 Justin Sargent What is father's day? Is it coming up or did it just pass? Sunday. Thank you. This story is about my father Well, it's actually about me, but it features my father kind of the way that grandgay men Ross features Alec Baldwin My father I admire him a lot. He's a real man's man Grumpy Vermont Fisher hunter hikers. I can build anything out of anything And he's a doctor too, so he's got the smarts and He's always been very supportive. He had my mother make a great team. I think they raise us pretty well very supportive all the time Even supported us with the somewhat questionable decisions we made going into college. I kind of tricked them in terms of Major choice. I always told him I wanted to do classics, but I made it more powerful by saying I wanted to also study Pre-law and become a lawyer. That's great. So after the first year I was like, actually I'm going to change that to computer science It's still okay. I was like after that I changed my linguistics and then English and then you know But they just kept supporting me through all that and they The college I went to was Duke University, which was A lot like former years of high school. It's very isolated from the strata community. They encouraged me to live on campus So I didn't have a job. I didn't pay rent or anything like that. I was just, you know, kind of continued the whole dependency thing and After college I decided to move my brother to New York City He was pursuing a career in acting and had a program that he was participating in and I had nowhere better to be and it had some Fancy ideas about being a writer or something. So I thought New York would be a good place to be But when you've never paid rent, never had a job You're kind of going from zero to 60 by moving to New York City And I'm also somewhat of a country mouse. So again, a lot of culture shock. I didn't It didn't hit me right away at first. It's just very exciting to be there. There's a real energy from New York City Um, but after that initial excitement were off. It just became really impressive I remember in the first couple days Of the excitement. I just walked around downtown everywhere. I thought I walked from like Harlem all the way to Battery Park and then back again. It was exhausting, but it was it was exciting to see everything Um, and at the time we were still looking for a place. We eventually found one in Washington Heights And the rent was I think like $1,300 a month. So That didn't mean anything to me. I mean, I've never had to pay rent. I've never really had a job So Everything was fine for a little while, but then I started to feel that responsibility way down And my brother was okay because he was in a program So he was kind of he had somewhere to be and something to do and I had I had nothing I was looking for jobs. I had been to bartending school in college, but Nobody in New York cares at all that you've been to bartending school And so all the restaurants that I tried to get jobs that nobody wanted me I tried briefly to substitute at some schools and that didn't really work out So I just ended up I remember walking through midtown and looking up at the skyscrapers and just Knowing that each building had hundreds and thousands of offices in it and each of them had people of them And I was just wondering what could they possibly be doing that many people I couldn't figure it out and I just started hiding in my room In our apartment and the weeks went by and I had I had nothing to do and nowhere to go and I would Try to you know do some searches online try to find something but nothing was happening and and I I would call my mother because Both of my parents was supportive, but when you call for like People make me feel better kind of talk. I was usually talking to my mom um, and so These calls became somewhat regular a couple times a week. It's calling like help help. What am I doing here? I I can't I can't do this and you know try to butter me up and try to support and like, oh, no You're great. Are you writing? You know try to try to you know, call me down and and that would It worked pretty well but It just couldn't go on like that And eventually I reached a breaking point My brother and I both did and We had already borrowed Almost $3,000 from them. Well, I say borrowed That's just an information for taking $3,000 From our parents for the first month's rent and security deposit and um I after after several weeks being unable to find a job not knowing what to do and just doing this crushing massive humanity We decided we had to get out of new york and called the management company and asked them how we could do that and he was sick of us because You know, we never rented before We've sent our first rent Money in as cash And they had to call us specifically tell us not to do that because it's on both broken by machines and the money So he already didn't like us And he told us the only way to get out of the lease was to buy it out And so I was like, okay, and called up parents and said You know, we can't do it. You know, we tried but we have to leave new york So we need like $5,000 about