#55 Toby

Yeah, what do you mean?

Okay, my foot fell asleep? Are my foot fell asleep?

Yeah?

From a medical perspective, is it better to rub it or just to write it out?

Keep it still?

I think I think maybe like cutting it.

Off by wait.

Note, hello, Jackie, I can't walk and I can hear the ice cream truck. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Toby. Right after the break in two twenty twelve, Toby's father died suddenly of a heart attack. Shortly after the funeral, Toby cleaned out his house.

You know, you just find stuff, find relics of a life.

Like, oh, hey, here's this, you know, pocket watch that's labeled nineteen twelve.

Who's would this have been?

You know, Toby and his dad, Doug, weren't especially clothes, so going through his stuff felt oddly intimate.

It's funny. I didn't know my dad ever smoked weed, but I found weed.

Oh wow.

It's like, oh, okay, it was really old, I think.

Toby says there were thousands of decisions to make.

Want to donate, what to try and sell it in the state sale, what.

To keep pocket watch, keep old weed? Discard? It was while sorting through Doug's old suit jackets and books that Toby found a box. A box containing twenty one audio cassette tapes. Toby read through the labels. They had titles like phone Conversation, Terry nine thirty PM, Terry March third, nineteen eighty seven, Phone Conversation, and Terry's Call. Terry was Toby's mom. She and his dad divorced when Toby was four, and, judging by the dates on the labels, the tapes were

My mom was like unable to stand up essentially, and me being seven or eight, knowing like, oh, you're not supposed to drink and drive, and asking a random dude at the bar like, hey, can you drive us home? I remember being confused because I had asked the question, and then my mom still drove us home. My sister was I think old enough to know something wasn't right.

She was probably kindergarten.

In the back seat, i'd he reached out for Toby's hand.

And we held hands while she was driving home.

Eventually, Toby and Heidi went to live with their dad, Doug. Things were a lot more emotionally stable there, but Doug wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy. Toby can't remember a single time he ever told Toby he loved him.

That just wasn't part of our That wasn't part of our vernacular. You never heard I love you, not that I remember.

Although the divorce's aftermath had a profound impact on Toby, for the most part, he tries to avoid thinking about it. He tells me, he tends to shut out heavy emotions. In fact, this tendency came up just the other day when Lauren, his wife of fifteen years, brought up the box of tapes.

But then I saw something very quickly change the subject, and she's like, this is what I'm talking about. Like you, anytime it starts to get deep, you immediately find a bright, shiny object to change the subject.

He said, Hey, look at that silver carl there that's been parked there.

For a while.

This is Lauren.

She's pretty avoidant of getting to those like raw vulnerable parts.

Twenty one cassette tapes from the exact period of your life that you've spent so long avoiding might really bring out those raw, vulnerable parts, which is why, almost ten years after taking them home, the tapes remain unplayed, hidden away in a credenza. Maybe there's nothing even on the tapes, maybe they've been recorded over or warped with time. But maybe they form an unlikely door to Toby's past, to his childhood and his parents' relationship.

There's so much that I don't know.

Yeah, my dad's gone, my Mom's gone. I don't have any way to find out what was actually happening in my life. This is the last piece of them that like it be new new information. But I don't know that I'm ever actually going to listen to him if I if I don't have an excuse forcing me to listen to.

Him, And so I Jonathan Goldstein have become that living, breathing excuse. Toby has come to me with the tapes in order to help him face his past and his feelings head on. What's the ideal version of what comes next?

Like part of me is like send you guys the tapes, and you tell me what's on them and what's interesting and what's not, you know, like almost outsourcing.

Like like create a curated We've done a highlight reel.

Yeah, here's how your life changed dramatically through no fault of your own.

Here's the highlights, after the break, the highlights, clear the hold.

Yeah.

I used to work at a radio show called This American Life.

I know it's the show that inspired me to follow this line of work.

If you've never heard of This American Life, they're like I think they describe themselves. If I'm not mistaken, as being like little movies for the radio.

