This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and today we bring you the story of Tom Ryan,

and Tom is a 95-year-old listener of our show in Los Angeles.

Tom had an unusual upbringing.

He grew up on Long Island, New York, living behind a funeral parlor run by his family.

Here's Tom.

Okay. behind a funeral parlor run by his family. Here's Tom. I was there on Saturday morning when the sheriff arrived to talk to Grandma.

It was the day after the big snowstorm.

My folks were away and I had stayed with Grandma overnight.

At age 10 I was too young to stay home alone, but staying at Grandma's was not too cool either,

because, you see, she ran a funeral home.

Sometimes there were dead bodies only a few steps from the living room at the back of the house where we watch TV.

It was hard to get too relaxed when I looked over at the dark doorway leading to the bodies.

That Friday night, there was a very old lady being waked in one of the chapels.

Mrs. Jackson, a friend of grandmas who had died of cancer.

The sheriff sat at the kitchen table with his notebook in front of him.

He asked Grandma if anything unusual that happened the last night,

because they were searching for an escaped convict from a prison two towns away.

He is a murderer and very dangerous, the sheriff said. They were setting up roadblocks to try to

catch him. Grandma didn't answer directly but said,

We have a funeral going out this morning, old Mrs. Jackson.

We had to put her in a closed casket because the cancer was so bad.

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