Erin Kimmerle (forensic anthropologist)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Minister Mouse in Obstentia.

[2] She's actually, I think, on her way to Paris.

[3] So congrats to miniature mouse, the Duchess of Duluth.

[4] We hope you're getting a sensual massage and eating lots of cheese.

[5] We have a great guest today, Aaron Kimmerley.

[6] First time ever, a forensic anthropologist, which is so cool.

[7] We, shockingly, for how often I say the word anthropology, have had a disproportionate few number of anthropologists as guests.

[8] So what is so cool about forensic anthropologists is they can tell so much about looking at bone remains.

[9] And she turned this incredible gift of hers into piecing together.

[10] This is almost like a true crime.

[11] Well, it is like a true crime story of her piecing together all the atrocities that took place at the dozier school home for boys in Texas.

[12] and she wrote a book about it called We Carry Their Bones.

[13] I also don't know if dozier, I'm saying that right, since shut down.

[14] I don't think we can call it a school either.

[15] Anyways, let's let Aaron tell us all about it.

[16] Please enjoy Aaron Kimmerly.

[17] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[18] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[19] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[20] Hello.

[21] How are you doing?

[22] Good.

[23] Thank you.

[24] How are you?

[25] Wonderful.

[26] Are you in Santa Fe, New Mexico?

[27] Nope.

[28] Tampa, Florida.

[29] Okay, you have kind of an adobe shelf behind you.

[30] It's very reminiscent of the Santa Fe tradition.

[31] Yeah, I would agree.

[32] It's a new house.

[33] It just moved in.

[34] Well, great.

[35] It sounds like maybe you did what I did, which is buy at the height of the market.

[36] Just right at the apex.

[37] I think I've done it three times now in my adulthood.

[38] for doing it.

[39] You're in Tampa Bay?

[40] Yes.

[41] Do you ever bump into TB12?

[42] Have you seen him out on the town?

[43] No, actually.

[44] I haven't.

[45] He's hard to miss. Yeah, he's a 6 '5 guy.

[46] Yeah, very attractive.

[47] It sounds like maybe you don't even care if you bump into him.

[48] Is that fair to say?

[49] Well, I have boys, so they're big football fans.

[50] Are they pumped at the world's greatest quarterback lives in their town?

[51] Yeah, definitely.

[52] The closest thing we had where I grew up was Ted Nugent.

[53] Okay.

[54] That is not.

[55] It's pretty good.

[56] Tom Brady.

[57] It's pretty good.

[58] You're right.

[59] It's pretty good.

[60] And he was about four towns over, just to be clear.

[61] It's still good.

[62] Okay.

[63] Do you know why I'm intimately familiar with Tampa is I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Sarasota.

[64] And so as a kid, we'd go to Sarasota, couch surf, and then you'd take a big old trip up to Bush Gardens in Tampa.

[65] That's great.

[66] Yeah.

[67] It's still, I think, the biggest roller coaster.

[68] I don't know if it's officially the biggest, it's the biggest I've seen for sure.

[69] A lot of people make that claim, don't they?

[70] They're real willy -nilly with that.

[71] Everyone thinks their amusement park has the biggest.

[72] I certainly think Cedar Point has the biggest one.

[73] Yeah, that one's definitely not.

[74] I think it is.

[75] At this point.

[76] Okay.

[77] Where are you originally from, Aaron?

[78] I know you went to school all over the place.

[79] Yeah, Minnesota.

[80] You have a kind vibe.

[81] I get this.

[82] Yeah, also very Scandinavian -looking.

[83] You guys have, like, six flags.

[84] That's right.

[85] I don't even know if they're still open.

[86] Of course not.

[87] It was terrible.

[88] No. No, listen, if you're talking about the Midwest, you're talking Cedar Point's number.

[89] Then you had Kings Island.

[90] That was sliding in at number two.

[91] Then you had six flags over Chicago.

[92] Then you go over to Minnesota to their six flags.

[93] I think it was even like called Valley Fair.

[94] I think it was even more local than that.

[95] But okay, real quick, just because we have to settle this debate, I think it's six flags.

[96] Sixth?

[97] No, six, but you're putting that.

[98] That's what I'm saying.

[99] Six flags.

[100] Exactly.

[101] You're saying six flags.

[102] I say six flags.

[103] Nope.

[104] Aaron.

[105] I'm not sure.

[106] Okay, so I think what would be fun for people who have not majored in anthropology?

[107] Me. To talk about how interesting, or at least I found it to be, the world of osteology, anthropology, forensic anthropology, forensic osteology, how much we actually can learn about people that were here a long time ago.

[108] I'm going to throw out some hot topic ones that I think will get everyone excited, some citilating ones.

[109] Okay.

[110] Tittalating, titillating ones.

[111] Sintillating.

[112] Sintillating.

[113] Antittalini?

[114] Yeah.

[115] People have maybe heard the Mayans were doing brain surgery.

[116] And you'd go, how could they be doing brain surgery?

[117] There's no way they could do brain surgery.

[118] And the way we know this is there are skulls that not just have the markings of having had an operation, a procedure, but most importantly, evidence of it healing.

[119] So not that they just chopped a hole in the skull and then the people died, it actually sealed back up.

[120] So we know it was successful brain surgery.

[121] Was that one of the things that excited you when you first?

[122] got into this?

[123] Yeah, definitely.

[124] One of my first jobs at a college was actually at the Smithsonian, and they have a huge collection from all over the world, but they have a very large Peruvian population as well, just skulls.

[125] And you're right, it was called treffination, and there's all this evidence of surgery, and people survived, the bone is healed, and then sometimes there's multiple surgeries.

[126] So they survived one and maybe didn't survive the next one.

[127] Oh, oh.

[128] And there were different methods.

[129] So there were different ways in which they would sometimes drill or cut into the skull, so it was pretty interesting.

[130] Yeah, they were largely doing it, am I right, with stone tools, like advanced stone tools?

[131] Yeah, they would have had to.

[132] Was there any evidence of ether, like anesthesia?

[133] Well, they would have had local spirits, right?

[134] Especially Peruvians had this fermented beverage they drink.

[135] I forget the name of it.

[136] From the coca leaves, yeah.

[137] I would imagine that they did.

[138] I don't know what they gave them, but you would have to have had something and sit so very still for a long time.

[139] I can't imagine, like, hand drilling through bone.

[140] Oh, my God.

[141] Oh, my God.

[142] Oh, my God, Aaron.

[143] I never even thought of he had the length of, it was an all -day affair, I'm sure, maybe even multiple days.

[144] That's true.

[145] Yeah, that's a good point.

[146] You have to come back to it.

[147] It's like a puzzle.

[148] I see in the morning.

[149] I got to get some sleep.

[150] I've been at this 20 hours.

[151] Holy smokes.

[152] Okay, the other one I think I found quite interesting was we can look at these skulls, often of, like, famous rulers, right?

[153] And we can see evidence that they definitely had syphilis because it erodes the frontal bone.

[154] You got it?

[155] What other crazy things have we been able to figure out after the fact?

[156] So we got syphilis, that's exciting.

[157] Brain surgeries are exciting.

[158] What else is out there?

[159] Well, another thing, and this was common all over the world.

[160] Largely, we see it a lot in Peru, but in other ancient society.

[161] So it was called cranial modification.

[162] And so, you know, during that first year of life, babies, skulls, they're born with all this, we call them softs.

[163] spots, but basically it's areas where the bone has yet to grow together.

[164] And so while that's happening, they're very malleable.

[165] And so they would bind the head in different ways, sometimes with boards or sometimes just with fabric bindings.

[166] And what it does is it forces the skull to grow into the shape that you want it to grow into.

[167] And probably it was a sign of status and maybe kinship.

[168] And there's all different ways in which you can put pressure on the skull as it grows to then change the shape of it.

[169] For example, like today, you might see if babies get a lot of flattening in the back of their head.

[170] You got to turn your baby, roll your baby, or else they put little helmets on them to make the head nice and round.

[171] That wasn't always just round that was valued.

[172] It might have been other shape.

[173] Conical?

[174] What's the craziest shape you've ever seen?

[175] Sometimes very conical.

[176] Probably where there was like a board on the frontal bone and the occipital, and so it's very flat.

[177] Oh.

[178] Oh, top hat like?

[179] Yeah, kind of.

[180] Oh, wow.

[181] Really quick, we just need to acknowledge that baby thing.

[182] When I see a kid in the grocery store with that helmet on, I'm like, that kid's number three or four in birthing order.

[183] Because your first kid, you got in your hands all the time, they're up.

[184] The second one, you pick them up a little less.

[185] That third one just lays on its back until stand up and walk, pretty much.

[186] That could very well be.

[187] I never thought of that.

[188] Well, here's some things I remember.

[189] You would think, how do they know how old?

[190] They'll say, oh, we found a set of bones of a human and they were 14.

