Happy Father's Day! - PRX

i'm alex chadwick this is the light stories the life stories collection comes from a series of great pieces made in recent months and over many years by producer jay house working with christina egloff and friends and neighbors collaborators sometimes with strangers with people who would agree to borrow huge quantities take these are stories about life every day as we live it as we record in this hour also meditations on family and memory the first from writer dan romp i remember clearly the morning they told me there were separating role i was surreal and then leaned over my cousin allen told me this some changes anything but that's moving out and what i remember is telling young i was not ok then

later that day i remember watching my father's back as they walked down the stairs outside the housing there was cement and i'm running a bus you know walking down the steps away from athens he had a brown tweed jacket on brown leather shoes and he was carrying two brown suitcase he put them in his jeep back when they still said well it's on the side and he drove away the steps were empty cement steps pretty steep and about three flights three little flights three steps little planning few steps down and there was something crooked about them one on the steps of a one off with an anglo minister an iron railing along with an appropriately enough i looked out the window and watch dad packing his car and i'm driving away at that time what kind of car would've been well he had bought a little sports car because his car was in that that

arise in the shop and the more wait till it was ray which are in two or three days later and we bought a little car so deeply right away and he told me he was leaving on a trip across the country because that's what he had to do in order to clear his mind and his feet on the ground again so we packed up and he got in the south was going to go because you're trying which got special for the trap and a mosaic i just want to i'd just drove out west and i just wanted to get him away from pittsburgh and south and they're just sort of where my head out a lot and i'm a member telling allison that when i get back i thought i would we want to move now i had a lot of different feelings i was angry that he'd done and i was at that he hadn't ever taken banned me like

you and me on a trip romel and he was walking down the steps away from me and he was hanged to brown suitcase put them in his jeep back when they still said well it's on its side and a little while before he left that day he knelt down in front of me and tighten my belt for me i have a picture of that his hands are being bigger than mine will ever be farmers' hands were ballplayers and he's sitting i mean i i feel and i feel bad about all of the big sort of gap swim when i wasn't there and them all that time a minute what would never get it back your relationships are many ways of build

memories more memories you have to deepen the relationship and if you mention several years of memories are places that is doing a buildup for you when you were probably three or four you were four when you a region i know memorial actually what the season was there was there when adam and all of the coves remember taking pictures of you kenya's synching the belt gently tighter oh on black and white and shows me standing there three years old in front of a big window that lets the monochrome pittsburgh light into the living i was like a stark all of the coal burned business deal in that city and burn the color out of the air and reflects off his hair

which is like alice and shows a strong jaw and the depth of his dark eyes greet was no abuse in a household you know harsh words no father anymore and my mother sobbing over the dishes in the sink what do you think you would have done after he packed up his car and left what would have been your reaction that i might have observed so you probably saw me sad and mournful but then turning back to the house and i'm not trying to a cheerful but i also felt thousands of abandoned i felt that it was at the end of the marriage the end of my hopes rumors the end of my hopes for a fairly freely and he left this but i also felt as he

drove out of sight well bank and this one is as a relief i'm afraid of all that abuse the misunderstanding and bad feeling that have been going on for so long the willies think and be me now and then not try to be something that somebody else was making me be the split up with my doing and coming out of sort of a combination of my own immaturity recklessness dissatisfaction inflated hopes and expectations and i think i guess i just felt that i had never had never had any kind of freedom course and i never been an ever really from fried apple value will go anywhere even occasionally

for them will be holder might conduct i was three and that leno my bed which was no one told me this don't think this change is anything but bad moving out to eat and what i remember is telling him that it was not ok and in want him to tell you first and me and want me to tell you first so we did it together and i remember i knew was a terrible blow for you i don't remember telling you with her you're in bed or have ish ish picture in my mind and i in that little room you know that mabel hite and it i came in and i can i say something like them on i'm leaving i'm going home and you were somehow knew what was coming and you heard the ad or near it

and sort of the you know what put a pillow myriad says and that didn't want them one of pollution soup and i mean it wasn't it was a very wrenching moment it really was and then you know our hearts since since then let go actually when i when i when i walk out your bedroom at night that that was really a major turning point in my life and i am and i and i don't know to this day whether it was referred to in real rule when my father left my bedroom row it was a turning point for me to hold it was the moment i moved outside the midst of the american family left and

became a part of something else something with no firm in mythology to look forward to my rescue to memory alive today to look back you know i became a part of the whole issue which is like the death of the family and i turn down a path less well among less well less but i am like my father no longer wonder if it was for good or for ill justice this led to his regime maybe we can make something so ladies

