James Talarico

He fell in love with my mom and then fell in love with me and adopted me and gave me his last name, raised me as his own.

There's been so much conversation in this country in recent years about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a young man.

And I know young men are being

There are these predatory algorithms that are taking advantage of young men all over this country.

The model for me, for what a man is, is my dad.

I'll just tell you just one example.

Every Saturday he would mow the lawn.

He still mows the lawn.

I've tried to urge him to pay someone to mow the lawn or pay a kid in the cul-de-sac to mow the lawn, but he won't.

He always does it himself.

And when we were growing up, he would mow our lawn and then he would mow our next door neighbor's lawn because she was elderly, she was a widow, and he would do it and never talk about it.

And I don't even know if she asked him to do it.

It was his responsibility.

Um, and, and not just a responsibility for me and my sister and, and, and mom, our immediate family, it was a, it was a responsibility to like everyone around him, including Nita, um, our next door neighbor.

And that just always struck me as like, that's exactly what a man, a father should be someone who takes responsibility, someone who does the right thing, even when no one's watching and, um,

That's exactly the kind of person he is.

Always honest, always doing the right thing, always helping other people.

Just the most remarkable man I know.

And I'm like, so lucky I had that as the model when I was growing up.

And you've already heard about my mother.