0:00

You're listening to an AirWave

0:02

Media Podcast. I'm

0:34

Mo Raka and I'm excited to

0:36

announce Season 4 of my podcast,

0:38

Mobituaries. I've got a whole new

0:40

bunch of stories to share with

0:42

you about the most fascinating

0:45

people and things who

0:47

are no longer with us. From famous

0:49

figures who died on the very

0:51

same day to the things

0:53

I wish would die, like

0:56

buffets, all that and

0:58

much more. Listen to Mobituaries

1:00

with Mo Raka wherever you

1:02

get your podcasts. Today

1:05

on the Useless Information Retrocast, Bruce Carlson

1:07

of the My History Can Beat Up

1:09

Your Politics podcast joins me to talk

1:12

about the first man ever to go

1:14

over Niagara Falls in a barrel, only

1:16

to die years later after slipping on

1:19

an orange peel. Or how

1:21

about the story of a family that was asked

1:23

to sign an apartment rental agreement

1:25

that limited each person to one

1:27

bath per week. Can you imagine?

1:30

And then you'll hear the story of a

1:32

woman who caught a trout with a flyswatter.

1:35

Plus as an added bonus, Bruce will

1:38

tell us the long forgotten story of

1:40

Cleveland's subway. I'm betting most people

1:42

in Cleveland didn't even know they once had a subway.

1:45

Well all that plus today's question of

1:47

the day, the retro sponsor and so

1:49

much more. It's all coming

1:52

up next on today's edition of

1:54

the Useless Information Retrocast. I

1:56

am Steve Solman and this is the Useless

1:59

Information Podcast. So

2:08

Bruce, thanks for joining me on the RetroCast. It's great

2:10

to have you here. Thanks Steve,

2:12

great to be on. Now

2:15

I gave you a little background on how

2:17

this is set up. Basically, it's some short

2:19

stories. I throw in what's called a retro

2:21

sponsor, an old-time commercial, and so on. So

2:23

I thought we'd go through and take turns

2:25

going through those and reading them, okay? So

2:28

good to me. Okay, so let's dive

2:30

into the first one. At

2:34

the turn of the 20th century, Jacob

2:36

Hope owned a pet shop in Philadelphia,

2:38

and his specialty was birds, that's talking

2:40

birds in particular. But the

2:42

responsibility of teaching these avian chatterboxes to

2:45

speak fell upon Mrs. Hope, that's of

2:47

course his wife, who came

2:49

up with a very unique way of

2:51

training them. As

2:53

she explained in an article in the September 13,

2:56

1903 edition of the Pittsburgh Post, quote her,

2:59

a parrot that can't talk sells for $10 or

3:02

$15, and one that can't talk

3:04

sells for $100 or $150 according to its proficiency. Now

3:10

adjusted for inflation, that's between $3500 and $5200 a day.

3:16

That's a lot of money for a pet bird.

3:19

Anyway, she continued, why

3:21

shouldn't I take half a dozen untrained birds worth,

3:23

say, $75, and

3:26

then turn them out good talkers worth $700 or $800? Now

3:32

her method of training was quite straightforward. She

3:34

would simply select half a dozen young parrots,

3:37

place them in a room by themselves, and

3:39

then cover their cages with hoods. Now

3:42

this is done because the birds supposedly learn

3:44

faster when they aren't distracted. Anyway,

3:47

she would sit down beside the cages

3:49

and repeat the phrase, Polly wanna cracker,

3:51

Polly wanna cracker, over and

3:54

over again. Both

4:00

Mrs. Hope and the birds would tire at

4:02

the repetition, so she felt

4:04

the need to change the situation up a bit.

4:07

What she would do is remove the covers

4:09

from the cages and then hide behind a

4:12

screen as she once again began that monotonous

4:14

repetition of, Polly wanna crack her? Polly wanna

4:16

crack her? Then

4:19

after weeks of training the birds, Mrs. Hope

4:21

had a brain storm. You

4:23

know, maybe she could use her newfangled

4:25

phonograph to train the birds. What

4:29

she did was she sought out the help of

4:31

a phonograph dealer who taught her how to record

4:33

her own records. And

4:36

you know exactly what she did. She

4:38

recorded herself repeating Polly wanna crack her,

4:40

Polly wanna crack her onto that recording

4:42

over and over again. But

4:45

then came the big question, would her

4:47

idea work? Well,

4:50

it did and the results were far

4:52

beyond her expectations. The parents

4:54

were not only learning the phrases, but

4:56

they were picking them up in far

4:58

less time. So

5:01

Mrs. Hope's next step was to obtain

5:03

several phonographs and proceeded to record other

5:06

phrases. The net result

5:08

was that all the birds that she trained using

5:10

this new method were sold at a premium price.

