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What begins as a childhood mistake transforms into a touching story of reconciliation that will remind you of the healing power of forgiveness. If you're new to The Secret Room, each episode welcomes guests who share secrets they've been holding for decades. From tragic confessions to heartwarming revelations, these are the stories no one ever tells. Until now. Here's Ben with this week's secret.

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Hi Ben, my name is Dustin and I kept a childhood secret from my dad for 30 years. I was a dumb kid who did something cruel, but it led me to the most heartwarming moment of my life. Today the Secret Room presents On the Backs of Turtles. I'm Ben Ham. I look over at my brother and he's got this grin on his face. You're like, keep quiet. Yeah, and he goes, hey look, it's one of those turtles. Oh no. Music

Today, Dustin joins me in the secret room. He's going to share a story about his larger-than-life dad, turtles, and Star Wars action figures. It's a journey that will evoke wildly disparate emotions, and we start right now. Hi, Dustin. Welcome to the secret room. Thanks. Good to be here. You kept this secret from your dad for 30 years, right? I did. Well, we're going to find out why you kept it for so long, and then why you told it,

But I thought we should start by just talking about where you grew up, because that has a lot to do with the story. It does.

I grew up in a suburb of Corpus Christi, Texas called Flower Bluff. It's just right on the Corpus Christi Bay. And if you head out to Padre Island, then you would have to drive through Flower Bluff to get to Padre Island. So we lived right on the water. Did your house actually open up to water in the back? Yeah, we lived on a chain of canals, canals.

Canals kind of run in between the streets, almost like streets. And pretty much everybody that lives on the canal usually has a dock in their backyard, has a boat. And it was kind of a great place to live because you had access to the bay, you had access to great fishing. And then you can just head right over to Padre Island and you go to restaurants, you can...

Or if you wanted to, you could go out to the open ocean. Sounds great. It was a really neat place to grow up. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun. Tell me about your dad. The man that you kept the secret from for 30 years. Yeah, he was a very unique guy. Everything about my dad was intimidating. He was about six foot two, 250 pounds. He was one of these guys that never touched a weight in his life.

And if you closed your eyes and grabbed a hold of his shoulders, you'd think you grabbed a hold of a bull. Everything about him was intimidating from his giant mustache to he had a very commanding, very intimidating voice.

His voice was just incredibly deep. When he would get mad and he would yell at one of us, you could literally feel it in your chest. He had so much bass in his voice that you could feel it reverberate through you. There's no other way to describe him other than intimidating. Sounds like a man who didn't take much crap.

He did not. He did not. And me and my brothers, pretty much our entire childhood, we were scared to death of him. Did he have a lighter side to him? Did he joke around very much ever? Not really. For the most part, he was very stern. I could probably count on one hand how many times I actually saw him laugh. He was one of these guys that he just commanded respect and

You didn't dare talk back to him. So he did have a side that I don't remember a single night going to bed without him telling us he loved us. There was a softer side to him. You just didn't see it very often. It was a household that you felt safe in. You felt loved. You felt protected. You had everything you needed as a kid. But yeah, you just knew to stay in your lane. Yeah, exactly. He didn't. He was the type of person that he didn't like lying to.

He didn't like bullying. He didn't like cowardice. And he was really, really against...

doing anything half-assed. If he told you to do something, you better do it right the first time or else, you know. You mentioned in your secret that he had served in Vietnam. Yeah, he was a door gunner, two tours. He was actually a crew chief in a medical helicopter and then also worked as a door gunner. He was fearless and it was kind of weird because later on, I think it was when I was in high school actually,

I remember checking out a book in the school library about Vietnam. And I remember reading in there that Vietnam door gunners had a life expectancy of like two weeks. Oh, my God. And I didn't realize until that point what kind of job my dad had back then. It kind of made me respect Vietnam.

what he did even more. I can totally see that. I mean, that's what a job and he came out of it. Yeah.

Alive. It was kind of weird because he didn't talk about it too much. I don't remember him ever really talking about any specific incident. But the one thing he said is being in a helicopter was actually better than being in the barracks. He said it was the only place that you didn't sweat your ass off in. And I remember thinking he'd rather be flying in a helicopter than...

doing something dangerous than sitting in a bunk sleeping. I just remember thinking that I can't comprehend that type of thinking. Right. But he had told his brother that when he was over there, he said the first couple months he was over there, he was scared to death. But then you kind of come to the realization that you're not going to go home and you're going to die out there. And then you can kind of put the fear behind you if you kind of accept death and

And that's how he made it. It was really, really a different time back then because I couldn't see people having that mentality now. What did he do when he came back? He went to law enforcement school and then he became a Texas game warden. I think he was maybe there working at that job for a couple of years when he was actually promoted to a supervisor position. That was at the Department of Wildlife? Yes. Yep. You like that job?

