 I grew up in a large extended family that was very close-knit. On one side were 12 cousins and on the other side were eight. In my family, most of the folks had nicknames. This was on my mother's side, the Newtons. And the nicknames were kind of odd. The aunts and uncles were hob, kins, goob, weedy, soddy, tealy, and hit. That was my mom. Among the cousins were bud, kook, tinker, peaches, ick, and tish. That was me. I was the youngest. That side of the family loved stories. The cousins begged for stories and most of the stories had names. The very favorite story of all was Uncle Hamp comes to dinner. Uncle Hamp was my granddad's oldest brother and he was a Baptist preacher. Every few months he was in town preaching at a revival or covering for somebody at a church. He was invited to Sunday dinner and when we got to the table, when the family got to the table, he was invited to sit at the head of the table. When everybody was seated, Grandpa would say, Hamp, would you say the blessings? Now in our family, grace was never said. It was always the blessings. It was always capitalized and it was always plural. Uncle Hamp would stand up. He was, according to my mother, tall and handsome. He would stand up. He would bow his head. And everyone at the table would bow their heads. Then he would take a deep breath indicating that the blessings was about to begin. And with that, the kids were goners. Given that it was so wildly inappropriate to laugh during the blessings, of course it got funnier. After a bit when they couldn't contain it anymore, one by one they'd look up at my grandmother who would give them the squint eye and jerk her head toward the living room door and out they would file one after another. Every single time Uncle Hamp came to dinner, mother said, this happened. And every time it got funnier. Well, when I was six years old, our beloved grandfather died. And according to the custom, he was laid out in the living room. His casket was on the big library table. The next day people came from everywhere because they all loved grandpa and they wanted to pay their respects. The house was full and somewhere in the middle of the afternoon we heard Uncle Goob's voice. And he was asking for quiet. And of course we all scooted into the living room to find out what was going on. And he just wanted to thank people for coming and say how much my grandmother and the rest I was appreciated and coming. And he said, while we're gathered, let's just take a minute of quiet. I'm going to ask Uncle Hamp to say a prayer. Twelve cousins' eyes went like this. None of us had ever heard Uncle Hamp pray. So there we were. Uncle Hamp stepped forward, now an old man, a little bent over, quite gray. He stood. He took a deep breath. We were goners. My aunt Sotty's four boys looked up. Aunt Sotty jerked her head toward the front door and out they went. One after another, finally got to me. I went out. By the time I got to the front steps, there were cousins all over the yard. They were desperately trying to keep from being heard inside where Uncle Hamp was preying on. Eventually he stopped. We were all still laughing and all of a sudden everybody froze. Aunt Weedy had just stepped out on the front doorstep. We stared at her. She stared at us and then she started laughing. A few seconds later Aunt Sotty came out and the two of them sat down on the steps and we all laughed and laughed until they started crying. And they put their arms around each other and they sobbed. And we didn't know what to do so we just went up close to them. I remember putting my hand on Aunt Weedy's knee. And after a while she looked up and she looked at each of us. And then she finally said, we're really going to miss them, you know. Somewhere in the mid-afternoon, crowd fend out. There was no more activity going on and eventually we were called to dinner. We went in. Uncle Hamp sat at the head of the table. He was asked to pray. He stood up and sure enough he prayed just like he always did. And this time the cousins all looked up at each other and we smiled. No one laughed. No one got excused from the table. There we were, three generations of our family enjoying the blessings. And there we were, the cousins, tired, so sad and so very happy to at last be part of the story of Uncle Hamp comes to dinner. Luke Garjulo. I came into fly fishing at a really weird time in my life. I was a young guy who was about 20 years old. I kind of like fallen out of the bad decision tree and I hit every branch on the way down. I landed in the thorn bush of like guilt and shame. So that's kind of like where I was at in an FCC compliant description. But one day I'm hanging out with this guy and this guy was amazing. He was good at everything he ever did. One of these guys that he could do something, he just get into it and it's like he's been doing it for 20 years and he was into fly fishing. And we're hanging out in his apartment and I'm watching him tie this fly and I have like no connection to fly fishing whatsoever. But watching him tie that fly, man, I just became like enthralled. I was like mesmerized by like his little hand movements and these really precise tools that he used to crank this thing out. And we loaded up into his truck and we drove down here to Plainfield right down the road to a little trip in the Winooski. And it was one of these like early