The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 483: Peggy Rowe—Mother's Day with Mom… LIVE!

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

In this special LIVE edition of Coffee with Mome, Mike heads home for Mother's Day and sits down with the woman who taught him everything worth knowing — his mom, Peggy Rowe. Recorded in front of a live audience at the place Peggy refers to as The Home, this episode is filled with the warmth, wit, and wonderfully sharp observations fans have come to expect from America's Grandmother. From family stories and hard-earned wisdom to laughter that only comes from decades of shared history, Mike and Peggy talk about motherhood, growing older disgracefully, and the strange adventure of becoming a beloved public figure later in life. It's funny, heartfelt, occasionally mischievous, and exactly the kind of conversation you'd hope to overhear around the kitchen table on Mother's Day. Many thanks to our excellent sponsors American-Giant.com/MIKE Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order. PureTalk.com/Rowe Get UNLIMITED hi-speed data for just $34.99 per month! KnobelSpirits.com Spend $100, use code CARL and get bitters-infused sugar cubes FREE.

Hello, friends, it's me, Mike Roe, and what we have here is a very special episode of the way I heard it, a bonus episode, just in time for Mother's Day. Starring? Of course, my mother. Chuck is not with us for this particular conversation because it took place back in Baltimore a couple of weeks ago. I was back there on business. And if you follow me on Facebook, you know my mom has been dealing with some health issues here in the beginning of the year. She's through it all now, thank God, and was just starting to feel like her. normal self again when this guy, Tom, who runs marketing over at Erickson's Senior Living, invited her to speak at their annual event, which they were having in Baltimore. You know, administrators come from all over from these different facilities. And he invited my mom to speak to the group.

And then he heard I was in town. And he said, hey, you know, if you want to join your mom, that'd be fun. And I said, well, if you record it so I can use it on my podcast, that'd be great. And he said, sure. The truth is, I'd have done it anyway, but they had cameras, so they set them up. And they recorded the whole thing. And I'm so glad they did because this is a very funny conversation. I'm going to post the whole thing on YouTube as well.

But we also have the podcast for you today because Mother's Day is right around the corner and because my mom, my mom's a delight. You know, this is one of the best crowds I've been in front of in years. And for a while there, I just kind of thought it was me because I'm, you know, sort of famous and whatnot. but it's it's not it's my mother they love my mother she's become a a legend of sorts not just at oak but throughout ericsson and i think in senior living uh communities all over the place her book oh no not the home is popping up all over the place in these communities which i just uh which i love to see anyway uh i thought it would be a fun mother's day event of sorts because it felt like an event i've been

wanting to do a live podcast since the first episode. How appropriate that I finally got a shot to do it. With me, Mother. She is her normal, delightful self. And I will prove that to you on this, our bonus Mother's Day episode, starring the one and only. Peggy Row, right after this. Peggy Row is an American giant.

And I'm not just saying that because it's Mother's Day, and she's listening to this. I'm saying it because Peggy Roe quit her teaching career and then delayed her writing career to raise three boys, and those boys were a handful. Trust me, I was there. And today, I am delighted to be here sharing the stage with her and sharing her with all of you. And I so appreciate my friends at American Giant for sponsoring this conversation. Buying a piece of clothing from American Giant guarantees you more than a quality garment that's built to last and made with care. It guarantees that you'll be supporting that rarest of companies, a textile company that defied the odds and found a way to make great clothes in this country.

It wasn't easy. But they did it. They looked for locally grown cotton, and they built their factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product. That was 16 years ago. Ever since, they've been going about the of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a sweatshirt or a T-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash.

It'll get better with age. Check out the high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash Mike. It's quality you can feel. and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order

at American-giant.com slash mic. American Giant, American Made. American Giant American Made. A cup of coffee with my mom. Thank you, everybody, for inviting us here. Thank you, Mom, for agreeing to see me. It's not exactly a secret anymore, but the only time I get to catch up with my mom these days is if I book her for an event or interviewer for a podcast or something. This morning, you drove down, you met me.

We sat in a studio. She was interviewed for a national program. Took two hours. Put her in a black car, whisked her back down here. And then we came over here for this, which is delightful. So how's it going? What's it like being Peggy Row? It's very tiring, thank you.

You people are so lucky. I hope you realize how lucky you are. You get to work with the elderly every day. You get to listen to whining and complaining. But then you look forward to this event every year. Is it yearly? Really? Every other year. It's called building anticipation.

But it's something to look forward to. And then you look up at the podium and you see an old lady. I'm sorry if you're disappointed. I was just saying to Tom backstage, you know, there's not a ton of silver linings in the whole COVID debacle. But early on, suddenly, you know, my mom and dad were at over. and I couldn't come see them. And I missed them, and of course, I was worried.