the fuel isn't oh yeah

no no atlanta for years that's moving out was produced by jay allison and dan romp in our next life story collaboration producer dan get him and reveals a past of love music and brotherhood now is

his real name and i thought well i can't go through the mail since the stigma that to people ariane the late seventies call themselves malick's specs that's the story for the past five years in jail that's pretty much the truth my brother has had a transfer singing just about as long as he's been alive all he ever wanted to do was make music

to sing for people the cornish group tonight's of commerce through lions club the elks the sons of italy you name it if there's one of those have been there for the same constantly in our house when we were growing up i always wanted to be a rock star or the next great soul singer but once he was out on his own the same everywhere he could still does any world find an audience to appreciate jerry lewis' telephone i've done schools and colleges and arts exhibition whenever they also thousands of getting one of those movies that really will have me get tom gets around my brother's been in countless rock blues and r and b bands over the years but these days he's mostly hired as a tom jones impersonator he does that by night during the day he hauls down a straight job and it's tough to tell people your coworkers i'm going to be a tom

jones critically one i didn't try for the last few years to develop an image of the senate and working as a computer allison to the luminous image is is in panic i am a conservative and married a tape and alto and totally blown oh oh all whoa whoa oh oh my brother were stars on buddy holly as don jon hey he's singh is tom jones is very somewhat some way that i didn't actually stop sending eleven come but i've

gotten to the point around and hitting notes and doing things and my brother is nothing if not confident at least on the surface he thinks positive and has an uncanny almost over confidence it's an amazing quality really even unsettling member this forty three not married doesn't have kids is a lot of girlfriends but it is not the steady one now these days he's living at home with my parents in massachusetts and when we got to the music of wayne and growing up in a room in the house called the music or no that looks a whole lot different then so my brother and i talked the last time i was home visiting those are in the corner here in the corridors of the purge professional console to come right from radio station an affair with the brand of that one replica rifle those of

but yeah this is a great great atmosphere and i walked in this room and the movie musical notes bouncing all around it and it was a place where we could to scam going in play around and make believe you're the star his family sold and sixty six museums the intensity and unable to stand the test of ten great deal and have two and screams solos that that screaming

was a house until someone who as vivian but in the screeners somewhat unnerved a novel isn't the same reason its russian of the most in a primal fear this is the room my brother began studying the great rhythm and blues singers people like al green little richard otis redding james brown and tom jones whose brother thinks brings them all together just a degree of what's implicit areas once right now that you get no regular the words you get james brown why one inning at the wilson pickett in rates shows all

he says it so that's so that's their you know i remember the first time i ever saw my brother perform the parents took me to see him at a high school variety show when i was still in elementary school but nobody knew that i could sing but there was a song that idea that there was a band the old blood sweat tears in the book that the first version of them without cooper and there was a song that cole i love you more than eleven notes and bluesy ballad and isis in that over and over and over again and in this music and so i ended up singing it and that was a real as my first real performance in as me in front of the states you know kind of being weak a formerly people this was something that i remember having this

become a soupy sure the london probably had made it bracelet hanging them open on my color a little in and it was quite an experience was in college and i think i did did fairly well as you know i still do it really sold a roasted screaming at the end i remembered it in the number you sure was virtually half of presents and that was my recollection i was very impressed i'm sure it was the first time i ever saw you perform for a moment you know i was absolutely yeah absolutely there and i remember that very well but and mostly cause a member you had a vivid memory of being on the playground behind my elementary school i am trying to explain to the other kids that the nie performer brother was this you know big star and i imitated you singing the same song which of course i had heard and mostly would you rehearsing at an ice still now the sinai well but the record by the way about five years ago and i have a job and i am yours another help his cousin but i remember i was imitating you

complete with and doing my shirt i felt like i am i feel like a celebrity then get kids didn't know it and cause i can't cause my brother you know that you just did this thing that was pretty it's pretty impressed if it's not clear by now i idolized my brother used to sneak into his room when he was in home and look through his things put on his clothes smell as cologne matter of fact i still have a way ymca t shirt that used to where we use a counselor at camp beaver it's full of holes almost drag but never let go and i've always followed his career in music because i was sure especially after high school that he was going to make the big time it almost did his close calls with fame they proceeded to tell us that they are going to put something like a half a million dollars behind the super grouping rwandan its bills among kids and i think the town's twenty one and i'm just a