summer days where like, you know, early June when you know you're not going to get snowed on. And the sun's staying out later and it's just gorgeous, man. And we go out to this little stream and he flails his fly. And this fish rises, we never catch anything, but right then I'm like, I'm going to learn how to do this. And there was absolutely nothing I could do that was further from what I was doing than fly fishing. But I'm like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to figure it out. A couple of weeks later I'm standing in the Winooski River like flailing this streamer. People say the hardest thing about fly fishing is casting. And that's one hard thing about fly fishing. It's not the hardest thing. All the rest of it's harder. But I'm flailing this thing and finally I get this tug on my line and I pull in this little stocky rainbow, you know, a little 12 inch thing and I pull it out of the water and it looks just as surprised to be there as like I was to catch it. But from then on, man, it was on for me. And this other mutual friend of ours said, you know, if you really like fishing, you should go to the Dog River. There's big, wild fish in there. And I'm like, oh, that sounds great, you know. But at the time, I didn't realize that like it's kind of like getting a stair master at your house and like two weeks later deciding to run a half marathon because I like I was I was terrible, just terrible and I wasn't catching anything, but I wanted to stick with it. And I had this idea, I don't know where I got it from, but I had this idea that if you weren't good at something, like naturally, then it wasn't for you, right? But I just stuck with this man and I tried and I tried, kept at it, kept at it, caught a couple of fish here or there, but eventually like I started getting better, you know. And as I got better, my confidence level in life started growing, you know. I'm not saying it's because of fly fishing, but it definitely helped. So fast forward a few years. I'm living in the up in the Northeast Kingdom there, guy, up in Standard, Vermont. And I got a wife. I've got a brand new baby. And life is life is a lot different than, you know, the seven or eight years before that. And I'm still fly fishing. I'm fly fishing all the time in my home waters or the headwaters of the LaMoyle River. And if the dog was a very difficult river, the LaMoyle River is like, it's like minor league, you know, those fish will eat anything. And I was just slaying fish up there, man. You know, I remember this one night, I probably, I stopped counting at 40. It was right after they stocked it, but, you know. And I'm feeling like, like I'm at the top of the game. You know, I'm like a river runs through it, Brad Pitt kind of guy. But I started to hear rumors about this river, not far from me that had a landlock salmon in it. And everything I'd heard about this, it was a very difficult river to fish, you know. People would say that they're very picky, it's very technical, you know, it's full of crowds, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I really wanted to try it, but there was this part of me that part that was like still hanging in the back of my head that was like, you know, you're not good enough for this. And for a lot of seasons, man, I left that part run, you know. And I'd go down to my local fly shop and they'd say, hey, how's that, I'm not gonna name the river because that's the fishermen in me. But they'd say, how's that river up by you fishing? Oh, I haven't made it up there yet, you know. I don't know, it's a long drive, I gotta work, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I kind of like convinced myself like that was the truth, you know. A few years into it though, I realized like, I was putting this block on myself, right? And if I ever wanted to grow and if I ever wanted to improve, I had to do this, right? So I read up on Landlock salmon fishing and one day I go out there and it's pretty much what you'd expect for never fishing a river before. Like I did terribly, just terribly. I caught like one little tiny bass, I took a picture of it, I was real proud of myself. And so I'm fishing this river like all day and there's this one spot that I really wanna get to because it looks fishy. But it's always like full of people. I mean, there's all kinds of people in there and I just can't get in, can't get a spot. And I'm on this river all day just doing nothing. And finally, toward the end of the day, I walk back up there and it's empty. I'm like, oh, this is great. So I kinda walk down the path and path opens up and it turns out it wasn't empty. There's this one little old lady sitting in a lawn chair. She's got her beer and she's got her bait casting rod. And I shock her, you know, she kinda jumps up and I'm say, oh, excuse me, hey, you know, how's it going and we start talking and you get that inevitable question, right? Like, you catching anything? I say, no, you know, it's my first time on this river and never really fished it before. And she looks at me and she says, if you put your fly right over there, you're gonna catch a salmon. I'm like, really? She's like, yep, right over there, right between those trees. I'm like, well, you know, why not? Like, I've been at this all day, I haven't done anything. So I line up and I have a couple names and I have something called