Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in today. As you know we are. We are
Speaker 1: big fans of presidential trivia, obscure presidential facts, more untold,
Speaker 1: and dare I say, ridiculous stories throughout the history of
Speaker 1: this fine nation of ours. I'm ben these here, United
Speaker 1: States been the very same me being null, all things
Speaker 1: being equal? Yes, yes, and where would we be without
Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegraham. Let's give it up for
Speaker 1: him and long time listeners. You may recall that in
Speaker 1: our most recent presidential episode, we explored the story of
Speaker 1: George Washington's little known but incredibly formative adventures in Barbados.
Speaker 1: Short time listeners, even that was only like three episodes ago.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, I wonder let us know if you're
Speaker 1: if you actually listen to these in order, if you
Speaker 1: just jump around and you're like, I don't know, April seventeen,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a winner. You're really missing out if
Speaker 1: you aren't doing in order, because there is continuity here,
Speaker 1: my friends, they're a little easter eggs. Were building a
Speaker 1: world here. You we're building. Yeah, the the r h
Speaker 1: CU exactly. But if you will recall from that earlier episode,
Speaker 1: and also, I don't remember whether our show is around
Speaker 1: in April, of it's possible we've Yeah, this is impossible
Speaker 1: information to find. It's just lost to the sands of time.
Speaker 1: So casey on the case. What about that new sound cute?
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. Uh, the other one was getting a
Speaker 1: little too expensive. So yeah, Wolf, Dick Wolf sent us
Speaker 1: a season desist finally. Yeah, that guys like the sugar
Speaker 1: Knight of daytime procedural name. Dick Wolf. It's an amazing name.
Speaker 1: Speaking of amazing names, if you tuned into our episode
Speaker 1: on George Washington, Barbados, you'll recall that we did not uh,
Speaker 1: we did not sally fourth into that story alone. We
Speaker 1: were joined by a good friend of ours, friend of
Speaker 1: the show, our research associate, Ryan Barrish, and Ryan is
Speaker 1: here today in this episode as well. Ryan, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming back, man, Yeah, thanks for having me back, guys, dude,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure. And I have to I have to
Speaker 1: paint a picture here. Ryan is wearing an amazing tidye
Speaker 1: right now that says spent a little time in the
Speaker 1: mountain fulsome Field, Boulder, Colorado, July five and six, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Is this some sort of hippie concert? Is just a
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead situation? Yeah? It was the um last Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead concert or Dead and Company concert on this tour.
Speaker 1: Oh nice? Did you go? I didn't. I was invited
Speaker 1: to go for Andrew's batch, probably a mutual friend of ours,
Speaker 1: Andrew whose last name was escaping me. He does shirts
Speaker 1: for all kinds of Bandsire Weekend and and the Dead
Speaker 1: and Company. So you said, I'm not gonna go, but
Speaker 1: give me the shirt. I hope your marriage works out. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically you're more of a fair weather Dead fan, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's the way they called dead heads deadheads? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's right, not to be confused with parrot heads, which
Speaker 1: is fans of Jimmy Buffett or gives heads heads, the
Speaker 1: King Giz and the Liz Wiz. Um. I actually saw.
Speaker 1: I was in Los Angeles recently, uh, and I saw
Speaker 1: John Mayer at a restaurant and he is devilishly handsome.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. I mean I would love to
Speaker 1: look like that when I'm like forty. Apparently very problematic
Speaker 1: character though well. Also just in defense of anybody who
Speaker 1: has felt the same way, or like if you've ever
Speaker 1: looked at the celebrity and thought, wow, they look great
Speaker 1: for their age and all that stuff. In in your
Speaker 1: defense yours, Ryan and yours, not that you need to
Speaker 1: casey and everyone listening, keep in mind those people have
Speaker 1: teams of folks who are paid as like a paid
Speaker 1: a living wage to only worry about, you know, that
Speaker 1: person's teeth or that person's skin care. They're weird, you know,
Speaker 1: ward like do we keep it is a good pr
Speaker 1: do we get rid of it? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So there's an army behind that. And speaking of weird segues,
Speaker 1: we so often think of enormously influential historical figures, you know,
Speaker 1: popes and prime ministers and presidents and so on, as
Speaker 1: these sort of standalone episodes of human history, right, But
Speaker 1: as we saw with George Washington, and as we've seen
Speaker 1: with every historical figure, once you dig a little deeper,
Speaker 1: they are the results or sort of an aggregate in
Speaker 1: many ways, of all the amazing people and experiences they
Speaker 1: had before they became you know, the lauded individual they're
Speaker 1: known as today, like Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter indeed, and
Speaker 1: I've always easily been an interesting figure here to me
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you as well, Ben, because he looms
Speaker 1: large here in our fair city of Atlanta, Georgia. We
Speaker 1: have the Carter Center, which apparently has a lovely KOI
Speaker 1: pond behind it. I just found out. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: It looks like Casey had some experience with that. I
Speaker 1: would take good makeout spot, Yeah, I would take. I
Speaker 1: would take a date there, especially if I really liked
Speaker 1: or would go out to this this neat, little kind
Speaker 1: of hidden garden. It's got a great view of the
Speaker 1: city if you're ever in town. And also they don't
Speaker 1: charge you to just go there with a picnic back, right,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a cool little jim if you ever
Speaker 1: want to have a learning experience. And Ryan you actually
Speaker 1: you've done some work there, right, Yeah, you know, in
Speaker 1: addition to being the Presidential Library and COI Pond and
Speaker 1: also a great farmers market, they have a very large
Speaker 1: presidential archive for President Carter's work and his foundation's work,
Speaker 1: and it actually has the archive of most of those
Speaker 1: family members as well. I think he's almost more famous
Speaker 1: for his you know, his foundation than he has as
Speaker 1: doing a great job as being president, right, Yeah, he had.
Speaker 1: His presidency was not one of the most successful ones.
