Day 44: Call Back Yesterday Podcast

Every morning, while I am waking up I scroll through the recommended links that Google sends me. I ignore most, but this morning I saw a link to an article about the 40th anniversary of one of my favorite films, Somewhere in Time. The article referenced a podcast titled Call Back Yesterday that the creator, John Rabe, is proud to acknowledge is the only podcast about Somewhere in Time.

Rabe also acknowledges that the podcast might some sort of therapy for him, a way of dealing with his parents’ deaths within 9 months of each other when he was in his twenties.

There are a lot of delights in the podcasts, especially if you are as big a fan as I am of the film, but the biggest delight for me had nothing do do with the film, it had to do with Rabe’s vision of heaven, which matches mine. This is from Episode 2: The Critic’s Wife in which he talks to film critic and filmmaker Tim Cogshell about death. Rabe says:

“My parents are gone, they died 25 plus years ago. All their friends are gone almost. And I’m an atheist, Hey brother. But I have reserved … a space in heaven where they’re all together having cocktails. And maybe my dog, Kara is there too. And my dog Connor is there too. And I make that exception in my atheism.”

John Rabe
Call Back Yesterday Podcast, Episode 2

This is a lot like my vision of heaven. I mentioned it at both my parents’ memorial services, but here it is again:

I was 6 when my favorite uncle (Don — I was named after him) died in May of 1963. Several months later when JFK was assassinated I imagined my uncle sitting at a table in a bar with John Kennedy, drinking a beer. As more people in my life died they joined Don and Jack at that ever-growing table in the bar. The table is very, very long now and I’ve added a big-screen TV in the bar for the folks at the table to keep up with those they left behind.

Photo courtesy Universal Pictures.