an indicator on there. And it's basically a bobber, but it costs you $1.39, so we call it a strike indicator. And I cast this thing up between these trees and it lands there and she's like, yep, yep, right there. Nothing happens. I'm watching my bobber. Nothing happens and that little voice is like, see, told you so, told you so. And all of a sudden, man, that bobber, you're like, bobs, you know? And out of force of habit I set and it was like, it was like no other fish I've ever caught, man, this thing just lights me up, comes jumping out of the water, it's moving all over and this nice old lady, she walks me through the whole process of landing this fish. You know, never would've figured it out. But we finally get it in, she takes my picture with it and that was that, that was my first landlocked salmon on the fly rod. So, thanks. Some people might say, Carl, why did you wait 40 years to go public with your story? And after 40 years, how much can you remember anyway? Well, some of the memories are pretty fuzzy and some of them are very sharp. Little over 40 years ago, I was 14 or 15 years old. I was raised Lutheran but I was in contact to Fairmount with a couple of Catholic priests. The church that I was going to was at the university in my hometown in Wisconsin. It was called the Ecumenical Religious Center. So besides the Lutherans, the other major faith represented there was the Catholic Church and the two Catholic priests that served the parish had their apartments in the upstairs of the building. Because it was at the university, there were hardly any other kids my age which was fine with me because I enjoyed socializing with adults. I saw the priests quite a bit on Sundays and then in the middle of the week, I would go to one-on-one confirmation classes with my Lutheran pastor. I'd see them then, too. One Saturday night, I don't remember exactly how this happened but one of the priests invited me up to his apartment. And the other guest was, I think he was an alum of the school. Someone had graduated a few years before and come back to visit. And he served us wine. I think it was wine. He served us alcohol, remember that much. And we, I just had a great time hanging out with the men, drinking alcohol at 14 or 15 and talking about theology or philosophy or whatever it was we talked about. I don't remember a lot of the details of that conversation. And the alcohol continued flowing. What I do remember clearly was the tickle fight that broke out. I don't think I initiated it. And I remember very clearly being on my back on the floor with the priest over me tickling me and then stopping. And he rested one hand on the floor and one hand on my crotch. I remember I was wearing red shorts. And he said, Carl, very pleasantly, Carl, now you have a choice. You can spend the night with me or you can spend the night with the other guest. I had no desire to spend the night with either of them. I said, I think it's time for me to be getting home now. And I got up, there was no attempt, verbal or physical, to keep me there. I said my aduse and I walked down the stairs and into the summer night. It was a half mile walk home. I did not say anything to anyone about this. The next day, it was a Sunday. The next day I saw the priest and we greeted each other with a hug, as was our want. Neither of us said anything to each other about it ever. I want to be very clear here. I do not think of myself as a victim. I was not traumatized. When I was walking home, I was mostly thinking, well, that happened. At age 14 or 15, all of this with sexuality and advances. And it was all very confusing. And my friends and I, we didn't talk to each other. We didn't cop to being confused to each other and talk to each other and sort these things out. So I had no one to say, you know, that was really inappropriate. How inappropriate was it? Well, I don't know how old he is exactly, but I recently learned that he was ordained seven years before I was born. For any man that aged to be making a pass at a 14 or 15 year old boy or girl, of course, is inappropriate. Now, some years later, maybe three, five years later, I did tell my mother. But just sort of, as it went by, I didn't make much of it. And she was the only other person that I've told this to until last week. And I thought, you know, that's okay. It was never really a temptation to say much. There was this period of decades that we've gone through now where Catholic priests and sexual abuse and cover-ups in the church have been much publicized. But I thought, you know, this priest, he was gay. He's caught in this ridiculous institution of enforced celibacy. And yes, he crossed over a line with me. But as soon as I said anything, he backed up across that line and never came near it again. So why should I say anything? That was until last week. And then for the first time, I did an internet search on him. I went to Duck Duck Go and typed in Daniel Budzinski, priest. And the results of that took my breath away. I found the first hit was, you are not alone, sexually abused as a child in Wisconsin. Father Daniel Budzinski, he was one of 44 priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, identified as sexual predators. The Archdiocese is now bankrupt because of the payments to the victims after they shuffled people around from parish to parish for decades. I found a