He loved it. He loved it. What did he like about it? I think he just loved being out on the water. He spent most of his time out on the water. You know, he was, his dad was a, a shrimper his whole life. So my dad deckhand for his, for his dad, pretty much his entire childhood. So he just, just loved being out on the water and fishing. And I think he was living his dream every day. He went to work to be honest.

He sounds like quite a commanding figure. Yeah. Do you have any stories about him? You know, I kind of think of the type of person that he was and he was always trying to teach lessons. I remember this was probably, I think I was probably about 11, 12 years old. Me and my younger brother, we were told that while he was at work, we had to stain our dock.

So we went out there and we started staining and we're just working at it, working at it for a couple hours. And we got half of the dock stained and a couple of my friends came by, come riding up on their bikes and they wanted me to go somewhere with them. So I told my brother, I said, let's finish this quick and then I'm going to take off. So

We finished the rest of it as fast as we could and pretty much as sloppy as we could. And then I put the stain away and jumped on my bike and I hit the road. Later that evening, my dad came home and I see him walking out to the dock and I see him standing out there and he looks down at it and I see him shake his head. I go, oh no. So he comes back in and he goes, come here.

So we go back out to the dock, me and my brother. And he said, he said, this side, he said, you did a great job. He said, but I can tell right here, here's the line right here where I'm assuming some of your buddies came by and you rushed through the rest of it, didn't you? And I just kind of said, yes, sir. And he goes, okay, this is what we're going to do. He said, tomorrow, he said, you're going to restain this entire deck tomorrow.

And he said, it is going to look exactly like the first half. And he said, you're going to start at 8 o'clock in the morning and you're not going to finish until I get home. So he said, you're going to go through with a toothbrush and apply some stain. And he meant it. And then he goes, but for the meantime, he said, come here. So he went back into the house. He grabbed a bag of peas out of the freezer. And he said, after dinner, he said, you're going to count every single pea in this bag.

And he goes, and then when you're done, and then he looked at my brother and he said, then you're going to count every single pea in the bag. And he said, and if you don't come up with the same number, you're going to do it all over again. We were there until midnight counting peas. And I remember that thinking, this is insane. Who does this? And I just, you know, at the time you just hate your dad. I mean, I just despised him.

But I didn't realize until obviously much later how important those little lessons were. You don't half-ass things. You do it and you get it done and you do it right. And I try to instill that in my kids too.

Obviously not as harshly, but, you know, it's a battle. That's quite an exercise. Have you used the pee exercise on your kids? I have not. I have not. Like you said, that one was pretty harsh. Yeah. And that was what he was all about. You just don't half-ass anything. If you're going to do it, do it all the way. Do it right so you don't have to redo it. Do you remember how many peas there were in the bag?

I think it was in the 800s. And I remember by the time we were done, they were getting completely mushy. So it was just a mess. Amazing. I can remember back when he was a supervisor. And this is kind of a story on what kind of a supervisor, what kind of a boss he was.

He kept inviting this guy that worked with him. He kept inviting him over for dinner. It was him, his wife, and then they had a daughter. And I actually knew the daughter from school. I think she was a year younger than me. He kept on inviting them to dinner. I'd say it was like a couple times a month. And it was really weird because...

We would sit down to eat and my dad wasn't big into conversation. You know, he didn't talk that much. Like if we sat down to eat at the table, he may say a few things, but that was it. But it seemed like he was like trying to be less talkative when these people were here. And we, I couldn't, I couldn't figure out why he kept inviting these. And this guy was another game warden and he was kind of a, kind of a nerdy type of guy, uh,

After probably they had come to our house probably six or seven times, the daughter, she kept on coming into my room. She goes, you want to hear a secret? I go, sure. She goes, you got to promise not to tell your dad. Oh, boy. I go, okay. It looks like you're going to get two secrets for one today. The first is coming right up and how it all ties into Turtles Ahead. Stay with me.

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And we're back with Dustin Starring. She goes, you want to hear a secret? I go, sure.

She goes, "You gotta promise not to tell your dad." Oh boy. I go, "Uh, okay." She goes, "My dad hates your dad." And I go, "Really?" And she goes, "Yeah, she thinks he's an asshole." And I go, "Okay." And I just kind of laughed about it. Well, as soon as they left, I went to my dad and I said, "Hey, guess what?" And he goes, "What?"

And I go, and I can't remember his name, but I go, daughter told me that her dad hates you. Oh, boy. And he says, I know it. Okay. I go, you know? I go, why would you keep inviting them to dinner if you know? And he goes, because he's trying to promote. I go, okay. And he goes, I don't promote pussies. And I go, okay. I go, then what's the whole charade with the dinner thing?

And he says, if he doesn't have the balls to tell me that he doesn't want to come to dinner, then he's not going to have the balls to stand up for the staff that work underneath him. So I'm going to keep inviting him to dinner until he has the balls to tell me that he doesn't want to come to dinner. And he goes, and then I'll promote him. And he goes, he is the best applicant for promotion, but he's just spineless right now.

