A Most Unpredictable Life

Ten episodes in, we stopped moving through time and did something different. We brought somebody else's life to the table.

Elle has been standing about four feet away from this entire podcast since before it existed. She is the best server at the place where we play pickleball every week, she has listened to us plan these episodes out loud across a table for months, and it turns out her story is considerably better than ours.

She was born in Addis Ababa. She came to Los Angeles at five, to Ohio at eight, and graduated from Westerville South at seventeen. Her name means Almighty God. She has three daughters, five years apart, and she raised the first one alone after the girl's father died.

And about an hour in, she tells us what happened on a drive back from Michigan when she was five months pregnant — a traffic stop, a car that wasn't hers, and a man who let her be arrested rather than say a word.

they can go home, then it's mine."

She spent four days in a jail cell. He spent six years in one, and never admitted it was his.

Also in this one: the real reason half of Smash Park thinks Jeremy owns the building, which is not the tipping. Why the karaoke crowd calls him Jerome. Terry quitting the swim team at fifteen because a girl named Betty Bell beat his butterfly time. A decapitated Woody Hayes bobblehead, a Jesus bobblehead, and a book that came out four days before we recorded. The Ark of the Covenant, and where it actually is. A ten-year-old with 2.3 million unread notifications who has built her whole following out of roasting her mother. And two people at the same table discovering they both grew up in houses where the food stamps got hidden from the cashier.

Plus the line the whole episode turns on, which is hers, not ours: there's strength in the struggle.

Elle is @elsh_a_day. She has an audience considerably bigger than ours and she came and sat with us anyway. Go follow her.

Who's the person in your life whose story should be a podcast? Tell us in the comments on YouTube, or message us on Instagram. We read them on the show.

Next week the DeLorean goes back to 1993 — Chicago, sophomore year, and a car that does not survive the trip.

Watch the full video episode: https://youtube.com/@amostunpredictablelife

Website: https://amostunpredictablelife.com

The book — The Birth of the Sentients: https://amostunpredictablelife.com/book/

Follow @amostunpredictablelife on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook

A Most Unpredictable Life — Jeremy Lewis and Terry Lewis. We're not brothers. We might be related.

It is 1981. Jeremy is seven years old, one of five boys at 281 Church Street in Shreve, Ohio, and the whole year runs on one word: sack.

The cul-de-sac is French for the bottom of the sack. The snipe hunt is run with paper grocery sacks. Terry's college roommate is from a town called Intercourse, Pennsylvania. And in the men's room of the High Noon Saloon, a five-year-old does something that stops the entire bar.

"Who pooped in the urinal?"

Nobody confessed. The night was over.

But the thing you need to stay for is what happens forty minutes later, when Terry admits that at forty-five years old, in a very nice high school, he did something worse — on purpose — and then told his children about it in the car.

Also in this one: a grandmother who drank her coffee out of a saucer with her pinky up, kept a pet groundhog and fed it out of an ice cream cone. A davenport with plastic on it that you stuck to. A snipe hunt in a cut cornfield at dusk that took six months and a brother to explain. Miss Lemon, first grade, tall and blonde, who taught Jeremy to read and then watched him knock a full glass of milk across a dinner table. The milk crate, the walk-in refrigerator, and twenty-one chocolate milks. A t-ball catcher whose only job was putting the ball on the tee, and who wandered off mid-game because there was a sandbox. And a note in Mom's handwriting, carried down to the Quick Check: please give Jeremy, my son, a pack of Winstons. Seventy-five cents.

Plus: Doc Stone's roadkill stew, an Ohio State roommate with a pet quail named Bob White, and the Lewis family word for a crush.

Where's the strangest place you've ever gone to the bathroom? And what do you remember about your grandma's house — the plastic on the furniture, the things you weren't allowed to touch? Tell us in the comments on YouTube, or message us on Instagram. We read them on the show.

