#24 Jimmy and Mark

How are you, Jonathan. 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.200 It's a new season of Heavyweight, and I was thinking 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:12.280 at the beginning of every episode we can have a 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.200 little medical corner where we get health tips from doctor 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.840 Jackie Cohen. I have a medical question for you. Do 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.160 you say the big toe or do you say the 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.599 great toe? In a medical situation? If someone came into 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.240 the er and their foot was broken to bring a 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.320 smile to their face, would you refer to their pinky 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:37.040 toe as the little piggy? If their foot had just 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.159 gotten run over by a truck, would you and you 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.280 were like examining all their toes, would you say, oh, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:43.200 it is the little piggy? 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:43.720 Okay? 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:57.440 Would you do that? How are you employed? From Gimblet Media. 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:04.120 I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Jimmy 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:18.000 and Mark. There were a couple of days in nineteen 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.240 seventy four that Jonathan Marshall can't stop thinking about. They 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.040 involve a bicycle and a crazy idea, his dad's crazy idea. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.800 Jonathan says there are two important things to know about 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.680 his dad. The first is that he was a salesman, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.040 and according to Jonathan, he could be pretty persuasive. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.880 When I was twelve, I bought my first car. What 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.640 because my father thought it was a good idea. So 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.080 he convinced me with my lawn raking money to buy 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.320 a car and then work on that car for three 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:53.080 years until I could drive it. 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:55.960 Wait is it twelve year old even allowed to buy 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:56.440 a car. 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.680 Well, you can buy a car, you just can't drive 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:00.000 it legally. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.600 The second thing to know is that Jonathan's dad was 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.040 a seventies kind of guy. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.960 He had the wide ties, he had the lapels, he 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.840 had platform shoes, Syburns tried to get a perm once. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.360 Was he kind of like a Kung Fu aftershave kind 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.520 of guy? Or that was an old spice guy, old 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.000 spice slap on some old spice. 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.000 Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, my dad was a 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:26.720 groovy guy. 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:28.200 Ah. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:33.520 The seventies, the nineteen seventies, all of us crying out 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:38.480 dinomys when life was good, and I am not a 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:44.400 crook when life was bad, pet rocks, mood rings, and 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.960 cool open collared dads. In the nineteen seventies, there was 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.160 nothing cooler than a cool dad, and Jonathan Marshall's dad 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:54.480 was the coolest. 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.280 He was the father that on a hot summer night 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.720 would go, hey, Ji, how many of your friends want 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.280 to go get ice cream? And we had a van, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.600 so however many kids could get in a van would 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.000 go get ice cream with my. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.800 Father, all those unseat belted kids banging around in the 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.959 back of the van like bingo balls. But even though 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.000 it was the nineteen seventies, a decade during which my 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.880 own father once used my shoe as an astray at 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.680 a garden party, Jonathan Marshall's father was about to set 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:35.000 a whole new standard. Jonathan was only ten years old 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.120 when his father took him aside to pitch him on 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:39.800 his craziest idea yet. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.360 My father said, hey, you know what if you rode 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:44.280 your bike to. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:49.000 Vermont, That is, why don't you pedal your child's sized 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.120 bicycle two hundred and forty miles all alone, over the 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:58.080 Adirondack Mountains, over the Green Mountains, across Lake Champlain to 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.560 your uncle Herb's house in New And how long were 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:07.080 you anticipating the trip would take three days in three days, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.880 so you would be going like eighty odd miles a day. 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.200 Oh yeah, that was the idea. No adult supervision, none 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.600 coins for pay phones, because that's how you used to 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.200 make calls back in those days. 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:24.159 So you were just completely on your own. Yeah, when 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.920 your dad proposed to you this, you know, two hundred 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.120 and fifty mile trip, did you did you really have 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:31.479 a sense of what that meant? 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.320 None? Absolutely none. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.400 As a parent, the entire plan makes me shudder. But 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:47.240 as a ten year old, it would have felt like 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.400 a dream come true. When I was out riding, I 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.040 could pretend that I was an orphan, I could pretend 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.320 that I was free. But how free could you really 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.520 feel when you were expected home for dinner? And Marshall 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.880 wouldn't have to pretend he was free, He would be free, 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:13.520 dangerously free. Jonathan's best friend at the time, a season 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.480 thirteen year old named John, lived down the street. Jonathan 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.760 asked him to come along, and John's parents, over what 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.680 I can only imagine to be a dinner of jello 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.440 salad shrouded and smoke rings, agreed to let John go. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.719 He was a little bit of a badass. You know, 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.640 we'd go out in the woods and start a fire. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.080 You know, we'd go do stupid stuff, right, and so 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.440 he seemed like a great partner in this. Okay, we're 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:39.200 going to ride our. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:44.919 Bikes the two best friends spent the next few weeks preparing. 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.040 They poured over maps and planned their adventure. They gathered 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.600 the supplies they'd need, ponchos, bike tools, forty bucks in cash, 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.960 and the food they bring slim jims and cupso soup. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:03.200 Everything was perfect. But then Jimmy and his little brother 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:04.480 Mark showed. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:10.080 Up about a week before the trip started. This these 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.120 two guys, Jimmy and Mark, the names coming back to me. 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.880 I barely knew them, and they were sent by their 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.240 parents to live with us for a month. 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.040 Jimmy and Mark arrived all alone on a Greyhound bus 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:31.080 from Long Island. Jimmy was twelve, Mark just eleven. Their 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.560 family had met Jonathan's family at a resort a couple 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.960 summers earlier, but Jonathan hadn't thought of the brother since 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.000 now here they were standing at his door, adult sized 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.159 luggage clutched in their hands. Jonathan had no idea why 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:46.760 they were there. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.640 I remember asking my mom, well, what are we going 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.240 to do with Jimmy and Mark when John and I 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.800 ride our bikes to Vermont, and my mom's response was, oh, well, 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:10.920 they'll go with you. Initially I was resentful because it 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.520 was what do you mean they're going with us? You know, 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.240 I've been planning this. We don't even know if they 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.360 know how to ride bikes. They're from Long Island, wherever 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.080 that's from. But at ten years old, I certainly didn't 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.440 say no to my mother, and so they were going 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.160 on the trip because mom said they were going on 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:28.559 the trip. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.120 And so one August morning, before the sun had risen, 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.160 the two best friends, Jonathan and John, and the two 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.600 mysterious brothers Jimmy and Mark all set off. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.880 Day one is really a recollection of hitting the Adirondacks 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.040 and starting to just have to go uphill a lot. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.040 But uphill battles are worth the fight when you're a 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.480 young boy on a bike and the day's destination is 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.560 a hotel room that your dad booked for you at 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.840 the happiest most men place on Earth. 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.720 Frontier Town. It was a little fantasy land of the 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.840 Old West. It had a jail, a saloon, a big 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.000 square that was you know, do you know Frontier Town? 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:17.520 Oh? 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:27.640 Yeah, Frontier Town was a family owned Old Western theme 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.600 park and as a kid, I'd see commercials for it 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:35.000 on TV. Please can we go? I'd beg my parents 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.720 and my father a decidedly uncool. Seventies Dad would tell 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.520 me that he didn't need his son getting trampled by 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:43.640 wild donkeys. 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.160 I remember they had a dunking machine, and that was 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:48.560 a thrill for a kid. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.760 As Jonathan tells me about stepping foot into the Frontier 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.320 Town hotel after a long, hard day of peddling, the 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.559 ten year old in me is jealous, but the adult 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.320 in me knows that jonathan accommodations couldn't have been that great, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.280 that at the end of the day, Frontier Town was 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.400 probably nothing more than a roadside motel with cowboy hats. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:14.240 No my recollections the hotel rooms were as cool as 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.080 Frontier Town because everything seemed to be made out of logs. 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.880 My god, I could have slept on a bed with 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.840 a wagon wheel headboard. Ten year old me and adult 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:39.040 me are in complete agreement. We've wasted our lives. Jonathan 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.760 and John crawled into one double bed, Jimmy and Mark 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.920 into the other. Exhausted, they all fell asleep almost immediately. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.559 When we woke up, it was raining. It rained all day, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.800 It was gray, it was cold, it was nasty, and 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.080 we got three flat tires that day, And. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.319 For day two was to catch the ferry across Lake Champlain, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.320 but of the many things they packed, no one had 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.040 thought to bring a watch. When they reached the dock, 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.840 the very last ferry of the day was about to 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:12.439 set sail. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.920 We went down the ramp yelling. We were yelling and waving, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.120 and we're like, no, no, stop, stop, stop, and the 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.200 guy waited to bless his heart. 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.440 By the time they got off the ferry, they were soaking, 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.520 wet and hungry. What did you do for dinner? 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.720 I remember distinctly. We went to A and W. I 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.400 remember John took off his shoes and it was the 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.480 worst smell I've ever smelled in my life, And to 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:42.360 this day I still remember that horrible, horrible, horrible smell 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:47.840 of wet construction boots that had been soaked through an 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:48.840 A and W food. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.480 What to a bunch of ten year olds who have 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.960 been bicycling in the rain all day order at an 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:53.240 A and. 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:59.040 W everything everything we could think of, you know, A 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:04.320 multiple bird, multiple shakes, hot dogs, fries. Yeah, it was. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:05.240 It was. 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.360 It was a feast and it was some of the 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:09.480 best food I ever had. 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.800 Was there a point at which like it stopped feeling 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.880 like a kind of Fun Boys Adventure, you know, and 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.280 felt like suddenly you were like in a World War 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:32.080 One film. Day three after the break, Day three and 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:52.280 all the days since. When the boys woke up, they 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.839 were still a full day's ride from their destination. Without 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.400 the will to get back on their bikes. They got 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.760 back on their bikes, very sore and very tired, and 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.720 we've got another eighty miles through the green mountains to go. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.400 Eventually they came to a familiar road who was the 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.920 same stretch Jonathan's parents drove each year to visit his uncle. 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.480 And I'm like, guys, we are so close, and so 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:18.400 then we keep. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:28.880 Going and going and going and going, and I recognize nothing. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.720 As it happens. A highway looks a lot different from 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.120 a bicycle than it does from the back seat of 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.640 your dad's car. I picture them, four little kids, still 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.560 young enough to have baby teeth, standing at the side 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.400 of the road, hunched over a large map that they'll 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.960 never be able to fold back up. Using their little fingers, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.160 they trace their roots, trying to figure out where in 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.319 the world they are. In the end, Jonathan asked directions 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.560 from a farmer who must have wondered why four children 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:04.960 were cycling down a highway all alone. They rode the 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.920 rest of the way in silence and arrived after dark. 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.320 When Jonathan's uncle Herb saw the boys at his doorstep, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:12.280 he was shocked. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.400 And I just remember looking at their face and they're like, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.560 your father told us you were gonna do it, But 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.640 we really didn't think you'd make it. We thought you'd 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.520 call and we'd come and get you somewhere along the way. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.840 Because Jonathan's uncle, Herb great seventies uncle name by the way, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.560 was a grown adult, he was able to see the 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.760 extraordinariness of the trip in a way that the boys couldn't. 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.559 My uncle said, you know, I think we should call 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.520 the paper. And we thought that would be a swell idea. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:42.960 And so the next day the boys rode their bikes 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.559 into downtown Newport, where a photographer for the local paper 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.559 took their picture. It felt like being famous. 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.000 And we bought a dozen copies so we could hand 0:13:54.040 --> 0:14:00.280 them out, and that was like the most exciting thing 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:01.160 that ever happened to me. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.600 Jonathan sends me a scan of the photo. It's folded 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.880 up as though it's been carried around in a wallet 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.120 for decades. In it from left to right, Jonathan, his 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.080 best friend John, and his two new friends Mark and 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:19.440 Jimmy stand astride their bikes with looks of little boy pride. 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:22.400 You know, when you ride your byke two hundred and 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.360 forty miles when you're ten, right, everything that comes up 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.920 after that you gauge by a two hundred and forty 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.000 mile bike trip, and it seems small in comparison. 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:37.480 The bike trip is Jonathan's origin story on the track team. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.960 He never considered himself especially talented, but what he lacked 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.760 in natural athleticism, he says he made up for an 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.320 effort after college, even though no one saw it coming. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.600 He entered law school and graduated fourth in his class. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.760 For Jonathan, the three day trip with his three little 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:59.520 friends wasn't just kids stuff, crazy seventies stuff. It taught 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:00.640 him keep going. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.880 I mean, you know, you listen to me now, I'm 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:08.040 still I am still talking about three days that happened 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:09.720 forty five years ago. 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.000 Jonathan is now middle aged. He has white hair and 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.800 an office job, but the trip is with him all 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.520 the time, whenever he looks at a map or sees 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.080 a kid bike bye. And as he grows older, Jonathan 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.760 finds himself telling the story with greater frequency. But when 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:30.080 people think that he's exaggerating or worse, that he made 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.880 the whole thing up more than two hundred miles on 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:37.840 a three speed at age ten, without parents, he doesn't 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.400 have anyone to turn to, anyone who can say, yes, Jonathan, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.480 we did do that, and yes, I also think about 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:52.680 that trip all the time. A year after the bike trip, 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.760 Jonathan's family moved away and he lost touch with his 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.680 best friend John. As for the two brothers, Jimmy and Mark, 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.280 after they got back on the bus Tolong Island wherever 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.120 that is, Jonathan never saw them again. 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.120 It's just so weird to me that we went through 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.360 this adventure and I never spoke to them again. 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.760 And this is why Jonathan has come to me. It's 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.040 really quite simple, he says. He feels like the last 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.000 living goony, and so he just wants help finding his 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.040 old friends. If you could find these guys again, Like 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.280 what specific questions would you want to ask? 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.120 Did the trip have as big of impact on your 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:47.280 life as it had in mind? Do you ever think 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:52.440 about that? If you do, what are your recollection, were 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:59.040 your impressions? What do you remember of the feeling of 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.520 you and Jonathan playing out the bike trip. 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:04.760 Not a whole lot. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.280 This is Jonathan's best friend, John forty five years later, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.040 and the badass from down the street is now a 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:18.400 retired carpenter living in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.080 stays in Vegas, and apparently what happened on the bike 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.640 trip stays anywhere that isn't John's brain. Do you remember 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:32.720 the day that it rained, the day they rained, or 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:34.639 taking off your shoes in the A and W. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:38.199 I don't know. 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.000 Are there any other details that you remember? 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:51.800 We made it. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.040 But despite not remembering many of the details from the 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.000 trip or any details from the trip, John tells me that, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.480 like Jonathan, he still has the photo. He keeps it 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.280 in a dresser drawer along with other mementos, mostly from 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:11.399 just after that summer. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.400 I have every concert ticket stub that I've ever been 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:23.360 to since probably nineteen seventy four, Rush Kiss Journey, Led Zeppelin, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.639 Rolling Stones, Pink Flood. 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.960 In nineteen seventy four, the year of the bike trip, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.080 John was thirteen, three years older than Jonathan, and his 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.680 Schwinn was starting to take a back seat to going 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.040 out at night to concerts. To loud music, to other 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.920 things teenage things that must have eclipsed the bike trip 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.679 that summer with his younger friend. So for John, the 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.919 bike trip is a nice but foggy memory, a newspaper 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.919 photo tucked away in a drawer. But there on the 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.719 opposite end of that photo, in T shirts and scuffed 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.760 up sneakers are the two brothers who'd mysteriously shown up 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.600 at Jonathan Marshall's doorstep in the summer of nineteen seventy four. 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:12.160 Jimmy and Mark Campbell, names so common that it's hard 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.320 to narrow down the search. We know the brothers are 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.040 originally from Long Island, but as it turns out, Long 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.879 Island is a pretty long island, and we don't know 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.400 what part Jimmy and Mark are from. So Jonathan calls 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.560 in a favor from a friend who works in local 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.800 government there and has access to elementary school yearbooks dating 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.479 back to the seventies. In the end, though, Jimmy and 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.440 Mark Campbell don't show up in any of them. Next, 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.480 we reach out to the resort where Jonathan met Jimmy 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.439 and Mark some forty five years ago, but there's no 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.959 record of their stay. The resort had no computer system 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.399 in the seventies and the owners have since changed. So 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:56.000 over the next few weeks, I make hundreds of phone calls. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.359 Hello, you definitely have the wrong number. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:19:59.919 I think you have the wrong number. 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:02.000 Probably have their own number. 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.960 We're sorry your call could not be completed. No brothers 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.359 named Jimmy and Mark, who've lived in the state of 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.320 New York in the nineteen seventies are safe. 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:11.720 He hasn't lived here for years. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.280 There's no James here, No James Campbell lives here. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:24.879 I was literally talking about that trip a week and 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:25.960 a half ago, and. 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:33.359 Then the bizarre Jimmy Campbell. He now goes by James 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.480 or Jim. He's a financial advisor living in California. He 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.200 phones me back from his office. 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.000 I can remember us walking our bikes and climbing up 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.000 the hill at like six in the morning. That's where 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:47.760 Root nine was, and we'd take off. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.520 I remember, as we talk, it becomes clear that that 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.960 summer long ago is just as alive for Jim as 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:55.840 it is for Jonathan. 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.560 I can remember the second day when we were trying 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.440 to catch the Fay Burlington. 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.120 But the more we keep talking, the less Jim dwells 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:05.240 on the bike trip itself. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.240 I can remember things like Johnson's dad coming home from 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.080 work and having some fun fights in the pool or. 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.120 Something, and the more he talks about the day's book 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:15.240 ending the trip. 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.320 I remember sitting in their family room watching the TV, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:21.720 and then we camped out on their. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.680 For Jim, family life with the Marshalls was in stark 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.840 contrast to his own home life, or to what it 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:28.520 was becoming. 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:37.800 My family's situation got uglier and more difficult post that. 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.080 Trip because. 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.720 My mother was. 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:52.199 Becoming sick, and this is why Jim and Mark were 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.119 sent to stay with the Marshalls. Their mother was in 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.640 the early stages of both MS and Parkinson's. Having two 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.600 little boys to care for made a hard time even harder, 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.640 so a phone call was placed, arrangements made, and two 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.200 bus tickets purchased. When I asked Jim what his mother 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.679 and father thought of their little boys bicycling all the 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.240 way to Vermont, he says that they didn't even know. 