And I remember thinking like, this seems really stupid to me. But as I've gotten older, I don't think that there's enough of that. I work in a business where they promote people based on who they think will just do what they're told. And, you know, there's no chance to improve things if you can't stand up to your supervisor. I mean, ultimately, it's the supervisor's decision, right?

But I see how inefficiently things run when they promote based on who the yes man is. So I really see the value in what he did. Well, that's amazing. I mean, there's definitely merit in that. But I wonder if the guy ever, ever stepped forward and said, you know, I don't want to come over to dinner. I mean, it's almost like biting the hand that feeds you.

Yeah, he did get promoted, but it took a while and eventually they stopped coming to dinner and I never really asked why. I wonder what it was that ultimately convinced your father to promote him. Yeah, I don't remember or I don't even know if I ever knew. Maybe the guy just said no one time. Or maybe lied. Right. Oh, I can't. Right. That's probably what I would have done. Yeah.

Well, your father cuts a commanding figure. He is very clear in the way he presents himself, the way he carries himself, and very certain in the things he does in life.

Yeah, he really was. As we got older, it was kind of weird because, you know, as scary as he was as a kid, and I remember none of my friends ever wanted to come over when he was home because he scared them too. But then once we got into like high school, we start to realize that he's not as intimidating as we once thought. And he was actually more funny than anything. Hmm.

He had a very dry sense of humor and very subtle. So sometimes he would crack a joke or something and you didn't know if he was joking or not. But his comment would be,

hysterical but nobody would laugh because they didn't know if he was joking because he was just dry as all ghetto yeah and he'd keep a stone face appearance he wouldn't smile or anything and it was kind of funny and it got to where all my buddies loved him and they were constantly trying to tell him jokes to see if they could get him to laugh and he never would he'd maybe just chuckle and that was pretty much it okay so that's the most you could get out of him oh yeah

I think, like I said, I think I've seen him laugh maybe three or four times where he actually, you know, had a good belly laugh. Sounds like a good challenge, but you might be afraid you'd get your head bit off in the process of trying to make him laugh. Yeah, but he was a lot more gentle than we thought and brutally honest. And I think it was that brutal honesty that was so funny. Like my mom would...

I'd ask him, hey, honey, do these pants make my butt look big? And he'd say, your butt is big. But do those pants look good on you?

Of course they look good on you. So he'd say things like that where, and he used to always say that the truth doesn't care about your feelings. And that's true. Yeah, that's some perspective. I think it's time to get into your secret. Okay. Your secret takes place during the time that your father was a supervising warden at the Department of Wildlife, right?

Yes. Yep. And how old were you and your brother then? I think I was probably about 12 years old. This was in 1986 and my brother was four years younger than me. So he would have been eight, I think. To set up the secret, we should understand those canals behind your house would sometimes flood.

Yes, especially when there was like hurricanes or any tropical storms that were on the Gulf of Mexico. And it didn't even matter if the storms were heading towards Florida. We would still get some kind of effect in the bay and in the canals. But this particular one, this was Hurricane Bonnie and it did make landfall in Texas somewhere. I think it was north of where I was. Did you have to evacuate your house very often?

I would say a few times, but it seemed like my dad didn't really take it seriously. He'd just say, oh, we're going to go ahead to your aunt and uncle's house for a few days.

And then we'd come back and there'd usually be minimal damage or anything, you know, there's some debris in the yard or whatnot. And I think the Hurricane Bonnie was the first time when I actually saw my dad actually worried. It was the first time we ever boarded up windows. He anchored his boat where he set the anchor. He unhooked it from the trailer.

He had, you know, 120 feet of chain. So, I mean, so if the water came up, the boat would go up with the water. He really prepared. I think we were gone for like three or four days. Then we came back and saw the mess that was in our yard. And, and that's kind of where the story starts. Did the water get into your house?

It didn't. There was only one other time where water actually came in and it was just basically, it just brought in a little bit of water and we didn't have carpet on our floors. So, just because of that reason, basically, you just mop everything up and on to the next storm. Hurricane Bonnie, 1986. The water surges. Yeah.

Gets up pretty high, creates a mess. It made a huge mess. We came home and my dad had to go right back to work. So he left me and my brothers in charge of cleaning up the yard. And most of it was just like tree branches, garbage, all kinds of just crap laying around your yard. And it was mud. So we were, you know, basically just...

trying to get rid of the mud, trying to get rid of all the debris. And we went out to the dock and the water had receded down past lower than the dock so we could stand on the dock. And one thing about these canals is when these storms come through, it just fills with all kinds of sea life. A lot of creatures.

Lots of them. And anywhere from jellyfish to, I don't know if you've ever heard of Portuguese man o' wars. They kind of look like jellyfish. Okay. They're just really nasty looking and they float on the water. They'll sting the crap out of you if you touch them.

