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Wasn't that delicious?
So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it. No. I got it.
Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. You know, you know, people with the Wells-Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.
Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot! No!
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Discount applies to first month only. Other terms apply. See studio for details. And we continue with our American stories. And now Robbie brings us the story of Jason Wolfe.
He created the first online coupon site. And he was the first to seriously develop software that tracked web browsing using what are known as cookies. Jason is here to bring us the story of becoming the father. that he never had himself. Here's Jason.
Uh You know, I think my very first memories were when I was living in Virginia. My dad worked in the CIA, so we lived in a place called Ruston, Virginia. which was like a new suburb of Washington, DC, back then. I could remember having a bike and learning how to ride a bike with my dad. And I must have been maybe...
Three or four? And I remember going down this little hill that he was pushing me down and you know, basically being scared and then being happy that I learned how to ride a bike.
So yeah, it was my earliest memory.
Something that happened in my life that I remember that was like a pivotal thing, probably when my mom and dad got separated. By then, It was nineteen seventy five.
So I was six or so, and I could remember my dad Driving here in a Volkswagen.
So like a station wagon volkswagen. Uh loaded all of us up into this Volkswagen, drove up to Connecticut. and all of us, meaning my brother and sister and I. Drove us up to Connecticut and dropped us off with my grandparents with my mom. My mom was acting strange, I didn't know what was going on.
Um and then he left and that was the beginning of their divorce and Shortly after that, my mom, turned out later, I found out, my mom had mental illness, and so she was put into a sort of a mental institution. for a couple years so for a couple years After my dad dropped this off, my mom was you know, going through, trying to get herself back together. And yeah, those are those are the that's probably the next milestone of my life. I could remember when My mother was um They were trying to get her To take her into this mental institution, or whatever she was put away for a couple years. And they somehow couldn't get her.
She was elusive. And I could remember my sister and I going to this hospital. and they were getting her there under some other A guy's, some other trick to get her to show up.
So she shows up, and my sister and I are sitting out there. By now, I'm probably a little older, six or seven. And um I remember they had my sister and I playing sort of games out inside this room, and I remember hearing some screaming. And I look over and here's my mother running towards me with a s with a strait jacket on. Because they were trying to put her into a straitjacket.
And that was like hugely pivotal and kind of crazy at that time. And from then, over the next course of a couple years, I mean, we lived with grandparents. I lived with an aunt for a little bit and then eventually moved in with um An uncle and my mom came out of the institution, tried to take us back, get back on our feet. living in sort of you know welfare life, not a lot of money. I can remember a Christmas vividly when I was around nine at this point and just laying under a blanket.
with no heat in the house and getting a knock at the door And at the door was, looked at the door was a box with frozen turkey. And some games for us. And we couldn't cook to target. We had no gas. We had no gas to.
Light the stove. We're the poor people. We're what I called the raggies. You know, the raggies of town, the people that are real raggy and poor and stuff, that was us. And so yeah, I remember that.
And then Living with an uncle and then having to make a decision when I was about 10. Whether I wanted to go to this new school that they discovered, that this nun that we were going to a church. I told my grandmother about down in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was a school for, at the time it was boys' school. They were just converting over to ad girls.
And it was in the late seventies, seventy nine or so. And we went down, took the test, came back, my brother and I, my brother didn't pass the test, I did. And they asked me, I can remember standing at my uncle's house in the On the second floor, and they were asking me, Do you want to go to the school or do you want to go with your uncle, aunt, and uncle to go to California? Because they were moving to California. And I decided to go to Milton Hershey School alone by myself, which was hugely.
You know, that was a God moment. There was no real reason for me to choose to not go with my family. but I chose to not go with my family, to go down to Milton Hershey School. And so on September twentieth, nineteen eighty It was a fall day, crisp out, football season, sunny. I'll remember it just like yesterday, and I could feel the air.
even right now. and being dropped off at Milton Hershey School. And my mother and my grandparents were there. and inside this place called the Rotunda, which is a huge building at Milton Hershey School. And I can remember Mr.
Long standing there with me. He was the person that had the intake of children coming into Milton Hershey School. And I can remember standing with Mr. Long and looking at my parents and my mother. By now I thought my dad was dead because my mom told us he was not alive, so he never paid child support, and we really thought he was dead.
So seeing my mother cry, my grandparents standing there, and then they walk away and I'm alone now. I didn't realize, but I'd be on my loan for a long time thereafter. And growing up in that school. remember Not even a few months into it, maybe. crying every night, trying to put myself to sleep and Starting to try to get used to the school at the time.
was a you know um Corporal punishment was not It was something that happened. It just happened, right? It was part of discipline. And I could remember running away and I remember getting paddled. I remember these things that I wasn't used to, and it was scary, and I cried, and I didn't want to be there.
But I learned to adapt and to change, to figure things out. Eventually I did. And eventually I excelled. I became I played three sports, football, baseball, and wrestling.
