Jonathan Goldstein returns to Wildwood, New Jersey, where he spent one not-fateful summer when he was sixteen. Jonathan's the host of the podcast Heavyweight.
Host Ira Glass describes scenes from a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, the Plattekill Travel Plaza, and the kind of people you might meet if you ever stayed long enough to talk with them. These include Robert Woodhill, the general manager, who needs a good sales day so he can beat his friend Andy, who manages a rest stop in Maine, in their weekly competition.
Jonathan Goldstein heads into an environment that's so hot that they people there believe that sweating—simply sweating—is getting something accomplished. Life in the Division Street Russian Bath turns out to follow a different—and superior—set of rules to life elsewhere.