And then there was this new thing called Zoom that I didn't quite understand, but felt like a lifeline, and I sent you a link. And we had a cup of coffee, my mom and I, we had a catch up. And 45 minutes in, I was laughing so hard. I had tears coming down my face. I don't know if you enjoyed it or not, but you stayed on the call the whole time, I took as... And I filed my nails.

Piling her nails. Unbelievable. Anyway, I hit the record button on that call and I posted our conversation on my Facebook page, which for reasons I still don't understand as like 9 million people following it and they fell in love with you. And that conversation, I think, reminded a lot of people, you know, of their sons and their moms or daughters and dads and this hunger. to connect, you know.

And it was such a simple thing to do, but the minute the feedback came in from that, I knew I'd find a way to exploit you for the rest of your life. Listen, the exploitation is mutual, I assure you. And also, besides being lucky, all of you, I have to tell you that the event organizers, I guess that would be Tom mostly, are really gutsy,

because old people can be a crap shoot. As you well know, we're forgetful. We could have brain fog. I could be incontinent. Honestly? I'm prepared. In the first season of Dirty Jobs. Any of you guys see Dirty Jobs?

Not looking for cheap applause. It's just nice. Who hasn't seen Dirty Jobs? I'm just curious, just to get a sense, not you. Now, everybody in this room has seen it? Who's this? What's his name? Who?

Homsa! Get out. Never seen Dirty Jobs. Homesa. You kidding me? Quick sidebar. Dirty Jobs was a tribute to her dad. Her dad was named Carl Noble, and he was my grandfather.

He lived next door. The idea with Dirty Jobs, Homsa, was that I would assume the identity of a of an apprentice and I would work in a completely unscripted way with regular men and women who did the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us. My mom's dad didn't even make it out of the seventh grade. He went 100 days into the seventh grade. That was the law back then. You couldn't quit until you'd been 100 days in the seventh grade.

And then he was out and he started working. Oh, yeah. Well, he'd been working part-time. Well, the thing was, by the time he was, I don't know, 30, 35, he was an electrical contractor. How to describe Pop, he could build or fix or fabricate anything. He could take your watch apart, Tom, put it back together, blindfolded, or a combustion engine or whatever it was, right? And so the idea for the show was to just shine a light on people who had this skill, this chip, you know. And so that's really how all this happened. I was trying to pay an honest tribute to her dad.

And things got, you know, delightfully out of control. Tell me about it. Yeah. For the last 25, 30 years, I've been known as the Dirty Mother. That's quite a distinction. I had the privilege, my husband and I had the privilege of turning our television on and seeing our oldest son crawling through sewers with roaches and rats the size of Yorkshire Terriers

scampering over his body, I kid you not. If you've seen the show, then you know I'm not kidding. I have seen him on national television with his arm up the rear end of a cow. That cow still calls me, by the way. Horse? A bull. Oh yeah. What else?

We violated every barnyard animal known to man, Homsa, because artificial insemination, right? The other AI. And people just couldn't get enough of it. It was crazy. But getting back to your incontinence for just a moment. In the first season of that show, I was wound up on the cover, a TV Guide magazine, and the caption was, Discovery's Mike Roe brings you feces from every species. And my mom is like, we are so very proud of you.

Bless, Stephen. And my mother, my mother, who was a prim and proper person, she had expectations of her grandchildren. She would call me during the first commercial. She would call me during the first commercial of those shows and she would say, Peggy, does Michael realize that the president could be watching? The queen could be watching. He should really think ahead of time about the image he wants to portray on national television. Well, I did. I've given him a lot of thought and we did 350 of those shows. Look, I don't want the credit or the blame for any of this, but there 30 jobs, Homsa, if you're keeping track, led to 39 other shows. I mean, from deadliest catch to swamp people, to, I mean, big shrimp and every work-related

thing, it completely opened up a world that the country just didn't think about. And TV had certainly never thought about. idea of becoming a guest instead of a host, which is what I tried to do on that show and make people like your dad. Whoever it was we were profiling, even a turkey inseminator. It didn't matter. They were the heroes of the show, and that just struck a chord. And I knew it, Tom. We were talking earlier. I was like, look, early on in those days, I wasn't hearing from people who said, oh, Mike, you're charming and funny, or that show was interesting and smart.

The feedback from the beginning and to your mother's horror was always, you think that's dirty? Wait a see what my brother does. My cousin, my uncle, my mom, my sister. And, you know, we stumbled. We literally Forrest Gumped our way into a new kind of TV

and a new way to pay an honest tribute. to regular working people. So I see... It gave us... Don't ever interrupt me, by the way, when I'm like... It gave the public... It gave the public an appreciation for those people

who got up every morning and did those jobs. Sure. Really, you've shown a spotlight on those people. I can remember we lived in the condominium at that time, and we faced the front. which gave us a wonderful view of the trash corral and the men who came and collected our trash two or three times a week.