All kinds of fish. It'd be a great place to fish, but it's actually illegal to fish there if during or after one of these storms. Would it be your father's purview to enforce that? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

I can remember after these storms, there would be sometimes we'd see sharks swimming up the canal. They weren't very big, but there'd be two, three foot sharks. You'd see all kinds of fish swimming around and it's just infested with it. I mean, you could just grab a net and scoop what you wanted up. Was there a lot of life left on the land as the waters receded? During this storm, this was the first time we had ever seen a

bunch of turtles and it was really weird because I had never seen so many turtles in my life and

We went down to the dock and there were thousands of them. They're just swimming, swimming everywhere. Do you know what kind they were? I don't. I don't even know if I ever knew. I just know that they were small, probably about the size of like a teacup saucer. Like a little box turtle? Yeah. They weren't the sea turtles. These things walked on land pretty easily. They more had feet, not flippers. So there were thousands of them.

Yeah, they were just everywhere. It was like an infestation. Well, that must have been fun for you guys. Turtles are fun. Oh, of course. We went and grabbed my dad's fishing net and we just started scooping them out of the canal. And in probably a couple of minutes, we had an entire five gallon bucket full of turtles.

Wow. And so what was your end game? What were you planning to do with all of these turtles? We didn't really have any plan. It was just kind of, we were just catching them. And my brother had gone into the shed and he grabbed my little sister. It was probably three or four at the time. And she had one of those little blue swimming pools.

We had started filling up that pool with these turtles, and I bet you we probably had 300 or 400 turtles in this pool. I remember my older brother, he had come into the backyard, and he sees this pool of turtles, and all he said is, you better hope Dad doesn't see that. Yeah, no kidding. You're probably breaking some law.

Sure, yeah. So we kinda didn't really have a plan and then it hit me. I said, I got an idea. Do you get the feeling that Dustin's idea could land the two brothers in hot water? Maybe, maybe not. But how they navigate what happens next and the heartwarming place it lands them, no one could have foretold.

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My older brother, he was big into like model airplanes and model cars. So he had this box in his room that had 20, 30 tubes of this model glue. So I asked him if I could borrow some of that glue.

So went into his room, grabbed the glue, and I went into my room and I had been saving up, collecting all these Star Wars action figures. I probably had four big shoe boxes full of these action figures. I'm not exactly sure what the nexus of action figures, monoglue and turtles is, but I'm a little afraid.

So, we started an assembly line. I had this idea that we would glue these action figures onto the backs of these turtles. Oh, my God. So, I would put the glue on, hold it in place, and my brother would hold it in place until it dried. And then once it dried, we'd toss it back in the pool. And we did this with probably... I mean, we ran out of action figures. We probably did this with, I bet you, 300 turtles. Just...

It was the dumbest thing I can ever remember doing. And we did a lot of dumb stuff as kids. But this was, this kind of takes the cake. This was stupid. I mean, this is clearly animal abuse. Yeah, it was. But, you know, at the time, you know, we weren't thinking that we were hurting anything. You know, we just thought it was funny. And then my brother comes back in there and sees this pool full of Star Wars turtles. And he kind of laughed about it.

And if my brother laughs about it, it must be funny. So we thought, all right, let's go dump it back in the canal. So we drug this pool back to the canal. We dumped them. And for the rest of the afternoon, we watched these Star Wars action figures gliding through the canals. What a sight. So you got like a Yoda and an Obi-Wan Kenobi just kind of floating.

Floating around the canal. It was Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader. It was all of them. For the next few hours, we just sat and watched it. And the turtles would be underwater, but these action figures would be sticking out of the water, kind of like a shark's fin, and just be flying up and down the canals. Yeah.

I don't know. You know, the site must have been hilarious. You know, one side of you says this is like the funniest thing to see. And of course, it's also terribly sad. I mean, I don't know what the impact on the turtles is, but it can't be good. It can't be good. I don't even want to think of that. Yeah.

I mean, I'm almost 50 years old now and I still think it's funny, but at the same time, I try not to think of that side of it. Not funny at all, really. When you think about it like that, how many action figures were swimming around? Probably three or 400 of them. You had that many action figures? I had a ton of them. They must've been small, like maybe a few inches?

Yeah, they were probably two, three inches tall. Yeah, and I had been saving them since I was probably like five or six years old. Wow, well, you certainly found an opportunity to do something with them. Well, and then I was kind of bummed because now I don't have them anymore. Right. And I'm never going to get them back. Yeah.

Trying to picture this. Yeah. And as, as we sat there, you know, we started seeing less and less of them over the course of like the couple hours. And then, uh, you know, the end of the day came and started getting dark. So we went inside and then the next day we had to continue cleaning up the yard. So we went back outside and we'd still see them swimming around. And over the course of the next week, uh,

We still were seeing them swimming around the canals. And then something bad happened. My dad, he would always take the newspaper into the bathroom with him. And he comes out of the bathroom with the newspaper. And I was in the kitchen.

And I hear him say, look what these idiots did. And then I hear my mom say, looks like something our boys would do. So that got my curiosity. I kind of peeked around the corner and I see them looking at the newspaper. Well, I went behind my mom and I looked at what she was looking at. And right on the front page of this, and we had a little, it was just a little community newspaper that comes out like a couple times a month maybe. But right on the front page, there was a picture of a log floating in the water.