the lease And um, that's when my mom gave the phone to my dad And you might expect that he would Use the the money as a reason to say no, but that's not what he did He told me about his time in the Navy as a doctor About how many times Young man would come into his office who had signed a contract joining the military Accepted all the benefits and then when it came time for them to Take their duty station They would come to him to try and find a medical excuse to get out of it And he said I don't want you to be the kind of man who puts their name on something and then backs out and these Kind of coming of age moments sometimes they happen Slowly over time and you look back and you realize and you came and sometimes they happen like that And this is one of those times where I I heard the words And I thought yeah, I don't want to be that kind of man either and so we we stuck it out and um Things got better and I ended up spending two years there and probably three quarters of the stories I told that example. I've come from my time in the york city So I I really appreciate all the times in my life that my dad said yes It supported me and I really really appreciate the time that he said no Bill tory Picked up my grandson on his last day of school and they got me to thinking about what it was like when I was in school Back when I was in the third grade I was incarcerated with my classmates at the little white school house on the corner of group 15 and 128 yes at the center All the other kids were at the main school house about 200 yards down 128 and for us kids At the little white school house. It was like beyond out the trash Cut off on the mainland In the warden of the prison was my third grade teacher Mrs That we called her old lady asperd Yeah It was 1968 and corporal punishment was alive and kicked in at the little white school health She had many ways to straighten this album Like for instance, if you gave her any lip or spoke out of turn she made to stick your tongue out And then she clipped a colis pin on to it Her favorite was uh the old stand with your nose in the corner routine Trude but effective, but you know it only made some of us want to rebel against her even more John patri spent a good deal of third grade with his nose stuck in one corner or another John was the unofficial ringleader of the Loosely foreign band of brothers that came to get into an annoyed pester and pissed off old lady asperd She once made John roll a crayon apart across the floor with his nose In retaliation somebody I won't squeal Oh Put a tack on old lady asperd's desk. Yeah, I'm gonna rise out of it Well, the the battle seesaw back and forth Headquarters for the resistance was down in the bathroom of the old school house before the bathroom Yeah You went down about nine flight at nine steps to a little land and then you turned nine degrees to the right Went down another three or four steps on the right hand side. There was a toilet stall on the left hand side There was a St but right straight across from then last stairs are a long trough pipe urinal And old lady asperd had never invaded our sanctuary And he was lulled into a false sense of security And have been late in the school year a bunch of us guys are down in there and John He come up with this brilliant sort of challenge Which one among us Could piss the harness so Gray porter went first he started there in front of the urinal He's backing up just whizzing away makes it right up to the first step there And they were respectable, but we thought we had better candidates So hub roby went next he starts squeezed one out the urinal back straight up with them first steps Steps straight up onto the first step. They're still going strong probably could have gone farther Of course, we was all laughing and squealing like eight-year-old boys tend to do And it was by turn Well, I started blasting away at the urinal I backed right up to that first step step up onto the first one still going strong Like quickly with expert. I were just for a Kentucky windage Step up onto that second step still live them at dead center And suddenly a dark shadow An old lady asked for a grab be ripped by the skirt Now trying to shut down the water works while you're going full board Trying to shut it down and zip up while you're being drugged up a fight of stairs That's even tougher I get things zipped up and you shut down there and she drags me into the classroom Gets my ass over to the corner there shuts my nose in but She lays down. She says yeah, I just to remember her great coffee cigarette candy breath in my face And she says You so much as put your head one inch one side or the other and I'm going to paste you one you'll never forget Foo-ree I don't know how long I stood there with my nose in the corner Lord knows I I couldn't see a car I do know it was all the way through recessive most of English class Boy, did I learn my lesson that day One that I put up a fight for the whole school year held for my whole life And that lesson being When it comes to a pissing contest it really ain't no winners Kelly two summers ago I signed