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Hello, hello. Hello. Hi. Hey, how's it going?
Good. I can only see half of you. Is that by design? No, that's by mistake. It was very mysterious. You look very cozy. I think it's a part of, I wear this, Emily, when she goes through my clothes, as she sometimes does, will want to throw out this turtleneck that I've had for like over 20 years. I bought in Chicago when I was at This American Life, and I never wear it, except like once a year. I have to be in a very specific mood. What's the mood? And usually that mood is hanged over. Okay.
And I wear it, and it offers me something that I can't quite describe. Okay, so here we are. And where are you? Are you at home? No, this is Jigsaw Studios. Oh, it looks nice. Yeah, it's nice. It's lit a little bit like a hostage video, but otherwise it's good. Yeah. First of all, can you introduce yourself? Hello, my name is Jonathan Goldstein. And what do you do for a living? What do I do for...
Oh, what do I do for a living? What do I do for a living, PJ? I sell smiles. I'm the host of Heavyweight, the podcast that helps people. It's one of my favorite podcasts. So every episode, oftentimes it's a listener, but you'll find someone who has an unresolved thing in their life that they're unable to get over, which I think describes human beings. And then you'll go help them resolve it, and there's usually a story in it. There's always a story in it, and the story is...
My favorite combination where it's funny and also moving. We were going to share one of my favorite episodes, which I both love because the story itself is very moving, but also one of the subjects is Nancy Updike, who's one of my favorite radio reporters. So it's just exciting for me to hear her crossing over into the heavyweight universe from the This American Life universe. I'm so excited that we're going to share this genuinely. Well, thank you. Thank you, PJ.
I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Dan, right after the break. Surge Engine is brought to you by SleepMe and their ChiliPad bed cooling system. The ChiliPad bed cooling system is your new bedtime solution. It lets you customize your sleeping environment to your optimal temperature, ensuring you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed.
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Hey, Dan. Hey, Jonathan. How are you? Dan is a serious journalist. Like, national security correspondent serious. Sorry, I'm just trying to turn off my phone so it doesn't beep. 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. You're rested. Likewise.
Good of you to say. Check and mate. 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 2003, the night he and his wife Nancy first met. 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. A terrible date. I went to see X-Men 2, which was unfortunate all the way around.
This is Nancy, also a friend whom I've known for years, and also a serious journalist, for the podcast Serial and This American Life. And I wasn't even going to go to this party. I just thought, oh, for Christ's sake, why am I going to this? But then she met Dan. He was quiet. I noticed that he was just kind of watching and not being rambunctious at all.
You know, there's a lot of sort of false hilarity at parties, and that was not something he was engaging in. A week later, Dan and Nancy went out on a date at an Italian restaurant in downtown Jerusalem. You know, it's July. It was warm. She was wearing a tank top. I remember I ordered ravioli and a beer, and she ordered ravioli.
A burger and a whiskey. Because, I don't know, that's the kind of hard-drinking, hard-eating gal I was. 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 3. Still, something about Dan drew her in. 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 whole person's complications. It was nice. It was fun. But then something strange happened. Do you want to jump in with a question? Yeah.
Serious journalism. This must be frustrating for you. You must feel like, I could do both sides of this. What do I need this turkey for? But yes, indeed, like, what happened? 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 is 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. Dannett shared 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. She said, that's so funny.
He's our friend. We live next to him. He throws these great parties. He and his wife are very generous philanthropists in the community. 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.
But it wasn't just the surprise of being recognized by a stranger 7,500 miles from home. 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. 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, right?
And the first part happened before that moment with the couple next to us, and the second part happened afterward. It just turned into a completely different conversation that was like, here's the 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 on her own, and 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. And because he told that whole story, I then ended up telling a whole complicated story of my own, my own parents' divorce. You know, suddenly we were talking about things that were real, right?
It created this intimacy that, you know, you can go on five dates and not get to that. 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. And said, hey, do you mind if I take a photo of you two? This will be so funny. Let's take a picture of you and we'll send it to your father. And Nancy and I kind of looked at each other and
It was this look of, okay, this is weird, but why not? And we kind of leaned in. I think maybe even I put my arm around Nancy. And they took this picture. 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. It was pretty funny.
I think at some point they even said, like, we didn't even know he had a son. And it's like, oh, lady, you have no idea. It was like we had an experience together. Right, right. You know? Yeah. We had this inside joke already.
After the photo, things moved quickly. I think I gave Nancy the key to my apartment within two weeks of that date. The photo was a chance, you know, it gave us a chance to both kind of take the first big leap of our relationship. 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? Yeah.