And after watching your show, I did, even I, began really appreciating the people who did those jobs. They got up every morning. They made my life easier. I remember one day Dad and I were taking a walk around the condo complex. There was a tape around a sewer, sewer cover. It was off of the sewer and it was open and we looked inside and there were men in there doing a job that we sure wouldn't have wanted to do. I went over and looked at them and dad went to the

edge and he said, hi. And he thanked them for what they were doing. They looked at us like we were crazy and I said... Two things can be true at the same time. And my dad, it should be noted. I think one of the great conversationalists of the modern age. And he's also one of the curious, most curious people you'd ever care to know. He'll talk to people in manholes. He'll talk to people in elevators. He'll wait till the door shuts,

and then he'll turn his back to the door, and he'll have questions for you. And you will be in the elevator with my dad, and there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, and my mom will likely, be there as well, doing something kind of extraordinary, which is chronicling the whole thing. What my dad does is whatever he feels like doing. What my dad does is create whatever conversation he can, whether he's at Oak Crest or all his

life. And what my mom does is write about it. She writes every day. Do you mind if I talk about you for a moment like you're not here? Let me think about it. Okay. Yeah. So my mother wrote every day for 60 years.

60 years. Her early, my earliest memories are of her with a yellow legal pad, just writing about the world around her. She specialized biographies, right? Cop on a horseback? Peggy Rowe walks over. What's your name? What's your horse's name?

She's a very horsey person, right? And she writes a horsey person, right? And she writes it all down and she'll get a story and then she would, you know, literally type the thing up as if a publisher had paid her to interview this cop that she'll never see again. And she'd put the story on the refrigerator with a magnet and my old man would take the story down the next day and he'd read it to me and my brothers. He'd take it to church. And he'd read it to those poor people, trapped in the sanctuary. And then, you know, if you're trapped in an elevator, it's, have you heard the latest from Piggy Row? Could be a limerick, could be a haiku, could be an unauthorized biography.

I still remember at the Bob's Big Boy, after church up on Beller Road. Just him just sit next to total strangers in a booth, you know? Want to hear something really funny? It's something my mom had written. So this is what I remember. I never thought of you as a writer, even though that's the only thing I ever saw you do. And then I do this show, inspired and dedicated, to her dad. and then years later I become marginally famous and my mom is still writing every day but

she'd given up on her dream of becoming a best-selling author but she never gave up on the work she never stopped writing this woman and then because I had a toe in the door I was able well you want to tell him about the big blue purse or should I Do do do do do do do do do dumb Lots of comments over there on the Facebooks from people who have seen my mother starring in the latest pure talk commercial. Once again, she has completely upstaged me. A very funny ad that simply had to be made. Why?

Because late last year I mentioned in another radio commercial for Pure Talk that my own mother had switched to Pure Talk for unlimited talk text and data for just 3499 a month, less than half of what she'd been paying Verizon. Well, we live in skeptical times, and some people expressed doubt that my mother had really made this switch. But of course, she did. So I had to put her in a TV commercial to prove it, which she does brilliantly.

It's posted over on my Facebook page, and it's very funny. Check it out. More importantly, know this. Because my mom is now on the TV talking about Pure Talk and the fact that she really did switch, you don't have to take my word for it anymore.

When I tell you that you can save a fortune with Pure Talk's offer for unlimited talk, text, and data on a blazing fast network for just $3499 a month, you can now take the word of my own mother. America's grandmother, a woman who is physically incapable of telling a fib. So do what Mom did. Go to PureTalk.com slash row for unlimited high-speed data for just $3499 a month.

You can switch in as little as 10 minutes, with their U.S. customer service team at puretalk.com slash row to switch to my mom's wireless company and mine and lots of other folks who appreciate a great deal from an American wireless company, loved by mothers and sons everywhere. Pure Talk. Pure Talk. Well, I'll start.

Okay, you start. You'll interrupt me. Carry on. I went shopping at Walmart one day. Well, this was a... about 10 years ago, and something horrible happened. I got in the car, I put my groceries in the car, got in the car, went home, felt on the seat beside me for my purse, and it wasn't there. I had left my blue purse hanging on the cart in the Walmart parking lot. I had pushed the cart into the

corral and gone home. I was sick, and I went inside, told my husband, and he began canceling credit cards right away. We called Walmart and they said, no, they didn't have my purse. And my husband said, oh, we're going back there right away. Maybe somebody just took your wallet and put your purse in a trash can. We're going to go back and look for your purse. So we did. I went into the store to see if maybe lost and found had gotten my purse.

