if we meant it, if we.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Talk but felt around for far too from pas it accidentally.
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie
Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheiney mcgauker. Our
(36:49):
senior producer is Khalila Holt. Production help from Damiano Marquetti.
Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Caitlin Kenny, Phoebe Flanagan,
and Jackie Cohen. Nancy Updike, who you heard in this episode,
is coming out with a new series called We Were Three,
which drops on October thirteenth from Serial Productions. Bobby Lord
(37:10):
mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
found on our website, Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at
Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with a
(37:31):
new episode next week
Yeah, didn't you tell me there was a story where
someone came up to you and said, hey, are you
Jackie from Heavyweight? And you said, no, is that true?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, I've denied it.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
I think it's true.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Why why would you deny it? If people I never
I try not to lie in my life.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
There's nothing you lie about.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
If I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In which situations would you lie?
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Hmm?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I guess when you make your famous couscous and cutlets
and you say, Johnny, do you like it? And I say, mm, yes,
very much? So I love it. I'm so delicious. Oh
it's so good. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh I'm not going to wash my mouth for a week.
Sound familiar Jackie Cohen from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein
and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Dan right after the break.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Hey Dan, Hey, Jonathan, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Dan is a serious journalist, like national security correspondent. Serious.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Sorry, I'm just trying to turn off my phone so
it doesn't be.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Turning off your phone during an interview serious journalism. Actually
I should do the same thing. Dan is a friend
whom I've known for years, but conversation can still sometimes
feel like a game of chess. You're looking well, thank
you arrested. Likewise, good of you to say check and mate.
(01:57):
Given what a serious journalist Dan is, I'm surprised he's
come to me for help. But then his crisis is
not one of national security. His is a crisis of
the heart, and that is an area in which my
journalism excels. Dan's story all begins in the summer of
two thousand and three, the night he and his wife, Nancy,
(02:19):
first met.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
At a dinner party hosted by this American diplomat in Jerusalem,
and Nancy got to the dinner late because she was
out on a date that night.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
A terrible date. I went to see X Men two,
which was unfortunate all the way around.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
This is Nancy, also a friend whom I've known for years,
and also a serious journalist for the podcast serial in
This American Life.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I wasn't even going to go to this party
and just thought, oh, for Christ's sake, why am I
going to this?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But then she met Dan.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
He was quiet.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I noticed that he was just kind of watching and
not being rambunctious. You know, there's a lot of sort
of false hilarity at parties and that was not something
he was engaging in.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
A week later, Dan and Nancy went out on a
date at an Italian restaurant in downtown Jerusalem.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You know, it's July, it was warm. She was wearing
a tak top. I remember I ordered ravioli and a
beer and she ordered a burger and a whiskey.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Because I don't know, that's the kind of hard drinking,
hard eating gal I was.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Nancy says she'd been on a lot of first dates
and rarely got her hopes up. She was wary anticipating
the moment, say, when Dan would ask her to see
X Men three. Still, something about Dan drew her in.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I remember him saying very early on that he was
separated and that he had two kids, and I could
see that he was kind of bracing for that to
be a deal breaker for me, and I didn't feel
that way at all. On the contrary, I felt interested
and excited and yeah, you're a whole person with a
(04:20):
whole person's complications. It was nice, it was fun, but
then something strange happened. Do you want to jump in with.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
A question.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Serious journalism. This must be frustrating for you. You must feel
like I could do both sides of this. What do
I need this tarp before? But yes, indeed, like what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We're still just in the stage where we're getting the
main facts. Where are you from? What are you doing
here so far from home? And a woman who was
sitting with her husband at the table right next to us,
leaned in towards us and said, hey, you know, excuse me,
sorry for interrupting, but I think I know your father. Dan.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It chaired with Nancy that his dad lived in California
and helped invent the breakfast cereal cap'n Crunch. Hearing these details,
the woman realized the connection.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
She said, that's so funny. He's our friend. We live
next to him.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
He throws these great parties. He and his wife are
very generous philanthropists in the community.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
You know, I can't believe it, of all the people
to be next to. And it'll be so great when
we tell him we ran into you. And they went
back to their dinner. We went back to ours, and
Dan looked sort of startled.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But it wasn't just the surprise of being recognized by
a stranger seventy five hundred miles from home.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was also surprising for another reason, which is that
I don't know my father. I have not had contact
with my father since I was very young.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And Dan was very quiet and he said, I actually
don't know my father at all. It was basically like
our date was kind of split into two parts, and
the first part happened before that moment with a couple
next to us, and the second part happened afterward. It
(06:34):
just turned into a completely different conversation that was like,
here's the.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Deal, here was the deal, leaning in so that the
couple wouldn't hear. Dan explained that his parents split up
when he was five. It was a very acrimonious divorce,
and afterwards his father essentially disappeared from his and his
sister's life. Their mother struggled to raise the two kids
(07:01):
on her own. In life with Dan's mother wasn't easy.
She was a Holocaust survivor, and Dan says she carried
the trauma of those years for the rest of her life.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
And because he told that whole story, I then ended
up telling the whole complicated story of my own, my
own parents' divorce.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You know, suddenly we were talking about things that were real.
It created this intimacy that, you know, so you can
go on five days and not get to that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Back at the neighboring table, the couple paid the check
and got up to leave, but before they did, the
woman came over once more.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And said, Hey, do you mind if I take a
photo of you two?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
This will be so funny. Let's take a picture of
you and we'll send it to your father.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And Nancy and I kind of looked at each other.
It was this look of Okay, this is weird, but.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Why not, and we kind of leaned.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
In, I think, and maybe even I put my arm
around Nancy and.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
They took this picture.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Dan and Nancy posed frozen smiles, hiding their real smiles
at the fact that this woman adjusting her camera knew
nothing of what they knew.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
It was pretty funny. I think at some point they
even said, like, we didn't even know he had a son,
and I was like, oh, lady, you have no idea.
It was like we had an experience together right right,
You know, we had this inside joke already.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
After the photo, things moved quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I think I gave Nancy the key to my apartment
within two weeks of that date.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
The photo was a chance, you know, it gave us
a chance to both kind of take the first big
leap of our relationship.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Would you say that the woman sitting beside you was
sort of like a cherub, but rather than carrying a
bow and arrow, she was holding a camera. Would you
say that? Would you say that, Nancy?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
I wouldn't say that, but I would support your saying.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That, And with Nancy's full support behind me, I will
say that because Dan and Nancy have now been together
for nineteen years.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I mean, you know Nancy, so you know how lovely
she is and funny and warm and all that was
on display right away that evening, and I fell in
love with her at that dinner.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And that first spark was captured in the photo. Because
of crashed hard drives, Dan and Nancy have lost the
photos from the beginning of their relationship. So while those
photos have certainly gone, the first photo, the most important photo,
might not be, and so Dan has come to me
to find it. But here's the catch. If the woman
(10:05):
with the camera kept her promise, then the photo is
in the hands of Dan's father, and I am.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Not particularly interested in trying to reach out to my
father directly or indirectly. In other words, This is what
might make it more tricky if he has the photo.
I don't want to go that road.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It's been about fifty years since Dan's father walked out
on the family. Dan isn't looking to make contact now.
But I can't help thinking that as much as Dan
wants a photo, some part of him must also be
wanting something more from his dad. The strange symmetry is
hard to ignore. The thing Dan wants most is in
the hands of the person he wants to talk to least.
(10:50):
But Dan is adamant.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, the mission here is not let's reach out to
him and get to know him. I really just want
the photo.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Are you saying sometimes a photo is just a photo exactly?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, I don't think it's just a photograph.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
No, But I don't think I can know everything that
it means to him necessarily. I think it's hard to
want anything from a parent who has been so thoroughly absent.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, so thoroughly.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Derelict. Does he remember anything about his father?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm hesitating. You know, this is small, but it's personal.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's a sad memory.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I mean to me, it's sad, Okay, to me, it's sad.