Yeah, it's the best. It was my favorite show as a kid all the way to it's still my favorite show.

And how many things can you think of that are like that, that have been going for twenty five years and have just maintained the level of quality that this American life has truly, Like I mean even things that you end up loving, like like I love Star Wars. I watched three episodes. That was plenty for this American life. It just in some ways it gets better, it expands its universe and the things that it tries.

Where you talk about it like every week.

Yeah, it's meaningful to us. And I would say, if you love Heavyweight, you're gonna love this American life.

Say that.

I would say that.

Should we say it in Unison?

Sure, if you like heavy heavyweight, Okay, you're not saying it in Unison, you're.

Gonna I don't know that's saying things in Unison really excel something. It's not like no, no, no, really they said it in Unison. It really imparted to me just how true this was. Yeah, but it is true that this American life continues to experiment every week with what Radio storytelling can be and it drops every Sunday night, So listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I mentioned to my six year old.

I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Jonathan Goldstein and he said, who is that? Is that an old man you're talking to about another old man?

That he's basically nailed heavyweight in a sentence. I've started to go through the cassettes, which amount to about twenty three hours of audio. And while there are work calls, calls to the video store, a fair bit of Fleetwood Mac taped off the radio, a large portion of the tapes is exactly what the labels promised. Phone calls between Toby's parents. It seems that during the divorce proceedings, Doug had been meticulously recording his phone calls, possibly as a

Oh hey, hello, Toby, Hello, can you hear me?

Hello?

Hello?

The labels on the tape spent a couple of years, and we decided to go through in chronological order. The earliest tapes are from after Doug and Terry have separated, but before the official divorce. I press play, and for the first time in over a decade, Toby hears his parents' voices.

Did you pay Joanna? Couldn't get a hold of her. Ah, you didn't pay her? Why not?

In this recording, Terry wants to know why Doug has an paid their babysitter, Joanne.

Well, I'm going to end up having to pay.

You all the.

Sport.

I'm not asked for any I'm not vindictive, not greedy just to pay Joanne.

I'm not going to ask for Okay, Well, I'll stop by the HM.

My dad's voice I recognize, but my mom's voice. If you had just played it and said who is this? I would have I didn't recognize our voice, which is well, pretty incredible to me.

And what Tobey also finds pretty incredible is hearing his parents speak to one another and with so much civility. The only version of them that he remembers is two people with so much bad blood between them they could hardly be in the same room together. Birthday parties were separate, and at his graduation they avoided eye contact and didn't speak a word. But none of that acrimony is evident in these early tapes.

So you want that stipulated in the papers that you would have them for a couple of.

Months this summertime.

In another recording from that time, Doug and Terry tried to figure out how to split time with Toby and Heidi.

What are you talking about game July, July, August, June and July. Well, Hi, birthdays in July. We don't get to give her a birthday party together. We love our kids. We don't hate each other.

Not only do they not hate each other, they're getting along exceptionally well. They're able to hash out their divorce agreement just the two of them, without lawyers. They figure it all out at a Perkins restaurant one night. As Toby listens to his parents being so cordial, he feels a kind of dread because he knows cordial is not how things will end. It's like listening to the beginning, he says, of a horror story. What do you don so how did things deteriorate?

So?

How did they get so bad with that question in mind before you head with the tapes. Yeah, so okay, I'll play you. Uh well, Toby always knew his dad to be a pretty detached person. On the night the divorce becomes official, Doug seems genuinely lonely. The tapes capture him phoning a friend and getting a continuous busy signal. He calls back four more times until he can finally get through.

Oh what do you guys do?

Sit her top on the phone all night?

No, leave it up to until people like you won't.

Call hear what's going on?

Dark? It's final?

What final?

The divorce?

Oh, it's already?

How can it be done so quick?

Oh?

I'm going to do now to live with it? Did you know I'm still going to take a lot of time to get over it?

Sure?