Does anybody remember the High Noon Saloon in Shreve, Ohio? It's gone, and there is no trace of it anywhere online. If you were ever in it, we want to hear from you.

Next week is episode ten, so the DeLorean doesn't go anywhere new. We're pulling over. Nine episodes in, four lives in one, and we're not doing it alone.

Watch the full video episode: https://youtube.com/@amostunpredictablelife

Website: https://amostunpredictablelife.com

Follow @amostunpredictablelife on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook

A Most Unpredictable Life — Jeremy Lewis and Terry Lewis. We're not brothers. We might be related.

Twenty years in the Army. Five deployments in ten years. A Lieutenant Colonel with a wife and four kids — and in 2016 Jeremy did the most unpredictable thing he'd ever done. He took the uniform off and went to go sell a car.

Except Tesla didn't find him. He'd been calling them for eleven years.

His 2005 Army email password was "TeslaRoadster." In 2008 he told a friend on Facebook to buy a Roadster. In 2010, in a plywood building in northern Afghanistan, he walked out of his office holding a Wired magazine with Elon Musk on the cover and told a room full of day-trading lieutenants: this is the stock you should be buying.

None of them listened. There is still a text thread.

Then on December 8, 2016, a LinkedIn message arrived — and this is the story of what eleven years of asking looks like when somebody finally picks up.

Also in this one: Terry wins a radio call-in contest and ends up at the San Diego Comic-Con watching the Star Trek premiere on an outdoor IMAX with the San Diego Symphony playing the score live. Jeremy runs a job hunt like a recon mission — ten LinkedIn profiles a day, every day, for seven months. Eleven interviews in one weekend at Fremont. An offer accepted in a used-tire lot outside San Francisco. Day one: Autopilot on, hands off, FaceTiming his dad from the freeway. And then the Tesla Regional Manager spends his first six months driving the Mid-Atlantic in a Honda Civic.

Plus: the Cavs come back from 3-1 and the Indians blow 3-1 in the same Ohio year, a customer accuses Jeremy of laughing at him, a job candidate confesses to smoking in the parking lot, and one casual sentence to his boss in December — "if anything ever opens up in Ohio" — creates a region that didn't exist.

Ever reinvented yourself completely — walked away from twenty years of something? Tell us in the comments on YouTube, or message us on Instagram. We read them on the show, and we reply to everyone.

Next week the DeLorean goes back to 1981. Jeremy is seven years old in Shreve, Ohio, and one of his little brothers does something in the men's room of the High Noon Saloon that the entire bar is still talking about.

Watch the full video episode: https://youtube.com/@amostunpredictablelife

Website: https://amostunpredictablelife.com

Follow @amostunpredictablelife on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook

A Most Unpredictable Life — Jeremy Lewis and Terry Lewis. We're not brothers. We might be related.

Jeremy is six years old, in half-day kindergarten, living in a three-bedroom house on Church Street in Shreve, Ohio with four brothers, his mom, and his stepdad Keith. The school is close enough to see from the front yard. And every day at noon he opens that front door with no idea what's on the other side of it.

One day it's every piece of furniture they own, sitting out on the front lawn — because his little brother found a lighter, lit the bathroom curtains, and then shut the door and went back to watch Romper Room. The cat is the one who raises the alarm. His brothers watch the fire trucks pull up from their classroom window next door and slowly realize whose house it is.

A few weeks later he opens that same door and Space Invaders is glowing on the Zenith.

Terry's 1980: sophomore into junior year at Ohio State learning every instrument in the band room, the first summer he didn't go home, and the night his own house caught fire when he was ten — and the family dog woke everybody up.

Also in this episode: the Halloween witch that looked exactly like Mom standing in the doorway. Four words every Lewis boy knew. A backyard hosed into a mud slide, and a hand that came out of the dark. A babysitter who turned off every light in the house — and the push pins that ended her. And the music box they broke, glued back together, and got away with for years.