In the meantime, Dad was going from trash. Trash can to trash can, dialing my number in hopes that my cell phone was in there. My dad's half deaf. He can't hear anything. Including the ringing of a phone. So the whole thing is just a Greek tragedy. Please continue. Go ahead. You can go on. This story goes on and on and on. And it gets weirder and funnier. And then ultimately it concludes... I got home. I'm going to skip. a lot because he'll pick it up. And I called the children because what mother doesn't like to hear

her children sympathize with her that she's lost her purse. So I called son number three and son number two. I call him number one because he's the eldest. I called him and he said, I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me. Sit down and write it and send it to me. I did that. I wrote it. It was what, maybe a couple thousand words, you think? Not even, 1,200 maybe. And by the way, there's kind of a happy ending. They find the purse. A woman, what was her name?

Beverly. Beverly finds the purse. Dad chats her up, obviously. My dad and Beverly now are spending a lot of time together. I hope not. She passed away three years ago. Oh, is she dead? No, that's too bad.

Like I said, my dad'll talk to anybody. The thing is, she saw my purse hanging on a shopping card and she looked around and there was nobody around. So she picked it up. Well, I got to know her later. And she described her motions to me. She said, oh, I was so afraid somebody was going to think I was stealing that purse. She said, so I picked up your purse.

I carried it like this into Walmart and I went to the loss and found and I told them I'd found their purse. So when I went in to look at Lost and Found, they said, well, our manager is in the back of the store. We don't have a purse, but you can go and check with our manager. And when I got back there, Dad, your father was still... I know who he is. You think you know who you. So John was still going from trash can to trash can, dialing my number and plunging his head into the trash can to the trash can to listen.

for my ringtone. And sure enough, I heard my ringtone. It was coming from where the manager was. There was a shelf next to him. And there was my purse looking out from that shelf, like E.T. looking out from the closet. And I took my phone out and it was dead. He said, come out to the parking lot. There's a woman here who would like to meet you. And I know you want to thank her for turning in your purse. Beverly. But that's the blue purse story. Why did we get started on this?

I'll tell you why. Because number one said, write it down. And she did. Oh, I did. And she sent me this email, right? And it's the story you've heard, except it's written. And it's told. Like Irma Bombbeck meets Betty White.

Told. In a personal letter to me. And I'm halfway through this thing, and I am laughing, man. It's just so funny and it's relatable. And whether guys, you've lost your wallet or ladies, you've lost your purse, we've all been there. And it just was this roller coaster of relatable humanity. But it was funny.

And when I finished reading it, I took this phone and I set it up and I read it again at my kitchen table. And then I was off to film something and I posted it on my Facebook. page. I was gone for three days when I came home, 49 million people had watched this video. 49 million people. And at this point, you're maybe, forgive me, 78 years old, I would guess. Well, 10 years ago. I can do the math. Yeah. So she's still writing every day. She's still telling her stories every day, but now she actually shared one that I could read aloud among the 49 million people who read it in those first three days. You guys should Google it later. It's funny.

Peggy Rowe, Big Blue Pers. I think it's up to 80 million. Old Blue, it's called, yeah, because it matters. But one of the people who called was the publishers started calling. Publishers, remember her dream, best-selling author. That's not going to happen, but the writing is still happening. The publishers are like, hey, that's a funny story. Can she write, you know, a couple dozen more like that. I'm like, yeah, probably so. And one of them said, look, if you can make Mike, put him in your stories, because we need a hook. We're publishers, right? We need an angle. So if your marginally famous son is in these stories, then we'll publish a book of short stories about this kind of thing. And I lay this all out in front of my mother. And she goes,

oh, that's fantastic. And you have to be in all of the stories? It's an angle, mom. It's just an angle. Give them what they want. She goes, oh, okay, okay. You know, I have two other sons. Yeah, yeah, number two and number three.

Okay, are they famous? Right? Just play ball for crying out loud. My mother goes away for a couple of months and starts writing the stories. She comes back with about 22, 24 of them. I'm not in any of them. Maybe you mention.

in one or two. She writes two dozen short stories about the most remarkable woman in her life, which happens to be my grandmother, the aforementioned Thelma Noble. Nobody asked her to do this. This is just what she felt like doing. So she sits down and she writes what's in her heart. She writes a love letter, a tribute to her mom. And I send it to the publishers and they're like, who the hell's Thelma Noble? There's nothing we can do with this. It's like my partner and I, Mary, we were like, you know what? Actually, it was Mary's idea.

She said, let's just print 10,000 copies and see what happens. We'll sell them ourselves. And we did. And they sold out in three days. Publisher called back and said, you didn't tell it she could write. That book called About My Mother, went to what, number six.

It did very well. Yeah, yeah. Went to number six on the New York Times list of bestseller. Thanks to Mike. Oh, please, I didn't write the damn thing. But you have a wide reach. You know, the sad thing about publishing. Way to bring them down, Mom.

