00:04 Corey: Welcome to Family Twist, a podcast about relatively unusual stories of long lost families, adoptions, and lots of drama. I'm Corey. And I'm Kendall, and we've been partners for over 16 years. In the first episode, we looked at Kendall's past as an adopted baby and only child in Arkansas. And then the dead ends of trying to find information about your birth family because it was a closed adoption. Right.

00:28 Corey: We're in California having a fantastic life, wonderful friends, wonderful jobs. But there was something still nagging at me about the closed adoption and what can we do to find out where your family is? So I think it was on a group on I got a 23 and me kits, and it yielded some interesting results, right? It did. I was actually fascinated by it in that you gave a DNA sample similar to other ones that you would give. And it was amazing to me because I love things like this.

01:00 You got the results, and it said you had blonde hair as a child, which is true that I had blue eyes as a baby, which is true that I currently had green eyes, that my index finger is shorter than my ring finger, that I am someone who is able to curl my tongue. The things that it matched on, the DNA was amazing things to learn. More than anything, it was just comical and cool.

01:28 But yeah, I think we were both just, wow, this is really accurate a lot of ways. So I didn't know if anything was going to come from that. And it didn't include people DNA matches. So that was like early in 2017. And then for your birthday in July, I got you an Ancestry kit, which does include people matches. So you spit in a tube, you mail it back to them, and then everything is like digital from there on, right?

01:57 So I spit in the tube and sent it off and got an email back saying, we received your sample. It takes about six to eight weeks to process, but it didn't take that long. You got an email, like just a couple of weeks after that. I did. And yeah, that was a surreal day. You didn't even think it was like real because they said it was going to take such a long time. And you just thought, well, this is clever marketing. They're just trying to keep my anticipation going. Exactly. I thought, do I need to buy another package? Is that what they're trying to do is sell me?

02:28 And at that point, of course, I probably would have just because my interest had been piqued. But yeah, it was amazing. You're at work that day. You get this email, you look at it, what do you see? So I get this email from Ancestry.com, say, Congratulations, your results are ready. And I click on it. And again, I still thought it was marketing. I was like, there's no way it's not ready yet.

02:54 But it said, Click here to log into the Ancestry.com site, which I had already registered with so that they could connect my DNA sample to my profile. And so it says, Click here and you can get your results. And it's funny, with as much as I have struggled throughout my life with passwords for various sites, I must have really wanted to remember this one because I did not struggle with my password.

03:23 I was able to jump right into the Ancestry.com site. And the cool thing about the way that happened at the time, four years ago, maybe it's changed, but it immediately took you to a page that showed you your DNA matches. And the way it was arranged was that your closest matches, your closest relatives were at the top of the page, right? Yeah. I see this name at the top of the page and it says Christopher Clark. And that's all it says.

03:52 So it doesn't. For instance, you might assume with the name Christopher, that was a male, but for instance, there was no reference to where he was, what his age was, that he was a male. Nothing, literally nothing was just a name. What is cool about Ancestors? What you're able to do as far as communication is they keep it anonymous and that you can contact your matches, but you're doing it through Ancestry.

04:22 So you immediately said, here's my birthday, here's the day I was born. Here's the hospital I was born in, city and state. And then you send that off. And then what happened? Yeah. So to your point, I click on Chris's name. I see no details about him. It says, do you want to contact Chris? And I say, yes. I Typed exactly what you said. I wrote, I literally just got my results back. You show up at the top of my list as my closest DNA match. Here's what I know about myself.

04:51 And I gave him those details. My birth name, my birthday, my birth city. I didn't assume he'd know what hospital I was born in, but I did go ahead and include that, I think as well. And I said, here's my phone number. Please call me as soon as you can, hoping that this person, whoever he could be, I didn't know what he was. I didn't know whether he might be my brother, my uncle, my dad, my first cousin. Exactly. I didn't know what. And that was amazing.

05:18 I sent him my phone number and five minutes later, I get an email back from Ancestors. And it's because he had replied within the site to my email. And it says, Calling you now. And my desk phone rings and I pick it up and it was Chris. And he said, Kendall, I think I'm your half brother. Well, at this point, we're going to let Chris and Kendall share what that experience is like.

05:48 We're welcoming Chris Clark to the podcast. My name is Chris Clark. I am Kendall's brother, and I grew up knowing that he existed but never thought I'd meet him. So, Chris, I'm going to ask you to jump back into your memory bank and help us understand. When you first heard about the fact that dad might have another son, I was relatively young, maybe when I was nine or ten.