September 11, 2001. Jeremy is seven days into a new unit, waiting to take command — boots half-laced in front of the TV as the second plane hits. This is Part Two of 2001: the day America was attacked, what it means to stand in front of 130 soldiers and say "it's not if, it's when" — and how the same year still managed to end with a piece of charcoal in a Christmas stocking and a Tiffany ring in Jeremy's pocket. Terry's side of the year: planting a brand-new church in Lewis Center ("we almost named it the Dam Church"), a Survivor sermon series with real torches, and the neighbor who knocked on his office door asking for a wire hanger — "for my TV antenna. We're under attack." Also in this episode: the mouse that gave all, the reply-all email disaster heard across an entire battalion, Wonder Woman and Superman at the hail-and-farewell, and the proposal story you'll be retelling at dinner.

👉 New here? Subscribe and hit the bell — new episodes and clips every Wednesday.

▶️ Catch up from Episode 1 so you don't miss how the story connects.

#AMostUnpredictableLife #Podcast #Savannah #ArmyLife #2001 #StorytellingPodcast #Veteran #lovestory

Savannah, 2001. Jeremy is 27, a brand-new Army captain, and about to have the best year of his life — a downtown townhome full of brothers, a handshake with a sitting president, and a phone call introduction to the woman he'd marry nine months later. This is Part One: FOUNTAINS OF LOVE In this episode of A Most Unpredictable Life, Jeremy and Terry go back to 2001 — the year Jeremy landed at Fort Stewart with the 87th, decided he'd rather be a "regular" at every little pub in Savannah than a guy at the club, led the logistics for President Bush's visit, and finally called a girl named Lorrie he'd been introduced to over Yahoo Messenger a year earlier. Sea-turtle islands, alligators, a cemetery séance gone sideways, and the master sergeant who called the whole thing before Jeremy did. Warm, funny, and true — an ordinary-looking life that keeps turning out to be anything but.

👉 New here? Subscribe and hit the bell — new episodes and clips every Wednesday.

▶️ Catch up from Episode 1 so you don't miss how the story connects.

#AMostUnpredictableLife #Podcast #Savannah #ArmyLife #2001 #StorytellingPodcast #Veteran #lovestory

It's 1978. Terry is 18, graduating from Sandusky Perkins High School, guessing weights at Cedar Point, and marching down the ramp as an alternate in The Best Damn Band in the Land — during Woody Hayes' final, infamous season. Jeremy is five years old at 281 Church Street in Shreve, Ohio, in a house with five boys, a rusted Fiat you could see the road through, and — for a few days — a wanted bank robber named Louie Stackhouse sleeping under the same roof. This episode has it all: the Blizzard of '78 (and the nine-hour drive to Maryland that Terry's mom sent him on to get him out of the house), Santa landing on the roof of the bank in downtown Wooster, getting lost at SeaWorld Ohio, a kid brother left behind at Jerry's Restaurant, a 14-year-old's first driving lesson that ends in a totaled VW Beetle — and the night little Jeremy pulled back the curtain and saw the blue lights: "We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up." If you grew up in Wayne County, Sandusky, or anywhere in Ohio in the late '70s, this one's for you. Drop a comment if you remember Fisher's Big Wheel, Buckeye Mart, Shogun Warriors, or Santa on the bank roof in Wooster.

Subscribe and share — new episodes weekly.

FOLLOW A MOST UNPREDICTABLE LIFE:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589304331350

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amostunpredictablelife/?__pwa=1#