Some of them I was a captain on, some of the teams I excelled in. My grades were always good. I was in the top group of our class, probably in the top handful of kids. and then you know went on to college. But before going on to college I remember sitting at Graduation Day, next pivotal moment, was just sitting there.
And um You know, with a suitcase of clothes and $100, because they gave you a check at the time of $100, I think mine was less than $100 because I owed the school something for something that I did. I don't even know. and I couldn't cash a check because I didn't have a bank account. And I had a suitcase with brand new clothes. Yeah.
Three pairs of socks. 10-pair of underwear, something like that, a bunch of pants, you know. And I'm sitting there with this big suitcase of clothes, this check I can't cash, and My grandfather had a stroke, so he was on the last months of his life, my mother was always you know, dysfunctional. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, you know.
So I went up to Connecticut. And I stayed with my grandmother to help her to take care of my grandfather until he died. and he passed away within a couple months. And I didn't go to college. I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
And so I got involved in a lot of things that somebody who has no family, really, who has no direction. No male mentorship. Um Christ not in my life to any uh large measure. And so I got involved in things that were uh illegal. And I didn't do, you know, I don't.
Not proud about it, but there was a stretch of my life right there that I was led, I was kind of going down the wrong roads and um yeah. Thankfully, Jason, after a number of setbacks, had a moment of clarity. And after years of hard work, he created the first coupon website ever. and then the first real software to use cookies to track web browsing. which he sold for roughly twenty two million dollars.
So that was 2006 and By then I was married. I was only married for a couple years. And I had a son, Morris. And I had not gone through divorce. I get uh the old You know, you're locked out of your home type of deal.
I go to go into my house and all the locks are changed. I was only married for two years. Um, I didn't know the person I was getting married to, I only knew her for. for four months before she got I got married and I married her because she was pregnant. And you've been listening to Jason Wolf tell the story of his life and what a story it is.
When we come back, more of the life story of Jason Wolf here. On our American stories. The new year means new health goals, not just for your body, but for your finances too. But did you know, financial health is directly related to identity protection. You need Life Lock because your personal info is in endless places that are outside of your control.
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Stream anywhere. To get a free trial today, go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. Wasn't that delicious?
So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist.
I insisted first. Oh, don't be silly. You don't be silly. I'm not silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.
Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot! No!
The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card. Visit wellsfargo.com/slash active cash. Terms apply. And we're back with our American stories and with the story of Jason Wolf. Jason's childhood was anything but easy.
His mother was institutionalized, his father leaving and later dying, or at least.
Well, that's what young Jason was told. Down the road, Jason had a son and got married. Unfortunately that ended after a few years and Jason found himself in the middle of a divorce. Here's Jason. to tell us the rest of the story.
So, during that divorce and after that divorce, it was a time for me, I think. When God started knocking on my door and saying, Hey, all this stuff you've got to do, you've got to be starting to. Change the way you live and put God first. Even though going through divorce wasn't fun, it was, you know, financially a mess. It was because I sold a company during the time that I was married, it became a mirror asset, and that was a big problem.
But I started to go to church more. I started, I was. you know, invited into a men's group and I started this journey. to change my life. to bring me as a man.
more towards Christ in a real way as opposed to just saying that I'm a Christian. When I got divorced, it was easy for, you know, the lawyers to say, hey, You know, um, let's just kind of settle this. disagreement and I'm signing papers, honestly. I didn't realize this, Robbie. that is saying that I have, I didn't know what the lingo meant at the time.
I didn't know what primary custody meant compared to just custody. I didn't know what legal custody meant. All I just knew was, like, You have the kid or you don't. I quickly figured it out because Yeah. I didn't have equal physical and legal custody.
I had Sort of visitation rights. I think that's terrible. for dads at the time and that's how it was for me. And I had to then Tried to argue with the court that I could be an equal father and I wanted to be equal in Morris's life. And his mom tried to stop that.
And so, for years, from 2006 all the way up to 200. 11. uh we fought uh for uh equal custody. And eventually in 2000, I think it was 11 or 10. The governor at the time, Rendell, Pennsylvania.
Was leaving office and he put a change to the law or the about Parental equal custody. At the time, I had to prove that I was an equal father. I was proved that I was. Instead of just automatically giving equal custody to both parents and then disproving that the other person couldn't. Be a parent.
And so when he did that, it allowed me to have 50-50 custody. It was a wonderful thing. And I think that's how it always should have been, but it wasn't at the time.
So, yeah, it took years for me to fight for him, to just be in his life. You know, and he was a big part of my life. We spent, I didn't get remarried until. Um 2017.
So for ten years It was just Morris and I and my dog Toby, our dog Toby. And you know, I spent a lot of time with him. I focused on Morris. I did his homework with him. I was involved in the school.
