Tom Junod

I mean, did my dad's actions invalidate his words?

Did his actions basically prove that the words were empty?

Or how I look at it is like the words were good if only his actions had been better.

So my book begins with the sentence, everybody knew.

And I think that what you're talking about right now, that there was an entire society set up to basically allow people

the founding fathers to do whatever they really felt like doing while, you know, producing the poetry and the, you know, the genius vision that, you know, gave birth to this country.

But my founding father was my dad.

And he had a whole system in place of enablers, mostly men, who basically allowed him to do, you know, whatever he wanted.

Men who also had, you know, really, really deep relationships

relationships with my mom, or at least what I consider deep relationships with my mom.

I mean, you know, my uncle Johnny, my God, you know, my Godfather, Frankie Klein, who called, you know, every Saturday morning to see like who my dad was betting and to see who I liked, you know, you know, all these guys.

they were really good friends with my mom.

Yeah, 100%.

So my dad had this whole sort of world that enabled him to do what he wanted to do.

And not only enabled him, the thing is,

were thrilled by it.

They were doing it for him.

Like, you know, like my dad somehow convinced people that like the things that he was doing was just like proof that life held sort of untold and unseen marvels.

There's that moment in the book where, I mean, I am just about to turn 50, it's the day before I turn 50, and I go to see Frankie Klein, who was my father's wingman in Florida.

And I bring him, he loved my father so much that I'm bringing him some of my father's ashes in a shot glass so that he can spread them in the lake behind his house.