Speaker 1: It is divisive even in Georgia to talk about his
Speaker 1: time in office. We see him as kind of a philanthropist,
Speaker 1: someone working for human rights. Him and Rosalind Carter have
Speaker 1: a great organization UM. And it's housed actually at the
Speaker 1: house that General Sherman took over when he sees Atlanta, UM,
Speaker 1: so it's a pretty prominent part of Atlanta's while you
Speaker 1: have the great view of downtown. So that was a
Speaker 1: complete non sequitur. But what we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: is related to the military and kind of the reason
Speaker 1: behind Jimmy Carter's idea or desire to join the United
Speaker 1: States Navy. He was actually inspired by his his uncle
Speaker 1: on his mother's side. UM, Thomas Watson Gordy not the
Speaker 1: populist senator slash presidential candidate from Georgia, Thomas Watson, who
Speaker 1: he was named after. I would have thought that immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, I don't know that is you're like always
Speaker 1: working Thomas Watson, the populist Georgist. But we're recording this
Speaker 1: on a special day because it is Thomas Watson Gordy's
Speaker 1: birthday today, so he would have been a hundred in
Speaker 1: let's to the birthday math. I think it's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he was from a large family, had eight total children.
Speaker 1: He was I said before President Jimmy Carter's mother was
Speaker 1: one of them. But when he was married and was
Speaker 1: starting young family, it was in the middle of the
Speaker 1: Great Depression, so he was looking to provide for his
Speaker 1: family during the difficult time and what he did in
Speaker 1: order to do that was enroll in the Navy. It's
Speaker 1: something that a lot of young men did at this
Speaker 1: period because you couldn't really see the world. There wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and the military ensured a comfortable living.
Speaker 1: You know, people still do that to this day, or
Speaker 1: at least kids I grew up with who didn't do
Speaker 1: super well in high school and wanted to see the world,
Speaker 1: didn't have any money to join the navy, you know,
Speaker 1: join the military. Yeah, definitely. I think, um, the military,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, is a good a good thing to
Speaker 1: help you experience different cultures, to travel, and to be
Speaker 1: stationed abroad. So this is something that entice Gordy to
Speaker 1: do this. Um in addition to having the young children
Speaker 1: and wife. Back home, he would send postcards to his family,
Speaker 1: not just his immediate family, but his sister and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter would read these postcards and it was something that
Speaker 1: got him thinking about actually starting his own naval career.
Speaker 1: At this point, I think he was in his late teens,
Speaker 1: getting ready to graduate high school. So um, these cards
Speaker 1: kind of arrived at a time when he was eligible
Speaker 1: to enlist in the military. So we talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit off air, and one thing that I
Speaker 1: found fascinating here was that not only have uh none
Speaker 1: of us, including Casey, heard of Thomas Watson Gordy before,
Speaker 1: but a lot of our listeners, even those who consider
Speaker 1: themselves fairly uh well well read Jimmy Carter Buffs specifically,
Speaker 1: may not know that much about Thomas Watson Gordy because
Speaker 1: he's kind of hard to search for and you had
Speaker 1: to do some real digging to learn about this guy. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at best you'll see Gordy's name come up, maybe in
Speaker 1: a memoir or a biography about Jimmy Carter. In reference
Speaker 1: to his political campaign, he used it a lot on
Speaker 1: the campaign trail um to explain kind of as an
Speaker 1: anecdote as as to why he joined the military, and also,
Speaker 1: as we'll find out later, as kind of a tale
Speaker 1: of forgiveness and um and redemptions. So he references him
Speaker 1: almost as this like mythic figure, almost like a parable.
Speaker 1: But there isn't a lot of information. If you do
Speaker 1: a search on on Tom Watson Gordy, at best you
Speaker 1: come up with sort of genealogy websites and and kind
Speaker 1: of obituary pages. Did that about ten minutes ago, came
Speaker 1: up with nothing. Yeah, he's um. He's not well known,
Speaker 1: but fortunately he at least set the groundwork for him
Speaker 1: to become well known because while he was UM, once
Speaker 1: he had returned so spoiler, he does return, he created
Speaker 1: a pretty detailed manuscript um telling his time. He was
Speaker 1: also able to keep a diary while he was abroad,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty odd, as you'll find out, because while
Speaker 1: he was stationed abroad, it was a time where he
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily have the most freedom. I gotta ask you, Ryan,
Speaker 1: Um this being a sort of a deep, deep historical cut,
Speaker 1: what was it the fascinating you about this guy that
Speaker 1: made you kind of want to like dig in and
Speaker 1: find out everything he could about him? One of my
Speaker 1: hobbies is is locating someone or a piece of history
Speaker 1: that hasn't really been explored. So I was working with
Speaker 1: one of my professors who talked about Jimmy Carter's archives
Speaker 1: and mentioned that there's a lot of just familiar content.
Speaker 1: So there's there's pages and pages of of different family members,
Speaker 1: personal belongings in this archive. So I started speaking with
Speaker 1: the head archivists there and I just asked if you
Speaker 1: had if you had any diaries or manuscripts or something
Speaker 1: on kind of an auxiliary family member. And it was
Speaker 1: fortunate that it ended up being someone that that did
Speaker 1: play a role in Jimmy Carter's life, but also someone
Speaker 1: who kind of has a big thruway in kind of
Speaker 1: mid century America. His his life wasn't uncommon compared to
Speaker 1: many veterans of the Pacific Theater, and his life was
Speaker 1: also very parallel with just the changing time. Because something
Speaker 1: I find so fascinating about mid century history UM is
Speaker 1: existing during a period like the Great Depression and also
Speaker 1: existing during the nineteen sixties. Those two periods are completely different. UM.
Speaker 1: They're filled with despair and poverty and then excess and
Speaker 1: kind of new budding technology. I think that's a really
Speaker 1: in insting time to have have been alive, um, being
Speaker 1: born before television, right, and then living to see someone
Speaker 1: land on the Moon. There's there's a very dense amount
Speaker 1: of progress in those in those eras. And also, I mean,
Speaker 1: like this, this story is about to veer into some
Speaker 1: pretty fun, ridiculous, heroic kind of territory right now too.