[191] I think people go like, how on earth do you know this?

[192] I found this fascinating.

[193] Yeah.

[194] So your femur grows out, not unlike your brain.

[195] It's not fully formed.

[196] It's growing out and out and out.

[197] And at the top or both ends of your femur, you have the condos, those two little balls.

[198] And before you're an adult, there's a gap in the shaft.

[199] Oh.

[200] Yeah.

[201] I said shaft to keep it sexy.

[202] And then ultimately they fuse in adulthood.

[203] Your femurs are now fused with the condos.

[204] That's one way, right?

[205] You can pretty much say, given the size and the lack of fusing, there's a 14 -year -old.

[206] Yeah.

[207] And so all the bones grow that way, essentially.

[208] And depending sort of what stage in life, you can use different methods or combinations.

[209] So with infants and babies, you can measure the long bones, and that's a really good indication of their age.

[210] As you get older through childhood, and as you said, through your teens, your bones continue to grow and fuse together.

[211] So it's not just the size, but it's what age different bones fuse.

[212] And that occurs into your late teens, some of them into your early 20s.

[213] And then we use dental age, so the teeth, how they're erupting and The baby teeth are falling out, the adult teeth are coming in, and so we can use kind of a combination of methods.

[214] It's a lot easier to age children because they're growing and changing so rapidly than it is adults.

[215] Once you get really over 50 or 60 years old, it's all degeneration.

[216] Your bones are starting to degenerate and you're forming arthritis on the joints.

[217] And so it's a lot harder to distinguish, for example, if you're 70, 80 or 90 years old, skeletaly.

[218] Some holes maybe?

[219] That's right.

[220] Yep, it'll lose density, start to structurally collapse.

[221] You'll have vertebra, like your spine will start to collapse onto itself.

[222] Oh, wow.

[223] Okay, I'd had that class, the osteology class in Anthro.

[224] I'm at my sister's boyfriend's parents home.

[225] The dad is a big game hunter.

[226] He's killed everything in Africa, right?

[227] Their whole basement, it's just all taxidermied animals and bones and whatnot.

[228] So he said, oh, I want you to check out this elephant bone I got.

[229] You got to look at how big this femur is.

[230] And I said, oh, my God, you killed an elephant?

[231] He said, yeah one of the big five and i said oh god do you feel a little guilty he said oh no no this was an old bowl it had already procreated and would have died soon he hands me this femur which p s is enormous it's like over a hundred pounds for sure and aaron i scoped those condals he was not fused oh baby elephant oh yes or minimally a teen oh right and i was like did his guide Lied to him?

[232] Who lied to who?

[233] This guy, well, he certainly lied to me, whether unwittingly or not.

[234] I busted him.

[235] Did you say, this is a baby?

[236] I said, I think this is a teen.

[237] Oh.

[238] I was never invited back over.

[239] Well, you don't want to go back there.

[240] Is there any other fun disease you can tell us about that affects the bones?

[241] I mean, you got like rickets and stuff.

[242] I think one of the worst is untreated tuberculosis and a lot of cancers if they progress to affect bone or if it starts in the bone because it just, you know, eats away at it and you'll be missing huge sections, you know, large areas of bone.

[243] Like termites got in there.

[244] Yeah.

[245] It's hard to imagine that sort of pain and suffering with that.

[246] Back before ibuprofen or...

[247] Tylenol.

[248] I guess they did have some poppy in certain areas.

[249] Tylenol sending you some?

[250] For my sinus infection.

[251] Oh, okay.

[252] Okay.

[253] So after you're at the Smithsonian, you then go away and you get your master's degree and you get your doctorate degree, then you end up working for the U .N. Is that correct?

[254] That's correct.

[255] And then you find yourself in Kosovo, and so tell us how forensic anthropologists can be employed in there, what they were hoping to figure out and why your skill set was useful and how it actually showed itself.

[256] Yeah, so at that time, the war in Kosovo had just ended, maybe six months, but the work was being done through the United Nations, and they had essentially set up an entire judicial system to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity and human rights abuses throughout the bowl.

[257] going back to 1991 through 1999.

[258] And so what they were doing is trying to establish that these crimes had been committed.

[259] And so just like you would do a murder investigation here, all of that evidence has to be collected.

[260] You have to make the case and demonstrate that, in fact, crimes were committed against the whole civilian population, not just one individual.

[261] So you had to really show patterns and who the victims were as a people, not just individually, but because of their religion or because of ethnicity.

[262] And so what they were doing was excavating mass burials that had been created and individual burials that were created in Kosovo where people were killed, trying to use all of that evidence in the Hague as part of the criminal proceedings.

[263] Okay, I have a gnarly question, which is generally when I think of your job, I think of pulling out bones, but I imagine if you're only six months out from the war, you're dealing with corpses, right?

[264] There's soft tissue.

[265] There's all kinds of stuff.

[266] Yeah.

[267] It's as much with soft tissue as it is with dry bone.

[268] Oh, man. How you have the stomach for that.

[269] Now, look, I can handle bones.

[270] I've done it fine.

[271] Six -month -old corpse.

[272] That's a whole different endeavor right there.

[273] I mean, you get used to it, and it's part of the job, but you have to just process it down to get to the bone because ultimately that's what we want to look at.

[274] In the case of the Balkans, you know, people were shot multiple times, and there were explosions of grenades and mortars launched at them.

[275] And so there's just a lot of injury.

[276] And so that's what you do is you get all the bones, glue them back together, literally piece them together and then try and explain what the injuries are to show the cause of death.

[277] And then this was a systematic pattern.

[278] Well, and with the thesis of the investigation being that this was a genocide, right, not a civil war, if I remember it correctly.

[279] So again, as you already mentioned, you need to kind of identify them as a group, not just individually.

[280] So how are you establishing that they're Muslim or Christian?

[281] What giveaways are in the bones there?

[282] Well, for that it wasn't necessarily the bones that was the evidence.

[283] We'll just take Shabonica as an example that was in Bosnia, but there were thousands of men killed within a couple of days.

[284] And so they had rounded up the civilians, taken their luggage, taken all their passports and papers, and then killed everyone and buried them in mass graves.

[285] And so there was evidence of the fact that they have civilian luggage.

[286] There were Quran and papers that even though we maybe don't know who's identified individually yet based on the bodies, where you can see that collectively all these papers show names and who people are in terms of ethnicity and religion.

[287] And then when you look at the actual evidence in the grave and the remains, people's hands are bound.

[288] There's blindfolds.

[289] They're shot multiple times.

[290] They're shot in the back of the head.

[291] So none of that is consistent with actual death in lawful warfare.

[292] Right, right, right, right.

[293] People are injured and then killed.

[294] It's a crime to kill injured soldiers as well as civilians.

[295] So all of that has to come together and then.

[296] be used in the prosecution.

[297] Because, you know, you kind of see this and you're standing this grave with 100 or 200 individuals who are killed in this way and you think, what defense is there?

[298] The whole thing was played out in front of cameras and media.

[299] It's not like no one knew what happened, but it was often that this was lawful warfare.

[300] So a lot of the evidence then was showing that this was, in fact, civilians who were targeted.

[301] Oh, wow.

[302] Now, is there an added component of you being on the scene there?

[303] that place isn't crawling with women.

[304] And back to it's your job and you get used to it, do you think you had an extra layer of I got a really nut show that this is bothering me?

[305] Because whatever misogynistic stereotype exists about me being weak and emotional, like maybe men would have been like, oh, this is fucking disgusting.

[306] Like they would have been able to commiserate without fear of being exposed is not cut out for it.

[307] Yeah, that's a good point.

[308] The team that we worked on as well was very international being set up through the UN.

[309] And so I think at one point at our biggest operation, there were probably 20 different first languages among just the frenzic crew in terms of people coming from all over the world.

[310] And so you're working on this international team and people come with all kinds of different ideas and expectations, particularly about the role of women in some of these jobs.

[311] So there certainly were a lot of women part of the team, but depending on where people came from, they might have very different expectations of it.

[312] Did you know you were going to get into this type of human rights element of anthropology?

[313] when you were studying it?

[314] Not initially, not as an undergrad, but in graduate school, I think that's what really drew me to biological anthropology and that side of it was this idea that you could use forensics and the court system to enforce human rights.

[315] So I think just by nature being drawn to the sciences and then having a low threshold for sort of the negotiation and the political side work, if you do human rights work, so much of it is political pressure, negotiation, media.

[316] I love this idea that science was something a lot more concrete.

[317] You could present it in court and enforce human rights in that way.

[318] And that's what was being done in South America and then Rwanda and then ultimately the Balkans and now so many other places.

[319] As much as I had loved Anthro, the thing I hated about it at the end of the day was, oh, it's just knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

[320] There's no application.

[321] We're never going to recommend anything.

[322] We're culturally relative.