Sure? One one thing I.

Learned people are not supposed to get divorced.

What do you mean?

I was always taught that if something's broken, you should fix.

It, because you know, I remember my parents and have fight so bad.

But you know, the found a divorce just never came up.

Yeah, of course you'll never know the whole story, just like Toby and Heidi will never know the whole story.

It seems like he kind of intuitively knew that we would always have questions, and that thread continues today.

As we continue on beyond the divorce, Toby's wife, Lauren joins him to listen to some of the tapes, like this one, Hi Dad, This is a five year old Toby on the phone with Doug. Adult Toby, hearing his own voice, exchanges a smile with Lauren.

Hey, hey, you got new cereal? Yeah? Yeah, what are you trying to do? You trying to rot all your teeth out?

Bye?

Bye? I love you one night, Okay, I.

Love I don't remember that kind of relationship with him, Like what kind of relationship silly and playful and saying I love you when you hang up the phone, Like, I don't really remember that at all.

The I love yous had existed, Toby had just forgotten them. The parents on the tapes are different from the parents Toby remembers in other ways too.

How to bring along her care bear blanket too.

Not only are they working as a team, but Terry sounds clear headed and on top of things.

Yeah, she wrote it on some bog and it's like a bedspread type. Yeah, it's the one.

Well, it goes on a little bed.

Tobby knows who Robert is.

That's who he's bowling the doubles with, and make sure he gets a ten ball.

Whenever Terry calls to talk to the kids at Dougs, young Toby runs to the phone.

Toby, I suppose so okay, I'll don't get through the son.

I guess him right here here.

Oh that was good.

One another again, yad thirsty?

Are you really gurgling?

I really got ruper.

And whenever they say goodbye, Terry, just like Doug tells Toby how much she loves him, I'll talk to you later.

Love you bye bye, love you bye bye. I love you, love you do.

It's a little bit.

It's a little bit sad knowing what happened in her life over the next ten or fifteen years. Like my memories and my mom don't have any of that lightheartedness or happiness to him.

I remember a lot more.

Of the.

Of the bad stuff.

The bad stuff continued into Toby's young adulthood. Not long before she died, Toby saw his mother at a family Thanksgiving. Toby was in college and it just dyed his hair black. Terry was so out of it that she didn't recognize him, and she.

Looked at me and said hi, and then like turned away and was like, where's Toby at? And it's like, well, I'm right here. My hair is a different color, but I'm still here. And that's a core memory.

I think.

I think that was the last time I saw her.

You know that story, Lauren.

I didn't remember that story.

It's not a fun Friday night conversation.

I've noticed today as we've been talking about stuff, like you'll get choked up and then you know you've got to sort of diffuse it, like you smile afterwards.

I'm thinking of like, it's a funny joke I can put in here now.

Knowing how Toby tends to brush over difficult feelings, the next clip I play him feels like one of those origin stories you'd see in a superhero film.

Toby Stop.

Doug is on hold with joe Anne, the babysitter.

Okay, we'll get your jammies on that. Allen, shove up. Act a little happier. Acts a little happier.

Okay, hello, Joanne, Act a little happier. The marching orders Toby would continue to obey all the way into his adulthood. But when Toby listens to the tape, I think it's funny. All he can do is laugh it off. Shall we continue?

Yeah?

Hellow, we're here.

This is Toby's sister Heidi, asking Doug if can have dinner with her at her mother's house.

No, I don't think. I don't think too. Why I don't go over her anymore?

Hyle you over you?

Well? I don't eat Tipper over there?

Why?

Because of your mom and I are divorced?

Why they're true?

Oil?

I don't know. I will understand it better when we're older.

In spite of Toby's being older, in spite of cassette tapes unspooling lives, there are many questions Toby will never have the answers to. But then one day, while going through the tapes, I come across one answer to a big question. How things between Doug and Terry got so bad? It happened after the divorce on one particular evening in April of nineteen eighty eight. Suddenly I can see the whole arc of the relationships fall. The recordings are heavy

Oh gosh, oh okay.