Speaker 1: Like this guy, it was, on the one hand, sort
Speaker 1: of a case study in like what a life like
Speaker 1: this might have been. But he he got into some
Speaker 1: interesting hijas, didn't he. Yeah, the journal that he wrote
Speaker 1: it started just a few days before the Japanese invaded
Speaker 1: Guam and took prisoners. So this happened the day after
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, so there was almost no no knowledge, no
Speaker 1: information had made it to Guam yet. And when Gordy
Speaker 1: and his comrades were I guess that's communist. That's fine,
Speaker 1: it's I think it's a word they don't own. Because
Speaker 1: his brothers and brothers and his pals, yeah, his his
Speaker 1: brothers in arms. They they were looking around and they
Speaker 1: noticed the Japanese military coming on to the island from
Speaker 1: from multiple ports of entry, and Gordy and his his
Speaker 1: friend they were an operator of like a radio operator communications,
Speaker 1: so they would have been the first to know, but
Speaker 1: at this point they hadn't gotten information. There was no
Speaker 1: expectation that they would see any military action because to
Speaker 1: this point the Pacific theater was void of any real
Speaker 1: Western interference. So it was basically Asian countries in Russia
Speaker 1: kind of fighting amongst themselves. They had formed kind of
Speaker 1: this normal life, and I think that this ability to
Speaker 1: form a normal life in a in a foreign country
Speaker 1: brought them a sort of comfort. They you know, they
Speaker 1: were experiencing new people, new cultures, new drinks, um, new food.
Speaker 1: It was a constant change that they were experiencing. But
Speaker 1: it was a really calm experience until the day that
Speaker 1: the Japanese came on to the island and started taking
Speaker 1: the prisoners. December, correct, Yeah, and um, right before that,
Speaker 1: I think a day or two before the the capture
Speaker 1: takes place. Gordy rights in his diary that his one
Speaker 1: regret was that he didn't mail the money order in
Speaker 1: time for the holidays. He was looking to buy a
Speaker 1: bicycle for his his youngest son and had not sent
Speaker 1: the money in order for his wife to buy it
Speaker 1: in time for Christmas Day, So you can see how
Speaker 1: he had kind of developed this routine of normalcy on
Speaker 1: the island. It was almost like having a job in
Speaker 1: a in a different city. But um ironically, the first
Speaker 1: time that he encountered the Japanese, what he noticed was
Speaker 1: his bicycle was outside the house, and the Japanese were
Speaker 1: looking at it. And that's what hinted them that somebody
Speaker 1: was still stationed there. Right Because as you had established
Speaker 1: before when you were when you were doing the research here,
Speaker 1: the Japanese, these forces found a surreal Twilight Zone esque situation.
Speaker 1: They were searching for Americans that survived earlier bombings, and
Speaker 1: when they came to the area, the camp was a
Speaker 1: ghost town, right, like everything except for with those little
Speaker 1: dust devils that blew across main street. Yes, yeah, they're everything,
Speaker 1: but the tumbleweeds. This this is a spooky situation. But
Speaker 1: they're walking by these residencies, these dorms essentially, and they
Speaker 1: see this pretty well maintained bicycle and what happens now,
Speaker 1: So one of the Japanese soldiers actually steals the bike
Speaker 1: and rides away on it. At this point, I think
Speaker 1: that Gordy realizes he cannot escape the Japanese. He now
Speaker 1: has lost his only mode of transportation, and at best
Speaker 1: of bicycle against whatever soldiers might have with would hardly
Speaker 1: stand a chance. So he convinced his housemate to surrender peacefully.
Speaker 1: He explained to his housemaid that it would be better
Speaker 1: for us to take a chance and turn in. They
Speaker 1: weren't combative soldiers, so they weren't necessarily equipped to the
Speaker 1: stage any sort of large, large coup or anything like that. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess not cool resistance, and so as the as
Speaker 1: the Japanese came by, they surrendered by walking out of
Speaker 1: the house with their hands raised. Gordon's main priority at
Speaker 1: this time, though, was to sneak cigarettes and his diary
Speaker 1: with him, so those were things that he hid and
Speaker 1: in his friend's socks. He hid the cigarettes, he had
Speaker 1: the diary in his clothes, and they walked out. Um
Speaker 1: They were driven to a plaza which which housed the hospital,
Speaker 1: where they were asked to remove their shirts and searched. Somehow,
Speaker 1: they didn't find the cigarettes or the diary in the
Speaker 1: socks or the or the pants, but they were basically,
Speaker 1: you know, left without anything any person belonging short of
Speaker 1: those two and the the po ws in the Japanese
Speaker 1: situation this time did not enjoy much in the ways
Speaker 1: of like international conventions like Geneva conventions, things like treatment
Speaker 1: of the captured in wartime. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: these guys are the very bottom of the social hierarchy, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: They Japanese customs typically don't involve taking prisoners. So in
Speaker 1: their military code, you want to fight until your last breath,
Speaker 1: and um, you never want to think about surrendering to
Speaker 1: the enemy. It's almost a perplexing thought to surrender. In Japan,
Speaker 1: they are taught to fight until until they passed away.
Speaker 1: So I mean they're if they're even shamed in any
Speaker 1: I mean, like at least in the old you know,
Speaker 1: feudal feudal Japan days, in the samurai, I mean, they
Speaker 1: would commit ritual suicide in front of everybody if they
Speaker 1: were defeated in some way or like, you know, to
Speaker 1: shame their family. I mean, that was absolutely part of
Speaker 1: their culture. It makes sense, yeah, and we see it
Speaker 1: even later with things like kamakaze pilots. So it's relatively
Speaker 1: odd to have kind of accept a peaceful surrender and
Speaker 1: accept prisoners, because if you are fighting a war, it's
Speaker 1: also just another thing to consider, how are we going
Speaker 1: to take care of them? How are they going to
Speaker 1: house them? So what we see is Gordy and his
Speaker 1: fellow captured UM prisoners. They are taken to a hospital
Speaker 1: in Guam. Hospital can kind of act as a as
Speaker 1: a makeshift prison based on the way it's set up,
Speaker 1: but there there isn't really an infrastructure set up to
Speaker 1: take care of these prisoners. We see a lot of abuse.