5:14

Now when other people learned that she was training

5:16

the birds this way, they asked Mrs. Hope if

5:18

she could train their birds. She

5:21

agreed and she set up a photograph

5:23

school to do so. The

5:26

cost was $40 or about $1,375 today for a six month term. At

5:33

the time of her interview with the Pittsburgh Post, she

5:35

had 20 students enrolled in

5:38

her classes. Not

5:40

bad. Her

5:42

star pupil was able to say, Yankee

5:44

Doodle went to town riding on a

5:46

pony. She explained,

5:48

quote, This little bird is

5:51

the best talker I've ever seen. His

5:53

name is Dewey and he can speak

5:55

three languages, English, German and French. His

5:59

accomplishments are altogether due to

6:01

the phonograph. When

6:04

asked if it took a long time to teach a

6:06

parrot, she replied, quote, not with

6:08

a machine. I use

6:10

cylinders of extra large size, and since

6:12

I have a number of phonographs, I

6:15

can, if I wish, keep one phrase

6:17

dinning in a parrot's ear all day

6:19

long. I rarely do

6:21

that, though, for the reason that such a

6:24

course makes a bird irritable and nervous and

6:26

takes its appetite away. As

6:29

a rule, the lessons last 30 minutes a

6:31

day, and a week is

6:33

given to learning one phrase, unquote.

6:38

So the reason I did this story is

6:40

that it reminded me of a business that

6:42

my brother and I owned. We had for

6:44

10 years an online pet supplies business. We

6:46

sold it back in 2010, and it

6:48

was an offshoot of my parents' pet shop. My

6:51

parents are getting close to retirement. I

6:53

went to my dad, and I said, you really should

6:55

put your business up online. This is

6:57

in the late 90s, and he's like, oh, no

6:59

one will ever make any money on the internet.

7:01

So he wasn't interested. A

7:04

year later, I showed him a dummy site, and he

7:06

said, that's fine, but you and your brother have to

7:08

do it. And we were both teachers, and we ended

7:10

up in the pet business. So we did

7:12

that for a decade. And

7:14

one of our most popular products was selling

7:17

CDs that trained birds to talk. And

7:19

they were perfect. They were perfect

7:21

because they weighed very little, and they

7:23

were high profit. You don't want

7:25

to ship dog food across the country, but a

7:28

little CD is very economical to

7:31

ship. So that's why I chose this story.

7:34

Now, do you have any pets, or? I

7:36

have two cats. Under

7:39

many conditions, my cat,

7:41

Sheena, who is a tuxedo cat, would be

7:43

here. She manages to stay

7:46

in the recording process quite often. She's

7:48

not here today in the studio. And

7:51

then her daughter,

7:53

that cat's daughter, Birdie,

7:56

is a kind of reverse tuxedo. She's got

7:58

more white than black. She

8:00

she she does run away from the

8:02

recording session. She's intrigued

8:05

by podcasting I find Yeah,

8:08

we had three cats, but sadly they've all passed on

8:10

at this point. I do have

8:12

a I do have a cockatiel She's

8:14

really nice. I was trying to figure out how old she

8:16

is. I'm not really sure She

8:19

wasn't mine originally. She's gone through multiple owners,

8:21

but I'm guessing somewhere in the 13 14

8:24

year range something like that They live

8:26

about 25 years really Nice

8:28

friendly bird. I have to actually take her out of

8:30

the room when I record because she wants to talk

8:33

when I'm talking and Starts

8:35

you can't say anything good Yeah,

8:38

but she'll just start, you know trying to imitate

8:40

what I say or have some sort of conversation

8:42

I don't know. So anyway, so now we're gonna

8:44

move on get a co-host out of that Yeah,

8:47

except no one went on to stand there, you know So

8:50

why don't we move on to a story that you

8:52

have this is about Niagara Falls It

8:55

may come as a bit of a surprise

8:58

mainly because men have a history of doing

9:00

some of the more foolish things But the

9:02

first person to go over Niagara Falls in

9:04

a barrel and survive was not a man

9:08

Instead it was a

9:10

woman named Annie Edson Taylor After

9:13

the death of her husband during the

9:15

Civil War Annie spent many years teaching

9:17

in various locations around the United States

9:20

Fortunately teaching paid very little and

9:23

by the time she turned 60

9:27

Annie was destitute Then

9:29

story goes she's reading a

9:31

magazine article about the daredevils

9:33

who had conquered the Whirlpool

9:36

rapids downstream from Niagara Falls

9:39

They were going over the rapids in a barrel well,

9:41

any thought I can go over the

9:43

falls in a barrel and surpass them

9:46

all and if she did so She

9:48

would be the first person to do it Her

9:51

motivation purely financial She

9:53

Believed that if she did this, the

9:55

fame resulting from it would secure her

9:58

of substantial income. In the end, The

10:00

Aftermath. And so on October Twenty

10:02

Fourth, Ninety No One, which was

10:04

her sixty third birthday. Any

10:06

Edson Taylor Hop Dinner Oversized

10:08

Pickle Barrel. And. Went over

10:10

the edge. And.

10:13

Other than a small gash in

10:15

her head, she emerged largely unharmed.

10:18

He. Did get a little same. She.