up to be a host for the fresh air fund Now if you don't know the organization the fresh air fund's been around for 140 years It's based in New York City And it helps underserved Intercity kids escape the city For a week or two in the summer and spend that time with a host family And it operates from Maine down to Virginia And I'd always wanted to have an exchange student or something where my kids were in school But I was a single working mom and I traveled for work and I just never felt like I could manage it But now it was just me in Vermont by myself. I had The perfect house pets great community knew all the fun things to do. So I thought I was a perfect host But then I started thinking about How this 10 or 12 year old girl Would see me through her eyes coming out to spend a week with a stranger in the country in Vermont First of all, I was 55 years old. I was old enough to be a grandma And it was just me there were no other kids So I talked to the fresh air fund folks and we agreed maybe I should have two girls So I signed up to have two 10 year old girls come out and stay with me And a couple weeks later I get an email with the information about them and I'd be hosting And ISIS both from Brooklyn So I sat down and wrote their parents an email and told them about myself and my house and all the fun things I had planned for them and I told them I was 55, but I said I'm really fun and active And I've got kids of my own so I'll make sure they have a great time So the day before the girls were arrived I go to the grocery store and I buy a bunch of bad kids food You know that stuff that comes in blue and red boxes I had every intention I've introduced them to all the good vegetables in my garden and the wild blackberries that grew down in my Meadow, but I knew that would take a little transition time So the morning they're due to arrive I go to the bus stop and I painted a bright sign that said welcome Kamori and ISIS And they pile off the bus and I load them into the car And they're just strapping in in the back seat when Kamori takes a look at ISIS and says She not a old lady? Now I want to be clear about this. I have to talk in their voices with their inflection or you won't get How clever and how funny these girls were Disrespective So the first morning they're at my house I take them out after breakfast to meet my horse and show them how to take care of a horse Of course, you're scared to death ever But as soon as I get her in the stall and she's mentioned around hey, they're fine So I grab them a break and I go out and start cleaning up the horse feet With the birth of one of our expressions for the week That nasty usually followed by So a couple of days later we go into Montpelier and we go to the farmers market We're wandering around town. We've been there for a couple hours when Kamori came over to me and she said There are no black people in this town. How come then there's no black people in Vermont? And I said people in Vermont, maybe not as many here as in other places, but there are And so we're walking around town and after lunch I see this Darling african-american couple who's two kids. I'll be eight and six So I go to the girls and I said see Families in Vermont So that's saturday on sunday the next day We're in chelsea at the spare And the same family is there And the same family Completely figured out comes over to me. She says let me you pay in that family to follow with myself, you know I should probably be dry The week of her here. I don't know other family situations. I don't know how alcohol fits in or doesn't This is not normal for me, but I decided okay. I'm not so grateful to her So the fortnight there with me we're helping out at a wine and cheese tasting at my In my town a little community event Of course, I'm dipping into the samples of wine So we get home that night. We flopped down the sofa. We're watching these silly shows on tv And then we start telling knock knock jokes and then we're making fun of each other's toes And I'm drinking a couple more glasses of wine. We had a glass set up to like two in the morning And the next morning at breakfast Isis looks over at me with her wise little smile and she says Oh And that same night spawned our one of our next catch phases, which was let me you owe what you fund Where the girls were to leave I decided to take him to the contra dance at the Grange in Montpellier And I've been to the dances before and I knew they were up last And it wasn't real sure how they feel about dancing with you know, sweaty old Vermont man with long straggly old white But they were great sports. They had so much fun. We stayed for four or five dances. They really seemed to enjoy themselves But true to form We get the car to leave and as soon as the door shut Kamori starts in the last session you dance was this tall thin young guy with bare feet Oh, no, no, this Matthew bare feet. He has some old scraggly toe. He's scratching me. That old nasty scraggly toe He just couldn't get anything past him So the next morning I put him on the bus and they head back to New York City and I am exhausted And I tell