[323] We're going to observe.

[324] We're going to figure out how everything works.

[325] But we're not going to push policy.

[326] What do we do with that?

[327] Yeah.

[328] Yeah, there's really no application to it.

[329] And then how interesting that this really is an enormous application of the knowledge in that you can seek justice and you can push human rights forward.

[330] It feels like the most empowering leg of the whole field.

[331] I think so.

[332] I mean, I think today there's applied anthropology.

[333] And so you'll see it in different areas.

[334] Medical anthropology is a good example where people are working on public health issues.

[335] But you're right.

[336] And that was one thing that I was always very frustrated with in anthropology initially was.

[337] is this over -relativism, this idea that we're here to study and learn the culture, but we don't influence it or judgments or, like you said, recommendations and things like that.

[338] Today, it's a little more common that people are trying to apply it and really say, how can we make this relevant and useful for modern -day problems?

[339] Okay, so I knew nothing.

[340] In fact, I won't even know how to pronounce it.

[341] Is it the dozier?

[342] Dozier.

[343] Dozier.

[344] So I've never heard of the Dozier School.

[345] Your new book, We Carried the Bones, is about the Dozier School, which was a place in Florida.

[346] Could you tell us out of the gates what the Dozier Boys School was?

[347] It was set up in 1900 as a reform school.

[348] Boys and girls initially, who were charged with the crime were to be sent to this reform school, to be educated and given job skills.

[349] And it was an alternative to the convict lease system, which is what Florida had instead of prison.

[350] So you were convicted of a crime.

[351] You went to work.

[352] More recently, they've called it change.

[353] gang, but it was basically a convict lease program where you'd be forced into hard labor for a period of time.

[354] So the idea was to get children out of that system, and they built this reform school, and it was open until 2011.

[355] That's when it closed.

[356] Yeah, a minute ago, where I grew up in Michigan, if you got in trouble, you went to Juvie, but Juvie was Children's Village.

[357] That's what it was called.

[358] But that was definitely a state -run facility.

[359] Was this a privately run facility?

[360] No, this was a state -run facility as well.

[361] It was initially set up with what was called the board of managers and a superintendent, and they reported directly to the governor.

[362] Who was Arthur Dozier, who it's named after?

[363] He was a long -term school employee who ultimately became the superintendent and was there for a long period of time.

[364] The name changed ultimately and was named after him.

[365] Throughout its history, it's had four or five different names, and they've changed, usually following scandal or some massive investigation that helped them rebrand.

[366] Over its 111 -year history, approximately how many boys were there?

[367] Thousands.

[368] I mean, at its height in the 1950s, it had almost a thousand boys there at a time.

[369] And it really became so overcapacity that they opened a second reformed school that was modeled after it and nearly identical to it, but in another part of the state.

[370] And it was in 1914 that girls were taken out of that institution and the separate facility was built for girls.

[371] This blew my mind.

[372] Kids as young as six years old were sentenced.

[373] Yeah.

[374] The law was clear that orphans were not supposed to be sent there, though we know that there were a lot of orphans that ended up there.

[375] But everyone had to be convicted of a crime.

[376] And one of the things that you see in the early years is that basically non -criminal offenses became more common.

[377] And so you have things like truancy and incorrigibility.

[378] What's truancy, not going to school?

[379] Yeah, skipping school.

[380] What?

[381] That's illegal?

[382] Well, yeah, you legally got to go to school to your whatever age in your.

[383] state.

[384] But they're making money from it.

[385] Why would they want more kids?

[386] Initially, when I started working on this project, that was my question.

[387] And it was 1400 acre farm and facility.

[388] So I was like, how many kids were convicted of crimes in 1900 that you need 1400 acres and then it grew?

[389] And so like most things, you can look at what is the financial benefit.

[390] So what they end up doing is hiring kids out for labor and also developing a number of industries run through the school.

[391] So for a long time, they did all the printing for the state of Florida.

[392] Oh, my God.

[393] They manufactured over 20 ,000 bricks a day.

[394] They had a huge agricultural complex.

[395] And, you know, they would write and lobby the legislature.

[396] Hey, we can't get the crops in.

[397] We need boys to stay longer and we need more of them.

[398] Oh, they were just running at like a business, a vertically integrated business.

[399] They were.

[400] Ooh, ooh, ooh.

[401] Yeah.

[402] That's not like, do you see fads over the decades?

[403] Like, can you break it into eras this 1111 years?

[404] Did you see like, okay, truancy was a real common way to get them in there at one period?

[405] Then it kind of transitioned.

[406] Have there been waves of different popular crimes?

[407] The first 50 to 60 years, the biggest trend is you see a lot more black boys are sent there.

[408] And especially for the non -criminal type offenses, over the more recent years through the 1980s and up until the time it closed, it became a place for much more violent offenders.

[409] And when it actually closed in 2011, it was what they came.

[410] considered a maximum security juvenile facility.

[411] It shifted like that.

[412] I think in the early years, though, you see kids sent for a lot of different reasons.

[413] And a lot of the men that we talked to that were sent there in the 1950s and 60s, many of them were sent there for trespassing, riding in a stolen car, things that we would consider a pretty minor today.

[414] Yeah.

[415] And there has to be a huge spectrum of both the inmates and the parents' reactions.

[416] There had to be people that wanted their kid out of the house who was always in trouble and they had their hands full and they're like take them.

[417] And then there had to be a lot of presumably black parents that were like, you're taking my baby away from me because he was not in school and was trespassing somewhere?

[418] How much variation was there among the parents and what recourse did they have?

[419] Did they fight?

[420] What happened with the parents over that period?

[421] One of the things that struck me is really interesting was that what was the recourse?

[422] And a lot of people have asked that too and said, well, why didn't the parents demands their release or intervene or do something.

[423] I think they did, actually, in many cases.

[424] But the one thing that was pretty common thread of the boys and the families that were sent there was poverty.

[425] This was also a time before civil rights legislation, which means as a juvenile, they didn't get lawyers.

[426] They would be basically taken into custody, tried before a judge, and then sent to the school, taken to the school, and the parents would be notified.

[427] So imagine going to that whole court proceeding and you don't have your parents, you don't have a lawyer.

[428] And you're six.

[429] Oh, my God.

[430] Oh.

[431] Yeah.

[432] There is a number of things going on there.

[433] But it fundamentally to me was like the story of why civil rights were and are so important because you just see what happens when there's no protection for anyone.

[434] A lot of children had, you know, physical and mental disabilities, all kinds of different things.

[435] And what you see, too, is what often was needed was some type of social service intervention.

[436] There was one headline in particular, I think, from the 40s or 50s, but it says a boy, who was about 11, was arrested for like the 10th time for breaking into a store.

[437] He claims to be hungry.

[438] And so you go and look at his family story.

[439] There's, you know, seven or eight kids living in extreme poverty in this family.

[440] And he probably was hungry, which is why he got breaking into the store to steal food.

[441] And so it's just this story of not just Florida, but I mean, Florida is a good example.

[442] It does not have a history of social services and intervention programs for families and need.

[443] So for people who haven't seen some of these great documentaries, I kind of break down what the prison system became.

[444] If I could do a justice in 12 seconds, it'd be like we ended slavery.

[445] Many of those states tried to figure out, well, how do we continue slavery without having slaves?

[446] And one of the ways to do that was you see an explosion of them building prison.

[447] You see an explosion of them being arrested for things that previously they hadn't been.

[448] You see new laws on the books to make sure they become criminals.

[449] And you see this whole machine startup that just starts incarcerating now the newly freed black folks at an inordinately high rate.

[450] And so I'm assuming, of course, that juveniles were not spared that process.

[451] You sums it up very well there.

[452] And actually, what you see after the Civil War and through that period known as Reconstruction and even to this turn of the century is this increase in laws, right?

[453] New laws all the time that are basically designed to control the movement and place of people who are black or non -white.

[454] Just the one thing to mention about that, the school itself was segregated until the late 60s.

[455] And so it was essentially two separate campuses that were nearly identical.

[456] It was a road in between them.

[457] One was for white boys and the other was for what they called color.

[458] And the point of that term is that it was anybody who was basically not white.

[459] So you could have been African -American, Latino, if you were gay, if they just perceived you as gay, if you basically were unliked.

[460] And you see even, especially with kids because here in Florida, we have so many Cuban and Latin population, that you see them moved sort of between the two campuses, if you will, or they couldn't quite figure out where to place people sometimes.

[461] Well, and I'd imagine it's also used as a prison within a prison.

[462] And so it's like they still have a last card or a little bit of leverage is like, we'll send you over there.

[463] Right.

[464] It's a reflection of society.

[465] And so what's going on in the community in general.

[466] And so you have all these laws that are designed.

[467] So there are things like you might have heard of vagabond laws or transportation laws.

[468] You just show up in the town and you don't have a local address.

