Tom Bodett: Inside Passage

Summary

Summary of "Tom Bodett: Inside Passage" – The Moth Podcast Episode

Introduction

In the November 21, 2011 episode of The Moth titled "Tom Bodett: Inside Passage," storyteller Tom Beaudet shares a deeply personal narrative about his tumultuous relationship with his father, a life-altering accident, and his journey toward reconciliation and self-discovery. Hosted by Dan Kennedy at The Moth in Burlington, Vermont, this poignant story explores themes of familial expectations, personal rebellion, adversity, and redemption.

Relationship with His Father

Tom begins by reflecting on his complex relationship with his father, a steadfast right-wing Republican who adhered strictly to traditional values. He sets the stage by stating, “I buried my dad in May. He was dead. I don't worry too much that dad's dead” (01:30), indicating a sense of relief juxtaposed with underlying respect. Despite his father's rigid beliefs—Tom describes him as a “John Birch” and “Goldwater Republican”—Tom acknowledges his father's righteousness earned through hard work and service: “He went through the depression and out of high school he went right into the Navy and fought in the big war” (02:15).

Tom's rebellion manifests in his academic choices and lifestyle. Although his aptitude tests suggested a path in engineering like his father, Tom pursues an English major, immersing himself in literature that defies his father's conservative views: “I read Ezra Pound and James Joyce and Shakespeare and all those other insufferable people” (03:05). His ultimate act of defiance is dropping out of college to seek adventure, symbolized by hitchhiking westward: “I'd also read enough Hunter S. Thompson to know that copious amounts of alcohol should be involved in any adventure” (04:20).

The Accident

Tom's quest for independence leads him to Oregon, where he mingles with diverse communities, including hippies and Mexican laborers. Amidst a period of heavy drinking and carefree living, an impulsive decision results in a severe accident: “I climb up that pole and I reach up my hand and pow. Dead. I just fell backwards” (09:45). The fall leaves him severely burned and hospitalized, marking a pivotal moment in his life.

Hospitalization and Family Dynamics

During his hospitalization, Tom grapples with pain, morphine-induced haze, and strained family dynamics. He recounts the tense atmosphere, noting his father's detached demeanor: “And I look across the room and my dad is sitting there in the corner smoking his pipe. You could still smoke in hospitals” (11:30). Despite his father's tough exterior, Tom describes a transformative moment when his parents discuss his recovery plans, triggering a realization of his dependency: “I am not going back to Michigan. They did” (13:00).

Tom's struggle with public assistance further strains his relationship with his father. In a defiant move, he secures welfare to support himself, fully aware it would displease his father. However, his perspective shifts when he receives a heartfelt letter from his father: “Dear Tom, I watched you in that hospital room as wounded as any soldier in battle...I just want to tell you how proud I am of you and I love you” (14:10). This letter challenges Tom's preconceived notions of his father, leading to an internal conflict about his beliefs and feelings.

Recovery and Reconciliation

As Tom recovers, he reflects on the depth of his father's message, fostering a newfound respect and understanding. Despite his father's earlier rigid stance, the letter signifies a bridge toward reconciliation: “Could I have been that wrong about this guy who had been wrong about everything, and could he now be right about me?” (14:50). This moment of vulnerability from his father becomes a catalyst for Tom's personal growth and healing.

Final Journey to Alaska

Empowered by his father's words, Tom embarks on a life-affirming journey to Alaska via the Inside Passage. Standing on the bow of a ferry, he confronts the formidable Lynn Canal: “I stood on the bow of that ferry and I'm gripping that rail and I'm terrified. But I went through that passage” (15:10). The treacherous yet awe-inspiring landscape symbolizes his inner turmoil and determination. As he navigates the passage, Tom credits his father's encouragement, “He said, brave as any soldier. And I... was brave enough” (15:35), underscoring the lasting impact of their reconciled relationship.

Conclusion

Tom Beaudet's story on The Moth is a compelling testament to the complexities of familial bonds and the transformative power of overcoming personal adversity. Through his candid recounting, Tom illustrates how confronting past conflicts and embracing vulnerability can lead to profound personal growth and reconciliation. His journey from rebellion to reconciliation embodies the essence of The Moth's mission to share authentic, human experiences that resonate deeply with listeners.