Speaker 1: Gordy describes an instance of being punched with a belt
Speaker 1: buckle while brushing his teeth. Um, he doesn't really it
Speaker 1: makes me cringe. Yeah, it's probably on the bottom of
Speaker 1: list of things to any any teeth things, there are
Speaker 1: always a real red flag for me. Um. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: there was all kinds of other mistreatment that he witnessed
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. I mean the hospitals did have nice rooms,
Speaker 1: but they removed all the beds. So that's just one
Speaker 1: aspect of this kind of prison environment that the Japanese
Speaker 1: we're looking to create. They stayed in this hospit battle
Speaker 1: for about two days before they moved to a Catholic
Speaker 1: church where food was even more limited. So they had
Speaker 1: been receiving two meals of ping pong sized potatoes and
Speaker 1: a slice of bologna. Less than a month later, Gordy
Speaker 1: had written that they were they were boarding a ship
Speaker 1: and this kind of signaled the end of freedom for him. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was leaving the country that he started to feel
Speaker 1: at home in over the past few years, and now
Speaker 1: he's headed to a foreign country for an uncertain amount
Speaker 1: of time. Out of the frying pan, into the fire,
Speaker 1: or perhaps we should say out of the frying pan,
Speaker 1: onto the hibachi. Right, they take these po ws to Japan,
Speaker 1: where things get worse and worse. And this this is
Speaker 1: interesting because I was looking through some of your research
Speaker 1: on this, right, and I noticed, like you said at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, in his diary he list
Speaker 1: he keep track of things like his income, and he
Speaker 1: continues to do this in the Japanese prison. But we're
Speaker 1: still I don't know. We have some speculation on what
Speaker 1: he was doing. Most a lot of people in prison
Speaker 1: don't have a job like that. Yeah, it is odd
Speaker 1: that he was able to notate we still receiving income,
Speaker 1: and um, it appeared that he was able to work
Speaker 1: for different people, maybe doing odd jobs and bonus jobs
Speaker 1: within the prison. The conditions in Japan were as you
Speaker 1: can expect, poor. They didn't have prison set up. They're
Speaker 1: only source of heat was actually a small habachi made
Speaker 1: of ceramics that he wasn't really able to keep the
Speaker 1: prisoners warm. It kind of just turned into a cause
Speaker 1: of of actual physical headaches from all the carbon monoxide
Speaker 1: that was coming from the habbachi's There's also sanitation issues, um,
Speaker 1: things like a long slit cut in the floor that
Speaker 1: was just the toilet. But despite the livings, he does
Speaker 1: note that that he is being paid. He doesn't state
Speaker 1: where it comes from, but based on based on reading
Speaker 1: that um, that journal that he wrote, and also I
Speaker 1: was able to find some books of people who were
Speaker 1: actually captured in Guam at the same time as him,
Speaker 1: and they note that they were able to work small
Speaker 1: jobs or work extra hours, um, whether it was farming
Speaker 1: or manufacturing, to earn a little bit of extra money.
Speaker 1: So I would assume his his situation is the same.
Speaker 1: But he does talk about creating a sort of a
Speaker 1: barter system by stockpiling cigarettes and later selling or trading them.
Speaker 1: That also is likely a source of income that he
Speaker 1: had by um, you know, kind of hoarding cigarettes as
Speaker 1: he had them and using them as a kind of
Speaker 1: a leverage tool later on that allowed him to gain
Speaker 1: a little bit of power kind of in the in
Speaker 1: the prison socio economic life. He was able to swap
Speaker 1: and buy things in secret. And it was also, like
Speaker 1: I said, possible, he's being paid on his table, like, um,
Speaker 1: he could he cook for Japanese officers who didn't feel
Speaker 1: like cooking for themselves. That seemed to be a job
Speaker 1: that some prisoners were able to do to earn some
Speaker 1: money kind of in secret. Now at this time, he
Speaker 1: was still allowed to send and receive mail. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: I don't believe so, okay, because I know he would
Speaker 1: write letters sort of as addressed to his family, but
Speaker 1: they weren't actually going anywhere, right, Yeah, he had. He'd
Speaker 1: write in his journal little letters that never were removed
Speaker 1: from his journal. They were just kind of kept in
Speaker 1: there um as a way to feel like he was
Speaker 1: communicating possibly. And what is odd around this time, his
Speaker 1: family was actually notified that that he was likely dead
Speaker 1: by the Red Cross. So with that absence and communication
Speaker 1: from him and that notification, his family back home was
Speaker 1: starting to well most likely feared the worst. They were
Speaker 1: presuming him dead. And we're looking at, you know, moving
Speaker 1: on with with their life, which is pretty difficult. While
Speaker 1: Gordy was still kind of doing the repetitive days in
Speaker 1: the prison, which started to mess with him physically and mentally.