anyone who will listen Do not let me ever do that again Then I realized for nine months straight. I told hilarious stories About my time with Camorian Isis and I knew I had to have a back So sure enough they came back last summer and we had so much fun I mean, this is only half the stories. They're coming back this year for another week and I'm really looking forward to it Which just goes to show you When you think you're doing something to help somebody else You end up benefiting yourself the most And remember I'm old but I'm fun Dina Frankel years ago I Did a freelance job where I got paid With an all expenses paid free trip to Jamaica to a Resort to a clothing optional resort It seemed like a good idea at the time But when I got there I looked around and I realized this was really probably a big mistake All of the guys that I could see were like bodybuilders from New Jersey Six pack abs hair gel everywhere And this was definitely not my taste in men But so I'm trying to figure out what to do and I see this one guy who doesn't fit the stereotype He's got a wild mane of blonde hair Pulled back with this piratical red bandana And a luxurious mustache that just frames The most sensual mouth He's wearing like cut off jeans and boat shoes and it has all effect to sort of a hippie sailor This is my taste So we just had this magnetic attraction the two of us came together as like something out of the movies You can like practically hear the violins It turns out we've got some things in common Um, well, I find out that this is captain jim. He's not actually a guest at the resort He owns a sailboat that is used as a charter takes guests from the resort out on day sales for $25 a head And we um, we find out we're both from Connecticut. We're both scuba divers. We both French we both Have memorized every Monty python routine Well, there's so much chemistry. He says to me, do you want to see the real Jamaica? The next thing you know, he's carrying my suitcase to my room And whisking me away on the back of his motorcycle So he takes me to this magical place On the cliffs above the Caribbean where the waves Thunder in under the cliffs and shoot up through these holes in the rocks and make these geysers into the sky And then we get back on the bike and he takes me up into the mountains and let me tell you Spending a few hours on the back of this straddle in this motorcycle with my arms wrapped around this sexy stranger It was Stimulated So we stopped a week for lunch at this little roadside shack that served Jerk chicken and salt fish and red striped beer And while we're eating Jim Panthers with the provider in this Jamaican patois that's so thick it sounds more like reggae than english to me And then when we're done we get a we have a nice red striped buzz going here And we get on the bike and head further up into the hills So as the afternoon goes on the sky opens up and it rains like a monsoon The road has gotten slick and so Jim pulls the bike off into this dirt track And as soon as we made the turn we were just mired So we had no choice we ditched the bike and we started hiking up this track and there in the jungle Is a treehouse? It's really like this cottage built up into the canopy that belongs to an expatriate friend of Jim's And so we we're able to take shelter from the rain Now You know where this is going right you can probably imagine that a young American tourist and a sexy sailor Who are trapped in a treehouse in the jungle for several hours while their clothes dry are not playing doxy Let me just put it this way it was The most romantic afternoon of my life Um, uh at the beginning of one of the most romantic weeks of my life I never really went back to the resort except to get my suitcase We swam and sailed and so forth The air was just full of the smell of jasmine and Jim made me feel like I was the center The night before I was supposed to leave came to me and he asked for a favor Would I bring a package back to the united states? Yeah, the up and up he said But you know, I had been with this guy for a week now and I kind of trusted him So the next day he brings me this package and it contains 480 $20 bills And they smell like dirt Like pirates. So here was his mo He offered a five dollar discount to the american tourists who paid for their boat rides in us currency, which was strictly illegal in jamaica And so he had amassed this huge pot piles of 20 dollar bills, which he kept buried in the front yard of his house And from time to time you would befriend an american tourist I suspect usually a female american tourist And he would dig up just enough cash to stay under the 10,000 dollar legal limit for bringing cash back into the united states and he would ask them to Mail the cash back to him At his home in the in the states So you know what I did I took the cash I flew back to Miami And I fed X to him just like I had promised Tim told me years later that he had never lost a penny in this tax shelter scheme I don't know why no one just kept Just keep the cash, but I'll tell you it never crossed my mind Now I've probably made you think that