Key Quotes

• Tom Beaudet (01:30): “I buried my dad in May. He was dead. I don't worry too much that dad's dead.”

• Tom Beaudet (03:05): “I read Ezra Pound and James Joyce and Shakespeare and all those other insufferable people.”

• Tom Beaudet (09:45): “I climb up that pole and I reach up my hand and pow. Dead. I just fell backwards.”

• Tom Beaudet (14:10): “Dear Tom, I watched you in that hospital room as wounded as any soldier in battle...I just want to tell you how proud I am of you and I love you.”

• Tom Beaudet (15:35): “He said, brave as any soldier. And I... was brave enough.”

Timestamp Guide

• 01:30 – Introduction to Tom's relationship with his father.
• 02:15 – Tom describes his father's background and values.
• 03:05 – Tom's academic rebellion and passion for English.
• 04:20 – Decision to drop out of college and seek adventure.
• 09:45 – The fateful accident and its immediate aftermath.
• 11:30 – Hospitalization and observation of his father.
• 13:00 – Realization of his dependence on his family.
• 14:10 – Receiving his father's heartfelt letter.
• 14:50 – Internal conflict stirred by the letter.
• 15:10 – Decision to embark on the journey to Alaska.
• 15:35 – Embracing bravery inspired by his father.

About the Storyteller

Tom Beaudet is an accomplished author and voice talent, renowned as the spokesperson for Motel 6 and a panelist on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. His versatile voice work spans across Ken Burns documentaries, Saturday Night Live, and Steven Spielberg's Animaniacs. Residing in Vermont with his family, Tom brings a wealth of experience and authenticity to his storytelling.

Additional Information

The episode was part of a themed night sponsored by PH International and Vermont Public Radio, focusing on the concept of "building a bridge" through stories from both sides. Listeners are encouraged to explore more of The Moth's offerings and upcoming events by visiting themoth.org.

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Note: The timestamps provided correspond to significant points in Tom Beaudet's story, enhancing the summary's alignment with the original podcast narrative.

Transcript

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[Dan Kennedy]

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This week's story by Tom Beaudet was told live at the Moth in Burlington, Vermont last month. The show was sponsored by PH International and Vermont Public Radio and the theme of the night was building a bridge. Stories from both sides.

[Tom Beaudet]