[469] So if you can't show your residency here, you could be arrested and sent to a year of hard labor.

[470] There was an increase in many different types of laws like that.

[471] And so what you see is this explosion then in those.

[472] who are incarcerated.

[473] There was often what's called a labor boss who would show up at court, pay the fine if you couldn't pay the fine for whatever your offense was, and then they are now responsible for you.

[474] So your clothing, your food, your medicine, if you will, you're lodging.

[475] Suddenly you're racking up a bill.

[476] So you have to not just pay off your fine, but now you have to pay for all of these expenses that are incurred during your, quote, incarceration.

[477] And that's how you end up with a year, two years, five year sentences for what would have been like a $2 fine.

[478] And this is like indentured servitude.

[479] It is really.

[480] Yeah, it's a very similar type of concept.

[481] And what you're doing is, you know, working in the turpentine industry or picking oranges or agriculture, the railroad.

[482] And it was very common then that people would die in this system.

[483] It was brutal and there was a lot of abuse.

[484] And they would be buried, you know, in some field or end of the road or along the tracks, wherever they were working.

[485] So when this happens with the school, what we see is the people who actually start the school, they lobbied to get it in their town, and they were the labor bosses who had been working the convict lease system and former plantation owners in North Florida.

[486] When you first brought up this school, it sounds great at first.

[487] When you're like, instead of sending them to prison, it sounds like some sort of rehabilitation.

[488] You give them a trade.

[489] Give them some skills.

[490] Exactly.

[491] And I'm sure that's how they sold it on its surface.

[492] but it just goes to show you really have to deep dive into some of these things.

[493] I think it's also worthwhile and fair to mention our modern value of children is drastically different than the 1900 value of children.

[494] Societally, culturally, two of your five kids died.

[495] Like, people are so used to their children dying.

[496] If you look at Abe Lincoln, all the kids died, George Washington, all the step kids died.

[497] Everyone's kids died was a different proposition.

[498] Yeah, childhood was viewed very different.

[499] And what comes about later with civil rights legislation is also all of the child labor laws because it was very common for children to work.

[500] Minimally in farming, that's why you had kids.

[501] It's very customary and historical for you to have kids to work your farm.

[502] That was fine.

[503] So it's like, oh, now they're going to go work a farm across town.

[504] It's not as abstract as it is for us today.

[505] That's correct, yeah.

[506] And in fact, that was one of the things I tried to pin down with people in the Department of Juvenile Justice and in the community was when did these industries stop?

[507] When did they stop farming?

[508] And it was interesting because nobody could ever really give me an answer or a year.

[509] Everyone just said, well, whenever they introduced child labor laws, basically they were forced to stop using them for labor.

[510] So I was like, but when did that actually happen here?

[511] Because, you know, there's often a leg as well when a law is imposed and when it's really put into practice.

[512] Also, agriculture is a carve -out because when I was 12, I was allowed to work to tasseling corn 12 hours a day.

[513] but then when I got home and an eighth grade wanted to work at the restaurant in my town, I was only allowed to work like 12 hours a week.

[514] There is a huge carve -out for agriculture and farming, which there aren't really child laws, or there's certainly Lucy Goosey compared to normal job laws.

[515] I think you can even still get your driver's license earlier than 16 if you're working on a farm.

[516] Yeah, you got to drive that tractor and whatnot.

[517] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[518] We've all been there.

[519] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[520] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[521] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[522] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[523] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[524] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[525] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[526] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[527] What's up, guys?

[528] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you, it's too good.

[529] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[530] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[531] And I don't mean just friends.

[532] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[533] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[534] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[535] So who's interested?

[536] Because I can imagine, okay, this school shuts down in 2011.

[537] It's one of these many embarrassments in our history.

[538] on what's the incentive who's interested in finding out what really happened there how do you come to say i'm going to apply my skill set to find out what really happened there and what's the motivation there were a number of articles coming out since the white house boy so this was a group of men who had been there in the 60s and they get together 2005 they're starting to find each other online for the first time there is a boy named martinley Anderson who's killed at a juvenile facility one of these like boot camp style we're going to work him into reform he was killed there's a video I don't know if you're familiar with this case but there were nine guards and a nurse who were there and who were kicking him trying to get him get up run trying to force him to do this physical activity when he had passed out and there were no charges following his death which led to a national outcry but also a special investigation and it was when this happened that some of these men who had been at this doger school saw this and they're like how is this still happening and then went online and learned the school was still open and then they thought well how is that even possible and so they really were the ones who came forward and said look this is what our experience was and what happened and they tried to get acknowledgement from the state so that led to reporter ben montgomery who was at the time it was the st petersburg times to do a number of investigative stories and in the course of doing that work he found family members of boys who had died there and their stories were coming out about how they'd been searching really their whole lives for answers about what had happened to their brothers.

[539] So I probably like most people read about this story first in the newspaper and saw that these families had been searching and the state had called for a special investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is our state law enforcement agency.

[540] And they basically did this investigation and said, well, there's nothing that can be done.

[541] All the deaths are accounted for.

[542] but they're too old to find.

[543] GPR won't work.

[544] There's really nothing that we can do.

[545] I imagine that what's obvious to everyone at this point in time is that civil lawsuits are coming in the wake of this and people are going to sue the state of Florida.

[546] So the notion that the state investigative body isn't incentivized to not provide proof to then sue ultimately their employer of the state, it seems a little conflict of interest there.

[547] Yeah.

[548] And ultimately, that's what the White House boys did.

[549] They tried to collectively file suit.

[550] They weren't able to bring it because of statute of limitations had run out.

[551] The other thing that I think a lot of state officials were worried about were reparations.

[552] And Florida had given reparations in the case of Rosewood.

[553] It was essentially a black town that was burned to the ground.

[554] So there was this precedent for doing that.

[555] And I think that was the fear.

[556] Oh, my God.

[557] They're looking at potentially thousands of litigates.

[558] Yes.

[559] Hundreds of men came forward.

[560] but I think there were over 500 that eventually joined the suit and requests for reparations.

[561] So how do you insert yourself into this?

[562] Because I have to imagine the state agency is not excited to have other investigative bodies join.

[563] Yeah, it was 2011 when the state under pressure from Ben's work and the paper closed the reform school.

[564] They officially cited it was a funding issue, but it was at the time of all of his investigative reports, which included contemporary issues.

[565] It wasn't just focused on the early years.

[566] You know, I saw some of these family members who had come forward and it was very compelling to me. It reminded me a lot of families I worked with overseas when I was doing similar type of work.

[567] And for the official law enforcement agency in Florida to say, look, there's nothing we can do and these graves are too old to find, that's exactly the work that we do every single day.

[568] So it felt like a challenge.

[569] One way to initially gain access and to be able to start looking for these burials was to document it as a historic cemetery or burial ground, which Florida, probably like most states, but has protections for historic burial grounds.

[570] And families have a right to access them.

[571] So when the families were being denied, it was really in violation of state statute.

[572] And so that was what we used to ask for permission to say, hey, can we look for these graves and try and determine the, number and how many there are.

[573] So at this point, you're working in the interest of the family.

[574] You enter through that door.

[575] That's correct.

[576] As a university professor and researcher, it's not that we were hired by the state or even by the families.

[577] It was on their behest, but it was really just as an independent research project.

[578] And so you excavated or dug or did archaeological work for what, four years?

[579] For the first year, it was all remote sensing and what we call test pits, where we dig trenches that don't go so deep as to intrude into a burial, but where they're deep enough, we can look at the soil.

[580] And basically what that does is it confirms what we see with remote sensing to know if this is in fact a burial because a lot of people in the community would say, oh, it's buried garbage, it's buried mules, basically anything other than a grave.

[581] And so we wanted to say, look, we're not finding old soda cans here.

[582] This is, in fact, consistent with burial.

[583] So we did that for about a year and then shared our findings.

[584] with the state and with the public.

[585] And that's when the families really started to demand access.

[586] We'd only been given access to about half of the property, not the entire property.

[587] And so there was concern that there might be other burials on the other part of the property that we didn't have access to.

[588] There are some visual indicators, like a half a meter down where the soil's richer, I imagine.

[589] It's browner.

[590] It's got more nutrients from the decomposing body.

[591] Yeah, you're basically looking at a different color.

[592] soil.

[593] So North Florida is mostly clay, red clay.

[594] It's very hard, but the top layer is still like a black top soil.

[595] And so what happens when you dig a hole and then you fill that back in, those layers get mixed up.

[596] And you'll see that in the soil for years for thousands of years.

[597] It's why archaeology works.

[598] That's what we were looking at is where's the sterile, never dug a hole soil versus what's been dug into.

[599] Over the first year, how many graves did you find?

[600] We estimated 50, and the school had said there was only 31.

[601] And the state investigation said there were only 31.

[602] So this was a difference of 19 that the state had missed.

