The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 338: NEW STORY—It Might Be Worth Remembering

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

The past is what we choose to forget. History is what we choose to remember.

Shameless Plug. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel, and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped Thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwerworks.org.

We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. Thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious. mash bills, all of which you can peruse at noblespirates.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's code Carl, with a C, to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old-fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support MicroWorks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast.

Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com, k-n-o-b-e-l-L-spirits.com. Soon may the noble man come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. I got a story to tell every word of it true, except for the parts I made up for you, just some history that has been reworded into a mystery called The Way I Heard It. Hey, guys, it's the way I heard it episode number 338.

It's what we like to call a bonus episode. Although, Chuck, at this point, how many bonus episodes are you going to do before the word bonus just starts to feel like, you know, want, want, want, want, want. Yeah, there's a hat on a hat sort of a feeling about it. But look, this is a bonus story as opposed to a bonus coffee with your mom. So, you know, there are two flavors of bonus. And this is the old-fashioned kind, the nice, the way I heard its story from way back when.

So if you were looking for a bonus that's flavored like my mom, I'm happy to say you're in the wrong place. Hey, that last episode with my mom absolutely crushed it. I've been traveling all over the place and people, you know, they stop me, they ask me about this podcast. They've got many questions about you, but they have even more questions about. about my mother. And most of them all start with, is it true that she, dot, dot, dot, dot? Or did she and your father really?

Dot, dot, dot. Well, yes, it's all true. Our conversations are entirely unscripted, and yes, she has somehow wormed her way into the hearts of millions. I couldn't be more pleased to share her stream of consciousness, her peggy flavor, if you will.

as a bonus. Anyhow, if this episode, this bonus episode, were to have a specific title, and it does, it would be called, it might be worth remembering. It might be worth remembering. Yes. Yes. As you've just demonstrated, you remembered that real good. I wanted to make sure I had it before you moved on. We're living in times, my friends, where our memories are subject to the enthusiasms and certainties.

by those who surround us. And when we're searching for the truth, whatever that might be, well, we have a lot to sort through. And I think that level of confusion was on my mind when I wrote this. This is a story that I, well, it's interested me for a very long time

because it focuses on a topic that is of great interest to me. But it's all been heightened here of late because Chuck, as you may have noticed, We are living in a time where from time to time, we look around and we find our experts disagreeing. What's a reasonable fellow to do when the experts disagree? I'm not really sure, Mike. Well, I'll tell you what I did.

I sat down and wrote this story, and I'm going to read it for you momentarily. I do hope you like it. I do hope you remember it. It might be worth remembering. This is the way I heard it. In 1998, Professor Joseph Ellis was teaching history at Mount Holyoke College. Professor Ellis was best known as an expert on our founding fathers, with a Pulitzer Prize under his belt for American Sphinx,

his seminal biography on Thomas Jefferson. Today, though, he was talking about his service in Vietnam as a platoon commander with 101st Airborne. What was it like over there? asked one student. Were you scared? asked another? Of course I was scared, said Professor Ellis. Mostly I was scared for the men under my command, men whose lives would be affected by my decisions. Professor Ellis went on to describe the unique terrors of jungle combat, crawling through the mud, slogging through the rice paddies. He wove

the history of the war into the history of his own experience, including his decision to become a war protester after he came back from Vietnam and march side by side with America's greatest civil rights leaders. As always, his stories kept his students on the edge of their seats. Always remember, he told them, the past is what we choose to forget. History. History is what we choose to remember. Later that afternoon, Professor Ellis returned to his office to finish. finish an article on Thomas Jefferson. The scientific journal, Nature, had completed a DNA inquiry that had shed new light on a 200-year-old rumor that alleged our third president had fathered children with his teenage slave girl,

Sally Hemings. According to Nature, those allegations were no longer rumor. The science now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Thomas Jefferson had, in fact, fact fathered at least one child with his slave. And Professor Ellis had been invited to offer a little historical context about the kind of man Jefferson really was and what we might learn as a society from this unfortunate revelation. And so he did. Professor Ellis wrote a piece that portrayed Thomas Jefferson as a flawed human being, a terribly flawed human being. A terribly flawed human with urges and desires he routinely indulged.

The day after Professor Ellis's article was published, The Story swept the nation. No less than 223 newspapers picked it up, and the headlines were shocking. Overnight, Thomas Jefferson was branded a sexual predator, a child molester, a rapist, and a 19th century, deadbeat dad. The science was settled.

For two months, our founding father's depravity was headline news. Soon, there were calls to remove his statues from the public square. Calls to remove the nickel from circulation. Calls to rewrite millions of textbooks. Rename streets, rename hospitals, rename schools, and dismantle the Jefferson

Memorial. Calls that continue to this day. Looking back at that unprecedented media blitz, it seems that Professor Ellis was correct. History is not the past, it's the past we choose to remember. And today, thanks to modern science, everyone knows that Thomas Jefferson used a young slave girl

to satisfy his sexual appetites. Even in Monticello, ancestral home, visitors today are reminded that Sally Hemings had not one but six children with Jefferson. But if that's what we choose to remember about our third president, it might be worth remembering a few other things that accompanied his fall from grace. It might be worth remembering, for instance, that Professor Joseph Ellis was not really a platoon leader with 101st airborne. he had never been in combat. He had never even been in Vietnam.

He just made all that up. Nor is there any record of him ever marching with civil rights leaders or protesting the war he had lied about fighting in. When his lies were discovered, the professor issued a public apology, but Mount Holyoke College had no choice but to suspend him. Now, does that mean Joseph Ellis, lied about Thomas Jefferson? No, but it might be worth remembering that just a few weeks after

his article was published, the scientists at Nature had to issue an apology of their own. Turns out, the DNA evidence they had relied upon was inconclusive. In other words, the science wasn't settled, and Nature had to retract their article. Now, does that mean the scientists at Nature published a study they knew to be incorrect? No, but it might be worth remembering that the rest of the media did. Of those 223 newspapers that reported on Nature's original article, only one tried to set the record straight. The others ignored Nature's retraction entirely.

In fact, many doubled down on the conclusions drawn from that original story. Frontline produced a special for PBS. CBS did a docu series, and dozens of books were written about the moral turpitude of Thomas Jefferson, all based on scientific evidence that had been retracted. Now, does that mean the mainstream media was trying to distract me? millions of Americans from some other story by keeping a 200-year-old rumor in the headlines for months on end? No, but it might be worth remembering that back in 1998, Thomas wasn't the only Jefferson with his DNA in the headlines. There was another man whose reputation was crumbling

before our eyes. Another Jefferson, whose DNA had somehow gotten all over the blue dress of a young woman he swore he hadn't had sex with. That was the lie that led to his impeachment. The same lie that might very well have led to his conviction but for a retracted accusation that led hundreds of reporters and pundits to compare the alleged conduct of our third president with the actual conduct of our 42nd. Just look at Thomas Jefferson, they told us, if a man who rapes his 13-year-old slave girl can stay on Mount Rushmore. Well, then surely, a man who lies about having sex with his 24-year-old intern can stay in the White House. Further proof that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has time to put its pants on, or in this case,

a president named William Jefferson Clinton. Anyway, that's the way I heard. If you like what you heard And even if you don't But won't you please Won't you please I'm scraw Well I hate to beg and I Pretty

Please The ocean delights us Some marvel at the colorful world below the surface The ocean feeds us Others find nourishment in its bounty The ocean teaches us How our everyday choices

impact even the deepest places The ocean moves us us, whether we're riding a wave or soaking in its breathtaking beauty. The ocean connects us. Find your connection at Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects.