The Cowboy Philosopher

**Shankar Vedantam** (0:00)
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Today's episode begins in a subterranean labyrinth. It's 2018, and we're below the streets of Washington DC.
I've come here in search of clues.

**Steve Winnick** (0:14)
So here we are in Deck 50 in the stacks of the Library of Congress. I'm opening a door that's marked Door 20

**Shankar Vedantam** (0:20)
My guide through the Library of Congress' massive collection is a tall, shaggy man. His name is Steve Winnick. He looks a lot like Hagrid from Harry Potter, which seems about right for someone with the title of Folklorist.
Steve has already led me through a maze of low ceiling stacks across a small bridge and into a tiny elevator where the floor numbers go up as we move down. Finally, we arrive at our destination.

**Steve Winnick** (0:49)
And in here, we find row upon row of collection boxes on the shelves, and I'm looking for this collection, which is numbered AFC 1979 8

**Shankar Vedantam** (1:03)
Steve pulls from the shelf a cardboard box.

**Steve Winnick** (1:06)
Nobody's really used this collection very much. So it's simply, you know, been there waiting for you, really.

**Shankar Vedantam** (1:15)
The author of this collection is Richard Riley Shepard, a small-time crook and conman who died in 2009 I've been tracking Riley Shepard for a few months. My assumption is that there's nothing of significance in the box. But I'm about to discover that the story I thought I was reporting is not in fact the full story.
The story that's about to unfold before me is a story of obsession, its power, its beauty, and its costs.
This week on Hidden Brain, we bring you a classic episode about the peculiar life of a man named Riley Shepard. He was a musician and writer who spent decades on a single grand project. Whether that project was a great quest or a great folly, that is for you to decide.

**Steve Winnick** (2:12)
He was a genius, I think.

**Stasha Shepard Silverman** (2:14)
He just was a compulsive liar.

**Steve Enslen** (2:15)
He was quite a master.

**Kevin Coffey** (2:19)
He was getting out of town before he was being tartan feathered.

**Steve Enslen** (2:24)
I gotta get this done.

**Riley Shepard** (2:25)
They all hated my guts. So I said, what?

**Shankar Vedantam** (2:37)
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I stumbled onto the story as I was contemplating an episode not about obsession, but about fallen heroes. I'd asked Hidden Brain listeners to share examples from their own lives.
One of the messages, I hope I did this right, was from Stasha Shepard Silverman. She said her fallen hero was her dad, Riley Shepard, whom she still loved.

**Stasha Shepard Silverman** (4:37)
I want to say that I had a great relationship with my father. He was totally cool in many ways and a great cook.

**Shankar Vedantam** (4:47)
When we talk, Stasha tells me that as a young girl, she idolized her dad. She has memories of those days that feel like tiny, sparkling gems.

**Stasha Shepard Silverman** (4:59)
My earliest memory of my dad is sitting on his lap and him smoking his cigar, and he would make cigar smoke rings for me.

**Shankar Vedantam** (5:10)
Stasha would watch them, transfixed, as they rose in the air before her.

**Stasha Shepard Silverman** (5:14)
I thought the smoke rings were magical.

**Shankar Vedantam** (5:22)
There was a lot that was magical for Stasha back then.