I buried my dad in May. He was dead. I don't worry too much that dad's dead. I died once and it's really not so bad. It's kind of great actually. And it might be the best thing that my dad has been through in a long, long time time. You know, it always, it, it always kind of creeps me out when people talk bad about their parents. You know, we're raised not to do that, but you know, it's our parents who raised us not to do that. So, so there you go. You know, my dad, he was a bitter right wing nut before it was fashionable and profitable. He, he was a John Bircher, he was a Goldwater Republican. He actually said that if we bombed Hanoi in 65, we could have saved a lot of American lives. And even a 10 year old knows that that's stupid and wrong. But you didn't say anything. My dad was wrong, but he was righteous and he, he came by that righteousness honestly. He went through the depression and out of high school he went right into the Navy and fought in the big war and went to college on the GI Bill and got an engineering degree and found A wife and had six kids. And he got a job that he kept his entire career. He did it all by the numbers. And then it's like he just looked around one day and said, well, this sucks. And he fell back into his La Z Boy recliner in the other room and flipped up the footrest. And it's kind of the last we saw of him. Every once in a while you'd hear this. He'd be snapping his fingers in there until somebody came in and got him what he wanted. Refilled his ice cube or brought him some chips or something. So I figured out that the best way to get Dad's attention was to piss him off. So my dad had gotten very sick on ketchup in the Navy, and he never touched ketchup. He hated to have it around. I put ketchup on everything. He'd rant and rave about how the hippies were bringing down this great country. And so I grew my hair out, and I went down and started reading the Rolling Stone. And I stole Abbie Hoffman's Steal this Book book. And all my aptitude tests in high school. Said that I should be an engineer just like him. I had great spatial aptitude. I was good at math. I was good at science. So I went off to college and declared my major English. And I read Ezra Pound and James Joyce and Shakespeare and all those other insufferable people for about a year. And I decided that the only thing that would piss my dad off more than being an English major in college was to. To drop out of college altogether. And I'd read enough of Jack Kerouac and Jack London and all these other Jacks to know that the adventure in the Wild Times was all happening out West. And so I stuck up my thumb and I stuck my finger in his face and headed out there. And I'd also read enough Hunter S. Thompson to know that copious amounts of alcohol should be involved in any adventure. And when I got as far as Oregon on my way to Alaska, I found plenty of all that. And I got a job planting trees up in the Cascade Mountains with these. All these hippies camped out there. And these Mexicans were all like one big happy family. And I was eating artichokes for the first time. And I'd never even seen an avocado before. And I'm eating an avocado and I'm planting trees with Mexicans. I practically was a Mexican. And we were drinking every night and working every morning. We get paid on Friday, and I'd be broke By Monday. And this was going great. And one weekend I came back to this cabin that a few of us were squatting at on the weekends, and somebody said that the power company turned out the power. Power. Well, we got to have a party with. Hell with that. How'd they do it? So I said, well, they took that lever at the top of the pole and they just threw the switch. What they didn't tell me is they'd done that with a 30 foot wooden pole. Well, I'll just throw that switch right back. So I climb up that pole and I reach up my hand and pow. Dead. I just fell backwards. And it was like falling into the arms of a million people. It was like body surfing a million souls. And it felt wonderful. It was like, you know, that moment where you have a really realistic dream and you wake up from the dream and you're a little disoriented, realizing that you're awake now and you're dreaming before, it was like that. It was almost like I was waking up from the dream. And that was more real to me than this. And it was wonderful. It felt so good. And I could have stayed there forever and. And I wished I had. Because when I did wake up, I was in a hospital room and I was burned over about 30% of my body and in more pain than I thought was possible. And my mother and father were there and it was good to see them. And I was completely filled with morphine and. And sort of through this morphine haze and the pain, you know, I would hear my mom and dad talking to me about their plans for me and how when I got better, that, you know, when I could travel, that it would get me back to Michigan and I could probably start back to school in the fall. You know, the college would understand and all of this. And one thing they did in the hospital was they had to debride this arm. I had an open wound from my wrist all the way up past my elbow that was left open so that they could go in once a day and clean this out with their fingers. And these, these nurses would come in and they'd pull these rubber gloves on and they'd give me a fresh shot of morphine and I'd roll up the. The sheets and put them in my teeth. And I'd have to let go of my mom's hand so that I wouldn't crush it. And then they would just stick their fingers, like up to the second knuckle into my arm and they would just pull this stuff out of there and I was screaming into my sheets, and I look across the room and my dad is sitting there in the corner smoking his pipe. You could still smoke in hospitals, and it's impossible to smoke a pipe without looking smug. And he looked so smug and bemused. And I thought, you know, that son of a just thinks he's right about this. And I just thought, there's just no way I am. I am not going back to Michigan. I almost died here. Look what I've been through. I'm not going back to Michigan. They did. They had to get back to their family. And as soon as they left, I got on the phone and I contacted the county welfare agency and I got myself put on public assistance, which would have really