Do we have any would-be writers here or any active writers? I see one hand, two. I bet there are a lot of closeted writers here. You will understand that getting published is very difficult. If you don't know somebody, it's virtually impossible. For years I wrote, I used a typewriter, and I used white paper and black print, double-spaced, wide margins, just the way publishers, I did everything I was supposed to do. I followed all the rules.

sent my manuscript off through the mail because this was years ago. Day after day, I waited. I walked down to the mailbox, which is like way far down the road, with hope and my heart, expectations, dreams of maybe a publisher reading my work. And I would come back home again in tears, nothing, nothing. And then finally I would get the rejection notice. And then I realized, years later I realized they weren't even reading my work. If you don't know somebody in the publishing world, these are called unsolicited manuscripts,

and you may as well just put it in the trash. Oh, I hope I'm not stepping on your dreams. Peggy Rowe, Queen of Optimism. Here to smash your hopes into the ground. I'm sorry, I don't mean to do that. You have options nowadays that I didn't have. The self-publishing world is quite popular, and a lot of good writing happens that is self-published. But back then, I didn't have that option.

Two years later, she writes a book called About Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known, a collection of letters she had written to me over the years. That goes to number four, two times, bestseller. Now she's 82. clap for anything. Well, the good news is you didn't help me with this one, did you? You know what I did do, though? I wrote that damn forward again.

Two forwards now. I wrote two forwards for the first book, because it was a big story. Wrote the forward for the second book. This thing goes way up the charts, and now the publisher is slobbering all over me. Does she have a third one in her? A third one? Can she do it? I get three?

Three books? two years later, she writes, vacuuming in the nude and other ways to get attention goes to number one. I tell you all this, because today my mom is older than she's ever been. A year and a half ago, she wrote her fourth book about life at Oakcrest.

And to my mind, it's her best work. It certainly has the best forward. It's proof of something that I've always known about her and something she's always kind of said quietly and apologies if you don't want me to say it out loud. Go ahead. All right. You know, she says, the world is full of people.

They're everywhere. But my mom, she loves people, but she doesn't really see people. She sees material everywhere, whether it's that cop on a horseback or my own dad or her neighbor across the hall at Oak Crest. This book, it's literally called, you've got a copy out here. I think you were, you sprung for 500 books, Tom?

I can't believe it. This thing is a love letter. I'm not going to sell it because you already have one, but it's a love letter to the neighbors you find yourself surrounded by. And it's an homage, I think, to the fragility and the vulnerability and the humor and the honesty that comes with this much experience in life.

And more than anything, for me, it's a love letter to persistence. Today, I run a foundation. It's called MicroWorks. Kumann, or whatever your name is, you would never have heard of it, I'm sure. Shameless Plough. Long before she was Peggy Rowe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma. 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 microwworks.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 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 noblespirits.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-S-Pirits.com. Soon may the noblemen come to bring a bottle for everyone.

One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. But it evolved out of dirty jobs organically. And today we award work ethic scholarships to men and women who want to pursue a career in the skilled trades. We've done 3,700 of these things and awarded close to $20 million in these scholarships. I'm just saying. I'm the luckiest guy in the room. To have a mom like this and to have the ability to have had a hit show and see it morph into something that feels useful to me and personal and important.

And in the course of promoting my scholarship fund and my foundation, I tell stories of the men who I've met, mostly men, that we featured on dirty jobs who did all this work. And I talk about my granddad all the time. And I talk about my dad all the time who really worked as your father's apprentice growing up. I mean, those two together. I can't tell you the times. They'd wake up clean and they'd go out into the world and they'd come home dirty. And somehow something got fixed along the way. I was so enamored of it.

And so I tell these stories everywhere all across the country every week. And right in front of me the whole time regarding work ethic is the actual epitome of it. A woman who wrote every day for 60 years gave up on the dream but never gave up on the work. And when I read through this book and when I think about your life at the home and the grace with which you and dad have both navigated the slings and arrows of outrageous aging, which is not a bad title. Welcome to it. It's wonderful. And I think really the stars of this book are the people.

I've said this out loud before, but you write about the people you meet at Oak Crest the way I tried to work with the people on dirty jobs, with humor and respect and honesty. I'm so damn proud of you, Mom. I can barely stand. Oh, thanks, son. Oh, Mike.

moving into Oakcrest with such a boom to my career. I can't tell you what it's like. Material falls from the sky into my lap. I'm surrounded by 2,000 people, 2,000 stories. They stopped me in the hall to tell me their stories. A couple of weeks ago, I met a guy. In his 60s, he was old enough to live at Oakrest, but he was there visiting his father.

I'd seen him in the restaurants before. And I thought he looked like such an interesting character, and maybe you will get the picture. He had 26 rings around his ears. He had a turban on his head. Not a turban, but a bandana. There is a difference. Yeah, he had a bandana wrapped around his head.