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.680 They had so much else to worry about. Jim's mom 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:19.840 was spending so much time in the hospital that she 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.159 had to quit her job, making Jim's dad the sole breadwinner. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.720 My father, what I truly believe could not handle it right, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:30.800 could not handle the stresses of the illness, and they 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.560 ended up divorcing, and he actually ended up moving out 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:37.879 of the state. So he chose to move, and he 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:44.600 chose to not contact us again. He chose to disappear. 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:56.320 So life got difficult. Money wasn't there. He had a 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.280 single parent who was an ill person, who was fighting 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.280 for ear own life, and you had to learn to 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:06.240 start sending for yourself. Probably the next year I started 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:11.640 working and I grew up fast. So that was probably 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:20.880 the last fun summer of my childhood. We'll say that. 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.280 For Jonathan, whose world was opening up to him that summer, 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.159 the bike trip was a beginning, but for Jim and 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:36.000 Mark it was an ending. So yes, the bike trip 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:38.399 was fun, Jim says, But when he thinks about the 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.240 summer of seventy four, he thinks about playing games with 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:44.880 Jonathan and his sister, about sleeping outside in the Marshall's 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:48.480 backyard under the stars, about getting to just be a 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:50.000 kid one last time. 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.240 I knew my family life was changing and gutting worse, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.760 and his was just what I wanted life to be, 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.320 and it wasn't going to be, you know, with a 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:10.560 nicer home, nicer setting, the two parents, a lot of 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.400 family time, just getting a. 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:21.080 Long This is Jim's origin story. Like Jonathan's, it also 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:24.119 took place that summer, not a long Route nine, but 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:27.720 in the Marshall's home. Jonathan's mom had just had a 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:29.800 baby and spent a lot of time with the kids, 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:32.680 hanging out in the master bedroom, which. 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:33.560 Has a sitting area. 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:35.320 So not only do you have your bed, but you 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:37.240 have an area where you have a couch and you 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:41.159 can relax in. And I can remember hanging out in 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:43.359 that room with a mom and she's nursing the baby 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:47.000 and we're all just talking and just having a good time. 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:53.080 For Jim, that bedroom at the Marshalls represented the heart 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.280 of family life. It was cozy and it was safe. 0:24:56.800 --> 0:24:59.480 It made an impression on Jim that carried into adulthood. 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.080 Years later, when my wife and I bought a home 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:05.960 in New Jersey, I wanted to make sure my master 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:08.200 bedroom was big enough to have a sitting area because 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:12.399 I remembered their house having that, and I wanted that 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:16.320 in my own home. I wanted that for my children, 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:18.639 and I was going to do my damn just to 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:22.480 get that. You know, A parent's supposed to sacrifice for 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.399 their kids. So I try to live up to my 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.000 expectations of what a parent's supposed to be, which wasn't 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:30.920 what my father was. 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:38.600 Jim holds a resentment, and I don't have that same resentment. 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:42.440 This is Jim's little brother, Mark, eleven years old this 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:44.960 summer of the bike trip. He's now a school teacher 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:45.520 in Florida. 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:51.040 I accepted my dad for what he was, and yeah, 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:52.600 I and didn't hold a grudge. 0:25:54.680 --> 0:25:59.360 Our reactions to our lives when our parents broke up 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:03.560 was very different and made us very different people. 