After the break Portland, Hello, Hello, Toby, Lauren and I meet in a hotel suite in downtown Portland. Ah, Lauren and Toby sit next to each other on the couch. We all don our headphones to listen so we can starts. If that's good with you, guys. Yeah, and so we dive into that pivotal evening from nineteen eighty eight in April. For the first time we hear Doug narrating directly into

In her house alone. That's when I called the police.

It seems that Terry left Toby and Heidi at home all by themselves one night, and Doug called the police. Toby remembers that night.

We were at mom's house.

Yeah, and she went I don't know how long she was gone, but I was like five, I got scared and I called my dad and I didn't know.

He was going to call the police or whatever.

So my mom came home at some point and then like the police came by.

Toby doesn't recall his dad talking to him about what happened, but it seems he did.

Are you upset about last night? And see? I called the police because I don't think you guys should be left there alone. And I didn't know what else to do because I can't go in your mom's house, okay.

But the.

House they said we might get taken away to go to your house.

I don't think you will because I don't think your mom will leave you alone anymore. And that's good because you know, when you're older, I think you guys need to be left alone. But not when you guys threw this yim.

You know you.

I know, I know, but you were scared, and I was scared for you.

Terry, on the other hand, didn't think there was anything to be scared of. When she calls Doug sometime later to talk to the kids, how do he brings up that night and Terry explains it this way, Well.

Come when hang left, no pay because I had to go check out my work and I was gone for fifteen minutes. Haven't you ever been left alone before you were asleep? You didn't even know it. And if Toby had been asleep, do you know what? I would not have left at all. But I thought Toby was old enough that he could sit here for fifteen minutes by himself and watch the movie he was watching without freaking out. But obviously not.

Pretty shitty to put that on me, a six year old who got scared.

So now that just caused the big that caused a big, big, big big problem. You still through the whole thing, Heidi, Toby knows all about it, and from now on your debit or never believe you guys learned either?

Never ever?

If he does, you call me how come you did?

Because honey, you were absolete for the night. But that's the half kind of fine. The house, I wasn't gonna catch them far. We got that. How many? We've got two smoke alarms downstairs here, don't we? And we scored about the house. One catch the fire with fast climate matches? Are you guys gonna play with matches?

But that's the right.

We got all new wiring in the.

House Because of what happened that night, Family Services paid a visit to Terry's house, but nothing came of it. Legally that was that. Still, Terry felt betrayed by Doug. Here they are later that week relitigating.

Are you flying for full cut? Are you gonna doll at that?

What?

I want you to straighten your act up?

My app big war straight Why.

You made that yet?

Four year old?

A six year old alone?

I left four I was begun for some of them.

Hoar.

She didn't sound sober.

I think my sister and I were there with her at that point, like she was taking care of us.

What was probably doing up at eleven o'clock on the school right?

What was because one of the.

Welcome the other day you said you were going to kill yourself. If I had gut see kids, I would never.

Tell my own, you know how religious boot star.

What begins is anguish hardens into anger. A few weeks later, Terry phones Dog and accuses him of being out at a bar called Windy O'Leary's.

Yeah, that's Heary. We are you hanging out Winny o'larry's. Should I call the cops on you? You're told the wanting to talk to you. I think that's a little bit of neglect. I didn't really call it a bitch or anything, but what I do want to say is this, I don't like standing on my front porch spying. I told you to park in front of the house, and

Mood that I have been holding within.

So why did I just give a call?

We know a Larius and see if you'll answer?

Goodbye?

So this next clip is the last tape between them. It's a long one. Let's let's listen if you if you're ready, I think so.

That's very important I got hold of. You know, is there a problem?

Can they talk to you about the month of June?

The month of June? This is where the argument begins. Doug has custody in June, but Terry has registered Toby for summer softball. Doug says the problem there is that he and the kids will be out of town for two weeks in June. So Terry says, well, great, if Toby's going to miss that much softball, he'll probably end up with some horrible position like right field, and his self esteem will be shot to hell.