[603] And for those 19, those families never got any acknowledgement that had happened.

[604] Presumably, what would they say they had run away or something?

[605] What was the common excuse?

[606] I don't know that there was ever an explanation.

[607] Certainly not in the more recent, you know, 2008 investigation by the state.

[608] At the time, what we learned is that when, a boy would die, the family would basically receive a letter saying that he had died and was buried on campus or a telegram, and they were unmarked burials.

[609] Many years later, crosses were put up in that general areas to commemorate that this was a burial ground, but those didn't match actual graves, and they certainly didn't reflect the number of burials that were there.

[610] And once you started excavating, or excavating S or X or X?

[611] X. Okay.

[612] What kind of pathology?

[613] do you find?

[614] What kind of things were you discovering on the bones?

[615] For the 31, they acknowledged they must have had a cause of death and now you're looking at the bones and you can compare those.

[616] What were you finding?

[617] Officially, what the school had said and what the state report reflected was these boys had died from a flu epidemic.

[618] Some of them died in a fire.

[619] The dormitory had burned down and then accidental death or no cause of death.

[620] And what What we found is that even in those incidents, and yes, the 1918 flu epidemic around the world was devastating, but what happened is that the school officials abandoned the boys on the black side of campus, and days later, the state physician came through and found that the children were there without clothing, food, medicine.

[621] In his report, he wrote, the debtor stacking up.

[622] They were giving medical treatment to the white boys and not the black.

[623] in general?

[624] Yeah, they had just completely abandoned that side of campus.

[625] How was that obvious in the remains?

[626] That was really from historical research.

[627] When it came to actual physical remains, they were fortunately preserved enough.

[628] We were able to get DNA out of a lot of them, but they were not so well preserved that we could say much about cause of death.

[629] Flu itself wouldn't leave evidence on bones, but if there was any sort of trauma, for example, that you would be able to see on bone, but the preservation was poor in that case that a lot of them, And we weren't able to confirm what the official record said.

[630] In this investigation, you found evidence of sexual abuse, starvation, beatings.

[631] How do you determine that?

[632] And how many of these deaths were obviously due to some kind of foul play?

[633] First, it was a massive archival and sort of historical research effort, right?

[634] Where we're going through every state investigation, the school reporting, death certificates, and then talking to family members.

[635] So we're interviewing what was the family told and what did they believe?

[636] Newspaper accounts, basically any type of historic or written documentation that we could find.

[637] Putting all of that together, you definitely see the patterns.

[638] For example, nine boys died after running away.

[639] Death certificates will say something like one boy was shot by person or person's unknown.

[640] He was just left out of the state investigation in 2008.

[641] So a lot of it really becomes more circumstantial where you see this pattern and you see where the discrepancies are, both historically and in the contemporary record.

[642] What we would love to do is be able to then look at each skeleton and say, okay, what was the cause of death?

[643] But just due to preservation, we weren't able to confirm that or be able to say, in a lot of cases, what happened?

[644] Other than put together this body of work that included all these other lines of evidence and basically share that with the family, a lot of them had never known that.

[645] They never had that information in the past.

[646] And I'd say for the public, for the historical record, even if there had been evidence of crimes, most of the, quote, bad guys were deceased or the statute of limitations had run out.

[647] So in terms of wholly anyone accountable criminally or under a legal context today was very difficult.

[648] And that was one thing we tried to really message and share throughout the process was that sometimes justice has to come in different forms.

[649] Because if we say, well, we can't prosecute, therefore we're not going to investigate, which is a very sort of old -fashioned law enforcement perspective, that just shuts down the whole process, which is what happened.

[650] So our message and our point was that it's not just about criminal prosecution.

[651] It's about knowledge.

[652] Sometimes that's justice.

[653] It's about knowing the truth and setting the record straight.

[654] Some of these boys were never issued death certificates, even well into the 40s.

[655] So it's making sure that that record reflects what happened to them.

[656] Yeah, that they didn't just vanish from history.

[657] First and foremost, there's just a huge reluctance for us to acknowledge what's happened here.

[658] I think you saw both with our story of Columbus, with how Native Americans were treated, with African Americans.

[659] I think before we can address any of our current day social problems, we have to know how we got here.

[660] And there seems to be a total reluctance to acknowledge how we got here.

[661] And so, yes, this is just one other big piece of history that likely would have just never been learned.

[662] Do you know off the top of your head what the asymmetry was between the population of black boys versus white boys relative to the overall population of Florida?

[663] Were they being incarcerated at 3x, 4x, 5x?

[664] Right.

[665] I can tell you this, of those who died, it was about 75 % black boys.

[666] Oh, my God.

[667] In a state that never had a majority black population, minimally, we know that.

[668] Right.

[669] I think I'm struggling a little bit to answer that is just because the demography also did shift over the years.

[670] So even in early years where maybe there were more white boys than black boys, the black boys that were there were there for those non -criminal offenses more often.

[671] It's a little bit nuanced in a sense that you see these patterns.

[672] in all different types of examples of where there is a racial bias, you know, it's the numbers, it's the number of deaths, it's also what they're sent there for, and what parts of Florida they're coming from.

[673] You see different years where it's heavily in one or two particular jurisdictions, which makes me wonder about sort of the judges and the sheriffs and who was sentencing because suddenly there's an explosion of population in central Florida, which today is still most sparsely populated parts of Florida.

[674] And yet you have the huge numbers of boys that were sent from that area.

[675] Yeah, that's a good point.

[676] There's so many variables.

[677] There's their overall disproportionate number in there.

[678] And then what crimes they've even been sent there for.

[679] And then once they're there, their death rate.

[680] How does it differ?

[681] Now, what's wild about this case is because it was shut down in 2011, there's tons of survivors from this.

[682] And for your book, you've talked to a lot of these guys.

[683] Talk about a traumatic experience.

[684] What kind of stories do they tell?

[685] What kind of long -term disorders did they pick up from this experience?

[686] What did it do to their worldview?

[687] How aware of the fact that their experience on planet Earth was so dramatically different than other kids on planet Earth because they only knew other kids that were going through that.

[688] Like, where are they at in their understanding of the trauma and what kind of things did you learn and meeting them?

[689] It was very interesting to me, like how many men said that they had never told anyone this before.

[690] when they sat down to talk, that they had never even told their wives about the sort of abuse that they suffered when they were there.

[691] Some of them never even said that they were there.

[692] I think it was embarrassing for a lot of people to say, oh, I had even been sent to such a place.

[693] And you know, you're talking about generations of men where concepts of childhood trauma, you know, emotional trauma and how you get help for that was not common or very accepted to begin with.

[694] Many of them talked about becoming abusive themselves, addiction issues.

[695] Some turn their lives around and had productive, successful businesses did quite well, but they would have reoccurring nightmares never able to trust authority or feel safe.

[696] I think also dealt with almost like repressed memories where it's like, did this really happen and what happened and trying to make sense of it?

[697] Particularly I'm thinking about some of those who talked about being sexually abused and just coming to terms with that.

[698] And now they're in their 70s and 80s talking about this.

[699] As a kid for survival, you disassociate so strongly in those situations that your memory is obscure, right?

[700] Because you've went to another compartment in your head to endure this experience.

[701] So I think that's part of the reason it's so complicated to reflect on these things because you, for survival, went somewhere else and learned to go somewhere else quickly and became good at disassociation.

[702] And rejoining that is a process that.

[703] probably requires a professional, you know, it's not something you're going to sort through in your bedroom at night when your wife's sleeping peacefully.

[704] Yeah, I felt, I guess, grateful that they were sharing this with me and wanted to very much say the right thing, but also felt very unqualified not knowing what is the right thing.

[705] You know, I'm used to working with the dead, right, not trauma victims.

[706] You don't need kid gloves or a good bedside manner with disease.

[707] It was challenging, But I think for many that I talk to, even though the state giving an apology and acknowledgement wasn't really what they'd hoped for and wasn't really enough, it was more than they thought they would get.

[708] And so I think there was some little bit of peace in that.

[709] Knowing nothing about them, I would just harken a guess that just getting to enter a community of other survivors must have been quite comforting.

[710] They definitely weren't alone.

[711] And I think that that has been very helpful.

[712] They have annual reunions and were able to share those stories and experiences.

[713] And no, it wasn't just them.

[714] Yeah, it so parallels these big swaths of boys that discover they were all molested by the same priest.

[715] It's like they're living with, A, the trauma, then B, the loneliness of believing they were the only one.

[716] And just validating that the experience is real.

[717] Because if it is in this weird part of your brain, I'm sure there's parts you that are like, was it?

[718] Was it that bad?

[719] Yeah.

[720] I don't know.

[721] Like confusion.

[722] but having that solidified is just probably so helpful.

[723] Validating.

[724] Yeah.

[725] I think you're right.