Speaker 1: He was eating the same thing every day, he was
Speaker 1: working on farms and in steel factories. He didn't know
Speaker 1: when it would end, if it would end, if he
Speaker 1: would live to see it end. And I think that
Speaker 1: lack of hope was kind of making it difficult for him,
Speaker 1: especially around Christmas, which again if you remember at the
Speaker 1: top of the podcast, we talked about him trying or
Speaker 1: forgetting to send a money order to his wife for
Speaker 1: a bicycle. Well, this Christmas marked about a year since
Speaker 1: he'd been held captive, and he was he missed writing
Speaker 1: letters to his family, but he uh in his notebook
Speaker 1: he would write and there about how guilty he felt
Speaker 1: about missing the important events. If you look in the calendar,
Speaker 1: and we'll post some images of of his calendar, he'll
Speaker 1: notate all the birthdays he misses, and it's it's really
Speaker 1: sad to see. He also notates medical issues. He has
Speaker 1: um teeth, he law, all sort of sorts of interesting
Speaker 1: things on there. One interesting thing that he did keep
Speaker 1: in his calendar. Was he would not take me shaved
Speaker 1: his his beard, and at for a while he actually
Speaker 1: had a beard growth count that he was he was
Speaker 1: working on. Growing out of beard became a little bit
Speaker 1: of a distraction for him, and whenever he was asked
Speaker 1: to shave his beard, he would typically write about it
Speaker 1: in his journal and express some some frustration that they
Speaker 1: were trying to take away one thing that he can control.
Speaker 1: So he was trying to create some sort of rhythm
Speaker 1: and meaning for himself and his life and through writing
Speaker 1: in this journal and keeping a calendar, but the days
Speaker 1: were still strenuous, um and you know, the diary provided
Speaker 1: some relief, but it really it was kind of a
Speaker 1: small thing in the in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: Of course, he also wrote about revenge fantasies, right, and
Speaker 1: hopes for hopes for retribution. Yeah, if you recall when
Speaker 1: he was captured, he convinced his housemate to go peacefully,
Speaker 1: so he really didn't have a violent streak or an
Speaker 1: aggressive streak it it appeared before being captured. But towards
Speaker 1: the end of his journal, you start to see things
Speaker 1: like him saying that he would like to watch them
Speaker 1: die or be the one that kills them. He starts
Speaker 1: to talk about about in in pretty physical Lee grew
Speaker 1: someome detail or very specific detail about how he would
Speaker 1: like to harm them. Yeah, I mean I can relate
Speaker 1: to that. Sure, that's long. How long was he in
Speaker 1: prison total at this point? It was at this point
Speaker 1: when he starts writing it about it, it's about a year.
Speaker 1: That's enough. I don't know I'd make it that long
Speaker 1: without thinking some pretty pretty uh impure thoughts about what
Speaker 1: I want to do to the folks that were like
Speaker 1: torturing me and making me sleep on the floor and
Speaker 1: you know, all of this stuff. It just seems very
Speaker 1: very very awful. Thank you years more than enough, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And if I'm sure we have
Speaker 1: people listening now who have kept journals and diaries who
Speaker 1: are not in uh military prison situation, right, and they
Speaker 1: probably already have some some pretty heartfelt, uh graphic angry
Speaker 1: things in their own life experience during peacetime. It was
Speaker 1: interesting to me Ryan the story of Miyasaki, who was
Speaker 1: like one of the big bads for Gordy at least. Yeah, Miyasaki,
Speaker 1: who was actually the person who punched Gordy with the
Speaker 1: belt buckle, earlier, while brushing his teeth, he is uh.
Speaker 1: He's brought up a couple of times throughout this journal.
Speaker 1: One time he writes that I hope he gets killed
Speaker 1: in the first air rate here, and I hope that
Speaker 1: I will be here to see it. So that kind
Speaker 1: of gives you an example of he not only wants
Speaker 1: wishes death upon him, but he also would like to
Speaker 1: witness it, which is I think, to me, the the
Speaker 1: ultimate uh disdain for somebody. And what's really interesting is
Speaker 1: that Donald Giles, who's the author of Captive of a
Speaker 1: Rising Sun, which is his memoir um that he wrote
Speaker 1: while being captured with Gordy, he doesn't mention Gordy specifically
Speaker 1: in a book, but it's really interesting because they mentioned
Speaker 1: a lot of the same characters. So while they may
Speaker 1: not have been necessarily close enough to write about each other,
Speaker 1: they were having a shared experience within this prison. Again,
Speaker 1: like we said, he was really noncombative. He was, he
Speaker 1: was willfully surrendering to them. Now he's moved towards wishing
Speaker 1: death upon Japanese guards. Yeah, this is weird too because
Speaker 1: we can kind of see this inner world that has
Speaker 1: been constructed, right because whenever people are isolated from the
Speaker 1: larger world. We sort of conform to the size of
Speaker 1: our container, right in every sense of the words. So
Speaker 1: he's monitoring things as closely as he can so he
Speaker 1: doesn't get lost in the sameness and the routine. And
Speaker 1: one thing it's fascinating here is, like many people who
Speaker 1: are imprisoned, he is trying ardently to learn any news
Speaker 1: of the larger world, right, and he figures out some
Speaker 1: ways to do this. But it's not as simple as
Speaker 1: you know, hopping on a phone or hopping on a computer,
Speaker 1: reading a newspaper. Even he has to kind of guess
Speaker 1: based on the changing behavior of what the guards, the authorities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would often assume that the way that he's being treated,
Speaker 1: if he's being treated positively, it meant that it's possible
Speaker 1: that the Americans were winning, that the Japanese keeping him
Speaker 1: captive might be coming to an end, And as he's
Speaker 1: being treated worse, he would assume the opposite, so that
Speaker 1: the Japanese were winning the Pacific theater kind of towards
Speaker 1: the end, close to his release, he actually writes that
Speaker 1: he says, my god, we must be winning the war.
Speaker 1: Because there was one day where he went to a
Speaker 1: concert that they held there. He had free cigarettes and
Speaker 1: a large meal, which was definitely not the common situation
Speaker 1: for him in the prison. Let's cut back to the
Speaker 1: good old us of a let's go across the pond.
