A quick warning.
There are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show.
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
My grandfather Melvin ran a hardware store in Baltimore that also sold model trains.
And he had a huge, and I mean huge, train set in the basement of his house on Pimlico Road that I loved.
This thing was vast with tunnels and bridges and towns and street lights that lit.
And the train engines puffed smoke as they scooted around the track on this big wooden platform in the basement in the middle of all this epic amount of clutter and junk and its tools, and for some reason, a mimeograph machine.
And in the corner of the basement was the filthiest toilet I had ever seen.
Like, frighteningly dirty.
To me, as a little suburban kid, the whole basement was a chamber of chaos.
And it was the most unsettlingly chaotic thing in it.
But that is not the story I'm here to tell.
The story I'm here to tell is about Melvin and one of his sisters.
Hello, Uncle Bennett.
Yes, you got it.
To be sure I was getting the facts absolutely right on this thing, I called the last person in the family who might remember it, my Uncle Bennett.
He was at home.
Wait, hold it for one second.
Yeah, we'll do.
Yeah, yeah.