He told me he remembered his father rubbing his back.
(12:26):
I rub his back a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
With Dan's father in the no fly zone. It leaves
only one person who might have a copy of the photo,
the woman with the camera. Do you remember what she
looked like?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I think she had curly brown hair, and I can
get Nancy's take on this as.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Well, dark hair like not really a beehive, but sort
of up and kind of pin curlsy or something.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah. I think maybe she said something about the Jewish community,
so I wouldn't be surprised if they're active in the
Jewish community there.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I look at the notes I've been taking, an older
possibly Jewish woman from California who, when traveling to Israel
in two thousand and three, maybe wore her hair in
a beehive. I mean, this is really this isn't really
not a lot, you know.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, it's going to be hard finding her as a
big obstacle. And then eighteen years later, does she have
this photo lying around?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I begin my search for the woman with the camera
where it all began. Buck Facacia Bar, the restaurant in
Jerusalem where Dan and Nancy had their first date. Wielding
what's left of my bar Mitzvalessen language skills. My plan
is to endear myself to the Fakacia bar staff uh shalom.
(13:59):
Is there a manager maybe on second Slussia? Hello shalom? Hello,
how could I have you? I tell the manager about
my two friends who had their first date at his restaurant, yes,
eighteen years ago. Oh nice, Yeah, And encouraged by his interest,
(14:25):
I explained the whole story, how I'm trying to find
the woman with a camera, and how maybe he has
her credit card receipt on file. Luckily, Dan and Nancy
remember the exact day of their date, July first, two
thousand and three. So yeah, you could go back to
the computer just type in two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Oh man, we're not so much technology, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's no shating like seven eight computer, different computers, you know,
so nothing you could do in other words, no nothing nothing, Okay,
thank you for taking the time to your shalom.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So I try something else. Since the woman was a
neighbor of Dan's father, I look up his address and
contact the county assessor's office. I request historical records of
property owners in his town from two thousand and three.
But it turns out that like the catchy bar. They
aren't very technology and don't keep data dating back that far.
(15:28):
Unable to find a list of past neighbors, I decide
to try calling present ones. Maybe the woman with the
camera is still living in the same neighborhood as she
was in two thousand and three, or at the very least,
maybe someone who knows her does. My producer Stevie and
I turned to the white pages and start phoning Hello. Hello,
(15:51):
my name is Jonathan Goldstein. The reason I'm phoning is
I do a pot. Are you familiar with podcasts?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
No?
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I don't have time for anything.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I just not enough to thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I'll get to the point, ma'am. Hello. The neighbors rarely
let me get to the point, and even when they do,
I mostly met with one of two reactions pity.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Good look.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Or non pity.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
I haven't photographed anybody.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I've been in the little bar.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
I know nothing about what you're talking about, so you're
pointless coming here and talking to mean thank you?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Bye?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
All right?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Well, did you say I've never been to a noodle bar?
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
All right, we can cross that one off the list.
After dozens of calls to random strangers, I begin to
lose hope. But since Dan thought the woman with the
camera might have known as father through the Jewish community,
I phone every synagogue within an hour's drive of Dan's
father's neighborhood. I get the rabbis to include a call
out and their e newsletters. It doesn't yield a thing.
(17:00):
With the futility of finding a nameless woman with an
indeterminate address, I reach back out to Dan. It seems
as though it might be impossible without you know, in
some way it kind of connecting to your father.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah. Nancy and I talked a bit about it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Perhaps anticipating the shortcomings of my journalisming, Nancy devised a strategy.