Speaker 1: I believe earlier you said that, uh, many of Gordon's
Speaker 1: relatives were convinced that he was dead and that was
Speaker 1: based off the uh, the estimation of the Red Cross. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they were unable to verify whether he was taken,
Speaker 1: captive or killed in a previous bombing raid, so that
Speaker 1: he was assumed dead by the Red Cross. This had
Speaker 1: an impact on multiple members of his family. Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 1: it kind of was the final nail in the coffin,
Speaker 1: I guess, or the final thing that made him decide
Speaker 1: to enlisten the Navy because he wanted to honor his
Speaker 1: uncle who had paid the ultimate sacrifice during his time
Speaker 1: in the military, or so he believed at the time.
Speaker 1: World War two is still going strong. So at seventeen
Speaker 1: he had listed um which was definitely a major life
Speaker 1: change and is something the sailor identity is is actually
Speaker 1: something that was really important to Jimmy Carter in the
Speaker 1: early part of his life as far as the rest
Speaker 1: of his family goes. His wife getting the news that
Speaker 1: her husband had died with her two young children. She
Speaker 1: was living in San Francisco, across the country from family
Speaker 1: that can help, so she moved back to Rule Georgia
Speaker 1: to be close to Tom's family and the Carters as well.
Speaker 1: She was living there for a little while until she
Speaker 1: found out that he was confirmed or supposedly confirmed dead.
Speaker 1: So from the time he left the time he found out,
Speaker 1: she was spending the time in Georgia. But once she
Speaker 1: found out he was dead, she decided to move back
Speaker 1: to San Francisco and try to continue her life there
Speaker 1: where she actually got remarried um and started a new life. Now,
Speaker 1: as you guys know, he does return home, so this,
Speaker 1: this remarriage kind of sets up an awkward situation. So
Speaker 1: upon his return, he weighed less than a hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: so obviously it had taken a toll on him. Dorothy.
Speaker 1: When she found out he came home, she offered to
Speaker 1: annul her current marriage, which is I don't know, how
Speaker 1: do you guys feel about that. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a nice thought, yeah, but that's that some things can't
Speaker 1: be mended. It's a little, too little, too late in
Speaker 1: a situation I think, right, Yeah, it feels like maybe
Speaker 1: she was doing what she thought was the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, many in the in the Carter family,
Speaker 1: I thought she got married too soon. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a common thing that they they blame his his
Speaker 1: first wife, Dorothy with with contributing to his mental anguish
Speaker 1: and depression that he experienced in the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: While Jimmy Carter actually spoke about this on the campaign
Speaker 1: trail is something that is way more nuanced than just
Speaker 1: being remarried, because if you assume that your husband's dead,
Speaker 1: especially after a couple of years of UM of him
Speaker 1: being detained, you're going to assume that you, well, you're
Speaker 1: going to want to continue your life. You're going to
Speaker 1: want to find some sense of normalcy, whether that's a husband,
Speaker 1: a new job, steady place to live. UM, there's going
Speaker 1: to usually be changed involved in that. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: she wasn't expecting her husband to reappear. So I do
Speaker 1: think it was a sweet gesture, but it is one
Speaker 1: of those I don't think there is a winning situation
Speaker 1: in any of it, um, because someone's going to be
Speaker 1: terribly bothered by by a decision that's made, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: Dorothy was put in kind of that impossible situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a rock and a hard place, as
Speaker 1: you said, Kobyashi Maru for the Star Trek fans out there,
Speaker 1: Thomas Watson, Gordy, I have to say, I think you
Speaker 1: made the right decision by saying no, don't don't anno
Speaker 1: your marriage, just because you feel like it's the right
Speaker 1: thing to do, do what you truly want to do.
Speaker 1: And he lived out the rest of his life in
Speaker 1: the US. He passed away in nineteen seventy five, and
Speaker 1: by the time he had passed away, Jimmy Carter's career
Speaker 1: was already in like he had seen the career begin
Speaker 1: from the Navy days so on. And and I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say that for a long time, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter considered Gordy to be like one of his personal heroes, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He looked at Gordy as someone who was willing to
Speaker 1: take take chances and to change his life and to
Speaker 1: stand up for what he believed in. And that's something
Speaker 1: that Carter carried with him, whether it was joining the
Speaker 1: Navy at seventeen, running for governor, being involved in politics
Speaker 1: in general. Carter was someone who wanted to provide for
Speaker 1: his family by carving his own lane in life, rather
Speaker 1: than relying on his family's peanut farm, which he does
Speaker 1: go and help with in the future, but not before
Speaker 1: he's created his own identity. So he's someone who, even
Speaker 1: at a young age, was looking to eclipse the shadows
Speaker 1: of his parents, which is a pretty good trait to
Speaker 1: having is something he picked up from his uncle, who
Speaker 1: u there is a little bit of a happy ending.
Speaker 1: He does remarry at some point in the in the
Speaker 1: final thirty years, and so he does have a partner,
Speaker 1: and she was actually pivotal in encouraging him to write
Speaker 1: the manuscript to try to process the feelings because he
Speaker 1: did become sort of a racial curmudgeon in a in
Speaker 1: a way racist curmudgeon. Towards the end of his life.
Speaker 1: He he really couldn't bring him around people of color,
Speaker 1: particularly Asians, because he would trigger this this PTSD type feeling,
Speaker 1: which reminds me of like Cotton Hill from King of
Speaker 1: the Hill, where he would just have these like fire flashbacks. Apparently.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting though, that while his life was to cold,
Speaker 1: he did get to live. You know, a long life.
Speaker 1: He did get to come back to America, which he
Speaker 1: was seeing rapidly had changed. I can't imagine what it
Speaker 1: would be like to leave during the Great Depression and
Speaker 1: return once the economic boom had had kind of turned
Speaker 1: America around, you know, very different world. When he left.