he was kind of a scoundrel any user, but you know He and I 30 some years later are still good friends We traveled all over the world together He's one of the most stand-up guys I've ever met And that was the end of my smuggling career. Thank you I'm squire story begins in 1920s When a real estate developer in los angeles decides to build a community That he calls Beverly Hills But apparently the first several houses don't sell very well So he needs to up the marketing And so he reaches out to the great movie star will rogers and asks will rogers he would be the mayor of the town And uh, will rogers says no, I wouldn't be a member We are the mayor of any town that doesn't have a church So very quickly the developer Sets three very prominent lots right in the middle of Beverly Hills and donates the land to the Presbyterian Episcopal and catholic churches and the churches are built and they're there today And if you go there, you can see the presbyterian episcopal and catholic church is right on centimonic bolder So fast forward to the mid 1990s iowide in los angeles and I started having a really great time I'm going out at night going out tonight clubs Monday to the wednesday thursday friday and saturday and So I figure out the square you got to get you got to get right here and uh Maybe what I'll do is I'll go to church on sunday and try to just clean this act up a little bit So not being from any particular religious tradition. I just walked into the first church that I saw And I go in I And all the people are way down front They're up in the first couple of views and I kind of quietly and she kind of sit towards the back Behind my own business. I'm just sitting there But uh, there's a moment in the service when we're supposed to stand up and Did the people decide you piece? Well, there's nobody near me But I kind of look around and it's quietest little mouse This man had crept in during the service and sat down right behind me, but it's not just a man It's jimmy stewart The jimmy stewart and I look at mr stewart A bit of peace and these people up front are all taking a lot of time So kind of whispering talk and I said i'm romp squire and he says i'm jimmy stewart Yes, yes, you are your jimmy stewart this far Completely geeking out because I've been a big fan of jimmy stewart my whole life And it's just just a great moment and and I've just been piece of jimmy stewart and then A couple of minutes later in the service. They want you to hold hands with the people next to you and pray But there's you know, no one around me. So I turn around and i'm holding jimmy stewart's hand And we're praying together You know hit us this day our daily bread and i'm sitting here with this man. I'm like This is incredible. I didn't know church was like this I feel like I died and gone to heaven and here I am. I'm like, this is great. I'm gonna come every week I'm gonna get to know jimmy and we're gonna start hanging out and we'll start to pray with jimmy stewart So this is great And so I'll catch him that coffee and donuts after service and we'll make this thing a regular thing jimmy sweeps out before the end of the service He leaves just as quietly as he came in But that doesn't deter me. I decided I'm coming back next week. So I came back next week I go to church jimmy doesn't show up And I figure well, he must accept I come back the next week jimmy doesn't show up Oh, he must be on vacation I saw him again in the fourth week jimmy doesn't show up again. This is a long vacation But I keep going back jimmy never shows up again But I keep going back and I start making friends and I get active in the community and I actually get confirmed in the church Suddenly we uh You know the rector of the church and the bishop of la come to me and they say hey, well, have you ever thought about doing this professionally? What like, you know join the clergy like no And he said well, you know, we've got a lot of bullet gale and we've kind of spoken to them There's a spot for you to live in the school bunch. Go check it out So the rector and I fly to new haven we go I take the tour I do the interviews and all that and they tell me Yeah, we've got this spot for you. You know, there's just this whole formality. You'd have to finish up the application I go back to LA with this application That's right at this time that I discovered Why jimmy steward is not in church And why jimmy steward is never gonna be in church And that's because the first week I went to church. I walked into the presbyterian church The second week I walked into the episcopal Waiting for stewardy's next door man. It's worse now. I've got this application And I swear to god that the first question the first question on the application says What is it about your religious journey and your search for god that has brought you to the episcopal church? I had to do it. I wrote I didn't come to the episcopal church looking for god. I came looking for jimmy steward And you don't have him I wrote that I signed it. I mailed it in They did not accept my application They did not join the clergy and instead I moved to Montpelio