in this episode they didn't relate and

others you cruel to marketing thing you know so it's a ham cutter you to have signed contracts and opaque you a little so it's affordable at this point i really had the stones

i just feel like it is my thing so astonished to push back my beloved music completely for many years after this time around nineteen eighty four for while he dabbled with a little home recording set up try and write some songs that is how was minute he stopped going out to clubs lost touch with most of his musician friends didn't play didn't perform just left then in nineteen ninety one seven years later he discovered karaoke so having dinner and i heard this music in the lounge and mrs course of the women singing was beautiful set to go in his group no

women then as the group is a day looks at silliman a keyboard and is cutest pigs and saying you were the stunt sing the hits or something like that i'm working up in this video playing of the lakota follow the bouncing ball and you know anything about karaoke images sounds fantastic and sages all these years evans says they were trying to leave which says the drama to show up for the area the bass players in a nervous breakdown in here there's no band just have these laser discs they put the music you just cook and so now i'm a room after mom of the worst was a showing of the words they will monitor that faces up to mean this was a singer is delight as heaven after that he was hooked at the height of my interest in karaoke easily as cora also been that people often he'd steal the show knocking

out the audience bars all over the boston area and he began winning contests live while we're standing over by the video monitor at their billing was all court judges have assembled and then decided who the winner is going to be what you tell us who that is it was unanimous again oh it is in my brother on his way to this is new

dean well so what were you in your own in your process here and so because i forgot one thing to put my pops this rule it up so it's just about that thick and the new ford it off ok and what you've got there is a real pinch so just on the front of your absolutely and this is this is for the year authenticity sake next day i do support a couple of the us with lots of lots of metal on them because i'm i just feel ive gotten also keeps my pants up ok now

i have to dig them a couple of politically or something to just going to clean his era so this is the bit but will eventually there and have a nice sequence tents that all of our interests and i can think about things off and on what it did have reason bengals and bongos get a bit cross cross so i don't know what i have to do is oh oh i forgot all together put the mask on the chest hair when he was done my brother was transformed not exactly tom jones but close enough and ready to go on its legal problems and changes in the house

some companies would instantly appreciation it's an affliction rights to hotel rooms but before that for the tone he performed at a chinese restaurant left his finale all the guests in the waiter's even the stage means they'll stood a standing ovation was like being a few months after initially

laid off future appears to me do you worry now is playing the stock market for an early retirement when asked why harry a while julie meets the games tom jones well my brother perform certainly be talking like very very very inviting me in all i know otherwise i would like this really the time i didn't tell anyone and alex jones my brother i just asked them what they thought of six years neil

i'm alex chadwick and this is the life stories collection next another meditation on brotherhood from jay allison every year my father would go get uncle sam of the dough or state hospital and bring him home for christmas dinner toward the end of the meal sam would become agitated begin to tremble and rush to my father's side and whisper to one that answered sam would nod his head over and over his eyes focused on the world after we finished dinner send my father would say ok right ok to read your senator ads are nodding good evening it gives me great pleasure to introduce samuel gregory holt who is with us evening when dinner was done salmon go to the head of the table a stammer is over sixty five inches tall almost as tolls my father we're cannibals

sam like to sing as though it were on the radio you will always enjoy hearing that provoked boys and a better creator broadcast nineteen sixty one once in a while it's in a real light the phone and recorded them on the old lawrence act now mr ho i won't turn them out they go over to europe and we spent an anxious excitement to hear the sounds which you are about to produce you're right for everyone and that one said that it was sometimes embarrassed was retarded older brother and tried to give him the slip on a way to heighten the fields before going to town

eventually sam became my father's responsibility in halfway houses or institutions he's been when sam died my father took him back home to virginia someone else owns the old farm in orange county now my father doesn't like to trespass so once in the past year who wants to be done with that he walks along the creek face forward sprinkling sam's actions from here there's a window and it won't let the ashes rest that lifts them up and stared my father looks around see sam's ashes blown toward him and in an effort to avoid them starts to trot away slowly at first still empty mirren behind the wind picks up and carries uncle says he rises in a club

their turns again season gaining and speeds up the favorites as bad leg that he's running hard now uncle sam right behind him following him through the fields where they grew up when it was over my father drove a station wagon back to delaware with him on the front seat it's up to all the noma long history of that go at the new music hall when sam finishes we'll clap for him he bows his head he's not humble and appreciative pretty good leader of his sisters little brother would look so yes i am pretty darn good one another one was sure sam about silent night all right