Speaker 1: Model t s were like the only car and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, mid forties were starting to see real real
Speaker 1: car models were starting to see, uh, modern cities really
Speaker 1: grow and boom. And part of that boom was was
Speaker 1: the tiki bar boom. One of my favorite things in
Speaker 1: the whole world. So now we're going to we're indy
Speaker 1: out a more positive note. Let's let's bring it, let's
Speaker 1: bring it back around. And something that many people brought
Speaker 1: from the Pacific was that memory of of a tropical
Speaker 1: drink um kind of a a shady, dark place which
Speaker 1: they would use to escape the heat, and it was
Speaker 1: somewhere where they can kind of just hide away from
Speaker 1: from the day to day life. Sometimes it's from the
Speaker 1: frenzies of war. Sometimes it's just a way to pass
Speaker 1: the time. But as soldiers returned, they returned kind of
Speaker 1: with this trend started by Don Beach, who opened on
Speaker 1: the Beach Comber in Hollywood, California. Four real name Ernest
Speaker 1: Raymond Bouma gons right, And I want to say, Ben,
Speaker 1: you and I went to a pretty old school Hollywood
Speaker 1: tiki bar. The other ones called tiki t Dicky Tie,
Speaker 1: and I believe that Beach Comber recipe for the my
Speaker 1: taie is like a big deal. It's like considered like
Speaker 1: the holy grail of like my tai recipes. Is a
Speaker 1: friend of ours. You've got to meet Ryan. His name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. He's a co host of a couple
Speaker 1: of different shows here, stuff to blow your mind and invention.
Speaker 1: It's also a huge tiki fanatic. So whenever on the
Speaker 1: road with him, Actually, you know what, if you ever
Speaker 1: just meet him and run into him, ask him about
Speaker 1: some tiki places, make sure you have like thirty minutes
Speaker 1: and makes you're ready to drive somewhere with them or fly.
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. This story is gonna end up at
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places in all of Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Trader Vix. Yeah, Trader Vix was kind of the second
Speaker 1: tiki bar to really established itself an American culture. Trader
Speaker 1: Vix incorporated food as well as the ma Taie and
Speaker 1: the other drinks they brought over the famous poop Poop
Speaker 1: latter sorry I cannot And Trader vix Is is kind
Speaker 1: of the the legacy of this this old guard of
Speaker 1: of tiki bars. It's the one that, as Noel said,
Speaker 1: we still have here in Atlanta. It's a great establishment.
Speaker 1: It's really exciting during Dragon Conics. I was there this
Speaker 1: time around. It so much fun. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a place to be got a live band, which
Speaker 1: I always love. Yeah, yeah, and um, you know, we're
Speaker 1: seeing these resurgeons here in Atlanta. But there was a
Speaker 1: period of time kind of sixties through the nineties when
Speaker 1: tiki bars were considered not in vogue. Um, so you
Speaker 1: started seeing a lot of them clothes. Fortunately, as we know,
Speaker 1: they've made a comeback and we we see them, particularly
Speaker 1: around two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen, we see a
Speaker 1: new desire to escape. And it's so lucky that some
Speaker 1: of the historical ones are still around, you know, like
Speaker 1: Traitor vis As pretty much as it's always been. There's
Speaker 1: a place in Portland called Alibi that's like another older one.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is a circle of the sixties or seventies,
Speaker 1: though de'st the crazy. There are a lot of There
Speaker 1: are a lot more on the West coast. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, the sixties and seventies still had teakey bars.
Speaker 1: We were just seeing the bigger brands, um, their their
Speaker 1: growth kind of slow down. Um kind of eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: You're not seeing any new tea bars open. But what
Speaker 1: is interesting about the teaky bar formula is it it's
Speaker 1: based on cheap rum, which at the time was it
Speaker 1: the Pacific wasn't. It wasn't in the Pacific yet, So
Speaker 1: so Don, who was kind of a world traveler, he
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily in the military. That's not how he well
Speaker 1: he was later, but that's not how he found Don
Speaker 1: the beach combers my Thai recipe as he thought, what
Speaker 1: is the cheapest liquer I can get my hands on?
Speaker 1: And at that point in the Caribbeans, rum was was
Speaker 1: very inexpensive and very sweet and worked as a fine
Speaker 1: substitute for what he had tried when he was in
Speaker 1: the Pacific. Back to this sort of escapism and the
Speaker 1: fall of the tiki boom, what we see in in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, UM current President Donald Trump, he made a
Speaker 1: purchase of the Plaza Hotel in New York. He doesn't
Speaker 1: own it anymore, thankfully, But what he did was close
Speaker 1: an original Trader vix um in Midtown Manhattan, which is
Speaker 1: pretty disappointing because it would be really cool to have
Speaker 1: an original total And he thought it was tacky, right,
Speaker 1: or say it wasn't on brand or something. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: said it. It was. Um, it was tacky and it
Speaker 1: wasn't in line with what he would like to achieve.
Speaker 1: You can read the original nine Um article where it's
Speaker 1: literally titled Trump to close ATTACKI Trader vix and the
Speaker 1: New York Times. So it's Trump called it tacky. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about the pot calling the kettle gold plated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely ironic. Um. And like Trump has become sort
Speaker 1: of attacking and out of fashion, what we're seeing is
Speaker 1: is this resurgence in in tiki bars. But what we
Speaker 1: can't forget about is the impact this situation had on
Speaker 1: the island of Guam. Guam, like many territories or colonial islands,
Speaker 1: never really gets a fair shake. You know, they're occupied,
Speaker 1: they become an advantageous piece of land, whether for resources
Speaker 1: or military reasons. But when it was time to take
Speaker 1: care of the citizens of Guam who had lost their
Speaker 1: property there belongings, a lot of them their lives. The
Speaker 1: agreement was that Japan was not responsible. America agreed to
Speaker 1: assume responsibility. But due to high literacy rates, a language
Speaker 1: barrier between the U. S. Navy and locals, no newspaper,
Speaker 1: telephone communication, and only a six month window to file claims,
Speaker 1: many were left without even knowing that there was an
Speaker 1: option for compensation under the Guam Meritorious Claims Act of
Speaker 1: So you're still seeing this kind of today and and
Speaker 1: it ties into modern history as we think about um
Speaker 1: what is owed to two people who are marginalized. So
Speaker 1: in two thousand five this came up again, and we
Speaker 1: had a headed divisive president at this time who was
Speaker 1: looking to uh reboot the economy post nine eleven, and
Speaker 1: they were slashing any sort of superfluous or what they
Speaker 1: felt to be extracurricular financial commitments. So we're seeing this
Speaker 1: act get a lot of support in Congress to to
Speaker 1: start to provide reparations to the island and its people.