pissed off my dad. And when I was released from the hospital a few weeks later, I was in pretty bad shape. Weighed 95 pounds. I had these fresh skin grafts on me. And they said, just whatever you do, take care of yourself and don't get infected, and. All right, all right. And the welfare agency had arranged for this fleabag apartment for me to live in. And when I say fleabag, you've heard that term, fleabag apartment, I swear there was actually fleas and bags in this apartment. And first thing I did is I looked up this young nurse that I had met while I was in the hospital, and she invited me to join her and some friends for this picnic. It was 4th of July, and they were having this big picnic outside of Ashland, Oregon. And so I went along, and I was still, you know, completely saturated with morphine and codeine and. And went to this picnic, and I had a couple beers and got just completely shit face drunk. And I remember just like staggering backwards down this hill and just like falling into somebody else's picnic. And this poor woman picking me up, and I busted one of my grafts open and then bleeding. And she gets me into her car and I'm throwing up and bleeding all over her car, and. And she gets me back to my apartment and. And so, you know, the next day I. I wake up, you know, and there's blood on the bed. And it's like, oh, God, I've got two ticks in my shoulder. And I think, oh, my God, how can this go on? And then I thought, well, geez, well, I'm out of cigarettes. I got to. I got to go get some smokes. And so I wander down the hall and down the stairs and where my mailbox was, and there's a letter in the mailbox, and I pull it out and I recognize my dad's handwriting. Printing, actually. He was an engineer. He had his very precise block lettering. And I thought, oh, God, I know what this is. I know what this is. This is like no son of mine is going to be on welfare. And, you know, you get home, you're worrying your mother's sick. And I just hated to open this letter, but I did, and I sat down there and it. Unfolded it, it was on graph paper, of course. And he said, dear Tom said, I watched you in that hospital room as wounded as any soldier in battle, and I watched how you handled it with such courage and strength. And I just want to tell you how proud I am of you and I love you and I hope you take care of yourself. I thought, God damn it, I mean, could I have been that wrong about this guy who had been wrong about everything, and could he now be right about me? I never. I never was able to tell my dad how much that letter meant to me. The last time I saw dad, at the end of his life, he was in an assisted living home. He'd lost most of his memory by then. He'd forgotten most of his family names, and the only thing that was left was his war stories. That was the last to go. And I visited him in his little apartment, and he was laying there. He was a lazy boy with the footrest flipped up. And there wasn't very much you could talk about, but. Except say, you know, dad, what about that time you're in the Philippines? And. And then he would tell that two or three minute story, and when he was done, you could. You could just say, remember that time in the Philippines, Dad? And then. And you could circle around like that for a while. And that's. That's how I left my dad there in that chair, telling circular stories about his glory days, which really ended about the same time in his life as my life had ended the first time. But unlike Dad, I did get a second chance. And the year after my accident, I did get better and I got stronger and I decided I was going all the way to Alaska and I hitchhiked back out west and I got up to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where the ferries departed for Alaska at that time and. And headed up the Inside Passage to Alaska for I didn't know what. And there's this place north of Juneau called the Lynn Canal, and it's this place where the mountains are very steep on both sides and they come right down to the water, and it's like the proverbial gates of the north. And as this wind roars down out of there with this sort of deep throated howl. And you can smell ice on it in July. And you look through this passage and there's nothing but mountain range after mountain range and you don't know what is there. But you know that this could kill you. You can feel that this is a dangerous place. This could kill you. This could make you. You didn't know what. And I stood on the bow of that ferry and I'm gripping that rail and I'm terrified. But I went through that passage and I want to thank my father before that. Because what was on the other side of those mountains was my life. My whole wonderful life. And what got me through that passage was my dad's words. He said, brave as any soldier. And I. I don't know if that's true. Probably not. But I was brave enough. I was brave enough. Thank you.

[Dan Kennedy]

Tom Beaudet is an author and voice talent best known as the spokesman for Motel 6. He's a regular panelist on NPR's satirical weekend newscaster Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and his voices appeared in Ken Burns documentaries Saturday Night Live and Steven Spielberg's Animaniacs. He lives with his family in Vermont. A reminder that the Moth main stage is heading to Austin, Texas on December 6th for made to Be Broken Stories about Disobedience. For tickets, visit themoth.org and don't forget we've got a selection of numerous merchandise available on the site. It's for sale online just in time for the holidays. So that's going to include our brand new Moth mug. It's also going to include the Best of the moth, volumes 11 through 20, the second set of our best of's that's going to feature stories from Steve Burns, Kenya Dawson, Garrison Keillor, Al Sharpton and many more. Visit themoth.org for more information. Oh, and also a quick heads up. We have a special surprise for you on the podcast next week celebrating our 200th episode. So make sure you check that out. 200. We've done 200 of these.

[Tom Beaudet]

Wow.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is the author of the book Rock An Office Power Ballad. Learn [e-mail] thanks to all of you.

[Dan Kennedy]

For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange helping make public Radio more [e-mail].