X: https://x.com/AMOSTLIFE

n this episode of A Most Unpredictable Life, Jeremy's back from a wedding in Maryland and a trip to Virginia to watch his son Noah graduate from Coast Guard EM 'A' School and earn his promotion to EM3. Terry's back from ten days in Greece with Kelly for their 40th anniversary — including two and a half hours in an Athens airport security line where he made friends with people from Israel, Barcelona, and Georgia. Then the Delorean points forward: freshman year at Illinois Tech, December 1992 through the summer of 1993. Smashing Pumpkins, the BMG Music Club, Jurassic Park, and the birth of the World Wide Web — watched in real time from inside a tech school on the VAX system playing MUDs. Brother Jason gets married in October — and their mom, who is a fugitive with a bench warrant in Ohio, shows up anyway because her son is getting married. Jeremy and his dad aren't speaking. Then Thanksgiving brings a quiet intervention courtesy of sister-in-law Deb, and a reconciliation that changes everything. Back on campus Second South becomes a brotherhood — board games, Diplomacy, and Matt Kelly destroying a chair. Randy drives a trunk full of aluminum cans to Michigan and funds the biggest party on campus. A giant snowman gets lit on fire. Jeremy almost gets kicked out. Jeremy's mom calls from jail with very specific instructions about a money order and a Wooster, Ohio return address. His stepdad Dave calls for ASVAB math help. And then it's summer — Airborne School, Fort Benning, Cadet C542, a sergeant who really did not appreciate the smiling, a room full of Sergeant Airbornes who thought Jeremy came to see the museum, and a glass Gatorade bottle that shattered red all over him. Wings and all. New episodes weekly. If you like the show, share it with one person — that's how this thing grows.

In Episode 2 of A Most Unpredictable Life, the roles flip. Jeremy Lewis was born in 1973 — so this time it's co-host Terry Lewis in the hot seat, walking us through an era Jeremy was too young to remember and his own teenage years working at Cedar Point. But this episode goes deeper than nostalgia. Jeremy traces the story all the way back to its real beginning — his mother, Karin. Adopted, she lost her adopted father at four years old, grew up playing with neighborhood girls who turned out to be her own biological sisters, and didn't learn the truth until she was twelve. She never found out who her real father was. It's a story that reveals where the unpredictability in Jeremy's life truly started — a generation before he was even born. From a full house on Church Street in Shreve, Ohio, to a family that came apart and reshaped itself, this is the origin chapter: the people, the losses, and the roots that made everything else possible. Some stories start when you're old enough to remember them. This one starts before that — and it just might make you want to ask your own family the questions while you still can.

New episodes of A Most Unpredictable Life release weekly. Keep turning the pages.

Keywords: life story podcast, family history, adoption story, 1970s nostalgia, Cedar Point, Ohio history, overcoming adversity, generational story, personal growth, resilience, storytelling podcast, Bicentennial, true life stories, inspirational podcast #podcast #lifestory #familyhistory #adoption #1970s #nostalgia #ohio #cedarpoint #storytelling #resilience #inspiration #truestory #newpodcast #generational #mostunpredictablelife

FOLLOW A MOST UNPREDICTABLE LIFE:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589304331350

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amostunpredictablelife/?__pwa=1#

X: https://x.com/AMOSTLIFE

Most Likely to Succeed? Nope. Most Athletic? Not even close. Most Unpredictable? Now THAT one they got right.

Welcome to Episode 1 of A Most Unpredictable Life — where Jeremy Lewis goes back to 1992, the year his classmates voted him Most Unpredictable and unknowingly named this entire podcast.

What does it look like to be sleeping on a lawn chair at 17, paying your own electric bill, with no roadmap — and earn a full-ride scholarship worth over $100,000 that same year? It looks like packing everything into a $500 car with no working windshield wipers and driving six hours alone to Chicago at 4 in the morning to start a brand new chapter.

From cruising Claremont Avenue in a '65 Mustang with the three amigos, to pulling into a Chicago parking lot and meeting a stranger who became a lifelong friend — 1992 was the year the story got going. If life has thrown you curveballs and you're figuring it out as you go — this one's for you. Keep turning the pages.

Keywords: inspirational podcast, life story, overcoming adversity, ROTC scholarship, Army veteran, 1990s nostalgia, true life stories, personal growth, resilience, coming of age, motivation, success story

#podcast #inspiration #lifestory #motivation #resilience #armyveteran #1990s #nostalgia #successstory #overcomingadversity #newpodcast #truestory