10:20

Was called the goddess of the water. But.

10:24

She didn't get. Immediate riches

10:26

and prosperity from this of

10:28

that. She. Did make a

10:31

little money selling her memoirs. Had

10:33

a stand next to the falls.

10:35

Proceed have the barrel for ten

10:37

cents apiece. But. These things have

10:39

shelf life and by the time you

10:41

get to the nineteen teens, no one

10:43

remembers and he had some Taylor's name

10:45

anymore. She. Was swindled by

10:47

some tour operators and regrettably.

10:50

Per. Barrel was stolen. When. She

10:52

dies in nineteen twenty one. She passed away

10:54

in poverty. The cost of her funeral was

10:56

covered by donations from the public. The.

11:00

Second person to go over the falls

11:02

was Bobby Leech. He was born in

11:05

Lancaster, England in eighteen fifty eight and

11:07

came to United States when is eighteen

11:09

years old. Leech was an

11:11

excellent swimmer and began his career

11:13

exhibiting diving and swimming tricks for

11:16

the Barnum and Bailey Circus. His

11:18

specialty was diving from a platform

11:21

elevated one hundred and fifty feet

11:23

above the plunging into a shallow

11:26

pool bullet in the air that

11:28

predated powered flight. He would make

11:30

parachute jumps from lofty balloons. As.

11:33

Airplanes gained prevalence leech adapted

11:35

by descending from one aircraft

11:38

to another using a rope

11:40

ladder. A. Nineteen.

11:42

Oh wait, He accomplished a successful

11:44

dive off the Whirlpool Rapids bridge.

11:46

Plunging two hundred and eight feet,

11:48

this is sixty three meters. Into

11:51

the Niagara River below. Every

11:53

just dive off leech than goes on

11:56

to traverse the rapids it a barrel

11:58

or at least four different occasions. Now

12:00

his next goal is to go over the

12:02

falls in a barrel. Aged

12:05

Colleges. He wouldn't be the first.

12:07

that was Taylor. He aspired to

12:09

become the first man to achieve

12:12

this daring seat. And so, July

12:14

twenty fifth, nineteen eleven, Leach hopped

12:17

into his eleven foot long steel

12:19

barrel, strapped himself into his canvas

12:21

hammock. And. Began his journey

12:23

downstream. About two hundred

12:26

yards from the fall, the barrel struck

12:28

a large rock. Which. Broke into

12:30

a portion of it's wouldn't knows. Moments.

12:33

Later his craft plunge over the

12:35

falls and upon reaching the bottom.

12:37

Vanished on to the water's surface

12:39

for about thirty seconds. It.

12:41

Done pops back up. And

12:44

the barrel embarks on it's downstream

12:46

journey and got entangled in an

12:48

eddy, swirling in a circular motion

12:50

for several minutes. Nevertheless,

12:53

It swiftly resumed its course and eventually

12:55

a man swam out to attach a

12:57

rope to Was Barrel and pulled him

12:59

to the shoreline. Upon. Emerging from

13:02

the barrel. Bobby. Leech raised

13:04

his body and excitedly we've to

13:06

the crowds assembled along the river's

13:08

edge. Lead. Seemed happy. With.

13:11

Party was badly beaten in a

13:13

fractured jaw, broken ribs. Both of

13:15

his kneecaps were shattered. Leech.

13:17

Would spend the next twenty three weeks

13:19

recovering in the hospital. Fast.

13:23

Forward to February. Twenty six, Nineteen Twenty

13:25

Six. Having recently concluded a lecture tour

13:27

in New Zealand, Leech was

13:29

walking down a street in Auckland. And.

13:32

Slept in an orange peel. And

13:35

not result in are broken leg gangrene

13:37

set in. In. A Monday.

13:39

April. Twenty Six Nineteen Twenty

13:41

Six. Doctors. Had no

13:43

choice but to amputate. Tragically.

13:46

Bobby Leach passed away two

13:48

days later. Ironically.

13:51

The man who had survived so many

13:53

death defying beats throughout his lifetime met

13:55

his end at the age of sixty

13:57

nine due to a fatal slip on.

14:00

Orange Peel. I

14:02

guess I should ask. Have you ever been snag or false? You.

14:05

Don't Ah, I'm close to it but I have

14:07

not and I'm over the few people around where

14:10

I live which is and red cross the river

14:12

from New York. Who. Haven't

14:14

been. Here's another I'd fact:

14:16

He took my useless information useful information

14:18

about me. I live in northern New

14:20

Jersey. And. I've been to Canada

14:22

once. Where do you think that would

14:25

normally be? Niagara Falls, right? Or okay,

14:27

a trip to Monterey? All right, a

14:29

trip to Toronto? Know the only place

14:31

I've visited his Vancouver. And

14:33

fact, He I've never been

14:35

to Vancouver my wife has a friend there

14:37

and done maybe someday we'll make our make

14:40

our way out there Are I se live

14:42

death by I went to New York University

14:44

of Buffalo for my undergraduate. Switches.