Uh-huh. And there were six turtles sitting on this log and every one of them had Star Wars action figures on their backs. Oh, my gosh. And... They found community. Yeah. And I just looked at it and went...

Right. And I just kind of just kept it quiet. I didn't say anything. And I didn't even tell my brother and hoped it would just go away. You must have been terrified. At that time, not yet. Not yet. It gets worse. What was your father's reaction? Did he say anything to you about it? Yeah. We were out fishing. This was probably...

maybe a few weeks later, there was multiple news articles in the newspaper about these turtles. So I think over the course of like a few weeks, I think that like two or three more articles came out. Then there was a picture in the Corpus Christi newspaper, which was a bigger newspaper. It said Department of Fish and Games is investigating the abuse. And I just remember seeing that going, oh my God. And is that your dad? I knew right away.

Oh my god. Yeah. Nothing gets by this guy. No.

And over the course of the next few weeks, I was just scared to death. I just knew that he was going to find out and we were going to get whooped and who knows what was going to happen. I think he might have even got rid of us. Oh my gosh. So, okay. So was there any discussion at the home about it? Like, did you and your parents talk about this prank that somebody had perpetrated on your local turtle population? Not really. At one point, my dad did say,

He said, you guys have something to do with this? And like, no. Okay. You know, just totally lying about it. But we kept it pretty hush hush. And then one day he had come home and he said that he would be doing the investigation on this turtle thing. And he said, I'm letting one of the rookies handle it.

There was a huge relief because my dad hated these rookies. He was always talking about how dumb they were.

So I'm thinking, oh, okay, rookies are stupid. They'll never figure it out. Yeah. So that made me feel a lot better. And I can remember one time we were down on the dock and one of the fish and game boats come by and there was a game warden that was actually scooping. I don't think he got any turtles, but he was scooping stuff out of the water. And we just kind of waved and he knew that we lived there because he waved and he knew our names. So-

And we just kind of waved back and that was it. But inside I'm going, oh, crap. Oh, I hope he doesn't find one. But the weird thing is, is we had gone to other canals blocks and blocks away. And then all of a sudden one would pop up. So these things were swimming everywhere. Oh, yeah. I'm sure they got around. So, yeah, they had some distance.

Even at that time, we still didn't think that what we did was mean. You know, we just still thought it was funny. Okay. So you've got this secret that's kind of hilarious, but you know not to let your dad find out because there would be consequences. There would be. Yeah. Yeah.

He was a huge animal lover, so he not only was at his job, he hated to see any type of animal herding or anybody poaching, any type of illegal fishing or anything. He was very stern about it. To that end, it would also reflect very poorly on him if his kids were revealed as the people that had done this. I'm sure. Yeah.

I can remember we were sitting, it was me, my older brother, and my dad, we were sitting out on the dock fishing and one of those turtles popped up and my dad didn't see it, but my brother saw it. I look over at my brother and he's got this grin on his face. You're like, keep quiet. Yeah. And he goes, hey, look, it's one of those turtles. Oh no.

And then my dad turns and looks and he goes, yeah, if I ever find out you guys had something to do with that, he goes, you're getting your ass whooped. So then we're just like, no, it wasn't us. You know? And the weird thing is, is I think there every once in a while, my mom would drop these little subtle hints. I kind of think my mom knew. Okay. So let's game this out. They know that you've got all these Star Wars action figures. Yeah. And...

hmm, they're all floating around on all these turtles. Yeah. All one really has to do to investigate is go to your room and see if you've still got them. Well, here's the dumb thing. So after, and this is how I think my mom figured it out. After we had used all of the Star Wars action figures, my brother threw the boxes right in the garbage. And I think my mom saw that. And every once in a while, she would drop a little subtle hint saying,

Sometimes we thought that she was kind of like a double agent. She would help us out, you know, because she knew how mad my dad would get. So she'd kind of cover for us sometimes, but then we'd piss her off. And then, you know, then she'd kind of rat us out. But then other times she'd help us out and other times she'd rat us out. So she was playing both sides. Wow. So much family politics. Yeah. Yeah.

That was probably a good life lesson to learn how to negotiate. Yeah. And don't piss off your mom. Yeah. So what kind of hints did she drop? Every once in a while? I remember we'd get these things in the mail, like department store catalog or something. And, uh,

She would open it up to like the toy section and then she would circle like the Star Wars stuff and she'd go, you guys need any more Star Wars stuff? Oh, but she totally knew. Yeah, I think she did. But she never said, she never said a word about it. Yeah. Well, she let you know, didn't she? In her own subtle way. Yeah. Yeah. She was pretty sneaky. And so clearly she never told your dad.