You know that the kids come here in June and you just scheduled it.

The damn league scheduled at that. Well, you didn't contact me, Okay, certicipate in any summer sports? Is that what you're saying? What's that Toby can never participate in any summer sports his whole life till he's eighteen.

No, I didn't say anything like that. I said I would like to know. I find that.

Let's let the child be just an invalid hum be a vegetaball all summer.

What.

Terry wants to change the custody agreements so she can take Toby to the softball games, but Doug says he's already booked the childcare he'll need for the whole month here.

Yeah, Terry, now I am, I'm not following. Don't wait a second, let me talk.

Okay.

Joanne and Caprice have scheduled their time around when they can watch my kids, Caprice our kids. Okay, I'm sorry.

So Terry turns it back on Doug. Okay, she says, if I can't see the kids in June, then you won't see them in July.

Yes, I will see them.

How maybe my men is still left.

I can see them on weekends my normal visitation.

Okay, I'll have to look at up because I do tend to look every little thing up.

Are you going to look up about the school that you pull them out of?

School?

Is getting paid off?

In those early calls, Doug and Terry tended to resolve their disagreements in just a few minutes, But now they go on fighting for over half an hour straight. Terry begins to leave from one unrelated grievance to the next.

The other day, God damn it, Jonathan walked Toby home from kindergarten.

Yeah, capriest went too.

Caprice did not take them home. Toby told me this, that's not true. Oh Toby lied. You know, Toby, he is not a liar. When I walked to her, also to talk to the kids Friday afternoon, Caprice, after you can get up the phone, Get up the own kids, get up the phone, get off the phone, because I always make a point of calling them on Friday and Saturday, which I don't see you making a.

Point of calling the kids during the week.

But when I call, I don't appreciate the babies. They were telling the kids to get off the phone. Now I don't appreciate. Also, you standing on my front porch hearing what's going on inside of my house. To me, that is fine and low down and dirty. You were standing with one foot on the porch and one.

And then finally Terry raises the thing that really underlies her rage, the night of the police, when two weeks.

Ago, in the cops with here, you couldn't even come up to check on your own son's welfare when you were supposedly so dimnn concerned. So what's the difference. I mean, either you're gonna do it or you're not gonna do it. That's kind of double.

Standards, because I don't think it would have been a good idea to make a big scene.

Oh, make a big scene when you're taken upstairs and talk to the cops. You know, four policemen. You don't consider that a big scene. Four cops, right, that's Orange said, four cops is a big scene.

What I consider big was leaving the kids alone.

But you don't know our lifestyle. You don't know our situation, and no.

Second lifestyle has nothing to do with it. You don't leave a four year old and a six year old in a house alone in the middle of the night, let alone in the middle.

Of the day, Copsas has it ever happened before?

No?

And another thing that has or still is that you did, Doug. Was you sitting around, actually sitting around? Actually nobody can believe this in your suit, kai your jacket, your dress pants, your dress shoes and all that at eleven o'clock at night.

Yeah, it was a matter of fact, as you were.

As a matter of fact.

No, I didn't. I didn't have a tie on.

No you had a tie on when you was out here in front of my house.

No I didn't.

I had How can we see it? She was so far away when they came up here and check on Toby.

Yeah?

Sure, I mean, do you talk so serious that the kids you guys ever laugh? I know you do a lot of things that the kids. I know you guys go to zoo, and I know you guys go boating, and I know the kids enjoy it. But I also know they're getting to spoiled little burger bets over a lot of things too. They're getting expected a little bit too my child life, I think. But is there any humor and laughter in their life? Or is it all materialism and soberness. I don't know what's going on? But

Dream?

Last night? And it was at your house?

That's the dream was?

What is going on? I am really concerned.

Yeah, I don't know. The kids hold a lot of anger.