0:26:07.359 --> 0:26:09.520 Until that summer, Jim and Mark spent all of their 0:26:09.520 --> 0:26:12.480 time together. They shared a bedroom since they were babies, 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:16.080 but after their dad left, they drifted apart and Jim 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:18.879 moved out of the room. The bike trip was the 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:22.920 last time they'd ever spend together like that, whole uninterrupted 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:27.520 days just being brothers. Jim and Mark now live on 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:30.320 opposite ends of the country. They rarely see each other 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.359 or talk, but when they do, the bike trip often 0:26:33.359 --> 0:26:37.359 comes up, and with it the photo that picture of 0:26:37.400 --> 0:26:41.040 all four boys astride their bikes in the Newport News. 0:26:41.640 --> 0:26:44.280 Unlike John and Jonathan, who've managed to keep there safe 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:46.919 for forty five years. Jim and Mark don't have their 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:49.800 picture anymore. It's just one more thing lost and the 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:53.960 chaos of illness and divorce. Neither Mark nor Jim has 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:56.640 seen it since they shared a room. 0:26:56.720 --> 0:27:00.879 You know, I'm picturing right now. I can picture the 0:27:00.920 --> 0:27:04.800 newspaper article with the picture of us four with our 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:08.720 bikes with the shoot smiles up in Newport, Vermont. That 0:27:08.800 --> 0:27:13.160 picture says it all, just four smiling faces next to these, 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:17.520 you know, half assed bicycles. Look what we did. 0:27:20.080 --> 0:27:23.520 No one believes that this even happened, because this sounds 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:26.000 so far fetch to everyone. But I'm like, we had 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:27.720 the evidence, we can prove it to them, but we 0:27:27.720 --> 0:27:35.240 don't have it. 0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:36.720 It's very well wrapped. 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:38.480 I don't really take it up big time. 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:43.760 After my conversation with the brothers, I prepared two packages, 0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:48.040 each containing a framed photograph. One is addressed a gym 0:27:48.080 --> 0:27:51.720 in California and the other to Mark in Florida. 0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:55.160 Dumb here, it sounds freaking open. 0:27:55.359 --> 0:28:00.400 Oh, I can't believe you got Holy shit, look that. 0:28:02.440 --> 0:28:04.960 Now that is crazy. 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:06.199 Where did you find this? 0:28:06.720 --> 0:28:07.120 Oh? 0:28:07.160 --> 0:28:07.640 Man? 0:28:08.320 --> 0:28:15.280 Oh, that is the picture. It's funny. I don't have 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:18.280 my college degree, my MBA. None of that's in a 0:28:18.359 --> 0:28:21.240 frame and up on any wall. My wife hates our 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:24.320 wedding pictures. She didn't like the photographer, so those pictures 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:28.720 don't come out. So for me, this is this is 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:29.879 a huge deal for me. 0:28:31.400 --> 0:28:36.320 Oh, it's got to go up. Jim and Mark no 0:28:36.400 --> 0:28:39.760 longer ride bikes. For Jim it's hard to find the time. 0:28:40.280 --> 0:28:43.440 For Mark. Hip and back surgeries have made it too difficult. 0:28:44.160 --> 0:28:46.880 But looking back at the photostirs an old feeling in Mark, 0:28:47.320 --> 0:28:50.080 one that he hasn't felt since that summer since he's 0:28:50.120 --> 0:28:50.920 a kid. 0:28:52.160 --> 0:28:59.080 Complete freedom from everything, think about most of your life. 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:01.440 So I'm what I was telling you what to do. 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:04.560 When is it ever your time? 0:29:05.160 --> 0:29:08.440 Because I feel in my life is so it is contained. 0:29:10.560 --> 0:29:15.360 During that time, I just felt complete freedom. I can't 0:29:15.360 --> 0:29:18.080 describe it. I know some people tried to describe it 0:29:18.080 --> 0:29:19.720 in books and songs. 0:29:20.520 --> 0:29:23.360 There is just a feeling that just comes over you. 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:28.400 And I want. 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:29.520 That feeling again. 0:29:31.840 --> 0:30:00.120 To just get up and just go and just be free. 0:30:00.960 --> 0:30:05.440 It's Jim, Jim. I have Jonathan on the line. 0:30:06.600 --> 0:30:12.920 Hello Jim, Jimmy God, you know, I swear to God, 0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:16.520 I haven't heard your voice in forty years, You sound 0:30:16.600 --> 0:30:18.400 exactly the forty. 0:30:18.080 --> 0:30:27.400 Five years buddy his Mark, Hell, huh, John, what's happening? 0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:27.640 Man? 0:30:31.200 --> 0:30:34.000 With John out in his hammock drinking a beer, Jim 0:30:34.040 --> 0:30:37.600 in his office, and Mark at home after school, Jonathan 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:42.080 after forty five years, reminisces with his old friends about 0:30:42.120 --> 0:30:45.640 prowling around Frontier Town after dark, about the smell of 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:49.800 John shoes, about being kids with nothing but time and 0:30:49.880 --> 0:30:55.880 long stretches of open road ahead of them. 0:30:56.000 --> 0:30:58.400 I know, I know, I love telling the story to 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:00.000 my kids, and my kids roll their off. 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:02.760 When my kid won't ride a bicycle a mile and 0:31:02.840 --> 0:31:07.000 a half to go do something, Okay, I'm gonna come on. 0:31:08.400 --> 0:31:08.920 Thirteen. 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:10.400 I did one hundred and ten miles. 0:31:41.800 --> 0:31:46.640 Now that the fern ures rift turn into it's good 0:31:46.720 --> 0:31:55.840 will home, Now that the last month's rent is skating. 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:59.920 With the damage to post, take this moment to desolve. 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:03.920 If we too. 0:32:06.240 --> 0:32:08.440 Are felt around for far too. 0:32:10.840 --> 0:32:19.040 From thanks accident. LEA Heavyweight is hosted and produced by 0:32:19.120 --> 0:32:22.200 me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Stevie Lane, Ba Parker, and 0:32:22.320 --> 0:32:25.800 Khalila Holt. The show is edited by Jorge just Special 0:32:25.880 --> 0:32:29.080 thanks to Emily Condon, PJ vote An a Lad Hailey 0:32:29.160 --> 0:32:33.080 Shaw and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with 0:32:33.200 --> 0:32:37.320 music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Edwin and Bobby Lord. 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:40.960 Additional music credits can be found on our website, Gimbletmedia 0:32:41.040 --> 0:32:44.080 dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:47.400 Weaker Thands courtesy of Epidaph Records, and our ad music 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:50.520 is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight 0:32:50.800 --> 0:32:54.280 or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. You 0:32:54.360 --> 0:32:57.440 can listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get 0:32:57.480 --> 0:33:00.880 your podcasts. We'll have a brand new episode next week.