14:46

Played us thirty minutes from Niagara

14:48

Falls south. I've been there many

14:50

times. Unfortunately it wasn't really to

14:52

visit the falls back and the

14:54

drinking age is eighteen. And.

14:57

Dad is go back in the early eighties

14:59

and I didn't drink so my friends either

15:01

bring one case of Canadian beer or occupant

15:03

of the car. He could bring it across

15:05

the border without a tariffs so they put

15:08

me in the car the he get one

15:10

more case. in what I have Nothing Yeah

15:12

A Terrified it. So you

15:14

have been snag or falls many

15:16

times. I do recommend you go.

15:18

It said it's sister. A once

15:20

in a lifetime thing to see

15:22

assists just spectacular. Isis Ah. You.

15:25

Know the amount of water that goes

15:27

over it.is so assuming we have the

15:30

Patterson Falls here New Jersey. but of

15:32

course it's nothing. it's are important in

15:34

history but it's nothing in comparison from

15:37

from what I understand and that of

15:39

course that story. I mean it

15:41

just. Hit me because. As

15:44

so much there because he accomplish

15:46

this amazing feat for I really

15:49

had to be. A

15:51

shot in the dark. I mean you

15:53

roll a guy. You. Know

15:55

of five at a six.

15:58

Probably. You. die Or

16:00

you get severely injured doing that and she

16:02

rolled the one and she's barely injured,

16:04

you know She just did this

16:06

fantastic thing and of course got very little

16:08

reward. The other thing is she lied about

16:10

her age I didn't get into that in

16:12

the story, but she she was really We

16:15

we said, you know, she was a elderly

16:18

woman, but she well, I shouldn't

16:20

say elderly 63, you know But

16:23

she she was said she was in her since

16:25

she was 40. So So

16:28

so that people wouldn't be like do this

16:30

my gosh, this is a fascinating story the

16:32

struggle of those times People

16:35

were destitute and did crazy things Yeah

16:38

the reason I researched this story was that I

16:40

had come across just mentions here and there here

16:42

and there over the years that he Had died

16:45

slipping on an orange peel and I just had

16:47

to find out if that was really true So

16:49

I went back and found the original art original

16:51

articles what I was kind of

16:53

surprised by I was under the impression It was

16:55

instantaneous and he's walking down the street. Yeah went

16:58

down and he was he was gone But

17:00

no, you know, he you know struggled

17:02

after that and died after his leg

17:04

was amputated It's a

17:06

sad story, but a little little ironic I

17:08

would say Yeah, he came

17:11

before penicillin very important, right? And

17:13

then she actually This

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find Reese's now at a store near you On

17:48

January 22nd of 1949 Mr.

17:51

And mrs. Charles Scott filed an

17:54

unusual complaint with Cincinnati area rent

17:56

director Steven young They

17:59

claimed that they were being being evicted because they

18:01

refused to sign a contract that limited

18:03

them to one bath per week. Could

18:06

you imagine? This

18:08

whole ordeal began in the previous August

18:10

when their landlady, Mrs. William Griffin, received

18:13

permission from Mr. Young to increase the rent

18:15

on the apartment in question from $25 to

18:18

$29 per month. For

18:22

inflation, she was raising the rent from $312 to $377 per month. Young

18:30

only agreed to this increase because Mrs.

18:32

Griffin had installed an electric hot water

18:34

heater in the building, and

18:36

that was located in Kenton County,

18:39

Kentucky, which I should add is

18:41

just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

18:44

But I should also mention this all happened

18:47

months before the Scots and their 17-year-old

18:49

daughter Pat leased that first floor apartment.

18:52

As for the Griffins and their three children, they

18:54

lived in a separate apartment on the same floor

18:57

of that building, and they shared

18:59

the bathroom with the Scots. And

19:02

for the first couple of months, everything seemed to be

19:04

going well. But then,

19:06

when Mr. Scott attempted to pay the rent

19:08

in mid-December, Mrs. Griffin told

19:11

him that he needed to sign that

19:13

bath contract. Of

19:15

course, the Scots refused, so Mrs. Griffin didn't

19:17

accept their rent money. Mrs.

19:20

Scott was quoted as saying, "...she

19:23

wanted us to limit ourselves to one tub

19:25

a week and the members of the family

19:27

to use the tub on different nights." She

19:30

continued, "...and she didn't

19:32

want us to have overnight guests or parties." Mrs.

19:38

Griffin, on the other hand, later explained, "...I

19:41

said no parties that disturb other tenants.

19:43

There's quite a difference." Well,

19:46

since the Scots had refused to sign

19:48

that contract, Mrs. Griffin padlocked the bathroom

19:51

door and turned off the water. She

19:54

then informed the Scots they would have

19:56

to use outdoor facilities, which

19:58

I interpret to be either a trio. or

20:00

an outhouse. Of

20:03

course, this also meant that the Griffins were unable to

20:05

use the bathroom since they used the same one, but

20:07

that didn't seem to phase them in the least.

