How a guy named Tom became Camden Joy — and what he gained and what he lost. With Sarah Vowell. (13 minutes)
More in Jobs
Act One: Toy R Us
A teenage whiz kid invents a new toy for Milton Bradley.
Act Three: Tender Resignation
Even people who vehemently disagreed with Heider Garcia wanted him to stay in his job.
Act Three: If These Dogs Could Talk
There are certain jobs where thinking about someone else’s life is just built into it.
More by Sarah Vowell
Act One
Sarah Vowell and her twin sister, Amy, retrace the Trail of Tears. They visit the town in Georgia that was the capital of the Cherokee Nation before the Cherokee were expelled. They enjoy a tourist trap hotel in Chattanooga. They go to Ross's Landing, the embarkment point for the water route of the Trail of Tears. (27 minutes)
Act Two
Sarah Vowell's story continues. She and Amy visit the home of President Andrew Jackson, the villain in the Trail of Tears drama. They drive west to Cherokee graves in Kentucky and a commemorative marker that's been placed, oddly, at an Arkansas high school. They head into Oklahoma, where the Cherokee settled and where they were born. Sarah talks with her oldest living relative about the Trail. And she and Amy end their trip at the place where they first heard about the Trail of Tears: an amphitheater where every summer, they saw a dramatic two hour recreation of the Trail. (23 minutes)
Act Two: One Sinatra Fan ... Versus All Of Network TV.
Before Sinatra died, Sarah Vowell appeared on this radio program and made a prediction about how network news would cover Sinatra's death ... and she made a simple plea.