__ __ _ _____ _ _ _
| \/ | ___| |_ __ _| ___(_) | |_ ___ _ __
| |\/| |/ _ \ __/ _` | |_ | | | __/ _ \ '__|
| | | | __/ || (_| | _| | | | || __/ |
|_| |_|\___|\__\__,_|_| |_|_|\__\___|_|
community weblog
His appetite for schemes never diminished
Erin had sometimes enjoyed feeling like she was a kind of spy, complete with an alias, a disguise, and fake documents. But during the six-hour trip to Mexico City, reality began to set in. She sat next to her mother in the smoking section, telling her about all the parties and bar mitzvahs she would miss in Fox Chapel, as though her adolescent commitments might have the power to turn the plane around.
posted by chavenet on Jun 06, 2026 at 5:09 AM
---------------------------
Compelling and heartbreaking, with a throwaway juicy detail in the very middle about Tim Allen! I loved this; thanks for sharing.
posted by Isingthebodyelectric at 5:52 AM
---------------------------
wow... that was a ride
posted by kokaku at 6:59 AM
---------------------------
Sometimes I think my children are experiencing a rather unusual childhood and get to wondering how they'll process it as adults. And then I read a story like this and I'm like, you know, maybe every childhood is unusual in its own way and I should stop worrying about this
posted by potrzebie at 8:27 AM
---------------------------
every happy childhood is alike /tolstoy
posted by okayturnip at 12:30 PM
---------------------------
...Erin and Meredith had a decision to make—whether to hate their parents for what they did, and what they hid, or to find a way to love them in spite of it.
Yes.
posted by CCBC at 2:00 PM
---------------------------
"Tim Allen did not respond to an interview request made through his publicist."
posted by migurski at 4:52 PM
---------------------------
This seems like a story where 9 times out of 10 John gets shot and buried anonymously in a field somewhere. Not a business, I would have said, where being as careless as they seemed to be leads to success. I guess it didn't in the end.
posted by maxwelton at 6:10 PM
---------------------------
Before I read a long article about parental crimes, can I get info on whether the crimes we're talking about are violent? Please and thank you.
posted by medusa at 7:28 PM
---------------------------
The crimes are not violent.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:55 PM
---------------------------
Before I read a long article about parental crimes, can I get info on whether the crimes we're talking about are violent? Please and thank you.
There's a couple of anecdotes that the father would throw things on a few occasions, though nothing about injuries. The primary thrust of the crimes have nothing to do with the kids, they have to do with drug smuggling.
posted by axiom at 9:15 PM
---------------------------
When I was in high school, a friend of ours, and her entire family, mysteriously disappeared overnight from our county in eastern PA. This was around 1980. We never heard of or from them again.
My other friends and I speculated as to what became of them; I suspect organized crime (proximity to Jersey border), maybe witness protection. The FBI was just starting to make inroads into prosecuting Mafia folks around then based on key people turning state's evidence.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 3:00 AM
---------------------------
rabia.elizabeth I grew up in a North Jersey suburb in the 1960s/70s where one of the branches of one of the Five Families mainly lived. One day my same age next door neighbor friend was just gone. Turns out someone tried to take out the family's "leader" and in a matter of a few days the entire crew headed for parts unknown.
Note: Tony Soprano's house was in the next town over.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:49 PM
---------------------------
Thank you chavenet.
I shared the atavist landing page with a friend today, and she replied:
"my brain hurts trying to make sense of the link above"
followed by:
"tried reading part of an article and now my head hurts and i feel confused at what you wanted me to read"
It took about thirty minutes of talking-things-down to skin this Onion.
As a caregiver in a Psychological Residential Treatment Facility (PRTF), "That's Somebody's Son" really hit-home for me: I fall-prey to not always being able to recognize anosognosia in an individual who is trusted to be in my care.
"a polygenetic ... heterogenous spectrum of psychotic disorders that are neurodevelopmental and, when not optimally managed, neurodegenerative," [1]
Becoming aware of such requires the admission to the definite possibility that such vigilance cross-Venn's us all.
Your sharing transcends edification :)
posted by splifingate at 4:44 PM
---------------------------
It's a great piece, and it's interesting to think of what their neighbors and friends really thought of them in the different places that they lived, and how they found out about the reality of their situation, whether it was the place in Pennsylvania with the discarded bogus credit cards and secret room or the one in Canada with the hidden pot growing space. The bit about Tim Allen was kind of interesting (I didn't know that his original last name was Dick, which made me wonder if he's at all related to Andy Dick), but I was especially intrigued with John trying to claim that he was wrapped up in the Iran-Contra thing but not realizing that Manuel Noriega didn't speak English.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:15 PM
---------------------------