Speaker 1: But his Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Affairs,
Speaker 1: David B. Cohen, said that reasonable people might disagree in
Speaker 1: good faith, however, about the appropriate level of financial compensation
Speaker 1: to be paid by the federal government for damages that
Speaker 1: were caused not by the fault of the United States,
Speaker 1: but rather by the fault of a foreign occupying power.
Speaker 1: See Okay, I get I understand why they would make
Speaker 1: that argument, But it reminds me of the old quotation,
Speaker 1: you know, when elephants wage war, only the grass suffers.
Speaker 1: There there is an entire not just one episode, there's
Speaker 1: a entire series worth of topics about the the chaos
Speaker 1: rot upon this area of the world, of these island
Speaker 1: nations before World War two, after World War two. You know.
Speaker 1: It also reminds me how here in the US nobody
Speaker 1: really talks about the US colonization of the Philippines. Right.
Speaker 1: There's so much stuff that we forget here, and we
Speaker 1: can't really prove this. But it's strange to think whether
Speaker 1: Gordie's adventures influenced Carter's policy later on. It definitely inspired
Speaker 1: him to do stuff, right, but did he was he
Speaker 1: thinking of his uncle when he was working with hostage situations?
Speaker 1: Stuff like that. We don't know, and we probably never
Speaker 1: will unless Jimmy Carter decides to mention it one day,
Speaker 1: we should he just had a talk the other day
Speaker 1: at Emory University. We should try to pop in on
Speaker 1: one and just bring this random question. Um. You know
Speaker 1: something else that's that's important to think about in this
Speaker 1: is the way that these large nations America, England, France, Germany,
Speaker 1: all these large countries who have colonized nations in the past,
Speaker 1: when they cause damages to people who aren't major players
Speaker 1: in the game, but actually are kind of vital to
Speaker 1: the creation of the wealth that these countries are desiring.
Speaker 1: So if we look at the enslaved people in America
Speaker 1: asks and their descendants asking for reparations is a similar situation.
Speaker 1: You can make the argument that well, the Confederate nations,
Speaker 1: they were the ones fighting for slavery. It's over. We
Speaker 1: see that argument comes sometimes we also see the argument
Speaker 1: of well, that was a long time ago or that
Speaker 1: was previous generations, doesn't have anything to do with me.
Speaker 1: But we see the the problems that systemic and institutionalized
Speaker 1: racism and oppression of cause throughout the world. And that's
Speaker 1: why we have massive inequality today throughout nations. And also
Speaker 1: we have to say, of course that these kind of
Speaker 1: impacts are multigenerational. They don't stop just because people die,
Speaker 1: you know, and it affects the children and their children's
Speaker 1: children and so on and this. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: this is our story, and I think this gives us
Speaker 1: some insight into President Carter, former President Carter that would
Speaker 1: surprise most people. Now Here in Georgia. Of course, we
Speaker 1: tend to know a little bit more about Carter than
Speaker 1: the average bear, because again, he's got the Carter Center
Speaker 1: in the library here, and teach a Sunday school here
Speaker 1: and speaks at Emory here. Uh. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: can see him at the right restaurant. But even here
Speaker 1: in Georgia, a lot of people are unaware of the
Speaker 1: tremendous influence that his uncle had on the young Jimmy Carter. Ryan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for returning to the show. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where can people learn more about your institution the work
Speaker 1: you guys are doing. Um, you can follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at g s U Underscore MHP. That's the Georgia's
Speaker 1: State Master's Program of Historic Preservation and Heritage Preservation is
Speaker 1: what our program is called. But we kind of dabble
Speaker 1: in all sorts of public history and preservation topics. Fantastic
Speaker 1: And while you are on the internet, folks, this does
Speaker 1: conclude our episode, but not our show. This story continues.
Speaker 1: You can be part of it if you check out
Speaker 1: our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians. You can also find us
Speaker 1: as a group and as individuals on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bullan on Instagram, and I am
Speaker 1: at Ben bull in hs W on Twitter. And I
Speaker 1: am just a gramster. You can find me at how
Speaker 1: Now Noel Brown Big. Thanks to our super producer Casey
Speaker 1: Pegram to Alex Williams, who composed our track. And it's
Speaker 1: weird because you know, now you're in person, and usually
Speaker 1: when we're talking about you, you're just sort of existing
Speaker 1: in the ether of ideas. But you're a real person.
Speaker 1: You're right here, right now, Ryan Barrass, thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you guys. Yeah, and all his technicolor tidye glory,
Speaker 1: nice call back. Thanks man Big. Thanks to Gabe Lucier,
Speaker 1: our other research associate and compatriot comrade brother are in
Speaker 1: arms whatever you wanna call it. Thanks to Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Thanks to Christopher haciotas here in
Speaker 1: spirit thanks to the quister for not showing up once again.
Speaker 1: But I have a feeling that we're our luck is
Speaker 1: going to run out on that very soon. Thanks to
Speaker 1: you Ben for having such a well quoft a bit
Speaker 1: of facial hair going on today. It's very very dapper looking.
Speaker 1: Thanks man. This is something that we don't see a
Speaker 1: lot because this is an audio podcast. But my favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do nowadays is to flip the phone the
Speaker 1: headphones over so I look like either Jordie LaForge or
Speaker 1: Cyclops when you guys think, or a little bit like RoboCop.
Speaker 1: Maybe oh yeah, yeah, there we go. Picture it. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time. Cox. For more podcasts for My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.