I was involved with his doctors. I was an equally involved father. It should be. And I loved it. I loved to be involved in his life.
He's older now, 15, 16. Kids change. He doesn't want to listen to me as much as he did before, but that's okay. Since then, I did get remarried, and we have fostered and we have adopted.
So, we have two girls now that we've adopted. Um Danielle, who's five, and Marigold, who is eight. We got them when they were three and three and six. And so we love them. We have two new girls, and we have a boy right now, too.
We foster, his name is Jeremiah. And Jeremiah, we hope, eventually will be our son. And so our family went from just Morse and I and our dog to Susan, my wonderful wife. Danielle, Mirigold, Morris, Jeremiah. The dogs, and my wife loves animals.
We have a donkey and a goat, two goats. And um A pony.
So yeah, things have expanded. That's good. All these struggles, all these challenges. that I had, I learned later in life. That You know, it was God.
banging on my heart and my heart was getting broken over and over and over. And it was because God wanted to get into my heart. My heart was hard. And so I think these struggles have made my heart softer. And a softer, gentler heart.
was needed when Jason had to face the man he'd grown up thinking was dead. The man who left his family when he was six. His own father. And so I found out my dad was alive in 1892. I was 22 years old, 21 years old.
I was in college. And Found out he was alive. We sent letters to my grandmother who wouldn't tell us where he was, and then she would send the letters to. My father. And lo and behold, wasn't dead.
Um Found out he lived in New Zealand. He had a whole different life and I ended up going down and meeting him probably when I was 23 and spent about a month with him. Uh got to know him a little bit. And Over the course of a couple years, I knew him a little bit more, but I wasn't with Christ yet. And so, what I decided to do.
was to say, my dad, listen. I don't forgive you unless you apologize. You need to apologize to my mom, you need to apologize to my grandmother, because I am the judge. I didn't leave it up to God, I lived it up to myself. I'm gonna dictate the situation.
So he did. He sent a letter to my mom and my grandmother. And now, my grandmother and my mother knows where he lives, right? And so now all of a sudden it's a lawsuit. It's my mom suing my dad because he never paid child support.
Now, my dad's wanted, and in the United States, couldn't come back here. If he did, he'd go to jail. And he had a a judgment against him of $418,000. and back child support and interest and everything else. Penalties, whatever.
So he couldn't come back and it was because of me. that that happened. And Because of my Fought. that I needed to tell somebody what to do or I needed to be the judge of somebody else. that caused him that pain.
So I felt bad about that. And so when I sold the last company, in 2016. I hired a lawyer and I found the documents down in Virginia. Divorce documents between my mom and my dad, found the settlement amount or the amount that they had leaned against my dad. And I went up to Connecticut and met with my mom and convinced her.
To allow me to pay her on behalf of my father.
So I would pay her. I'd buy her a house at the time. The house was probably worth $100,000. I gave her $200,000. I gave her a commitment of $2,000 a month over the rest of her life.
and give her some other stuff. in exchange for her releasing my father of the debt. that he owed her. And she did. It was a proud moment for me to be able to tell my dad: hey, listen, I settled your debt.
to my mom. And I was able to live that out because of my faith.
Now my father all his years was not very close to the board. I don't even think I think he was probably an atheist or agnostic at best. And in the last several years, he married somebody, Rebecca, who was a Christian. And now my dad At like the seventy five years old. is going to church And he's in a small group.
At church. You can't make this stuff up, I'm telling you. And so it's been a really great journey for me with my dad. You know, I forgave him. I forgave him in the right way.
I didn't forgive him because of me telling him what to do. I forgave him because Christ forgave me. And I think that's been special for me. I'm sorry. And what a remarkable piece of storytelling.
Thanks to Robbie for producing the piece, and a special thanks also to Jason Wolf for sharing his story. my goodness being abandoned by his father, the mental illness of his mother, Being alone all that time, then the divorce, then the fight to get equal custody of a son. Then he found his dad at the age of 22. Try to reconcile. forgave him incorrectly the first time and correctly the second.
and it changed everything. The story of Jason Wolfe. The story of so many men and women struggling. to find peace. and healing in this world here on Our American Stories.
Mm. This is Julie Nettleman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. Sunday mornings, I've got my game day ritual. Coffee. Lucky socks.
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The Golden Gloves, live CBS Sunday, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific, and streaming on Paramount Plus. The new year brings new health goals and wealth goals. Protecting your identity is an important step. Your info is in endless places that could expose you to identity theft, leading to lost funds. Lifelock monitors millions of data points per second.
If your identity is stolen, Lifelock's restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Resolve to make identity, health, and wealth part of your new year's goals with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash iHeart. Terms apply.
Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up? Then check out Upt Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies. This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones. Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of. It's commercial-free.
Stream anywhere. Get a free trial today. Go to upfaithandfamily.com/slash iHeart. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Mm-hmm.