He had a grungy goatee and long sideburns, which he kept flicking out like this. And I thought, there's a sort of. story. So one day I saw him walking toward me in the hallway. And I said, hi, you don't know me, but I'm Peggy Rowe, and I'm a writer. And I think you look like a person with a story. Well, he seemed kind of flattered and kind of shy. And I said, I see you here visiting. Is that your dad? He said, oh, yeah, I visit my, I visit my father quite a lot because he has a lot of health issues. And he said, but really, I'm a rattlesnake hunter. This man who visits Oak Crest

regularly is a rattlesnake hunter. I kid you not. He travels the world looking for rattlesnakes. He has seen tens of thousands of rattlesnakes. He writes about his experiences. He takes pictures. He takes notes. He sells his information to journals. He has a a college degree, he's done master's work. He's out there, but to look at him, you think his motorcycles probably parked on the loop, and he looks like such a character. He met with me and talked with me a couple of times. Wonderful son, really interesting character. Michael, I can't tell you the best stories. They just come to me. All you have to do is be open, to humor. It is everywhere. A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner. My usual Friday night group,

and there are six or seven of us, and somebody couldn't come. So somebody said, oh, I have a friend who'll come. Sweet little white-haired lady. Quick sidebar. It's very difficult, if you're me, even, to keep track. It doesn't matter when I call my mom. I live in Northern California. Any time between 8 in the morning and 8 at night, she's in a restaurant. Doesn't matter when she's in there. And she's with 6 to 8 unnamed people. Most of them have white hair. Which restaurant?

I don't know. Could be the acorn, could be the oak room, could be McKenry's. Maybe it's that other cafeteria type of joint. Lakeside. Yeah, could be lakeside. Who knows? Just saying, if you find yourself struggling to visualize or keep track, you're not alone. So this sweet little lady with the white hair has a bit of a hearing issue, which I live

with 24-7. My husband has an 85 to 90 percent hearing deficit, but we manage. When she speaks, she projects. So I said, well, how are you finding life at Oak Crest? Are you finding things to do? She said, well, I like to play games. I said, oh, have you played any game since you've been here? She said, well, I played Scrabble once, just once.

Those bitches whip my ass. I could tell you her name, but I won't because... Are you freaking kidding me? They're like Tom had two rules, right? Don't disparage anybody and try not to use bad language. I didn't say her name. But the people at the nearby tables, I mean, their heads were like swiveling off. turning around to look.

Did she really say that? I loved it because it's out of the ordinary. You know, most little... Material. Chapter 5. Yeah. Bitches kicked my ass. Yeah. Yeah. It's the truth.

And all those other people at the table will agree. Um... And then just, might be four last, I was walking through, The lobby. And Dad was playing shuffleboard. And there was a game going on. And the ladies called me over and they said, we want to learn vertical rummy cube. And I know you play it. Will you teach us vertical rummy cube? And I said, okay. So I sat down, proceeded to teach them vertical rummy cube. And one of the little old ladies said, oh, God, I can't stand this. My bra is so uncomfortable. And darn if she didn't just open up everything. Take off her bra, pull down the sleep, and she shoved it in her tote bag. The other ladies didn't pay any attention to her. But I did. I'll sell you the books back if you want, Tom.

I'm not sure of her name. I don't usually play games with her. But you just never know what's going to happen at Oak Crest. Oh my gosh. And the day down at the pharmacy was so funny. I went with your dad. I know him. We were just looking around.

I saw something and I said, oh, John, you know, I put my hand on his shoulder. And then I looked and I realized it wasn't dad. It was another man. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I was about to rub your arm. And he said, well, honey, you can. rub anything you do. This is in CVS.

CVS, right? CBS Pharmacy. Good, good. And then the man put his hands on my shoulder. Is it time to stop talking? Tom's like, is that what that means? He said, keep going.

Keep going. So the man put one hand on each of my shoulders, and he turned me around. He said, you know, CVS is a notorious pickup spot. Turn me toward a line in front of a sign that said, pick up. It really did happen. Everything in the book really did happen. That's the thing about my mom.

She just, I mean, she has a wonderful imagination, and she's a terrific writer, but she just refuses to make stuff up. She is, I mean, I remember the first time you and I talked, Tom, it was years ago, and I was thinking, you know, hey, I got this podcast, these advertisers. O'Crest would be an amazing sponsor, you know, and we started to talk about, think about how that might work. And I don't know if this occurred to you or not. It certainly occurred to me, but it's like, you know, my mom can write about anything she wants. She's like an embedded reporter behind the walls of O'Crest. And if you're an executive of a retirement home, and you suddenly realize, oh, you got this woman living here, and she's got a million fans, and she writes best-selling books, and, man, I hope she liked dinner, you know. I hope she's happy with everything.

Honestly, I know we've got to land the plane. You have some questions you want to share, but I just want to, you know, say that I, if you liked my mom, I think the reason is because while she is sunshine and roses and fundamentally optimistic, she will tell you the truth of a thing, always. Oh, yeah, I told them about the mouse. Okay. problem. Sorry.