Would you say that, Nancy? I wouldn't say that, but I would support your saying that. And with Nancy's full support behind me, I will say that. Because Dan and Nancy have now been together for 19 years. I mean, you know Nancy, so you know how lovely she is and funny and warm. And all that was on display there.
right away that evening. And I fell in love with her at that dinner. 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 with the camera kept her promise, then the photo is in the hands of Dan's father. And? I am 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. It's been about 50 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 the 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. But Dan is adamant. Yeah, the mission here is not let's reach out to him and get to know him. I really just want the photo. Are you saying sometimes a photo is just a photo?
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's just a photograph. 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. Yeah. So thoroughly derelict. Does he remember anything about his father? I'm hesitating. Yeah.
You know, this is small, but it's personal. It's a sad memory? I mean, to me, it's sad. Okay. To me, it's sad. He told me he remembered his father rubbing his back. I rub his back a lot. 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? I think she had curly brown hair, and I can get Nancy's take on this as well. Dark hair, like not really a beehive, but sort of up and kind of pin-curls-y or something. 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. I look at the notes I've been taking.
An older, possibly Jewish woman from California who, when traveling to Israel in 2003, maybe wore her hair in a beehive? I mean, this is really, this isn't really not a lot, you know? It's going to be hard. Finding her is a big obstacle. And then 18 years later, does she have this photo lying around? I begin my search for the woman with the camera where it all began. Who got your bag?
Focaccia Bar, the restaurant in Jerusalem where Dan and Nancy had their first date. Wielding what's left of my bar mitzvah lesson language skills, my plan is to endear myself to the Focaccia Bar staff.
Shalom. Is there a manager, maybe? One second. Hello? Shalom. Hello. Yeah, yeah. How can I help you? I tell the manager about my two friends who had their first date at his restaurant. Really? Yes, 18 years ago. Oh, nice. Yeah, and...
Encouraged by his interest, I explain 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 1st, 2003. So yeah, you couldn't go back to the computer, just type in 2003? No, man, there's not so much technology. I changed back to 708 computers, different computers, you know. So nothing you could do, in other words? No, nothing. Nothing, okay. Thank you for taking the time. Ciao to you. Shalom. Hello?
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 2003. But it turns out that, like the catchy bar, they aren't very technologue-y and don't keep data dating back that far. 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 2003. Or, at the very least, maybe someone who knows her does. My producer Stevie and I turn to the white pages and start phoning. Hello? Hello, my name is Jonathan Goldstein. The reason I'm phoning is I do a pod... Are you familiar with podcasts? Yes.
I'll get to the point, ma'am. Hello? The neighbors rarely let me get to the point. And even when they do, I'm mostly met with one of two reactions. Pity. Oh, pfft.
Good luck. Or non-pity. I haven't photographed anybody. I've been to a noodle bar. I know nothing about what you're talking about. So you're pointless coming here and talking to me. Thank you. Bye. All right. Well. Did she say I've never been to a noodle bar? Uh-huh. 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 his 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 in their e-newsletters. It doesn't yield a thing. Confronted 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. Yeah, Nancy and I talked a bit about it. 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. And so... What I said was Jonathan could just call him and say...
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. Dan is comfortable with this approach. But before giving me the green light, he says there's one last person I need to call. I mean, we share a lot. And we probably did actually raise one another. 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 20 years ago, when he was in his mid-30s. For Abby, it was March of last year.
Dan and Abby'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. 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 see 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.
And then I ended by saying, I have a beautiful family and I'm very lucky. And Danny is lucky. Abby sent the letter, not expecting to hear back. But about two weeks later, her father answered. And he said something to the effect 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 depth, the emotional depth of
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. 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 our father. He doesn't care enough.
And no matter how old you are or what you might say to the contrary, that hurts. If you look at us, you think, oh, those two are just regular people. But I don't think we're regular. I think deep inside, we're still researching and we're trying to understand, like, why? Why would a parent not want contact with us?
And nobody's going to give us that answer. So it's really painful. In the end, even though Abby is skeptical her father will help, she gives me her blessing to try. I mean, if that's 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 that. ♪
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That's 25% off your first month of Seed's DS01 Daily Symbiotic at seed.com slash search. Code 25 search. 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 late 80s, but he still works. When I phone his office, a friendly woman tells me he's hard of hearing, and then she gives me his cell phone number. After three rings, Dan's father picks up. "'Hello,' 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, I nervously explain about Focaccia Bar, about how 20 years ago his neighbor took a photograph of his son, and how I'm now 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, "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's since moved away 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 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 the name of the person. That's all I can do. All right? Yes, yes, I say, sensing I've overstepped. 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 look at my notes where I've written down the name of the woman with the camera. And that name is Debra. Once I have Debra's name, it's not hard to find her. She still lives in California. I'd first phoned Debra a few days ago.