20:10

And that's because Mr. Griffin was able to

20:13

shower at work, their three children were all

20:15

bathed in a small tub, and Mrs. Griffin

20:17

opted to bathe once a week and taking

20:19

sponge baths during the interim. According

20:23

to Mrs. Griffin, the reason for her

20:25

unusual bath contract was the high cost

20:27

of hot water. You

20:30

see, health authorities told her that the two

20:32

cisterns on her property were contaminated, so she

20:34

had no choice but to haul the water

20:36

in. She estimated

20:39

that the cost to do so was about $6 per

20:41

month, plus an additional $4 to heat it.

20:45

Now, the $10 total translates into approximately $128 per

20:47

month today. The Scots did offer to

20:53

pay for their portion of the water that

20:55

was hauled in, but Mrs. Griffin insisted that

20:57

the cost of heating it was the real

20:59

problem. She noted

21:01

that her tenants were taking a total of

21:03

eight baths per week, which was the rationale

21:06

for the contract limiting the number of baths

21:08

they could take. And

21:11

since the Scots refused to sign that

21:13

contract and had not paid their rent,

21:15

Mrs. Griffin hired a lawyer to start

21:17

the eviction process. So

21:20

the Scots, in turn, also hired an

21:22

attorney, and that's how it ended up

21:24

before rent control attorney Young. And

21:27

after reviewing their case, he informed Mrs. Griffin that

21:29

she would need to lower her rent by $2

21:32

per month. And that's because

21:34

she failed to provide the Scots with the hot

21:36

water she had promised. But

21:39

Mrs. Griffin still wanted to evict the Scots,

21:42

which required a series of hearings. Well,

21:44

the case was ultimately decided by

21:47

magistrate Sue Lakeman, who ruled against

21:49

the Scots. And

21:51

it wasn't so much that she was siding with Mrs. Griffin,

21:53

but it was that the Scots didn't

21:56

put up a defense, so she had no

21:58

choice but to evict them. Well,

22:00

the eviction paperwork was finalized on March 8, 1949, and

22:03

Mrs. Griffin didn't waste

22:06

any time in kicking the Scots to

22:08

the curb. Within

22:10

hours, all of their furniture was piled

22:12

alongside the road, awaiting pickup by a

22:14

moving truck. As

22:17

for the Scots, they said they were moving

22:19

in with some relatives in Newport, Kentucky. We

22:23

do still have, in New Jersey, rent

22:27

control boards. New York City has

22:29

them, but it's also part of

22:31

some municipalities, even small ones in

22:33

New Jersey do have this. This

22:35

actually comes up, I've heard of

22:37

cases fairly recently, where they try

22:39

to say, I'm including

22:41

hot water or taking out hot water, and

22:44

to get around the rent rules that way,

22:47

which usually the landlord

22:50

is corrected. Some of these towns

22:52

here, you can only raise it 4% per year, no more. Right.

22:56

But up here, I am up near Albany, I

22:58

don't think such a thing exists. I

23:01

think people just charge whatever, you know. But

23:03

I can't imagine, I mean, of course, this is 1949. And

23:08

I'm thinking this is right after

23:10

the war, housing's in short supply.