They don't hold a lot of anger here. Everything's funky dory here. As matter of fact, laugh to night. The kids have woke up with bad dreams, and both nights have been dreams. Had something to do with the house.

Well, they don't wake up with bad dreams over here.

They sleep as well from over there. They're not dreams here. You know, I'm thinking, is there a perversion going on or what?

Well, I think that's pretty strong allegation.

I don't hear the allegation, but I wonder.

Well, exactly what are you trying to say?

I had it happen to me? Is there a friend of yours that you are maybe think that's a good friend of yours? You maybe not be a friend good friend as you think?

Well, I think you're wrong.

No, that's that's not impossible. That it's not impossible.

How can you comprehend leaving a four and a six year old at home alone.

For fifteen minutes? And you know what? The DCFS worker died laughing. She said, tell me, do you know why I'm here? He says yes, because I have no sense of time till tell me. I'll be right back.

I ran three blocks.

I was right back.

Well, you don't leave a four year old care because, by God, the first time, there won't be no cops involved.

It'll be me and my family involved. Because nobody in my family can believe they said right or wrong. They can't believe that you called in the outside.

Your family thinks it's okay to leave kids alone.

No, but they think you should have come over yourself. But no, you can't even come up on the front porch, Terry. The police, the police.

Did not want me to come up on the front porch.

The police didn't want you to come talk to your own son. Did they say that, Terry? No? Did they say that they.

Got the information they needed? They told me they thought it would be best if I left.

Did you say, well, I would like to talk to my son. Did you take the police advice, Terry.

I'm not gonna argue no, No.

I want to know how much you care about tell me you took the police advice over your own son's welfare. I personally, I don't know. Maybe it's the maternal instinct. I would have said, well, can I at least see my son or talk to him?

Okay?

But the police advice when the police got thousands and thousands of thousands of calls to make and only one son.

My own concern for Toby is why why the police were at your house. You don't leave a four year old at six year old place.

Why didn't you just track your suit, tie, shoes, and your jacket over here in the first place. I did, you would have been here before they would have been here, I was you was here before they was here. Yeah, that just goes to show me that your concern is not what your son is, but how it looks reflex on you. First time I ever ever left the kids, they told that lady that they told the policeman that they told you that. I can't even begin to tell you my anger about this.

Well, that's good because I'm not gonna allow you to do that.

You're not gonna allow me kiss my ass. I don't ever gonna happen again.

I don't regret calling the police when you call the.

Police, Okay, fine, anything ever happens, I call the police on you. Then neither one of us have children. How do you like them? Apples? You want to calling up on organizations?

That's tip cut off, Tip cuts off. It's not at the end of the cassette. The tape abruptly cuts off in a way that suggests Doug had pressed stop. For all of his rigor and scrupulousness and recording, It's like this moment was just too painful to document. In the end, Doug never needed the tape for evidence, as there was no court case. Terry agreed to allow him full custody without contest when Toby was in the third grade, he and Heidi went to with their dad for good Toby

The thing I just get pulled back to again and again is like, that's my person in the middle of it.

It's really hard.

I wish there were like better words. I'm sorry.

Toby's always been grateful to his dad for taking him out of a bad situation, but hearing this conversation, he says, he suddenly understands the extent of what his dad was dealing with and why it might have been so important that Doug remained the stolid one in the face of so much intensity. Perhaps someone had to be My.

Mom was being awful, just being pretty awful.

Jerry and good.

They were happy, They were happy until she was.

This is Toby's aunt, Tracy, Terry's sister. I reached out to her to try to get more context for some of the things Terry says in the tapes. Specifically, Tracy was able to explain the abuse that Terry referenced.

My parents' best friends that mom and dad ran around with all the time. It was that man, the husband and Terry never told because she absolutely loved the lady and loved going over there and hanging out with her.

She just just loved her.

It wasn't until well into Terry's adulthood that the truth came out. She called her parents one night and told them what their friend had done to her all those years ago. Her parents didn't know what to do, so they did nothing. Terry's boyfriend at the time convinced her to phone the man's wife. They called together and.