06:20 I don't know the exact time, but I remember it was on those occasions when he was maybe in drunken anger. He spanked me a little too hard. And I was whimpering up in my bedroom, crying. I was trying to get over it. And then he'd an hour or 2 hours later, come up, apologizing and sobering up a little bit, and he'd say, don't ever forget you're my number one son. You're my number one son. And I thought it was such a dumb thing to say. Even when I was a little kid, I was like, why the hell is he saying that? Because I'm his only son.

06:50 It would happen probably, maybe four or five times. And maybe when I was around twelve, I think I finally just said to him, maybe I was 13. Whatever it was, he said, Why do you say like I'm your only son? And then it was like he was waiting for me to say that it was his opening. I remember pause. He got really quiet. You actually have a brother? And that was caught off guard. And he told me the story. I always knew that he was 17 when I was born. I started trying to do the math. I'm like, all right, wait a minute.

07:16 So even then, you know that at the very least, you met my mother at least nine months before I was born. And I know it was a little bit before that. They weren't just in the one first time that they met. How young was he? And he went on to explain that your name was Scott and that your mom. They were transferred off base, Otis Air Force Base. They were transferred away, and they kept in touch through letter a few times, never spoke again. He didn't know anything after that. That was it.

07:46 Just that I was born. Yeah. He knew you were there. The reason I wasn't named Scott was because you were already named Scott. My middle name is Scott. Let me jump in here for clarification. Chris is about to talk about his dad's brother, Sean, and Sean son, Jamie. It was 2014. Someone had thought up the idea of going to NASCAR up in Loud, New Hampshire. And I'm not a NASCAR guy, nor is really anybody else who went, dad.

08:15 I think he kind of liked watching it. I think it was just one of those pastimes of drinking that you would do on occasional weekends. But we all went. It was me, him, Sean, Jamie went, which is Sean's son. And then Pete and repeat. Okay, so we had both Pete's, which are like family to us. And we had a great time. It was all more about the tailgating and enjoying the day. And I drove dad home because he really ripped it up on the right home. I said, you ever think about yourself? Does that ever cross your mind? Just trying to put myself in his shoes and thinking, there's no way I wouldn't have sought out finding them.

08:48 One thing if you haven't figured out, he's a pretty reclusive guy and he's okay with letting the past stay in the past. And I'm sure he's got his regrets that he didn't do right by you. I think he'd rather just leave that in the past, that type of thing. So I asked him and he said, yeah, I do. So we talked about you. And I was always thinking, when am I going to meet my brother Scott? I knew I couldn't find you. Like that was my thing. You were just Scott. I had searched for you, I don't know, probably on six or seven occasions.

09:15 Every time I got a thought or an idea, maybe a way I could find you, I'd look up, I'd look up Scott adoption Arkansas doctor, because the story was that you were adopted by the doctor who delivered you. That was what he believed. So he told me that so I would find a couple. There was one. I was convinced maybe it was 1970. And I'm like, God, this all kind of adds up and makes sense because there's these websites. I'm sure you've seen them, where people go on and say, hey, these are my statistics. Can you help me find out who I am?

09:45 And there were listings in Arkansas just like that to give the particulars. And I thought maybe it was you, but I wasn't. That was it. I really couldn't go beyond that. How did dad describe what happened when the pregnancy with me was discovered? What he told you about the whole circumstances of my being conceived? They were very carefree and careless hippie type kids. And this is his first real serious girlfriend.

10:13 He's dumb enough, probably to this day, to think that was one of his true loves in his life. Sadly, it was right. I mean, my mother was the last one and he was 17 when he married her. So sadly, when he looks back at the history of his great girlfriends or they were all like middle, young teenage stuff where I have three teenagers and none of them have had a serious relationship yet. Thank God it's just a different world. You go back into the late 60s, early 70s, but he said that she became pregnant.

10:43 And I don't know any details about how long they hid the fact that she was pregnant. I've never asked that. I don't know if he even remembers the details behind that. It was found out on base, I guess the base commander had learned. The base commander was upset that two teenagers, children of two guys on base, were going to have a child. And back then, things were handled a little differently and pulled in Grandpa, your other grandfather father.

11:13 Yeah. And said that one of you guys have to pick up and transfer out. And I guess their decision was to get her family, your mom's side of the family, out. So they transferred to Arkansas. And like I said, yeah, that's all I really knew about that. But he was madly in love with her. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to raise you in our grandparents'house. He tried to convince Grandma and Grandpa that, and they weren't having it.