She was on her way out and asked if I could call her back on Thursday. Very nice timing. Oh, good. Good, I'm glad I caught you. It turns out, Debra remembers clearly the night she and her late husband ate at Focaccia Bar, seated next to Dan and 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.
But Debra couldn't stop it. She kept listening for what Dan would say next. He said, my father invented the flavor for Captain Crunch. So I'm like, okay, there can't be two of those people in the world. My recollection is that we printed a copy of the picture and took it to give his father. Despite Dan's father not remembering any photograph, in Debra's telling, she did show it to him.
But my heart memory is that he didn't really want it, which was, you know, made me really sad. It turns out Deborah 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.
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 a charming story of a sweet coincidence received a very still reception, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.
These stories of estrangement, I think one of the hardest things, one of the hardest things is that we think we're alone. 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 resident's estrangement from their children.
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, I don't know quite the word is, liberating to know that this is a human condition that we don't talk about much. Yeah. There are some relationships that you just kind of,
I don't know, on a cellular level that you long for, even if you know you can't have him. So when you talk to Dan again, tell him he's not alone. Deborah says that as requested, she did a search for the photo. And I found it. I found it. Can you believe it? I found it. Deborah had cared enough to look. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hello.
So the long and short of it is we found the photo. Get the fuck out. Wow. What? Come on. Yeah, we found it. Oh my God. Okay. I did not expect you to say that at all. Yeah, and I didn't think we would, frankly. How the fuck did you do this? How did you pull it off?
I tell Dan and Nancy about Deborah, who for almost 20 years held on to 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 his father, had still been so gracious with her. So 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 what...
But Debra did have an idea. So while running into Debra was pure luck, her snapping of the photograph hadn't been. It was well-intentioned. God bless this lady, man. I know. Yeah, I feel very warm toward Debra. Of course, Dan wants to know how I found Debra in the first place. I ended up calling your father to ask if he had... Which brings me to his father, who answered my call. I find it very surprising, um...
I mean, he has never been responsive to communications with my sister and I. So, yeah, I'm surprised. I will also say that I talked to Abby just a few days ago and I told her about the whole thing. 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 for
I mean, you know, like you, you see though, at the same time, like it's, it's small. It's significant. Hmm. 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 maybe he, he did see Danny in this. I don't know what you make of that. Um,
That's his I'm not buying it face. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. I don't. She might be a little more charitable about it. 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 themselves. 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 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.
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. 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. Crazy things like multiple transatlantic moves from Israel to the U.S. and back. All five of them, Dan, his ex-wife, his two kids, and Nancy, were all in the same place.
Things like living in neighboring towns as the kids grew up, celebrating Thanksgiving as one big family. It wasn't always easy. 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 to say, there were a lot of things I loved and I knew that I loved about Danny, but his...
His relationship with his children was right at the center of it. And his ex-wife, Tommy, we're all kind of in a big stew together. We have been the whole time. And she's been game for the weirdness, too. Shout out to my ex. She's pretty great. We don't normally do shout out. It's not that kind of radio show, but serious journalism. Do you want to see the photo? Yes. Yes, I would, Jonathan. I'd like to see the photo.
Before our conversation, I had it framed and wrapped. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. This is so much better than I thought, even. Oh, my God. Wow. 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 is smiling and leaning towards Dan. Look at you, Jesus Christ, Nancy. Oh, my God. Oh, man. Oh, my God.
Wow. I totally remember that tank top. It's going to make you smile. 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. Yeah, no, it's sort of remarkably not awkward. Yeah, we just look very relaxed. We look awesome.
I guess sometimes a photo is just a photo. Or in this case, a really great photo. Yeah, Nancy, I... Oh my God, you just, you look fucking adorable. You'd marry me all over again. I would totally marry you all over again.
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 too, 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 makeup and Adidas sneakers, he'll be bringing the photo to share with his whole family. ♪
Okay, that was the episode Dan from Heavyweight. If you liked this one, go check out the show. It's a goldmine. Their new season premiered on October 5th, which means new episodes are available now. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The last month's ranting.
Take this moment to decide If we meant it, if we tried Or felt around for far From things that accidentally tied
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane and me, Jonathan Goldstein, along with Mohini McGowker. Our senior producer is Kalila Holt. Production help from Damiano Marchetti. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Caitlin Kenney, Phoebe Flanagan, and Jackie Cohen.
Thank you.
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.com.