They told her these people are still married. And I guess in a day or two found out that she had confronted.

The name, and.

Just a few days later the husband died by suicide.

Told her it was true suicide. Oh my yeah.

I think that was one of Terry's demons. I think that his mom lived with a lot of regrets.

I think she died with a lot of regrets.

I mean, it's sad I look back and how sad it is that the kids didn't have her growing up. Anybody that's in addiction don't want to be an addiction. That addiction was always dumber than her. I'd believe with my whole heart if she could come back today and go okay, let's do this over. It would have been an amazing mom.

The argument about the police was the last tape between Toby's parents, but there are two other tapes. Tapes that were not recorded surreptitiously. You were recorded explicitly for Toby is a.

Bore start on Friday next to eighty one.

This is a tape that Terry made recounting the story of Toby's birth directly to him.

DEVI and I've got a whole viewing Xcus.

That was your dad recurring.

I was just so happy because this tape was found among Doug's things. Because Terry sounds so young and optimistic, you can tell that this was recorded years before the divorce, back when things were different. Terry explains how she and Doug got into a spat and it's what I argument, but then swore to never argue in front of Toby again and.

Incent police but we don't like it, and soth.

Main we made it. All these years later, it's hard for Toby to picture his parents as people who were once in love, who could argue and then make up, who cared about him in tandem. In two thousand and three, Terry died from complications due to addiction. The lasting image Toby has of his two parents finally sharing the same room took place at her funeral. Toby was surprised to see his dad seated at the back of the church.

You come.

The final tape I play for Toby is one of Toby himself as a baby with his parents.

You get the tickets, yo, you get the hiccups.

This is pretty tricky getting his clothes on you would use for him and all our.

Arm In another part of the tape, Terry sings to a baby Toby.

See Toby, Gene, I'm so lovely, Jean.

And I need to be Gene.

We never pad so Hello, Toby.

Gen.

Give.

I didn't want to put a kid through what I went through as a kid.

Even back when he was just a kid himself, Toby remembers thinking, when I'm an adult, it won't be like this. When I have my own kids, I'm going to do things so much differently, and now he does have kids, a six year old and a nine year old.

Something that has always been important to me is like stability. That's something I've intentionally built into my life. Yeah, because I knew what it was like to be a kid and not have that. And I think we've built a really good life for us and our family and our kids.

Tobya told me a story from when he was a kid closed to do BMX racing, and you should tell the story.

How to answer your story calling.

Yeah, so I wanted to do BMX racing really bad.

I'd seen it on TV. I was like, that's the coolest thing ever. I want to do this. And so my.

Dad called the one bike shop in our town and was like, is there any BMX around or whatever? And they're like nope. And then I never got to do BMX. But our six year old really is into it, and so like, I've got him.

I'll be an ex bike can work.

Sorry, We're like, I'm going to a skate park all the time, and he's in mountain bike classes and yeah, doing that stuff for him that like, it's clear to me that my dad.

Went the extra mile in the ways that he could.

I want to do that for my kids.

So he doesn't get emotional very often. This is the most I've ever seen him emotional. And we've been through some life together. You're sleep good tonight, buddy.

Like you know, this is this type of emotional work that's exhausting.

Yeah, maybe, said Doug. Well, I know stand it better when we're older, which is something that people just say. But in this case, Doug inadvertently left something behind to make that understanding possible and yet to become the dad that he is, to give the things that he didn't get. Toby didn't need the tapes at all.

Just really proud of you, Toby, Thank.

You because I know that you feel that way.

Now that the furniture's riturned to its goodwill, now that the.

Last months rant is scheming with.

The damage to pozzle, take this moment to deserve.

If we if we too.

Felt around for far.

From things accidentally.

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production assistants by Mohemy Micgauker. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Alex Bloomberg, Max Green, Blythe Terrell, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, and he himself, Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be