rap sheet, basically, on where he'd been posted and what he did. I found local news channel, Church Dock Show Priest, was shuffled while abuse continued. I found an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that begins, it took nearly 40 years from the first time Milwaukee priest, Daniel Budzinski, sexually abused a child until he was finally firmly told by then Archbishop Timothy Dolan not to wear his collar in public or present himself as a priest. Budzinski was linked in 1994 to the sexual abuse of some 50 individuals at 11 different parishes between 1965 and then. He admitted to about 30 incidents. He was never criminally charged. What would have happened if I had said something at the time? I don't know. I had no reason not to say anything. I was not ashamed. I did not think that my family or my career would be alienated from me anyway if I spoke up. And maybe I'm naive in this, but it never crossed my mind that I might be disbelieved or ridiculed. I didn't speak up because I didn't think it was a big deal. I do not know how many of those 50 incidents took place after my night some 40 years ago, but I think a lot of them did from what I can tell. Would any of them had been prevented if I had stepped up? I can't know that. Catholics were pretty good at covering these things up back then. I do know that right now it's too late to speak up to out Daniel Budzinski and warn people about him. He was defrocked in 2004. There's publicity about him all over the internet. It's not too late to tell the story, to make it more safe for other people to come forward with their stories and to understand what I did not understand about how important it is to tell these stories. That's my story. Peter Gurney. So people who know me well, as well as those who don't, are often surprised to find out that I repeated the third grade. I wasn't necessarily a bad student. In fact, I was actually a very good student. I got good grades. My teachers liked me. I was a member of the gifted program, whatever that means. And I still like to think that Colleen Foster lies awake at night, thinking about the time that I beat her in the, I think it was the 1997 school geography bee. I answered a question right about salmon. But I was not quite developing the way that my parents wanted me to socially. As a kid, or even now still, I have a lazy eye. I got glasses at the age of two. I had a bowl cut. And I usually showed up to school in something like sweatpants and a turtleneck shirt. So as you can imagine, I was a really easy target. I got pushed around. I was made fun of a lot. School bus ride was really a mortifying experience that I dreaded just about every day. I was not happy at the school that I was going to. So my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to transfer schools. There happened to be an opening at another school in our district. It was one of these magnet schools. They had a quota. And there happened to only be a spot in the grade below me. So my parents thought, if Peter only has to go through the social graces of third grade the second time, without the stresses of the academic rigor, the extreme academic rigor of third grade, maybe he'll be able to make some friends and it'll just be a good opportunity. I actually was not that upset that I recall about the idea of doing third grade a second time, but I was not happy about the school that I was transferring to. This is one of these magnet schools that they have in the district where there's a theme for the school. There was one theme that was like science focused. There was one school that was a Spanish immersion school. This particular school was the Arlington Traditional School. And there were a few things that made it traditional in their mind. All the classes were in a single classroom instead of diversifying, which was unusual in that school district. And they required that they tuck, that all the students tuck their shirts in. So for most people it involves something like tucking a turtleneck into sweatpants. And you just kind of look ridiculous all day. And I remember getting to sixth grade when I got into middle school and I was like, oh wow, I can untuck my shirt, this is just crazy. So I wasn't excited about going to this new school for that sole reason. And as it turned out, going through third grade the second time at a new school was not the social cake walk that my parents had hoped it would be. Now I was the new kid with the lazy eye of the glasses, the bowl cut and the turtleneck tucked into his sweatpants. And I was awkwardly larger than everyone else. And I had been through third grade already so everyone was kind of like, oh, that Peter, he thinks he knows everything, what's his deal? So it was actually a very, very difficult adjustment. And every day I'd get on the bus and it would still be loud and kids would push me around. And I'd get to school and I'd go to gym class and people would peg me with balls and push me around and call me names and it was just generally not a pleasant experience. This all culminated when one day I got in a fight with George Johnson. Now if there was anyone you didn't want to get in a fight with in the 1997 class, third grade class at Arlington Traditional School, it was George Johnson. George Johnson was the coolest guy in our class. He could dunk on the six-foot baskets that we had in the