Here’s a recording from 18 March 2017 with a lot of restaurant background noise in which we talk about a toy construction set I remembered as a child. We had spent hours assembling a massive structure but I tripped and fell into it one night while getting up to use the bathroom.
JP: The construction set, I thought it was in New York.
PM: No, no, it came from New York. I brought it for Christmas from New York to visit you guys with Donna.
JP: I was thinking it was when you had to sling me in the sheets to make it look like laundry.
PM: That was New York. You came up on your own on a bus. And I carried you in a laundry bag into the apartment where children were not allowed.
JP: That’s not when I had the construction set?
PM: No that was in Melbourne or Indiatlantic. Yeah. That was a terrible moment.
JP: We had so much time building that thing.
PM: And you always hated to do anything wrong.
JP: The irony is that I did so much wrong, but I’m getting better.
PM: Well, that was what I remember from that trip basically, and later John [my grandfather and later, adopted dad] was living in another house on the coast and I had to go and confront the guy.
His question was “I want to know, are you going to take care of these people, your family, your children?” and I said “Yes, for the rest of my life.” It was the biggest lie I ever told.
JP: Well, you told me before that you had every intention of honoring that promise but then things changed.
PM: Well, yeah, I had every intention of doing every thing right, and I’m sure your mother did too, but we both did things wrong.
I’m the son of Patrick of Meadows.
Special.