[726] So your book, We Carried the Bones, in a way, it's a true crime story of the state against these juveniles.

[727] What is it you hope the outcome is?

[728] We kind of touched on it a little bit, but how do you feel like the acknowledgement of their story and telling their story in its best case scenario?

[729] What do you hope comes out of that?

[730] One of the things it was most frustrating and challenging was, I think for them and then for the families, was that they were really caught between worlds in the sense that the justice system wasn't really open for them.

[731] They couldn't get the police to investigate because there wasn't a crime or a crime that was prosecutable.

[732] And then it's not like an archaeological research project just for the sake of research.

[733] And so there's really no avenue for them to get help or to get answers.

[734] And they're not alone.

[735] There's so many examples of these what I call historic justice issues.

[736] And a good example, the Indian residential schools.

[737] They're very similar to this, but they were set up where they actually took Indian children from their homes and their families, their reservations, put them in schools.

[738] They suffered a lot of abuse.

[739] We're forced to work.

[740] Many died, and they're buried in unmarked graves.

[741] And now those indigenous communities are asking for remains back and having a lot of the same obstacles.

[742] Well, we don't know where they're buried.

[743] We don't have the records.

[744] Just all the same challenges.

[745] And so when I was putting this together, trying to think of it as how do we start to open this door for people who want to get answers or how do we start to address some of these historic justice issues when our current systems are so limited.

[746] Right.

[747] So like a blueprint on how to give other people some justice.

[748] Yeah.

[749] Oh, I hate to say that, but you've picked an avenue that potentially has a lot of growth in it.

[750] I mean, there's so many.

[751] Yeah.

[752] You touched in this earlier.

[753] You know, how do you even begin to look at sort of.

[754] Contemporary issues when we don't really understand how we got here, what the past is.

[755] And you talk about issues of race and segregation.

[756] Everyone that we're talking to lived segregation, right?

[757] There's nowhere to go when you can't just call the police for help because they're the ones who took your brother.

[758] We're talking about people who lived and experienced it.

[759] And so it's really not even history.

[760] It's contemporary.

[761] And their children talk about what it was like growing up with mom always searching for her brother.

[762] This was always right at the forefront of our family, and so it's really multi -generational.

[763] Yeah, that seems to be one of the most common lack of understanding that we all collectively have is we have a very warped sense of time.

[764] Slavery seems like eons ago, like Mayflower times, or medieval, pre -Rennaissance.

[765] Like, it seems so distant.

[766] And I think people really don't understand how close it was.

[767] for the people who were saying, like, get over that, we're not anywhere close to get over that.

[768] That was 10 minutes ago.

[769] These are people's great -grandparents who were living this way.

[770] Or they were living in Reconstruction, or they were living under Jim Crow, or they were living in redlining.

[771] It's now.

[772] Yeah, it's now.

[773] It didn't get fixed in the 60s with the Civil Rights Act.

[774] It's very, very close in our history.

[775] And, of course, the ripples are still almost at peak height.

[776] Yeah, exactly.

[777] That was the thing that struck me and I think all of us who are working on this.

[778] just over and over is that this is today, you know, and people would constantly ask like, well, how did it go on so long?

[779] It's like, it's still going on.

[780] If you think, well, how did they not stop it then?

[781] It's like, well, how do you not stop it today?

[782] That's the question.

[783] And if I can make a case for them, I will say this, I think there becomes this binary option on the table.

[784] What are you saying?

[785] It hasn't gotten better or we've made no progress.

[786] And it's like, no, no, yes, we've made progress.

[787] And we're still very much in the ocean of waves that came from it.

[788] They're not mutually exclusive.

[789] But why are they doing that?

[790] I mean, I'm sure there's some emotion underneath, like why they feel protective of the fact that there's been progress.

[791] Well, I have friends within the black community whose grandparents are like, guys, you don't understand how good you've got it.

[792] I marched.

[793] I killed myself for this.

[794] This has gotten better.

[795] You have to acknowledge this movement that we all broke our backs to create.

[796] So I think you can honor that.

[797] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[798] And also keep pushing.

[799] hard and recognize the finish line's not even incite really.

[800] And it's so easy to backslide.

[801] I think there's some knee jerk which feels like it dishonors the work of so many people.

[802] That I understand on some level.

[803] But again, we don't even really have a full sense of where we started, unfortunately, because of how we're teaching.

[804] There's all this current discussion about how much of the system do you want to go into and acknowledge that this wasn't just random coincidental acts.

[805] It was by design.

[806] There was a lot of emotional attachment.

[807] when it comes to history and people want to really sometimes control that.

[808] I've often been puzzled by that and we saw that a lot at Dozier where certain people in the community were just so upset by the work that we were doing and the fact that this would somehow change the view that they have of themselves and of their history, that they just saw it as such an assault on them when this is really for these families who, you know, like Ovel Krell, Ovel is this amazing woman.

[809] She was one of the first female law officers in Florida.

[810] 1950s because she grew up searching for her brother and just wanted to find him.

[811] So she actually became a policewoman.

[812] Now she's 82 years old and still searching.

[813] So this is just about her and finding her brother.

[814] Yet it was just this pull and tug because it just seemed like it would just collapse their worldview of themselves.

[815] And so they weren't going to have it.

[816] They just were very opposed to it.

[817] Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable for everybody.

[818] People don't love holding two conflicting opinions in their head, they want to be proud of America, and they should be.

[819] What a place.

[820] Look at all the different experiments.

[821] Look how many people have tried it.

[822] There's so much to have pride in.

[823] And so they're afraid if they make room in their mind for, also we should have some shame about the experiment, or we should have some guilt, not shame.

[824] I don't want to say we're bad people.

[825] I think we've done bad things.

[826] So I think holding room for the guilt and the price, is challenging for people.

[827] And they're afraid if they let in the shame or the guilt that it'll get rid of the pride.

[828] Yeah, but it's not.

[829] Yeah, I know.

[830] I'm sympathetic.

[831] That is hard.

[832] We know humans have a hard time holding conflicting values in their head at the same time.

[833] And one needs to push harder to be challenging and accept it all.

[834] Yeah.

[835] I think of President Zelensky in that case.

[836] He's such an inspiration and his statement about the fight is here.

[837] And that's kind of the attitude that America needs and that we all need is that to make change and to make it better, you have to face it.

[838] Yes.

[839] Well, Aaron, this has been a pleasure.

[840] Help everybody checks out.

[841] We carry their bones.

[842] What cool work you do, I hope you continue to do it and don't run out of gas just yet.

[843] Well, thank you.

[844] Yeah, yeah.

[845] It's been really cool to talk to.

[846] It's really admirable.

[847] Yeah.

[848] Well, thank you.

[849] And thanks for your interest and talking about it.

[850] It was really interesting conversation.

[851] So thank you.

[852] Oh, good.

[853] Well, look, good luck pumping into TB12.

[854] I'll hope for your boys.

[855] I'll give you some things to look for.

[856] Inordinately tall, inordinately gorgeous.

[857] Symmetrical face.

[858] You're not going to see a human that is that attractive very often.

[859] So those are the things you're looking for.

[860] The height and the gorgeousness.

[861] And big flashy rings, too.

[862] The rings are quite big.

[863] Probably weighing them down.

[864] All right, Aaron, good luck with everything.

[865] Thanks for talking with us.

[866] Thank you.

[867] Take care.

[868] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[869] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[870] Oh, my God, you look European already.

[871] I do.

[872] I've transitioned.

[873] Well, you've got a, like, smart turtleneck sweater on.

[874] Uh -oh.

[875] Are you there?

[876] Uh -oh.

[877] Hello?

[878] Hello?

[879] Oh, Scarewee.

[880] Really scaly.

[881] Do you think that was you or me?

[882] I don't know.

[883] I have all my bars.

[884] Oh, okay.

[885] Look, I'm in a horse field.

[886] Uh -oh.

[887] Oh, boy.

[888] This is getting really scary.

[889] I know.

[890] Interrupt this three times.

[891] And you're in your pajamas.

[892] Well, I just woke up and journaled.

[893] And now we're having technical difficulties.

[894] It's too early for technical difficulties.

[895] It is.

[896] How is your sleep?

[897] It was good.

[898] I went to bed kind of late.

[899] Aaron and I watched the most incredible movie.

[900] It'll be very triggering for you.

[901] Oh, no. What is it?

[902] Okay, well, it was came highly recommended from David Ferrier.

[903] Oh, I know what it is.

[904] Oh, you already know.

[905] I haven't seen it, though.

[906] If you love action movies, I saw the most incredible action movie ever made.

[907] It's a foreign film.

[908] It's called RRR, RR, Triple R. Just not Triple R. I'm saying Triple R. R .R. It's on Netflix.

[909] And I didn't even know what kind of, I just knew foreign.

[910] I guess since I heard action and foreign, I went to Korean or even Hong Kong.