11:40 And I think deep down, that was probably some of the stuff that created such a wedge between Grandma and him because you asked him about her. He describes that relationship as bad and violent. And honestly, I think she probably just had enough of him being reckless. So I think that has something to do with it. By the time I had turned 18, both of my adoptive parents were dead. For me, that sort of meant that I couldn't accidentally hurt their feelings right by trying to find others.

12:12 But I also knew that they were completely supportive of my finding them. Ironically, the man who handled the adoption for them, their attorney, had become a judge in my hometown. And I actually had known him all of my life and actually went to him to his office and said, hey, can you help me out a little bit? I knew it was a private adoption. I knew his hands were tied. I was hoping from a friendship level that maybe he'd spill some beans and he did the right thing.

12:41 He wasn't trying to get disbarred as a result of my search. And he was very polite and said, Kendall, I totally know how you must feel, but no, I can't help you. And really, I don't know, honestly, what he might have known, because I had my adoption papers and I knew my name. I was born in Little Rock and my birth date. But the only other person's name that was listed on the adoption papers, of course, didn't have either of my biological parents names.

13:10 The only name that was on my adoption papers was the man who was listed as my Guardian. He was a State of Arkansas employee who seemed to be a social worker who was assigned to many children, so it seemed really vague. I even tried to find him, and I found a record of his death. Ivan Smith. I'll never forget the name, but because when you're holding those papers, it feels like your only connection at that moment.

13:39 And I wanted so badly to find all of you or any of you. I had no idea. I had no idea what to assume. I always hoped that I wasn't the product of a couple who just were older and just didn't want a kid I hoped that they were just super young and grandparents did the logical thing and said, no, you kids would be crazy to try to raise this child. So that part was very cathartic to find out because it makes you feel less rejected isn't the right phrase.

14:11 But it did. I understand it. Did it make you feel like, okay, that was a logical choice? I might have done the same thing if I were either any of those four grandparents. So it helped to know that now there's a tiny bit of anger that comes with that, too. Sure, not for my parents, but for my grandparents thinking. And I think only because, like you said, times have changed. And nowadays I think it's maybe not unique, but you just see so many grandparents who are raising their grandchildren today.

14:43 So part of me thinks, why couldn't that have been a possibility for any of them? You would almost want to say it's a generational thing, but I don't think that's the case. I think it's a family to family thing. I think there are some families that are well equipped to handle that type of thing, and there are others that are not. And I don't know anything about your mom's family at all. Dad wanted you. I think your mom wanted you. But there was some hard stances, like you said, and that's why someone may be your resentment is towards your grandparents. But I think in Grandpa's case, I don't want to rest their soul.

15:15 I don't want to say anything really horrible about them. I don't want to exaggerate the truth. But were they not very old that point? Think about it. I think Grandma was 19 or 20 when dad was born, so she was only 35 when you were born and was probably at a point like, no way. She's only a few years away of having an empty house and probably didn't want to start all over.

15:45 And they enjoyed their simple life of smoking and drinking, but I think they chose that and the hard path. I can't imagine her not being the one making the decision. Grandpa was a really sweet, gentle soul that I don't know that he would have taken a hard stance had she been okay with it. I think he would have totally gone along with it. So I would think it was probably more her decision. I know nothing about that. But knowing her and the stories of how things went growing up for dad and Sean and Steve, she was the one laying down a lot.

16:17 Talk to me about how you got your Ancestry kit and the way that progressed. Yeah. Commercials for Ancestry intrigued me. There's always, like, this story hanging over our family's head, which come to find out, goes even way deeper than Grandpa telling this story. But the story was that Lewis and Clark expedition. We were related to the Lewis, not the Clark. And the name Lewis is the first name in our family and has been for generations.

16:48 So that always had piqued my interest, because that's really true. I wonder if I can find that out. And I was thinking, just be neat to see what I can learn on this stuff. I think this has to be part of the reason anyone does ancestry. Someone is believing they're so Irish that they go tattooing an Irish flag on their arm. And then they might think some day maybe I'm not all that Irish, which was definitely my case. I always thought we were very Irish. I'm 10%. You're probably. I don't know if you're more than I am, but in the update, it like every year I just got my updated one off.

17:18 You saw your updated one? I just got it maybe a week ago, two weeks ago. So it changes as more people do it, they are able to zero in a little bit closer to your real heritage. For me, it was just a general interest. It wasn't because I thought I'd find no offense, I didn't even connect those dots until after I took the test and started seeing relatives pop up. But I still didn't put a whole lot of thought into it.