23:13

So I'm sure people are trying to

23:15

get astronomical prices for their rents. And

23:18

you'd have things like this rent control board that

23:20

would determine how much you could charge and how

23:22

much you could raise it by. Yeah,

23:25

oh, absolutely. And the laws that we have

23:27

today in Jersey, they're just

23:30

on the books from that era. They're

23:33

not new, nobody's created a new board, they're just,

23:36

the towns have had them for years. Yeah,

23:39

fascinating time, huge building boom, covered

23:42

that a lot in my podcast. Yeah,

23:45

I haven't covered it much. I

23:47

did one about a year ago

23:49

about a town that came up

23:51

with an anti-inflation plan. But

23:54

I just barely touched on that. It's just a

23:56

fun little story and it seemed timely for a

23:59

year ago. Inflation was kind of out of

24:01

control, you know, luckily it's stabilized a

24:03

bit. So things are getting a little bit back

24:05

to normal So we didn't

24:07

go to barter. Yeah So

24:11

person every retrocast I asked kind of a

24:13

trivia question You probably won't

24:15

know the answer to this so you just

24:18

give your best estimate. Okay, okay

24:20

We're both not young anymore. I mean what I'm saying

24:23

is we're not in our teens anymore and I'm

24:26

sure you remember carbon paper, right? Absolutely

24:29

CC the original CC

24:32

Sure. Do you know what year it was

24:34

invented it now? I don't think anything I'll

24:36

let you think about it for a bit now. Let you know the

24:39

answer at the end of the podcast. Okay, okay

24:41

So I don't I don't guess or I should guess

24:44

you'll guess later on. Okay, very good

24:48

And one thing I do in every retrocast is

24:50

I play what I call a retro sponsor These

24:53

are just old commercials that come from old-time radio

24:55

And this one is from the Bing

24:57

Crosby Philco radio time show which

25:00

was from January 1st 1947 so

25:02

let's take a listen Say

25:09

I got a great idea Well, we could use one

25:12

You know It'd be a great idea Somebody would

25:14

set up a trading post where you could swap

25:16

Christmas presents like that hand crocheted neck tie up

25:18

Nelly gave you for something you really wanted and

25:21

you'll talk already off for instance Which

25:23

brings up the point that if anybody gave

25:25

you cash for Christmas It's a cinch to

25:27

give yourself a Philco now any Philco dealer

25:29

will be glad to swap with you and

25:32

he's got what it takes Biggest variety of

25:34

new Philco radios and radio phonographs in

25:36

five years all kinds of

25:38

prices and models including brand-new inventions like

25:41

the Philco 1201 the radio

25:43

phonograph where you just slide your record in and it

25:45

plays automatically That new Philco

25:47

portable makes a solid swap to or

25:50

maybe you go for a radio phonograph with

25:52

automatic record changer Philco has them from table

25:54

model size up to those big gorgeous consoles

25:56

that you haven't seen in years What's the

25:58

guy talking about Ben? he's uh... reading the

26:01

commercial joe right that they're saying it

26:03

not on that

26:08

may i continue to go right ahead can don't

26:10

mind that's listen to all of this so swap

26:12

your christmas cash for a new film go now

26:14

you'll be getting years of solid listening pleasure the

26:17

newest thing and radio from all

26:23

okay action mission the uh... guess on the show

26:25

was peggy lee and uh...

26:27

does not really much to say that the shows

26:29

mostly being and other people singing and

26:31

they did have a little bit of conversation and humor mix

26:34

in there now i did

26:36

make some uh... notes about the co-star did

26:38

as the company's name originally was helios founded

26:41

in eighteen ninety two and they made carbon

26:43

ark lamps you can

26:45

change their name to the philadelphia battery

26:47

company and they made batteries for electric

26:50

cars but as you know uh...

26:52

even though the the early automobiles were

26:54

electric we eventually went to the combustion

26:56

engine and demand for other

26:59

batteries for electric cars started a wing

27:01

so they began to make batteries for the

27:03

uh... radio industry which of course was in

27:05

its infancy at the time they

27:08

began making their own radios in nineteen twenty

27:10

six and by nineteen thirty four they had

27:12

thirty percent of the u.s. market that's pretty

27:14

fat to build they

27:16

were basically mass producing them uh... you

27:19

know they had lowered the cost and

27:22

they were still crazy expensive but compared to

27:24

other uh... radios are that were on the

27:26

market i actually have a case there's

27:29

no radio inside a certain company called at

27:31

water can't i believe and

27:34

they basically making very high-end radios

27:36

and depression hit that was

27:38

the end of it is nobody could afford them

27:40

the other company went out of business the philco

27:42

is focusing more on the lower end and up

27:44

that allowed them to grow so quickly a

27:47

good strategy for that time of the yeah

27:50

eventually moved into home appliances uh...

27:52

my favorite was called the predicted t.v. it didn't work very

27:54

well but it was kind of this futuristic

27:57

little t.v. that they had that could rotate in

27:59

any direction The

28:01

company was sold to Ford in 1961,

28:04

and today, even though they don't make

28:06

radios, it's owned by Philips in the

28:08

US and oversees the name as owned

28:10

by Electrolux. Now,

28:12

a couple of things I'm just going to throw in

28:14

here is I actually own two Silco radios. They're

28:17

huge monstrous things. They're console ones

28:20

they probably… Do they

28:22

still work? So one

28:24

works. They're both from 1946.

28:28

The one that looks the worst – I

28:30

mean, all its finish is peeling off and

28:32

the veneer is coming off – that

28:35

one actually works. And it's

28:37

from 1946, as I said. And then

28:39

just maybe about six weeks

28:41

ago, I was at an estate sale, and

28:43

I'm down in the basement, and there was

28:45

another very similar model from the same year.

28:48

But the case was pristine, and

28:51

I said to the guy, does it work?

28:53

He told me it was $12.50. I

28:55

said, sold. I said, if I get it home and it

28:57

doesn't work, oh, well, I got it home and it didn't

28:59

work. So I have

29:02

to see if I can find somebody locally who knows how

29:04

to fix them because I don't have the skill. Now,

29:07

the last thing I want to mention is

29:09

that they came out with a radio record

29:11

player just for that show. And

29:13

from that show, they sold $238,723 Bing Crosby specials. They

29:21

sold for $60, which is about $950 today. Wow.

29:27

Yeah. That's amazing. That's a big purchase for that

29:29

time. Right. And the two that

29:31

I have, as I told you,

29:33

I paid $12.50 for this one that doesn't work. They sold for

29:35

around $200 each back then. That would have been about $3,000 today.