Dan's fear is that his dad will think this is
an attempt to reconcile, to reconnect.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And so what I said was Jonathan could just call
him and say no, no, no, no no no, I'm
just here for the photo. If you could just give
us the photo, that's all I want.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Dan is comfortable with this approach, but before giving me
the green light, he says, there's one last person I
need to call.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I mean, we share a lot and we probably did
actually raise one another.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This is Abby, Dan's older sister. Given the difficulty of
their childhood, they've always sort of been a team of two,
so Dan wants to make sure she's okay with my
contacting their father. Abby tells me that over the years,
she and Dan have reached out to their father a
number of times, almost always to no response. The last
time for Dan was twenty years ago, when he was
(18:21):
in his mid thirties. For Abby, it was March of
last year. Dan and Abbey's mother had just died, and
Abby was going through her mom's belongings when she found
some photos of her parents taken early in their relationship,
and they were happy pictures.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
They were pictures of love and you know, and passion.
And so I wrote to him and I said, I've
been going through these pictures and I seen lots of
beautiful pictures of you and my mom, and I just
wanted you to know that my mom has passed and
it looks like there were times that were also beautiful.
(18:56):
And then I ended by saying I have a beautiful family,
and I'm very lucky, and Danny is lucky.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Abby sent the letter not expecting to hear back, but
about two weeks later, her father answered, and he said.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Something to the fact of we weren't happy, and he
said family is very important. But he didn't you know,
he didn't say anything about my children, or he didn't
say anything about even my loss. I mean, he didn't
have the you know, the I guess the depths, the
emotional depths.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Which is why she doesn't see the point in asking
her father for help, even though we're only asking for
the kind of small effort you'd expect anyone to make.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I have a photo, you'll call me up and
you'll say, Abby, do you have the photo? And I'll say,
oh my god, this is so difficult. But ultimately I'll
look for it and then he will sense that I
care enough to look. But we're not going to get
that from her father. He doesn't care enough.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
And no matter how old you are or what you
might say to the contrary, that hurts.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
If you look at us, you think, oh, those two
are just regular people. But I don't think we are
a regular I think deep inside, we're still researching and
we're trying to understand, like why why would a parent
(20:31):
not want contact with us? And nobody's going to give
us that answer. So it's really.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Painful in the end, even though Abby is skeptical her
father will help. She gives me your blessing to try.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
I mean, if that's.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
What Danny feels like is the right thing to do,
then I would support that. I want that photo. I
want that photo for Danny, but not at the price
of him being hurt. I don't think the photo is
worth not.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Dan's father is my last chance to score the photo,
and I don't want to blow it, which is why
I've been putting off the call. I don't want him
to hang up on me, and from what Abby told me,
it seems like there's a definite chance he might. But
on a Monday afternoon, a few days after speaking with Abby,
I pick up the phone. Dan's father is in his
(21:47):
late eighties, but he still works. When I phone his office,
a friendly woman tells me he's hard of hearing, and
then she gives me a cell phone number. After three rings,
Dan's father picks up.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
He says, Hello, I say loudly, but not too loudly.
I hope it's okay that I'm calling you on your
cell phone. Well, I don't know what you're calling about,
he says. For the next two minutes, they nervously explain
about Ficacia bar about how twenty years ago his neighbor
took a photograph of his son, and how I'm now
(22:21):
looking for that photograph. When I'm done, I'm met by
a silence that feels long enough to make me wonder
whether he'd hung up somewhere around my explanation of what
a podcast is. Finally, he says, so you're asking me
if I have this photograph. Yes, yes, I say, Dan's
father lets loose a laugh, not a mean laugh, like
(22:45):
and you think I'm going to help you with this.
It's free and amused, sounding a hearty and vigorous laugh.
I'm not sure what to make of it. Dan's father
says he has no memory of any photo, but he
does remember the incident, being told by his neighbor that
she'd seen Dan. He tells me she since moved away
(23:08):
and he doesn't remember her name, but that he'll look
for it try and reach me tomorrow. He says. When
I pick up the phone to call Dan's dad a
second time, I'm pretty sure I'll get blown off, that
he'll screen my call or maybe tell me sorry I
couldn't find her. But just as he'd promised, Dan's father
looked for his old neighbor's name and found it. I'll
(23:31):
tell you her name, he says. But that's all I know.