No, she never told him. Well, sounding like he never found out. He was the type that if he even had a hunch that it was us, he would have said something. Right. We must have been good liars. Yeah. Maybe he didn't want to know either. Yeah, well, that could be too. But there's an epilogue to this story, right? Yeah. There's... In 2018...

my dad passed away. I'm sorry. He, uh, you know, I look back and, and I think, I think of my dad is almost like a superhero. I look back on the way he was and the way he, uh, the way he conducted himself and the way he stood up for people, you know, I don't know. I just, people like that just don't, just aren't around anymore. And he, uh,

He was just a great guy and he started developing heart problems and he went in for heart surgery and he never left the hospital. Sorry. Yeah. And so at the end, did you have a chance to talk to him? Yeah. It was kind of weird because

When he went in for heart surgery, I didn't think, I would have never thought in a million years. I mean, this guy was just so incredibly tough that I knew he was having heart surgery. We went to the hospital the day before and we were joking around. You know, it was one of those things where...

He did not seem like that he was coming to an end. I thought this was just going to be another thing he'll beat, you know? Yeah. Was he smiling? Yeah. And, you know, he wasn't in a bad mood. He didn't seem worried. Even my mom didn't even seem worried.

He had the surgery and he survived the surgery, but he just started deteriorating after the surgery. And even when my mom called me and said that he wasn't doing good, like me and my younger brother, we didn't really take it seriously. So, you know, I have some regrets. I didn't go visit him until the day before he passed.

And so he spent three months in the hospital with not many visitors. And I mean, I still feel horrible over that. Yeah. Did the family all come around the day before he passed? Yeah. The doctor had told my mom that he had to have a procedure done. And basically it was he had a triple bypass. And there's these tubes, I guess, that have to be changed every

And they said that he likely would not survive the procedure and it was going to be done the next day. So we went to the hospital to see him. I remember walking into the hospital room and I was the first one to get there. And it was my daughter and I. And I think my daughter was probably about seven at the time. We walked into the hospital room and it was the first time I ever saw my dad cry.

I walked through the door and he just reached for me. And, uh, um, yeah, it was, that was tough. And he had deteriorated so much. He had turned into this frail, this, this frail little guy. And it was, he was unrecognizable in, in just that, that amount of time, even like his hands, he, he used to have catcher's mitts for hands and,

Like we used to joke that we call him sausage fingers and, uh, that he just had these massive powerful hands and his hands were so skinny. And when I was 16 and I got my first job, the first thing I did is I bought my dad a present and the present was a, uh, it was a ring and it was a lion head. And then on the side, it said dad, and it had two diamonds in it and

And I had to get the ring big because he had these massive, massive fingers. And to put it into perspective, my wedding ring actually fits through his ring all the way through without touching it. That's how big his hands were. And he was still wearing that ring, but he had fabric tied around the bottom of the ring just to keep it on.

And seeing him like that was, was devastating. I knew as soon as I saw him that he, he was dying. Yeah. And it was, it was really nice because I got to spend a couple hours before anybody else got there. And so I got to, I got to spend a couple hours with them and we prayed and, and just hung out and, and, uh,

And just chatted. And it was really weird because he was on oxygen, but he could still talk. And it was real like labored talking. So it was a little hard to understand him. But I laid next to him on his bed. And we just laid there for a couple hours and talking. And I would say that was the worst moment of my life. I'm so sorry. And so then your mom and your brother must have come along.

Yeah. And then my older brother showed up and, uh, and it was kind of weird because after everybody showed up, it kind of turned into like a little party, you know, like everybody, everybody seemed like they were in a good mood and I didn't, I didn't really understand why more people weren't sad. My mom, um, she'd have her moments, but for the most part, everybody seemed pretty upbeat and

And I wanted to say, don't you realize that this is the last time we're going to see him? But then again, I didn't want to turn the mood sour either. Must have been very somber though, nonetheless. Yeah, it was towards the end of the day. And we had kids there that were hungry and they wanted to leave. And so everybody...

was kind of like at the end, you know, and it got real quiet. And then we were kind of just sitting around the room. Nobody was really saying too much. And my brother pulled me aside and he goes...

We got to change this mood. We got to do something. And he goes, tell him about the turtles. Tell him the turtle story. Tell him the turtle story. Oh, no. And I looked at him and I just remember just thinking, that's the best idea I've ever heard. You knew instantly you wanted to do it. Yeah. No second thoughts. Yeah. I said, I got something to tell you. So I told the story and...

And he laughed and, uh, um, and he just, uh, it was, it was one of the funniest things. Um, he, he looked at me and, uh, he goes, uh, by the way, you're grounded. And it was just, uh, kind of a, a neat moment. And, and the weird thing is, is, uh, um, probably about maybe a couple months before that, uh,

I had kept, and I didn't even realize I kept these things. It was all the pictures of those turtles. They had ripped out all the newspaper clippings and I had saved them. So I had like four or five pictures of these turtles with these action figures. And when my dad passed away and at his funeral, I put them in an envelope and

And I just wrote on a little post-it note, sorry, I lied. And I put it in the envelope and I put that in his casket with him. And then the weird thing about the post-it note, and I didn't realize I had even done this, but I was going through a dresser drawer in my bedroom. This was probably about a month or two after my dad's funeral.