29:43

So they were very, very expensive. You

29:46

know, I wonder if they could – there was

29:48

a lot of installment. That was the

29:50

beginning of installment buying. Maybe they had

29:52

some credit buying, some bank loans, but

29:54

product-based loans are really beginning in the

29:56

20s, or you could do

29:59

a little bit of – payment. But fascinating.

30:02

The history of radio,

30:05

the supposed decline of radio over the

30:07

years, right? Although I think there are

30:10

always people like me

30:12

and I suspect yourself listening to

30:14

radio and PR is always

30:16

very popular, then podcasts come around and what

30:18

do you know, the audio medium has not

30:20

died, you know? Yeah. The

30:23

only thing is, though, you get to choose

30:25

very specifically what you want to listen versus,

30:28

you know, true. I mean, you do

30:30

have some choice in the radio stations you listen to. But,

30:32

you know, if you listen to NPR or something

30:34

similar to that, they're choosing the programming for you.

30:37

Of course, depending on your political leanings or

30:39

what your interests are, for example, the

30:41

local NPR station around here plays the opera,

30:44

which I'm not into, but other people are,

30:46

you know, so the

30:48

one thing I also wrote this down that

30:50

Philco did not produce any radios for civilian

30:53

use from 1943 through 45. And

30:56

that, of course, is because of the war. And

30:58

1946, which is the two that I

31:01

have, that was their first year, you

31:03

know, back at producing consumer radios. A

31:06

lot of both of those things going on.

31:09

Most companies in the US converted to

31:12

war production. And then it's about 46,

31:15

where things take off. And

31:19

because of that, and because of

31:21

all the rationing, the economy

31:23

wasn't so good, you know, Truman kind of

31:25

took a beating in those midterms over

31:28

all that and the economy and everything. But yeah,

31:31

strange times. Yeah. TIAA

31:34

is on a mission. Why?

31:36

Because 54% of black

31:39

Americans don't have enough savings to retire.

31:41

So in collaboration with big name

31:44

artists like Wyclef Jean, TIAA released

31:46

Paper Right, new music

31:48

inspiring a new financial future with

31:51

100% of streaming sales going

31:53

to a nonprofit that teaches students how

31:55

to invest. Streams Paper Right

31:57

now and help close the gap. So,

32:03

Bruce, the original reason we started talking is

32:05

that we are both on the same network,

32:08

and I just happened to post on the

32:10

Discord that was there that I may be

32:12

the old-timer because I started my podcast in

32:14

2008, and what was your response? I

32:17

started in 2006, not

32:20

to be a one-upper, but it's just simply the

32:22

case. I

32:25

started, and of course neither of

32:27

us are the original podcast at

32:30

all. There were plenty of podcasts

32:32

around in 2006, a few

32:35

that are still around the memory

32:37

place. Dan Carlin was

32:40

alive and kicking history

32:42

according to Bob, a whole bunch of other

32:44

shows. But yeah, I started

32:46

pretty early though, pretty much a pioneer

32:48

at the time when you had to

32:50

actually tell people what a podcast was.

32:53

Exactly. What are you

32:55

doing? What's that microphone next

32:57

to your large desktop computer? Did

33:00

you think you'd still be doing it all these years later

33:02

or no? The

33:05

one thing I didn't notice is that

33:07

the audience grew pretty quickly even though

33:09

it was small, which led me to

33:11

believe maybe some of that, that this

33:13

might be a thing here, this mixing

33:15

politics and history thing, because

33:17

it went from like 20 listeners to that

33:19

20 to 1,000 was

33:22

like crazy. That happened in the first year.

33:25

Yeah, that happened in the old numbers. Then getting

33:27

from the next... It didn't grow as fast after

33:29

that, although it has grown to like 10 times

33:32

that amount. But it hasn't grown... That

33:36

extra growth was much slower, but that

33:38

initial boom. People

33:40

told me we were looking for something. We

33:43

were talking about radio before, the limited amount of choices

33:47

and things. That's

33:49

the way podcasting was then. There were

33:51

a lot of podcast, but not enough

33:53

to where if I did something about,

33:55

say, President Grover Cleveland, I might be

33:57

the only one on... The

34:00

I tunes which was Apple Pie. guess at

34:02

the time I might be the only one

34:04

on podcasting that had an episode or Grover

34:06

Cleveland right? Yeah What When

34:08

I hit my first thousand. Yards.

34:10

It's teachers. I just figured as all my

34:13

students I figured if word got around the

34:15

school when they were subscribing. but then I

34:17

started getting messages your emails from other listeners

34:19

around the was like wow, maybe not as

34:21

my students anyhow as it. At

34:23

this point of course I'm retired so

34:26

I don't really see my students by

34:28

car. I. Were. You know

34:30

if if I if I get messages

34:32

and things like that it's know when

34:34

I recognize it's very rare assets. It's

34:36

kind nice to get out to recording

34:38

out the people that aren't just necessarily

34:40

friends of yours. you know, Why?