I haven't spoken with her, so if you can find her,
you can ask her directly. I ask him if he
remembers anything more about the conversation years ago when she
told him she'd seen Dan. Was he surprised, you know?
He says, I was honest with you. I got you
(23:52):
the name of the person. That's all I can do.
All right, Yes, yes, I say, sensing. Well, thank you
so much, and have a good day you too, he says. Bye.
When I get off the phone with Dan's dad, I
(24:13):
look at my notes where I've written down the name
of the woman with the camera, and that name is Deborah.
Once I have Deborah's name, it's not hard to find her.
She still lives in California. At first phone debraah a
few days ago. She was on her way out and
asked if I could call her back on Thursday.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Very nice timing.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Oh good good, I'm glad I caught you. It turns out,
Deborah remembers clearly the night she and her late husband
ate at Facacia Bar, seated next to Dan and.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Nancy, I'm a terrible eavesdropper. I just can't help it
because I love people's stories. Yeah, and I said to
my husband, I'm betting first date. And he said something
to me like stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
But Deborah couldn't stop it. She kept listening for what
Dan would say.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Next.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He said, my father invented the flavor for Captain Crunch.
Huh so much. Okay, there can't be two of those
people in the world. You know. My recollection is that
we printed a copy of the picture and took it
to give his.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Father, despite Dan's father not remembering any photograph. In Debra's telling,
she did show it to him.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
But my heart memory is that he didn't really want it,
which was, you know, made me really sad.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It turns out Debra snapped the photo knowing more than
Dan and Nancy imagined. She knew Dan's father had remarried,
and she knew he was estranged from his old family,
but a photo of his son seemed like something that
might warm him. Deborah was a second wife and had
seen her fair share of difficult family dynamics.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And my husband went through periods of being estranged from
his son, and one time someone came up to us
in a restaurant and said, oh, you must be Jeffrey's father,
and Russell was tickled. You know, he's still his son,
so you know, I don't know. What we hoped was
(26:20):
the charming story of a sweet coincidence received a very
still reception, if you know what I mean, Yeah, these
stories of estrangement. I think one of the hardest things.
(26:42):
One of the hardest things is that we think we're alone.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
For years, Deborah worked at a healing center, helping residents
there as they approached end of life. One day at
a volunteers meeting, someone told the story of an elderly
estrangement from their children.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
And pretty much everyone around the table had some variation
of estrangement from someone that they thought they'd been very
close to who was suddenly gone from their lives, and
it was just very quite. The word is liberating to
(27:23):
know that this is a human condition that we don't
talk about much. There are some relationships that you just
kind of, I don't know, on a cellular level, that
you that you long for even if you know you
can't have them. So when you talk to Dan again,
(27:45):
tell me it's not alone.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Deborah says that as requested, She did a search for
the photo and.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I found it.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
You believe it.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Deborah had cared enough to look.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Hi, Hello. So the.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Long and short of it is, we found the photo.
Get the fuck out?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Wow? What come on?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah? We found it?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Okay, I did not expect you to say that at all.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, and I didn't think. I didn't think we would.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Frankly, how the fuck did you do this? How did
you pull it off?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I tell Dan and Nancy about Deborah, who for almost
twenty years held onto the photograph of an estranged son
of an old neighbor. Deborah says she kept it because
she was touched that Dan, who must have held such
anger towards this father, had still been so gracious with her.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
So that that changes my sense of what was happening,
because I thought I remembered her having said I didn't
know he had a son, that she really had no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But Deborah did have an idea. So while running into
Deborah was pure luck, her snapping of the photograph hadn't been.