17:45 And when I first got my results, I think the closest relative was a fourth cousin. So I wasn't really getting much. I'm like, I'm reaching out, these people going, who are you? Who's your grandparents? And I didn't know who they were. I'm like, oh, this is doing nothing. But then every day it seemed like more people show up as cousins and stuff like that on your results. I still thought it was enjoyable, and I thought, I'm going to try to build a tree. It's something that I always thought was fun. That actually Grandma's bad of a picture.

18:15 As I was painting over. One thing she loved to do was genealogy. She was very much into that. I wanted to see if I could gather that all of that information and then connect it with the ancestry information. And when Karen got me the kit, she bought me the I think a one year subscription gives you access to a lot of that research. And yeah, so that's how I got it. And then obviously, August happens. And that was just like, I can't believe this.

18:45 I just never thought. I would never put a dime on bedding that I'd ever find you. I know it's interesting because I was thinking the same way you were. I thought, would it be cool to find out, especially somebody who has zero knowledge? I didn't know what to assume. I didn't know if I was mostly British or mostly Irish or what. And so that was definitely something that was interesting to me. But Corey's whole thought was, I want to see if we can find any of Kendall's family.

19:15 Right. And I'll never forget that day. I send in the specimen or that little tube of spit that you send in. And I remember getting that email back, saying, we've received your sample. It will take six to eight weeks to process. And I remember the day, August 23, 2017. I'm always emotional about this in general, but I remember sitting at my desk in San Francisco at work. I had given my work email because I knew I wanted to get the result as quickly as I could.

19:48 So I get an email to my work email and it says, Congratulations, your results are in. And at that point, I had only sent it three weeks before. Yeah, mine came in quick, too. Yeah. So I thought, oh, gosh, they're just trying to sell me something because I thought, this is super early. But I click in it. And of course, logically it takes you there's a link to the Ancestry site. And it's funny, I joke about myself that I never remember passwords, but I must have really wanted to remember that password because I knew it.

20:18 I didn't struggle. And I Typed it right in. And it was so cool because for anybody who hasn't seen the Ancestry site, the first page that I saw was where my matches my DNA results. And I didn't search for anything. Like, your name was at the top of the screen. And it says something like, very close family member, very reliable test results or something like that.

20:46 And you were smart because when I clicked on your name, of course, you know, what the name Christopher, you assume it's a guy. But literally when I click on it, you had done what I would have done. You didn't say that you were a man. You didn't say where you were. Literally. It was just a name because it said, very close family member. I remember clicking on your name. And of course, I love what I love about Ancestry is it does protect individuals. Like, I didn't have your phone number.

21:16 I didn't have your personal email address. And so you need to send the email through their site. And I just think that's such a smart thing to do and probably makes a lot of people feel more secure about doing this thing. And I remember sending you that note saying, I literally just got my results. You showed up at the top of my list as my closest match. My name was Scott Walk. I was born July 14, 1970, Little Rock. Here's my phone number.

21:43 And I remember, I think it was literally like ten minutes later, I get the note back from you saying, calling you now. And my desk phone rings and I pick it up. And you said to me, Kendall, I think I'm your brother. Yeah. And it's interesting because I worked in a space. The office where I worked had six desks.

22:11 And often four people were sitting in there with me at the same moment. But it was just like the perfect time. There was nobody there. I feel like you and I had a chance to talk without feeling like other people were listening. And it was, of course, amazing. And you told me so much in the first minute of that call that I didn't know. Yeah, yeah. It must have been amazing. It must have weight coming off your shoulders with every word I was giving you.

22:42 It had to have been like, in your mind, you must have had a million questions. And I'm giving you bits and pieces that are just checking boxes for you. Like I said, it's such a difference. I'm on the opposite end of it, and I'm not none of that. My questions are, wow, does he look like dad? Does he sound like dad? Does he look is he as tall as dad? Does he look like me? My questions were more simple. What was his life like? But I wasn't in the dark.

23:12 I was raised by him. I had all of those things already answered. Well, when you and I got off the phone, still, nobody had come up into the office where I was, so nobody disturbed me. But that office had a rooftop. We had access to a rooftop deck, and nobody was out there. And I remember opening the door right by my desk, going out onto the rooftop deck, and sobbed for just minutes.