elementary school gym. And I'm not sure there was anything else that made him cool, but that alone made him awesome in everyone's eyes and very physically intimidating. And as you can imagine as a very athletic dude, he and I did not jive super well. I'm not exactly sure how the fight started. I know at the time I had a very intricate long story proving his guilt, something involving like playing baseball with an assignment notebook and hitting me and I don't know, Wade Galloway was there and he could vouch for him. He except he was George's friend, so we really couldn't. And I just, I know that in retrospect, that was all just a bunch of poppycock. I was definitely the instigator looking back with hindsight of adulthood because I know there were many such incidents as a kid and as someone who gets pushed around a lot, you get very sensitive after a while and as soon as someone just gives you a gentle nudge, eventually you feel so sensitive about it that you fight back and you just start wailing on him and that's what happened to George. I don't remember too much about the fight, but I do remember that the two of us ended up on the ground rolling on top of each other, giving each other like really ineffectively placed jabs of the abdomen. And eventually Mr. Godwin broke it up. He demonstrated his wisdom and experience as an educator when he didn't yell at us, he didn't get angry at all, he didn't even send us to the principal's office. Instead, he sent us to the school guidance counselor. If there was one thing that I could relate with all of my classmates about, it was that the school guidance counselor was possibly the worst person on the planet. She would come to our class with this stuffed cat called the iCare Cat and get us to make iCare statements about how much we cared about our classmates. And I can tell you that as an eight-year-old, I thought this was like the most juvenile thing imaginable. And I was like, I know I was supposed to be nice to people, I just choose not to sometimes. And so we were not excited about going to Mrs. Ryder's office. But we went unsupervised, I think that Mr. Godwin trusted that I was such an exemplary student that I could go to Mrs. Ryder's office without any accompaniment. And we got there and she wasn't there. So George, being far smarter than I was, said, Peter, wait here at the door, tell me if anyone's coming. And he went in the room, and in Mrs. Ryder's room, there was one of those big novelty, kind of like those jumbo pretzel barrel things, except it was filled with candy. And George, being the smart student that he was, went and filled his pockets with candy. And he came out and he said, follow me this way. And he found the deserted stairwell, and the two of us sat there, and we ate candy for maybe half an hour. I don't think we said anything like conciliatory between the two of us. But I do know that sitting there eating candy with George was possibly better than any intervention that Mrs. Ryder could have thought of sitting in her office. And from that moment on, I thought, maybe third grade will be all right the second time around. Daniel Dolan. So we were living in Queens and we were having a party celebrating the arrest and eviction of one of our housemates who had been a terribly violent person and we had lit the bonfire and people were coming and we're in a really great mood. And I had a torch with a Barbie and a Ken doll. I was electrical taping together and I was headed out there. And a friend of mine comes up to me and smiles and puts what I thought was a dollar in my pocket and just like pats me on the back. And then I walked by and I'm on my way to the fire and these two fellows I don't know are sitting by the front door. And I walked over and one of them said, are you Dan Dolan? And I said, I stuck my hand out to shake his hand and he put handcuffs on me. And the other one just sort of shoved me out of the house and then down to a police car. And they said, you're under arrest. You failed to show up for a court date. And so we're gonna take you down to central booking. And they were actually pretty nice but they took me down there and wouldn't let me go in and tell my girlfriend or my roommates that I had just been removed from our party or anything like that. And I got down there and on the way there they said, actually, we're gonna go before a night judge. You'll possibly be back by 10, 11 tonight. And just really apologize and be sorry and tell them you really will show up for this next date. And so I said, okay. And I didn't have a choice. And so they put me in this little cell with these other folks and I was there for about 20 minutes and the guard came back and said, hey really bad news, the judge had to leave early tonight so you have to spend the night and you'll go before the judge in the morning and I'm like, oh no. And then they said, and the phone's broken. And I was like, ooh. And so we're there and it was like a long night and the next morning we're sort of shackled together and led through these hallways and then down this stairway to a door that's opening and behind the door is the court and this old fellow behind me is like, well, what did you do? What did you hear for us? Like, well, I had a knife and I was on the subway and he's like, oh, she hates knives. And I'm like, who, she, what? And so it's my turn. I go through