It was well intentioned.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
God bless this lady.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
Man.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I know, Yeah, I fe feel very warm towards Deborah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Of course, Dan wants to know how I found Deborah
in the first place. I ended up calling your father
to ask, which brings me to his father, who answered
my call.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I find it very surprising. I mean, he has never
been responsive to communications with my sister and I, so yeah,
I'm surprised.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I will also say that I talked to to Abby
just a few days ago and I told her about
the whole thing.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
I mean, I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised that he
went to look for the name. I didn't think it
was possible. I thought he wouldn't bother Maybe for just
a brief moment, he recognized a need.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, you know, like you see though at the
same time, like it's small.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
It's significant. Hmmm, it means something I don't know, in
a Hollywood dream movie. He did it for Danny and
he thought about it and he imagined him. But I'm
not so sure this is a Hollywood moment. Yeah, but
(30:52):
maybe he did see Danny in this.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I don't know what you make of that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
That's his I'm not buying it face.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I don't. She's
she might be a little more charitable about it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, It's been decades of radio silence from Dan's father,
and in that time Dan has come to wonder less
about how someone could do that to a son and
more about how someone could do that to himself.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I feel intuitively that this must plague my father. I
kind of think that to turn away from, you know,
a five year old and a seven year old and
just cut yourself off requires really sort of emptying out
your heart. And it is just baffling to me that
(31:47):
still at this age, he wouldn't figure out how to
do something about it for his own good so that
he doesn't take this with him.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Dan says that when he split up with his first wife,
his son was the same age as he was when
his parents divorced. Dan wanted to do things differently.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I was just very conscious of doing everything we needed
to do to be a presence in his life, for
both his mom and for me to be always a
presence in his life. And we did crazy, crazy things.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Crazy things like multiple transatlantic moves from Israel to the
US and back, all five of them, Dan, his ex wife,
his two kids, and Nancy. Things like living in neighboring
towns as the kids grew up celebrating Thanksgiving as one
big family. It wasn't always easy.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
But in every way I can explain or think of,
it has made a difference. And it was very conscious
and very much a kind of a reaction to the
way that he went about things. They went about things,
And just.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
To say, there were a lot of things I loved,
and I knew that I loved about Danny, but his
relationship with his children was at the center of it.
And his ex wife Tommy, we're all kind of in
a big, big stew together. We have been the whole time.
And she's been game for the weirdness too.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Shout out to my ex she's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
They don't normally do shout out. It's not that kind
of radio show, but serious journalism. Do you want to
see the photo?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yes, yes I would, Jonathan, I'd like to see the photo.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Before our conversation. I had it framed and wrapped.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Oh my god, Oh Jesus, my god, this is so
much better than I thought even, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
In the photo, Dan and Nancy are sitting next to
each other at a round wooden table. Dan's body is
angled towards Nancy, Nancy smiling and leaning towards Dan.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Look at you, Jesus Christ. Nancy. Oh my god, man, wow,
I totally remembered that tank top. It's smile.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Dan is often so serious, but in the photo he's
smiling so wide you can see all his teeth. He
looks unencumbered at ease.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah. No, it's it's sort of remarkably not awkward.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Yeah, we just look very relaxed.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
We look awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I guess sometimes a photo is just a photo, or
in this case, a really great photo.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, Nancy, I oh my god, you just you look
fucking adorable. You marry me all over I would marry
you all over again.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Dan's daughter is getting married this summer in Israel, and
Dan and Nancy will be there, along with Dan's son,
his ex wife Tommy. Shout out to his ex wife Tommy,
and his sister Abby two, who just recently became a grandmother.
Dan says whenever he visits there's always a lot of
requests for stuff from America, but along with the Sephora
(35:23):
makeup and Adida sneakers, he'll be bringing the photo to
share with his whole family. Now that the Fernituers returned.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
To its goodwill home, now that the last month's rant
is scheming with.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
The damnage, take this moment.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
To do so, if we meant it, if we.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Talk but felt around for far too from pas it accidentally.
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie
Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheiney mcgauker. Our
(36:49):
senior producer is Khalila Holt. Production help from Damiano Marquetti.
Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Caitlin Kenny, Phoebe Flanagan,
and Jackie Cohen. Nancy Updike, who you heard in this episode,
is coming out with a new series called We Were Three,
which drops on October thirteenth from Serial Productions. Bobby Lord
(37:10):
mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
found on our website, Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at
Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with a
(37:31):
new episode next week
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