[911] There's a rich tradition.

[912] Yeah.

[913] But to my great delight, it's an Indian movie.

[914] Yeah, sure is.

[915] And it's virtually the story of Aaron and I, Indian version of Aaron and I. They're the two toughest men in all of India.

[916] The one guy is, what a physique, okay, but mostly from the waist up.

[917] It's not that he had bad legs or anything, but then you meet the second guy.

[918] He's from the forest.

[919] He's the shepherd of his group.

[920] And they show this guy, and he's running from a tiger, and you notice immediately, very powerful.

[921] powerful legs, such incredible legs, hairy chest.

[922] And so now we're starting to go like, oh, wow, this is Aaron, because Aaron has a hairy chest and these powerful legs.

[923] And we were joking the whole time like, well, you put these guys together, you've got a perfect man. The movie's three hours and five minutes.

[924] It was a two -night affair.

[925] And we've been joking about that part.

[926] Also, the me and the story rides a horse really fast, and the Aaron rides a motorcycle, and they always ride together.

[927] But one guy on a motorcycle, one guy on a horse.

[928] It's incredible.

[929] And by God, there was a scene where the one guy's legs were injured, and the guy with great legs had to put him on his shoulders, and that guy used his upper body, and they fought like 100 people, and they paid it off.

[930] They did the thing we had been joking about the whole time.

[931] Also, there's a falling in love montage, Monica, with them, that has got to be 18 to 20 minutes long.

[932] Wow.

[933] It even made me wonder, and I'll ask you this, well, so many thoughts I had.

[934] One is I want your dad to watch it really bad so I can talk to him about it.

[935] Okay, I'll ask him.

[936] But let's just say that this exact movie, which I have to assume took nine years to make, it's so, there's so much action, they're becoming buddies montage.

[937] Here would just be blatantly gay.

[938] And then I thought, well, clearly it wouldn't read that way in India or they would, wouldn't have done it because both guys are straight in the film and then I thought is male gayness in movies so not present in India that this didn't even feel like two men falling in love does that make any sense it does make sense I don't know enough about Indian movies to know but I do think the culture are there openly gay men there I think so but it's it's probably less and it's behind us I would say so sure yeah my guess is that they didn't see that as homerotic that's cute that you guys watched it together tell me about Spain I'm in a field watching an Indian movie and you're in Spain I'm in Spain what's happening there we're having the best time have you already eaten a million great meals yes So we're in San Sebastian.

[939] I immediately, even upon arriving at the gate at LAX, flying air, Iberia, it just reminded me it's good to sometimes go to places where English is not the first language.

[940] Right.

[941] Okay.

[942] Because it makes you remember that we're insignificant.

[943] It's humbling.

[944] It's like, ugh, like we just think, I mean, not we.

[945] I won't speak for everybody, but I, I'm just like not thinking.

[946] about, ironically, I'm not thinking about what it feels like to be an outsider.

[947] I mean, it's all I'm thinking about.

[948] Right.

[949] It feels good to remember what an outsider feels like.

[950] Yeah.

[951] And I obviously think a lot about Anna, our friend, who's Venezuelan, who moved here when she was 18, and Spanish is her first language.

[952] Right.

[953] And she speaks great English.

[954] And that's kind of what I was.

[955] Yeah, her English is one million times better than you're Spanish.

[956] I mean, it's not even in the same, it's not in the same world.

[957] And I was like, oh, my God, good for Anna.

[958] Because I didn't understand anybody.

[959] I've taken collectively pretty much eight years of Spanish in my life.

[960] And I don't know anything.

[961] What can you say?

[962] I almost started this conversation with, Ola, um, como ta?

[963] Maybe any too?

[964] Oh, really good.

[965] So you can do it.

[966] That's all I can do.

[967] That's all I can do.

[968] do.

[969] All you need to know how to say is Quanto quest.

[970] How much is it costs?

[971] How much is the check?

[972] Yeah.

[973] Yeah, because that's what you're doing there.

[974] It's true.

[975] Oh, we into museum.

[976] Okay.

[977] Museums aren't for me. Yeah.

[978] I feel you.

[979] In general, like, I'm not going to go to the museum.

[980] I don't need to go.

[981] My thing with museums is I am a little bit bored and then I feel also like a Philistine.

[982] Sure.

[983] Like everyone else is enjoying something.

[984] I can't.

[985] Yeah.

[986] Like I'm left out of this whole thing.

[987] Yes, that's right.

[988] Like, I'll be a little bored.

[989] You're just more straight bored.

[990] You're not, you don't feel less than or...

[991] Not really, because sometimes I think, like, people are just making it up.

[992] Oh, okay, that's a good thought.

[993] So then we went, though, to this artist who's from San Sebastian.

[994] He's a Spanish artist, and he does sculptures.

[995] And so they had this museum and it was outdoors and had a lot of his sculptures.

[996] It was very cool.

[997] I liked it a lot.

[998] That I would like.

[999] I took a picture by one, a Thomas Price sculpture.

[1000] That's not the artist that was a showcase, but they had one of his sculptures, too.

[1001] And he's an English artist.

[1002] And this girl was looking down at her phone in the sculpture.

[1003] And so I sit next to it and looked down at my phone.

[1004] We took a picture.

[1005] Was it called La Monica?

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] Oh.

[1008] It was.

[1009] How are you doing with the time change?

[1010] Fine.

[1011] I'm still adjusting.

[1012] but it's been fine.

[1013] I'm seven hours ahead of you right now.

[1014] Well, yeah, it's crazy that it's evening for you there.

[1015] Now we're having the reverse of what you and I had when I was there.

[1016] Exactly.

[1017] And it really is the reverse because I was in New York, remember, when we did a lot of ours?

[1018] Yes.

[1019] So East Coast.

[1020] So, okay, something gross, so trigger, I guess, for people.

[1021] Trigger warning.

[1022] So my flies came.

[1023] Oh, congratulations.

[1024] But they were, it's like too many flies.

[1025] It's in one month, you know, because I just had my flies.

[1026] Right, right, right, right.

[1027] Yes.

[1028] I just had them, and then that's when I started my eggs.

[1029] Right.

[1030] And then what happens at yes.

[1031] And you have not returned to birth control either, right?

[1032] Yeah, I'm off the birth control currently.

[1033] I thought when I was leaving my retrieval that they said, don't, you know, there was a lot of, like, scary stuff.

[1034] And one of them is like, you shouldn't get your period.

[1035] Don't go into hot tub.

[1036] Like, you know, don't use tampon.

[1037] And I was confused because I was like, well, if I'm not going to get my period, then why are you even saying the tampon thing?

[1038] I don't understand any of this, but whatever.

[1039] Right, right.

[1040] Yeah, don't wear a raincoat.

[1041] You're like, wait, I'm not going to anywhere with rain.

[1042] But don't wear one in case.

[1043] Exactly.

[1044] So then when I landed in Madrid where my layover was, I had my flies.

[1045] My flies came to Madrid.

[1046] Oh, okay.

[1047] Did anyone in the cabin, like, bring the bell and complain to the stewardess?

[1048] There are flies everywhere.

[1049] No, no. But then I was like panicked because I was like, oh my God, they said this shouldn't happen.

[1050] So now something's like wrong and I'm in Spain and what the fuck.

[1051] So then I emailed and then she was like, no, actually it's fine.

[1052] Actually a week after your trigger shot, you should start your period.

[1053] So this is perfect timing.

[1054] And I was like, oh my God.

[1055] But now I'm on vacation and my flies are here.

[1056] And have Max and Kelly complained about, are you guys sharing a hotel room?

[1057] We're not sharing a room, thank God, because they'd be upset that there's flies everywhere.

[1058] Yeah, but then I was like, oh, and I can't wear tampons.

[1059] She was like, no, you can.

[1060] And I was like, I'm very confused.

[1061] So anyway, I have Spanish tampons.

[1062] Oh, are they better and more organic?

[1063] Are they made from an unbleached cotton?

[1064] They're Tampax.

[1065] Oh, a little good.

[1066] Premier trusted brand.

[1067] But I did buy, oh, you might feel threatened by this.

[1068] Uh -oh.

[1069] Uh -oh.

[1070] I did buy some...

[1071] Non -Hellabella wipes.

[1072] They didn't have them in Spanish.

[1073] Well, you should have the store to order them.

[1074] We didn't have them in Spanish.

[1075] I should have.

[1076] You're right.

[1077] You're right.

[1078] I should have.

[1079] So I bought these Spanish ones.

[1080] And what's the name of them?

[1081] Agua something.

[1082] Oh, that sounds great.

[1083] They're great.

[1084] Oh, fuck.

[1085] Okay, they're better than, they're better than Hello Bella, it sounds like.

[1086] No, I'm not going to say better, but they're great.

[1087] I'm going to bring some back so you guys can touch them and stuff.

[1088] So you guys can touch them and stuff?

