28: Detectives
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I'm W.B. E.C. Chicago and Public Radio International. It's this American Life. I'm Ira Glass. This is my detective book. I just kept, I would go to the library and get all these books out on the FBI, take notes, learn words. So, this book, I just described it as an old, loosely-known book with a sort of 1960s era, flowers all over it, and stickers all over the cover. They're really tacky stickers. How many of us today have had a moment when we entertained that dream? Of being a private eye? Of being Kojak or Colombo or Rockford? They're just so many. Well, I'm Ira Glass, and of course, every week on this program, we bring you a variety of stories documenting everyday life in these United States. And on today's program, we're going to hear a number of stories about people who want to be detectives, adults and children. And we'll begin with one of the purest expressions of this desire you could possibly find, and that is a child's handmade detective notebook, Andrea DeFotis brought it in, and one of the things that's interesting about it, and I think this is probably a typical problem for many armchair wannabe detectives, is that it records her desire to gather clues and self-cases, but sadly for her, she was leading a life where there were really not that many cases to be solved. Okay, here's a mystery update file, June 6, 1981. How old were you? 11. You're 11. Okay, June 6, 1981, 4.33 p.m. No new mysteries, how depressing. Next entry, June 7, 1981, 534 p.m., no new mysteries, June 8, 1981, 607 p.m., no new mysteries. This goes on. But I changed the words to make it more, you know, myself feel better, no new cases. No new cases, okay. The book is divided up into sections with names like "solved", "unsolved". If you look inside of it, you cannot tell the difference. The things inside "solved" and "unsolved" stuff, they're exactly the same. There's a section on how to secretly code messages. There's the record of a successful case where Andrea found her sister's necklace, a very tough case. It's on the ground, behind a bureau. There are pamphlets on the FBI, one subject like fingerprints, a pamphlet called "How you can help the FBI stop investment in fraud". There's a vocabulary section, something that many adult detectives really don't spend enough time with, I think, vocabulary section has tough words and phrases in it like "treasurie enforcement school". Officially, it seems like at some point I had a club with my friend Tammy, and so this is the Q&A of qualifications for Tammy. Qualifications if she could get in the club? I guess to be sneaky or to be a detective or part of the FBI club, something like that. First question is, do you know who Agatha Christie is? Her answer was, "I have heard of her". Number two, do you know who Donald J. Sobel is? Answer "No Way". I don't either. I don't either.
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