Deep sink. You're going to have to work on that. But in the scheme of things, you know, what makes people credible, what makes them believable, what makes them an honest witness to the, you know, to the human condition? Can I tell one more story? I was hoping you would. Go ahead. One day I was down in the locker room.

I had done my morning swim, and I was sitting there drying off, and the woman walked from They have three private showers, and she came out of the shower and walked past me, and she had a towel covering her front. And she walked over to the locker. And when she faced her locker, I could see her back part. And she had a tattoo on her bottom. Well, I mean, we old people were famous for moles and veins and age spots. not tattoos. And so, of course, the writer in me was curious. And I said to her, tell me about your tattoo. She looked at me and she said, what tattoo? I said, on your rear end there, you have a tattoo.

And she walked over to the sinks, which have big mirrors behind them. And she turned around, and she laughed. So I got up and I walked over and I looked in the mirror. And she said, well, I spread a grocery bag on the seat in the shower, sat down, sat down and dried my legs and my feet, and the ink must have come off on my bottom. And sure enough, in the mirror, it said, Weiss markets. And on the other side of the Great Divide, it said, gas rewards. Well, the truth is, I couldn't really read gas rewards, but I've seen enough rice grocery bags to know that it said gas. It was just, it was all red, white, and blue, and really I wondered if maybe I should salute when she was. You know, funny thing, I've never seen that woman since unless I just don't recognize her face.

She should check her over at White's markets now, I'm pretty sure. Oh my god Tom you better save us from this because I don't know where we're going I mean You got ten minutes for questions good hey that's my mom everybody peggy you have proven to me Ever since I got to know you that humor is the best way to do life and you do it beautifully beautifully beautifully every single day so wisdom come in yeah the wisdom is I don't we're still waiting on that No it's it's it's wonderful but your books the titles vacuum V-vaceming in the nude and oh no, not the home. I gotta ask you, what's the inspiration for your books?

Go ahead and tell them. Vacuum in the nude. Let's start with that one, because that's pretty provocative. You know, vacuuming in the nude is really my writing history, my whole writing story, from the first thing I wrote to the most recent. Writers do a lot to get attention. You have to. get published, you have to do a lot for attention.

Well, I tell a story further on in the book about a friend who was late to lunch one day, and she shared with us that she had been vacuuming and time got away from her. She said, oh, I looked up to the clock and I realized I hadn't even showered yet. So she said, I just jumped in the shower. Fortunately, I vacuum in the nude, she said. And I said, really? And I said, but you were home alone. She said, no, no, Jack was right on the sofa there.

Actually, he joined me in the shower afterwards. Now, this was maybe 10 years ago before my books came out. I doubt if they still do that. Well, he passed away, so. But did Mike tell you to name the book? So, I'm trying to think of the name, of a good name for the book. this book, an attention getter, but something that's honest that's part of the book. And so Mike was reading that story, and he said, oh, well, here you go.

There you are. That's it. That's your title. Vacuuming in the nude. It was either that or gas and rewards. I'm not sure which one I'm picking there. But then, you know, when you and I first started talking and her book, oh, no, not the home. You know, being a sales and marketing guy, I was like, gosh,

I don't feel great about calling it the home. You know what I'm saying? I was like, and you latched right onto it. So in the full word to the book, you might mention the home 400 times, just to dig at me. Listen, the home had such a terrible connotation for so many years, and it was rightly deserved in most respects. I wanted to change that. It is a home, our home, the home. Did you know I'm writing another book?

I do know that. I do know that. That's the shameless plug you were telling me about, right? It's called Home, Home, Home Again. And early on in the book, I tell about a man, we were walking down the hall one day, John and I, and a man came running out from the acorn. He had been eating lunch.

He said, are you Peggy Roe? And I said, yes, I am, Gus. And I looked at his name tag. He said, we just moved in a few days ago. He said, my wife said, I think that's Mrs. Roe walking down. He said, we're here because of your book. I said, oh, wow, that's nice to hear. And so I walked in and I met his wife.

And I said, I hope you'll be as happy here as we are. And she said, well, if I ever recover from the move, I hope we'll be happy. It's only been three days. I'm too tired to stand up and greet you. And then she said, tell me something. My husband thinks you work for Erickson. Do you? Well, it's not the first time I've heard that.

But I assured her that I get my monthly bill. Increases year after. So she was convinced. But you know, it made me think. So in this next book, I have a whole chapter of, I'm searching for the downside. I'm searching for bad things. I'm listening for complaints.

I'm doing a whole chapter of, let's be honest, nothing is perfect. Oak Crest can't be perfect. And so I'm trying to gather things that are less than perfect about our facility. And I have to tell you, it's pretty difficult. There are things there that could improve, of course. This whole sink situation. Yeah, I know. He's very deep.