these eyes are closed has he seen his eyes nicholson's brother bees need get bonded use that was dead and sam from producer jay allison and another family story now from dr allan berg and wall he's a physician and central massachusetts in the late nineties dr burke i'm more borrowed a tape recorder and a microphone and asked his parents to begin to tell him about something they'd never talked about this is a sound which was adapted at it

as i've been as a haven for the effort that it will in the name of the sound disillusioned came out as the case then let's move a which means don't saying leavitt that you know going to west nile because it's not to look back to the future and i'm going to sing it the best way i can the sudanese became allies in those days then letson day then he in landline unit first time they're so both had parents were survivors of the whole legal issues were barely teenagers survive the slave labor camps and auschwitz as the son of survivors and community of survivors the whole course was always with me as a child i didn't survive the concentration camps come to this country

along with no money not able to speak english so you cooked my monkey bars and fall and break your neck after the war crimes that little use for god but if there was one they want to game is it's a sharp punishing scott and the jewish high holy days and we jews are supposed to fast i can't make a big breakfast my sister's things at me fast enough for both of your nose the holocaust was present in everything we did a bypass would never speak directly of the war or the camps who would never tell me about the horrors they survived when i would ask a question they'll put me off what's to tell you should know he would never understand it so it came as a surprise then when they announced wednesday that they and their survivor friends rented a bus going to the holocaust museum in washington i realize that here was an opportunity to learn about my parents passed fine living history

i would bring a tape recorder and ask them what they went through for myself and my children if we were loading against that and my family is getting on the bus everyone was smiling laughing as children every any real human friends get together the idea of his funding together the good death camp with them and this is confusing to leave it doesn't bother them i'm steve inskeep

both my parents came from large families my mother was the youngest of seven a father and forces to get the only relatives i have your both on the bus here with other friend on his bicycle and i couldn't stand to be like somebody wanting to have nightmares so why you have a need to go away you know why do you think it was only over two children my cousin steve and

you haven't noticed even in a movie like me i've never heard their parents speak in detail now while my folks never spoke to me about it and i am putting it may be something in this lie thank you we arrived in washington and spent the first a sightseeing our visit to the holocaust museum was arranged for tomorrow we took in the capital the mint and a few other tourist destinations it was a long and tiring day baca motel after dinner i sat with each of my parents' separately and alone and asked them to tell me for the first time what happened to them during the war my wife was a good life my mother was outgoing and spontaneous me a woman who loves to sing and

they need a lot of encouragement her story came in bits and pieces and began in the large general told the situation became clear that the college went days we didn't have worked we didn't have calls and didn't have flown and that they gave us a little bit we could me mixes so mice have they ever snowfall and within the week that he didn't rhyme ate he say good for me and i was old enough to understand that i didn't want to take his piece of bread and i didn't like it and my mother's story there was no philosophy no analysis only a stream of remember details this was the first time i had heard her talk about my grandfather's death the window comes down some mean this was no such thing that only get

the put his name at the middle just isn't a man and a piece of cabo world that's it and i know no way i don't know lapped where was never in the cemetery kay then tanks fan fave a bet when the ledge ghetto was liquidated the remaining jews abroad by cattle cars to auschwitz the selection process began to put the style shifts in and told us to get the depth of state came and we came ain't there were an la that people are not about the people there and i came and i was holding them to my math and nine that day so the man went separate and i want that in my mother told to go this way than one way let's say to the left and i should go to that night and at my bedside a way that took him away so my brother went away went

away i see all the men go on when they should and be with my mother was happy it was wrong with my mother all of this up in a soldier without a big huge drama and he said my mother should go this way and i said well why i wanted to go with my mother and i didn't let that go so he pulled me away and i fall he gave me out push him in mind back i should go this way and i didn't want to go but he gave me such a push that i think that nato and the fall so that women who went to that was supposed to go in the same direction that i went that polygamy with them and that's it and i never saw my mother from my eyes that's was they i didn't know where my mother meant that i didn't know where i'm going to email the other women at all of a sudden we can follow neal baer indicate the scene and then tell us we should take the fact polls

close we couldn't understand when you take the fact most they said that they're going to get a shower and we should go to get a shower and women and get them to take off our hate to do is shaping shape our heads i there was an important so we went in with like you know just shape and that we would make it was forced to go and take a shower nobody talk but ej never one knew that we not going to come out on those those again because we knew edie that guess comes out what the showerhead days yet instead i wanna guess is gonna come out nobody talk nobody's skating nobody carry me just when we took all this whenever this set we get funny thing we argue we gonna die and no body and then

add that we just look at the job then nokia's that's it luckily we sell market and the water came out then we started to carry everybody was carrying a week and it was a shower and that's it my mother told me things no mother should ever have to tell a child i had asked her so she told me the hardest because she loved me i don't remember how i felt as she talked of the camp's i only call taking a deep breath when she was finally liberated when my mother finish it was my father's turn we sat in a quieter alcove off the main lobby of a holiday so lou assigned to a statement is being used in sixteen i think it was in auschwitz was not to auschwitz was no picnic all my life when every spoke of the war he was like that

until tonight this data to come to know all of a sudden there would go to many people so just out the toolbox of the pulled out my father because too many people so i went over to get the fed chairman and said that i want to be with my father to give an idea what's happened maybe city like we all it's something many said that they should let you go so i was glad take the ship to achieve that in his youth out that you can take it with them because they took him how so i said thank you sharon thank you very much and i look in it we went back in the line that took that took out somebody else as he talked i realize that my father's story was really the story of his father they were together almost to the very end of the war as long as i was with my father i was able to help him because i was a little i was young decide that some hard to work so as getting x the excavation says a big tool to shay amid

fine with my father never did was ok fine you on one day i come home after days for it they're telling me that my father was selected to be sent away from the camp so i saw him and he told me a list that's what it is that i should seek to survive if you don't think so that you live in as that though i should i should go back at home they see it but this flock and i never saw him and you know he was sent to like him to pay a cold lake elmo that was in the humble and i spoke with people after the boyish that he had them not to get that he got sick in the thigh

in was struggling until bets liberate the damage is my father had finished we'll both exhausted i walked him back to his room for the night so now that's i don't tell mom in a parking lot at night under a tree i go back to the hotel my mom is there says so you get the story you've heard the story they say things are never heard before things i never knew before is the first time my life i'm forty one years old i learned the story of what happened to my father in the war and i think was the end he was getting tired who's talking for over an hour so it's a rushing through details there's interesting this is the first time in my life i ever saw my father cry that we talked about the part where his father died i had no idea that they

are very close through the war which is also confusing because i'm close to my parents now the daily senator father was close to my father when i grew up he was always working years always working and noses at american teenager when i hear about the worms no now for the first time i'm dealing with that and trying to do it they say i don't think i've ever felt the prison to move my father visited this evening's be this is thursday august twelfth there's my parents forty seventh anniversary that they will finally get to go to the museum

for instance now he was a man of fact i'm kind of shaky isn't on board the bus that morning they clearly have a different tone yesterday smiles are big force conversation a bit strained known spoke with the genius for the next hour distance cyclists and then to expose my past memories of my parents the history of lamb take a listen

as they went through the exhibit has defense rarely if ever read the captions alongside the disciplines this one as the pictures searching at every identifying buildings calling out names on shops seeing the architect of them like to refer to him in terms of some of us might use for the paper boy who forever tiptoeing newspapers into the hedgerows and look it's and again they have not come to the museum three member and grieve that un inspection team became the sea of java been done right if the curators and honestly fulfill their contractual obligation with history their paths they moved from their museums if they owned that's that's soon close that those windows to function some regions

wounded about paying for this and that we rejoin the group waiting in a large brick walled room off the main for long length of the survivors are sitting shoulder to shoulder chatting to talk about dresses are combinations about their children about what they mean is you really got home where they'll eat tonight the voices still find scare offended by what they saw as a lack of respect not understand i understand these people they are living sitting with that donna karan fancy eyeglass frames gold jewelry designer parking is not one was struck down it was a display of a perfect symbol like that even the show's cancellation

their voices tearing through the hallways was proof that the nazis had failed in their mission to raise the future and he's going to seek the filibuster for survivors and to resume normal lives if you're willing to sing for me all of the microphone disco diesel carter so carefully for things your eyes or less these things to park your heart shall make them known to your children and your children's nanny

nine made guns airmen at an nba get far is as botswana leaves a little spots and that love puns and involve their own zone whoa that's it descended from the holocaust was produced by jay allison and christina egloff with dr allan berg can walk and that's it for this family edition of the life stories collection the life stories collection comes from a radio series produced by jay allison with his friends and collaborators the editor and co producer is christina egloff brent runyon made the music comes from benjamin purdy for funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting and the national endowment for the arts a cd anthology of life stories collections available by

calling toll free one eight six six life story or you can find it on the web and jay allison job or you have a life story contact us at transom dot org thanks for listening this is npr national public radio