# 354: Mistakes Were Made Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-american-life-7814501/354-mistakes-were-made Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-american-life-7814501/354-mistakes-were-made.md Podcast: [This American Life](https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-american-life-7814501) Published: 2026-06-14T22:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/354-mistakes-were-made--72527654 Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72527654/default.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-american-life-7814501/episodes/354-mistakes-were-made Duration seconds: 3579 ## Resource Itโ€™s the late 1960s, and a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death with the new science of cryonics. But freezing dead people isnโ€™t easy. And apologizing for the mistakes you make along the way? Even harder. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about the way most political apologies go, and chats with a man named Derek Jones about similar sorts of apologies among preteen girls and King David, in the Old Testament. (7 minutes) Act One: In the late 1960s, a California TV repairman named Bob Nelson joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology called cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Sam Shaw reports. (42 minutes) Act Two: There's a famous William Carlos Williams poem called "This is Just to Say." It's about, among other things, causing a loved one inconvenience and offering a non-apologizing apology. Producer Sean Cole explains that this is possibly the most spoofed poem around. We asked some of our regular contributors to get into the act. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Starlee Kine, Jonathan Goldstein, Shalom Auslander, and Heather O'Neill all came up with their own variations of Williams's classic lines. (7 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices. ๐ŸŽฌ SEE THE STORY UNFOLD: Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts? ๐Ÿ‘‡ View the visual archive for this episode here: https://goo.su/XwNQm (Updated for each story) ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-american-life-7814501/episodes/354-mistakes-were-made/transcription-requests` โ€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-american-life-7814501/354-mistakes-were-made.md` โ€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.