And the occasional mouse. Well, the back issue, come on. Yeah. So this will be book number five for you. It will be. It doesn't have a title yet, but it will be out in 2006. I lost a couple of months recently. I had some illness.

Right. Which I was unused to, and which has given me such empathy for the people around me, people who are struggling with health issues. I've always been a compassionate person. But, you know, when you're walking in their shoes, and I was quite ill, it really has given me a new perspective, and I feel fortunate for having been there. But I was with you when you were going through that.

Even then, your humor was part of the whole process. Do you remember telling the story about how they somehow fixed your eyes through your groin, and you had to tell that story? I was like, really, we're going to talk about this now? Just by way of preamble, because I know you're going to go there. I know I can't stop you, but she was off the podcast. My podcast gets a few million people listening to it every week, and she comes back every month. She's the most popular recurring guest.

Well, she wasn't on for nearly four months, and people were freaked out. And then when she finally came on, I think the first words out of your mouth were, I need to tell you about my groin. And I checked to make sure we were rolling, and we were. and then she proceeded to share this little gem. I had something in my brain called a fistula, which is when your arteries and your veins clumped together and prevent the blood from going up into the capillaries at the top of your head.

In order to get there, they have to go in through your groin. And I said it's the scenic route. They go all the way up in front of your ear, in back of your eye. and it's really very scary when you think about it. Teams of doctors came in around the clock to check on my progress. And they were very concerned about my groin, of course, because I had a bleed, and so they had to go from one leg to the other leg the next day.

So they came in to check my groin, I mean, around the clock day after day. So finally, on day four or day five, a group of doctors came in. And I knew the drill, so I pushed off the blanket and pulled up my gown. And the doctor said, hi, Mrs. Rowe. We're the eye team. We're here to check the eye. Covered up everything, and we had a...

Not that eye. Had a laugh. But, you know, if you can force... Gats and rewards. If you can allow yourself to find the humor, even when it seems unattainable, life is so much more rewarding and you can take almost anything and it's not always easy to find the humor but it's there just it's just I know it's not easy but if you can try it does help it helped me and the last day a doctor came in and said to me well let me tell you first of all

how terrible I looked I was there for a week oh I looked awful I didn't even look like myself I had a patch over my eye. My hair was all over the place. Mike took my picture. That's what sons are one. That's right. That's number one son, right? Yeah, it was a selfie, and we were holding hands, and he took our picture.

Sent it to his brothers, and they said, who is that? Who's that? Mike's holding somebody's hand. So this doctor came in the last day, and he said, I guess you know why I'm here. and I said, well, I hope you're here to do something about my hair because it looks terrible. And he laughed. You know, if you can make other people smile too.

Here's the thing that I didn't tell you. Everybody in the room knows this, I'm sure. When your parents are 88 and 93 and you're 3,000 miles away, you know, there's guilt, there's worry, there's just all this stuff, you know, and to know that they're in a place where there is community and material and humor. That's priceless. To take it to the next level, you know, I came to town to see her. She's at Hopkins.

I had meetings in D.C. I came up. I sat with her a couple of nights. And, yeah, it was a heck of a week. And when I left, I could barely get to the elevator because nurses and assistants and doctors, doctors, like everybody on the floor, was like, hey, your mom, she's something else. Have you seen her groin? Not that.

But I mean, you being there with your unwashed hair and your attitude and your fear, but your accessibility, it's a gift. It's a gift, not just to your family or to your neighbors. But I mean, in a place like Hopkins, in the ICU, you know, when doctors and nurses pull you aside to tell you about your mom, it's good that you're on the case. And it's great that you're willing to be so transparent about all of it. That's why some people are truly credible. That's why they're truly believable because they'll, you know, they'll always tell you the way it is. We just learned this morning during that earlier interview I mentioned, she was alluding

to a similar story and she said first they went into my left groin and then they had to go into my right groin which created a lot of confusion for everybody else in the room who was under the impression we only had the one groin. Like mom's got two groin's just amazing. You can be sure that your humor will be carrying on here through your number one son. I haven't met your other two boys. boy, he's a funny one here. Oh, they're funny too.

Oh, are they? I can only imagine. They're a barrel of laughs. And I thank you people for accepting me the way I am. You know, when your career takes off after 80, you have some limitations. I don't wear stiletto heels anymore. I wear Brooks tennis shoes. I wear black slacks and a presentable top. Nothing plunging.

I don't have. I don't accentuate my waistline. I don't have shapely calves. Hey, show me your tattoo. I know. I'm waiting. It's coming. I don't have a tattoo.

You're going, yeah. Later in life, there's some things you can't do. My memory isn't great. I'm not incontinent, just for the record. But I am prepared. To both of you. Thank you. You've enriched our day more than we can tell you.

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