And I remember seeing all these post-it notes. It just instantly hit me. My dad, he was so cheap. He would never buy birthday cards. So what he would do is he would take a post-it note and he would write, happy 26th birthday.

love you. And then he would put that post-it note in an envelope and mail it to you. And he was never right on the birthday either. So I would get one on my brother's birthday and it would never had the right day either. It never, uh, if I was 34, I'd get one that said happy 26th birthday. So that's so weird. Yeah. And, uh,

He was trying. Yeah. He gets a B for effort. Right. That's hilarious. And so he gave it back to him with the post-it note in his casket with the turtles. And it wasn't done deliberately. Just kind of came full circle on its own. Yeah. If I could share a couple more stories of my dad. One of the things is when I told you that he was always teaching you a lesson. I can remember when I was in high school. I think I was probably a

in high school or something, I had this oral report that I had to do and I had forgotten my speech, my report on my dresser and it was in a folder and

So my dad would take these random days off of work. Usually he was up before we were and he'd be already out of the house. And you always knew when he was taking the day off because he'd be standing in front of the TV in his underwear, drinking a cup of coffee. We'd get up for school and he'd be just standing there watching the news.

I'd say, you're not going to work? He goes, not today. And he wasn't sick or anything. He was just taking a day off. And we get home from school and he's still in his underwear, standing in front of the TV, still drinking coffee. And I go, you stood there all day? He goes, well, not all day. I go, you're still in your underwear? And he goes, this is my house. If you don't like it, there's the door. And he goes, they're different underwear. And

We just kind of laugh about it and whatever. But this particular day that I called home and he had taken the day off and I said, I need you to come to the school. I forgot my report is sitting on my dresser. I need you to do it. And he kind of grumbled about it and, you know, damn it. So then I went to that class and I'm sitting in class and, and I'm waiting. I'm thinking that, okay, he's going to bring it to the office and then the office will somehow get it to me in the classroom. And,

And I just happened to be sitting in the furthest seat from the door of the classroom. So the door of the classroom is on the corner. So I'm sitting in the opposite corner, the desk furthest away. A couple of my buddies are sitting there like along the back row and

And there was a little square window in the door and my buddy sitting next to me points to the door and I see my dad's face looking into the classroom. I'm like, okay. So then he opens the door and he walks in. He said, I'm looking for my son, Dustin.

The teacher points to me and he comes walking in and he was wearing like a shirt that was like three sizes too small. He was wearing these cut off jeans that were cut way too short. Mm-hmm.

And the white pockets were sticking out the bottom of the shorts. And you could tell he just did it too, because usually a pair of blue jeans frays once you wash them. These weren't frayed at all. Okay. And he's wearing fishing boots. What a sight. Yeah. And he's a big guy and he comes walking in and he keeps saying my name. I got your report, Dustin. I got your report.

And he lays it on the desk and then he kind of leans in and he goes, that you'll never forget again, will you? And then he turned around and he walked out and my buddies are just laughing. It was the most humiliating thing I've ever, I've ever experienced. What a calculating guy. Oh, he was just methodical. Just methodical. Jeez, you learned that lesson. Yeah.

Yes, I did. But you never forgot anything again. Never. What a story. And you had another one? This one was kind of like a story of how he hated disrespect. And it was really weird because how politically incorrect he was sometimes.

But he did not like when people were like overtly rude to people and he would call them out. Like if we were in public and somebody was being rude to a waitress or whatever, he would call them out. And there was one particular time we were, we were at like a department store in the customer service and we were returning something for some reason. I want to say it was a baseball glove or something. We were at this checkout line and there was this guy that was in front of us.

He was returning a fan, like one of those box fans, and it was filthy. It looked like it was about 10 years old, and he's trying to return it. The clerks asked him if he has a receipt, and he, no, I don't have a receipt, and he was just being a jerk. He just was berating this, and it was a middle-aged woman, you know, and he was just rude, and

He was loud, he was obnoxious, he was swearing. And I look over at my dad and my dad, when my dad would get mad, he would start clenching his jaw. And when you'd see his jaw start pulsating, you knew he was getting mad. I would look at the situation, then I'd look over at my dad and his jaw is starting to pulsate. He's getting mad.

And this jerk in front of us demands for the manager. So this little manager comes up. It's an even younger woman. She's little. Then he starts berating her. It was just so ridiculous how this guy was treating these people.

And my dad, he just snapped. And he walked in front of this guy and he grabbed this guy's fan. And he picks it up and he walks to the door of the store. The door opens up and he just flings this fan out into the parking lot. And then he walks back and he says, it's time for you to leave. And if you don't, I'll do the same thing with you. Whoa, really touched a nerve. And the guy just...

and then just walked out. He got to the door, he turned around and he flipped my dad off and then he scurried out the door. When it's over, my dad would just look at me and just kind of smirk. He's like, that's how it's done, Dustin. Yeah. And, uh,

He was fearless. I mean, nowadays it's probably good he's not around anymore because nowadays he'd get shot. Yeah, you can't get away with that stuff as easily anymore. No, no. Well, it's clear that you love your dad a lot. Yeah, he was a great guy. Yeah. Going back to the hospital room on the day before he passed and you confessed the turtle story to him and he laughed. That must have been a great sense of closure for you.