23:42 I was overwhelmed. Sure. And I remember going downstairs in the office saying, and people looked at me like I had seen a ghost or something. Like I looked physically affected. And I remember Jamie, one of my colleagues, who was just fantastic. She said, what's wrong, Kendall? And I was like, actually, nothing's wrong. This is like the most wonderful moment. And I just started spewing verbally, telling everybody who was in there all staring and be, like, in disbelief, and they all start crying.

24:13 And it was just an amazing moment. Yeah. On my end of it, it was kind of tell. Dad told my mother, told Monica. That spreads immediately to the rest of family, called Sean, all that stuff. And everyone was just completely amazed that ancestry allowed. I don't think anyone would. Again, they don't really use the commercials, don't suggest that's what ancestry is for, to find your long lost siblings.

24:42 It's all about just finding your heritage. And so when you say that's how I did it, and they're like, no way. Something we thought would never happen was able to happen because you spit into a tube. Absolutely. But yeah, no matter how much I tried to put myself into your shoes, I could never experience what you experienced there. Even hearing you gave me more information just now, I don't think I realized you were at work. I think I was on vacation. I was up at the beach because I get a little Gray.

25:12 And when I read about it versus talking to you about it, now that I think about it, I was out on my I was out on the chair outside of our camper. Everyone else, three kids and Karen were in the camper, I don't know, eating breakfast or a snack or whatever time it was. And I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah, it was amazing. One of the probably most relieving moments of that conversation for me was just knowing that our father was alive, you know what I mean?

25:47 Like the fear, because let's face it, I had just turned 47 not knowing how old my father was, you know what I'm saying? My fear was like, even if I found siblings, that my parents might not still be living that sort of thing. So just knowing that was just such a relief to think, oh, my gosh, okay, you're still alive. There might not have been a day that went by that we didn't communicate. And it was wonderful, I think, for both of us.

26:13 And you were so kind and said, you guys are welcome whenever you can make it out, because we wanted to physically see each other. And Corey and I decided we just found each other in August. By October, we were like, we're coming. We're going to make this happen. And with as many pets as we have, that was probably a major undertaking just to get here. But now I'm teasing. But it was wonderful to fly out.

26:40 I'll never forget the pictures, the posters that the kids were holding up at the airport saying, over here, Uncle Kendall, it's wonderful. Yeah, it was good stuff. It really was. It was amazing to me. And again, it was surreal moment where sometimes it didn't feel real when you thought about something for so long and given up hope at some level that it would actually ever happen.

27:12 And I joke with Corey about the fact that it's always been wonderful to be part of his family because they're so close and they're so loving, and I love to see the interactions, but it also sort of makes you jealous. Yeah, I'm sure it does. It makes you think, why don't I have that? Why don't I? Especially if the people are out there. I just need to find them. And I don't know if we have fulfilled that gap as much as you had hoped and all of that.

27:46 I tried to warn you up front how dad might be in terms of just his lack of sobriety and how that might impact stuff and just who he is. And then I'm not going to talk about anybody else but how it might go down. But I knew, at least from our standpoint, at least had us, which is really all I can speak to. But we're really busy people. I feel like you probably haven't fulfilled what you expected when you guys traveled across the country.

28:15 No, we knew that everybody's busy, and we get it, that this is like a big revelation to live through for everybody. And I think we're pretty easy going when it comes to all those things. Really? Oh, yeah. There's two things that play for us. I feel guilty that we don't see each other.

28:37 The pandemic obviously slowed things quite a bit, but even prior to that, I always felt, man, I know these guys want to get together more often than we get together, and that holds true for all of my friends who I have not spent. I got extremely close friends I haven't seen in ten years, and they only live an hour away. Life with three kids right now, and the timing of it, they're all teenagers. The last thing they want to do is hang out with us, let alone anytime.

29:07 We can't even be in the same vicinity of them if their friends are nearby, because it's what are you doing here? Just the way teenagers are. So it's like the worst era for you guys. It would have been awesome if they were like two, three and four. And it would have been so much different, I think, if we got to deal with what we got. That's right. So it's been wonderful. And what probably isn't obvious to anybody listening is that Corey and I came out to visit in October.

29:36 On the plane ride back home. After meeting everybody, Cory looks over at me and says, we have to move there on the plane ride. I know that you said that. And again, it makes me very emotional, but it made me so happy. Yes, we chose to leave St. Louis together. We chose to move to San Francisco together. But he also I feel like he also made special sacrifices then and here.

30:07 He was willing to move 2700 miles, leaving decent jobs, leaving a place that we loved. It was so meaningful to me that I'm with somebody who wants to support me at that level. Absolutely. And it was amazing. We ended up moving to New England in January of 2018. Just note to any listener out there, moving to New England in January is not the most logical choice for people.

30:34 I remember landing in the plane and the pilot joking about, Gosh, I'm glad we did it slide more than we just did on the runway. And I remember thinking, wow, this is potentially scary. And then picking up the rental car and white knuckling the drive because I just been in California for nine years where if you drove to Snow, you left it the same day if you left Tahoe. But it's been an amazing journey, and it has been. You're right.

31:04 And I appreciated your warning about that. And with the level of connectedness I might not have with him. He's a great guy, and I love speaking with him. I do love every chance we get to connect and hear his stories, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. When I think about it, the way that he and I get to talk when we're together has to be different. Than if we had tried to still live in California have phone conversations.

31:32 I just don't feel like they'd be the same types of conversation physically. Being here has been wonderful. Super quick. So what was the conversation like when you told Karen that we decided to move here after believe it or not, I think I told you guys this that stressed me out. My immediate thought was we're going to have a good relationship and we'll always stay connected and we'll visit you and you will visit us.

32:02 But my immediate concern was these guys might not get what they expect with moving out here. And I worried that I was going to hurt you. That was really my immediate thought was, Man, I hope they don't want to get together every weekend. I'm never available. I'm a director of basketball. I'm coaching baseball and softball, coaching two baseball teams at the time. And I just got out of coaching soccer. Karen was still coaching soccer. I think we're always two passing ships.

32:32 We don't even see each other. Karen and I, like, as often as we should, let alone saying, hey, we got 4 hours of a window here, or if we did have 4 hours, we can want to take a deep breath and just say we got 4 hours. So I worried right away that we weren't going to live up to your expectations. And I was concerned, but at the same time, I was like, if they're okay with it being what I can give, this is going to be great. So I was excited about that part of it.

33:01 I wanted to make sure you guys knew all the info. I wanted to make sure we were in a cold snap, I think when you announced it or whatever. We have seven straight days of 16 degree weather or something like that. And I was like, kept sending you snapshots of the forecast. I was like, oh, my God, these guys, I hope they know what they're in for. This is awful. I hate it here. You would ask me, what's your temperature today? I'd be like, oh, it's chilly. It's 52. And you'd be like, yeah, it's a little colder here. I just didn't want any regrets from any angle.

33:32 I understood what you were doing and why you were doing it. And honestly, I loved you for that. I thought that was really my heart was with you on all of it. Deep down, I just didn't want to be a disappointment. And I remember you're telling me that, and I'm glad that I think I made you feel okay about it before we got here. It's just no, this is our adventure, and we'll make and the good thing for us, I think, is that we'd already done it. You know what I mean? Like, we'd already picked up in St.

34:01 Louis and said very quickly, actually, within a matter of literally a couple of months, we made the decision to move from St. Louis to San Francisco And made it happen really quickly. Not that's a pattern that most people want to repeat, but at the same time, I think we had such a good experience doing that that we just didn't have the reservations that others might have had if they were going to move.

34:25 You have your children, four legged children, but when you don't have children that are engrossed in the school system, in friendships and stuff like that, in a million years, if the roles were reversed and I had found you and I was the adopted one, I wouldn't have moved from my angle. I'm like, there's no way I could have ever done that to my family. Even if she was supportive of it, I would have fought against it. No way. We have three kids. Blah, blah, blah. But when you guys made the decision, I was like, all right, they don't really have anything restricting them.

34:55 I think I told you this. I was like, are you sure you guys want to do this? You guys have a close knit community of friends. You guys are going to wine country. You're telling me all the time. You guys go to wine country and really enjoy that. I'm going to miss out on that. I was like, oh, my God, they have this going on and they're going to come here and it's going to be this, like two different levels of what they're getting out of life, and I worried about that a lot. Keep in mind, I had to help Cory escape from St. Louis. He'd already done his sentence there for 30 years now. I joke about that.

35:26 St. Louis is a good place to live, but it feels more St. Louis ish here than it feels like California. But that's okay. It's still been a really positive thing for us in general. In the next episode, Kendall's new brother Chris Does some Detective work to try to find out if Kendall's birth mother is actually still alive and if he has more siblings out there. This is the family twist podcast Hosted by Kendall and Corey stalks with original music by cosmic afterthoughts and produced by outpost productions and presented by savoir fair marketing communications.

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