the door and there's a lawyer there meeting me and they're like, how do you plead? And I said, oh, not guilty. This is a complete mistake or something like that. And then the judge starts yelling. And I know now, like this was the early 80s, but I know now it was Judge Judy, but she wasn't famous at the time. She was just a mean person, you know? And she's like, silence, shut up, shut up. And I said, oh, hey, you know, this is just silly. And she's like, $500 bail for Rikers Island. I'm like, what? And the next thing I know, I'm actually on a bus to Rikers Island. I'm chained to my seat. I still haven't gotten to use the phone. And, you know, I'm sitting there and I looked down at the dollar bill in my pocket and I realized, oh, that's not a dollar bill. That's a whole bunch of LSD that my friend had put in my pocket. And I'm like, oh, this isn't good. I'm gonna be in a lot more trouble. And so I, you know, my hands are chained but I got my head in my pocket and I'm kind of like chewing on it. Like, I better just get rid of this. I'm eating this stuff. And I'd like to say that Rikers Island is really weird, you know, when you get there in such a state, I would imagine, and I did. And, you know, I spent the night in this one funny cell and then with all these people and the floor was like vibrating every time there was sounds. And I knew I was the only one who could see that after a while. I was like, you guys don't see this. And then they put me in this huge dormitory room and gave me a bed and on the way there, I had run into this brother of this punk rocker guy that I knew who said, here's some cigarettes, you know, just really stretch them out. They might save your life. So I've got this pocket full of cigarettes and I'm laying on my bed and I'm sharing one with this guy, Dollar Bill, that I had just met and we're talking a little bit. And he's like, hey, are you a Mason or are you like in the Klan or something? I'm like, no, no, no. And he said, well, you have those, what's that symbol on your boots? And I'm like, oh, you know, it's punk rock stuff. It's a punk rock band. I'm anti-racist and somehow in my really high state I was able to convey that to him, that I was in fact, not a racist, which was good. And anyway, so then this voice rings out and the voice said, who is the most perfect mathematical equation? And everybody else in the room said, Allah. And I was like, whoa, you know, this is crazy. And then bed by bed, they're all adding to this sort of rhyming poem and they all know all their words and it's going around the room and it's coming to my bed and I'm really freaking out and I'm really, really high. And I'm terrified. I'm like, I'm just gonna put the pillow on my head and it's coming to my bed and just when it got to be my turn, dollar bill just pipes up and does this wrap that was really inclusive and just humorous and about my situation being the only white guy there and stuff like that. And then it just passed and suddenly there was calm and I was like, oh, okay. So a day or so later, I still haven't used the phone and I'm brought before into this room, this orange room and up in the corner of the room is this TV and on the TV is this movie, Dark Star, this like hippie sci-fi movie I'd never seen and there's this bomb on this ship that wants to explode and it becomes clear that the only way that they can make it not explode is to talk to it about phenomenology and so they're doing that and I'm chained like hand and feet to all these people and through this door there's this nurse sitting at a table with this big needle and I can see that she's using the needle on three people before she changes it and I keep counting back to me and I'm like, oh, it's always me. I'm always the third one. This isn't good and the two guys in front of me look terribly ill and I'm like, oh. Anyway, it gets to me and I get brought in there and I said, excuse me nurse, I think you should change the needle and I'm hitting the head with a truncheon kind of and forced into this chair and I still am saying, hey, please Mrs. Gonzalez. She had a little thing. I really need you to change that needle and they hit me a few more times and then finally she just shrugs and changes the needle. I'm like, oh, good, this is great. And so the next day I am in my bed thinking about phenomenology. It's just like ringing in my head. Like, what is phenomenology? Is this all true? Am I here? Is this really true? And then this fellow came and first stole my boots and then said, I'm going to kill you tonight when the lights go out. And I was like, great, and now the drugs are finally wearing off and I'm like kind of a raft of energy and I'm like, this is it, this is the end. I can't call my friends, it's over. This other fellow comes up and says, hey, Dolan, pack your shit, you've been bailed out. And so the next thing I know I'm putting this little tiny room where a man is thrown in with me who's unconscious and bleeding with a swollen head and his eye is dangling on his cheek. And so I'm alone with him. I'm kind of trying to get his eye back in his head with one of my shirts. And then they said, you know, you're free to go. You can come out. And I looked through this glass and there were my friends and they loaded me on a bus with them and I was able to get home. And Barbie and Ken were still on the stick in my hedge.