It was really kind of weird because I remember when we were fishing that day and he told us and this kind of put it into perspective that he had made the comment that doing that to those turtles was like a death sentence for those turtles. And he said they'll swim underneath something and then get stuck and then they'll drown. And that was like the first time that we realized, oh man, maybe we shouldn't have done this.

And when we were talking to him on that last day, we were talking about those turtles. He said the same exact thing. Oh, really? Yeah. He made the comment. Yeah, all those turtles probably died within a couple of weeks of you doing that. And we felt like crap again. Yeah. And so what was your mom's reaction? She didn't really say too much. I think she just kind of just sat there and smiled. She didn't give up her hand that she knew.

No, she never said a word. Oh, what a story. Why did you want to tell your secret today? I've asked myself that. My dad was just such a great guy. And I just want every one of your listeners know that there's people like that. People like my dad that are still out there. And they're just great guys, great people. And you'd have no idea that you just met them.

one of the best people in the world just by walking by him. And I guess as far as...

telling the secret. I just, I just thought it was kind of a funny story. I've told a couple people about it, but I didn't go into detail. I didn't tell them about the end. I just pretty much told the turtle story and, and then I kind of just leave it at that. It was somebody at work. I actually told this turtle story too. And he was, it was a guy at work that actually told me, Hey, there's this podcast. He goes, you should tell it on that. And, uh,

So I thought, and he didn't even know the end of it. So, so it'll be interesting to tell him, you know, the guy that actually told me about the podcast. Hey, who did this interview? Or maybe just wait for him to hear it. Yeah, I could do that. Either way, he was right.

Yeah. And, you know, and I remember writing it when I was writing it to you. And I had listened to quite a few of your podcasts and I just thought, this isn't even remotely close. You know, some of these other secrets are just...

So life changing. And this was not one of those, one of those secrets. Well, it's quite a story and it just comes full circle with your dad. And it's just so heartwarming at the end. It gave you some really nice closure with your dad, who is a towering figure in your life. Yeah. Yeah.

It's weird, you know, I'll see people on TV or I'll hear a song that he would listen to. And he was a huge Cher fan. Okay. And I think I was the only one that knew that. And anytime him and I were in the vehicle together and a Cher song come on, he'd say, shut up. And then he'd turn the radio up and he would listen to this. And he would sing along with it. And he sang like shit, like absolute crap. And...

And picture this big beast of a guy singing to a Cher song. That's so funny. But then other times, like there'd be other people in the car and a Cher song would come on and he'd go, I turned this crap over. Interesting. So for one of his birthdays, and I don't remember which birthday it was. This was back when they used to have music stores. I went in and I just cleaned them out of Cher CDs.

And I put them in a box and I gave them to him for his birthday. And he opened it up in front of everybody. And he's like, what is this? You know, kind of rifled through him. And then he looks at me and he kind of just glares at me for a second. You revealed his secret. Yeah.

It was probably about a few months later, I was in his truck and I opened the console and all those Cher CDs were in his console. Yeah, I bet they were. That's great. He loved it. Yeah. And, you know, he let his guard down around you a little bit. So that's a compliment to you. Yeah. Well, Dustin, thank you for sharing this personal story with us. I really enjoyed it. So did I. Thank you. You're welcome.

Do you believe in life after love? Dustin is thriving, and I have no doubt that it's in large part due to his father's lessons and memory, which will always loom large. And about the turtles, yes, it was animal abuse, and yes, Dustin knows. And he told me that even after all these years, now as an adult, he still carries so much regret. Now we'll never know for sure what fate became of the turtles. Let's hope the reluctant passengers broke free to take on their mission: destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. Because that is their fate.

And we've got more delightful lessons from Dustin's dad on the next Unlocked. Join me as Dustin recounts more memories of his dad in just one week. Susie Lark's got a great follow-up with Dustin on our premium show Unlocked. It's available at patreon.com slash secret room and on Apple Podcasts. See a picture of the ring Dustin got his dad and see Dustin with his brother right now on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Just search at Secret Room Pod.

You can submit your secret and check out all our sponsor codes at secretroompod.com. And thanks this week to Suzy Lark and Luna Patel. Breakmaster Cylinder composed our theme and our music. Next time on The Secret Room, Amanda thinks a fatal accident on the farm wasn't as much of an accident as her fiancé says it was. Hear the evidence and tell me if you agree. The farmhand drops in just two weeks. Thanks for downloading your favorite indie podcast that could...

This is The Secret Room, a podcast about the stories no one ever tells. I'm Ben Ham.