[1089] Yeah.

[1090] Put them on the counter and we'll poke at them.

[1091] Some R &D.

[1092] I also bought some strawberry orbit, which felt like something they didn't have in the United States.

[1093] Sure.

[1094] Yeah, that does sound like a one -off, a novel European product.

[1095] But, yeah, we're having so much fun.

[1096] So yesterday, we woke up, we had our free breakfast.

[1097] That's where you get your money back.

[1098] Oh, right.

[1099] Right.

[1100] That's when you stick it to them.

[1101] Free breakfast, I had a soft -boiled egg.

[1102] I thought of you, because, but you had those in New Zealand.

[1103] Right, but I still love a soft -boiled egg.

[1104] I do, too.

[1105] I've decided I want to get some soft -boiled egg cups.

[1106] What is that?

[1107] That's how you prepare one?

[1108] You know how they sit in those little, like, cups?

[1109] Oh, well, the Kiwis just drizzle it all over a salad or whatever other thing you order, right?

[1110] Again, cereal, they're going to put it on top of some frosted flakes.

[1111] They're going to put it in your glass of orange juice.

[1112] It's just going to be everywhere, right?

[1113] Oh, so you've never had it in a little, like, vessel?

[1114] No. Oh, it's so fun.

[1115] So they have it in this little, like, cup, kind of like a little pet.

[1116] pedestal it sits in there in its egg okay beautiful and then you take the little top off and then you use a spoon to eat it oh that's like um french laundry oh you do that at french well they somehow in french laundry they like they saw or dremel the top of the egg off like the top 10 % and somehow the shell's in perfect tack and it's like an it's nature's little bowl yeah exactly that's what's happening at this place?

[1117] Yeah, I think it's pretty common for soft -boiled eggs.

[1118] That's how many people eat them.

[1119] Oh, I'd only seen it there.

[1120] Maybe it's just European.

[1121] Okay.

[1122] Anyway, so I want those.

[1123] I'm going to get you something for your birthday because it's your birthday.

[1124] No, my birthday's over.

[1125] What would you call those?

[1126] Great question.

[1127] Soft -boiled egg cups.

[1128] Oh, okay, great.

[1129] That's pretty intuitive.

[1130] What is the cuisine?

[1131] It's Spanish tapas?

[1132] Um, I don't say tapas.

[1133] Isn't that their thing there?

[1134] Tapas?

[1135] Yeah, but in San Sebastian, they have pinches.

[1136] Oh, what are pinches?

[1137] Instead of tapas.

[1138] And it's really cool.

[1139] It's like you go into town and all the places basically have like these like cases of food.

[1140] And you walk in and you're like, I'll have that little risotto and I'll have that little like croquette and I'll have this.

[1141] and it's small, you take it, you eat it, and then you go to the next place.

[1142] But no, no, no, you don't sit down, really.

[1143] Oh, you're like, you have like, kind of.

[1144] You have like a few bites, and then you have a cider, and then you go to the next place and you have some other bites, and you go to that.

[1145] It's so fun.

[1146] It's a pub crawl, but with snackies.

[1147] Exactly.

[1148] Wow, what a novel, incredible thing.

[1149] And they have this special cheesecake that you can only get here.

[1150] Is it damn?

[1151] Is it running?

[1152] It is runny.

[1153] Yeah, it's so good.

[1154] You'd love it.

[1155] Anyway, it's delicious.

[1156] It's been so great.

[1157] And then today we had another amazing meal.

[1158] Already.

[1159] Uh -huh, for lunch.

[1160] Because it's five here.

[1161] Yeah, it's five more.

[1162] Yeah, and it's at this place called El Cano.

[1163] They're known for this giant grilled fish, and they grill it in these baskets.

[1164] And then you come out, and it's this whole fish.

[1165] and then they like slice it up for you and stuff.

[1166] And it was so good.

[1167] Fit?

[1168] Well, you love your fish.

[1169] It didn't stink up.

[1170] I love fish, but it didn't stink.

[1171] Okay.

[1172] Don't the Spaniards, aren't they doing the siesta in the middle of the day?

[1173] Did you, have you noticed that?

[1174] And then they go out really late like Josh Hutcherson was saying.

[1175] And also have you bumped into Josh Hutcherson?

[1176] I've looked.

[1177] I've kept my eyes up here.

[1178] Like your camping trip.

[1179] Yeah, exactly.

[1180] Okay.

[1181] I have it run into him It's so beautiful It's just everywhere you look It's a postcard Is it by any water?

[1182] Yeah, do you want to see something?

[1183] Hold on Yes Holy smokes Oh my gosh Can you see it?

[1184] Oh my gosh What a reveal What a reveal I had no clue that was behind you I know because I wanted to keep the curtains closed For sound but But it's just so pretty.

[1185] Oh, my God, that's your, is the door wide open?

[1186] It's closed right now.

[1187] Oh, it is?

[1188] Where are the seams for it?

[1189] I'm right.

[1190] Oh, I can't tell from here.

[1191] There.

[1192] Oh, my gosh, you're in the presidential suite.

[1193] I'm not.

[1194] Oh, my God.

[1195] I know.

[1196] Can you hear me?

[1197] Hello?

[1198] Can you hear me?

[1199] Oh.

[1200] Hello?

[1201] I can't hear you nor see you.

[1202] Now I can't hear you.

[1203] Can you hear you?

[1204] Yes, everything is not.

[1205] Now I can see you and hear you.

[1206] Oh, yeah, yoy.

[1207] That got so scary.

[1208] What do you think happened?

[1209] I don't know.

[1210] Stuff keeps happening.

[1211] Stuff is happening.

[1212] Well, big update from the road.

[1213] Aaron hurt his knee incredibly bad.

[1214] No, what happened?

[1215] Okay, so the first day we got here, we unloaded the bus.

[1216] and unloaded the motorcycles, and we were zipping around this property.

[1217] It's like a horse farm.

[1218] And then we rode them down to the river, and then there was a tiny little path along the river that I was able to get the little dirt bike down, but Aaron smartly decided to park the motorcycle and then walk down.

[1219] Okay.

[1220] And then we swam in the Colorado River.

[1221] It was suspiciously warm.

[1222] Like, we were like, and this feels a little hot for a river.

[1223] Like, is it, you know, bacteria -laden, blah, blah, blah.

[1224] Anyways, when Aaron was walking down the path, it was like clay on the steep bank, he fell and he heard a loud pop in his knee.

[1225] Oh, no. Yeah, so day one, he just kind of powered through it.

[1226] We went to dinner that night, and he kind of ignored it.

[1227] And then when he woke up the next morning, he was fucked.

[1228] He's like, I don't think I can walk.

[1229] I think I need surgery.

[1230] So we had to go get crutches.

[1231] Wait, you're talking about in Austin then.

[1232] Mm -hmm.

[1233] Just like three days ago.

[1234] Oh, no. So we had to go find crutches at CVS.

[1235] We had to go to three of them, but we found crutches.

[1236] So then two days ago, we went with him on crutches to Barton Springs.

[1237] We were there for several hours, and I had to help my young son with his crutches down the cement stairs so he could get to the water.

[1238] And then we swam in an area of Barton Springs.

[1239] I'd never swam in the shallow end so that Aaron could be in the shallow end.

[1240] so he soaked in there we did more stuff but limited and then yesterday morning i woke up and i like i got to let him off the hook and just say like you're free to go home don't feel any pressure to stay here with your me miserable but then after the um medicinal waters of barton springs yesterday he was still very fucked up he might need surgery still but he was able to get around way better yesterday and um he was able to walk without his crutch And we went to back to Barton Springs, and he was able to go in the deep end and more medicinal healing.

[1241] Oh, good.

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] And then we watched the incredible F1 race in Spa.

[1244] And if you were impressed a few weeks ago when Max had started in 10th and finished third or something.

[1245] Well, Max started in 14th yesterday because of grid penalties for a new engine or some mechanical penalty started in 14th at the end of lap 1 he was in 8th place by lap 14 he was leading the race and he won the he won the race by 20 seconds over Perez in like a full minute over the other guys it was it was bonkers it was one of the most determined head and shoulders better than everyone it was incredible that's awesome there's no you know there's no discounting that.

[1246] What are you going to say?

[1247] Yeah.

[1248] The dude started in 14th and he ran away with the race.

[1249] It was something to witness.

[1250] That's incredible.

[1251] I'm sad about Aaron.

[1252] Poor Aaron.

[1253] Yeah.

[1254] The only upside of Aaron being hurt is now I can really care for him.

[1255] Oh, are you enjoying that?

[1256] Oh, another thing you might like is that after he had slid on the clay when he got in the river, I was told him, you know, you have a lot of mud on your back.

[1257] Let me wash your back off.

[1258] So I was washing his back in a river, which was very similar to that movie we saw.

[1259] RR