34:42

Think the interactive nis of podcasting

34:45

has always been present and is

34:47

always a feature of it is

34:49

always a benefit of it. I

34:51

mean sometimes you know why. Good

34:53

feedback that get rid of a

34:55

sign. Some ways the listeners and

34:58

I do the show that totally

35:00

I'm doing the shelves you're doing

35:02

yourself up. Why they do guide

35:04

definitely guy they they everything from

35:06

how you do an intro that

35:09

was a listener kind of like

35:11

a to do things. Different. And

35:14

the idea comes out of it

35:16

Two topics. To. In a

35:18

episodes on, it's always been much

35:20

more interactive because the audiences are

35:22

small and not have to be

35:24

able to reach out to them

35:26

and were. Available enough.

35:29

Arm I'll I'll to say the longer I

35:32

do it the harder it is to be

35:34

available to everybody. By damn you know it's

35:36

it's it's more. Enter it. It's always been

35:38

great. Be. An interactive medium and

35:40

add it helps you keep going.

35:43

The listeners he now and they.

35:45

When. They have arm and they say look

35:47

this is great I like this episode. You

35:49

know that he backs important. Support.

35:52

Your podcast hers people. So

35:54

what's your background? Are you a historian

35:56

Or the of training something else Or

35:58

what? Our literature? Many. You're actually

36:00

by always One of things was.

36:03

I. Always do. You know,

36:05

read a book. Sure I love reading

36:07

books exam made my college training was

36:09

to examine them literature but I always

36:11

like examine the life of the writer

36:14

and always liked history. And

36:16

though I was doing history kind of

36:18

in the side even opposite lit communications

36:20

major. Ah, but had stock and

36:22

college town in South New Jersey. Arm.

36:25

But. Always. Reading a

36:28

lot of history books so amateur historian

36:30

is the best. A way to describe

36:32

it's I never did get a history

36:34

degree but. You know

36:36

if there were some college maybe to

36:38

give me an honorary ones are all

36:40

the for all the work of up

36:42

and as just answering questions for myself

36:44

and I think might be interesting for

36:47

the listener and we do get into

36:49

in the process of my history can

36:51

be to be politics alive useless information.

36:53

it really doesn't come up because it's

36:55

it's all or a lot of unusual

36:57

stories or little things that you hear.

36:59

ah I'm. That. Comes

37:01

from for example. Learning

37:05

from books rather than always from online

37:07

sources which can tend to beat my

37:09

june eyes and changed over time and

37:11

conforming with the current beliefs. So I

37:13

like to go to the libraries and

37:15

read a book that was written in

37:17

our even if a was the eighties

37:19

or nineties or the sixties for the

37:21

eighteen hundreds even and and just get

37:23

that different taken a process that you

37:26

find a lot of trivia. Else

37:28

or tell me about his tests. Keep.

37:31

People ask me where do you find is crazy

37:33

stories and I'm like i just I just read

37:35

that say if you know. Arm and I've

37:37

been doing so long that I've been able to

37:39

judge. I can read an entire book in our

37:42

one sense, it's in that book was a say,

37:44

there's a story, it on I'll just I'll just

37:46

shouted down and and by have since I sit

37:48

down as if I can find anything about it.

37:50

You know, Absolutely.

37:53

so it's it's hell of a bow what

37:56

the podcast is about now i guess i

37:58

should ask the you do that Obviously

38:00

have the word politics in there. Is this like

38:02

something only someone to the left or someone to

38:04

the right would listen to? Or is that not

38:06

the point? not the point It's

38:10

definitely not the point to be Partisan

38:13

that is to say to support one party over the

38:15

other Or or any

38:17

party a particular group

38:19

of politics. We examine politics itself

38:23

Using history now that be said I am

38:25

who I am. I have my biases. Sometimes

38:27

listeners will point that out I

38:29

do try to consider a lot of points

38:31

of view, but it's also not a Here's

38:35

both sides of the question type in

38:38

every episode But

38:40

we really strive to avoid political

38:43

fights talking points Partisan party statements

38:45

and things like that and just

38:47

look at what happened and also

38:50

what happened in the past So

38:52

what's going on today with politics

38:54

and what happened in the past

38:57

and politics have definitely gotten a

38:59

little angry At the

39:01

current time, but there were periods

39:03

in history where they were as

39:05

well And so no that's

39:07

another thing that we'll examine we'll examine Let's

39:10

say fundraising over time will examine

39:12

political Partisanship over time the freedom

39:14

of the press and presidents attacking

39:17

the press or you know

39:19

Whether it whether it's a Donald Trump

39:21

or FDR, you know or Teddy Roosevelt

39:23

you have or Bill Clinton

39:26

you have presidents schmoozing

39:29

manipulating yelling

39:31

at reporters In

39:33

the case of FDR used to embarrass them

39:35

in front of the other reporters who had

39:37

then chided their reporters over beard Beers

39:40

later, so he never had to quite yell

39:42

at them, but he had a similar effect

39:45

You know to to some presidents

39:47

today So we look at

39:49

all of those types of

39:51

things presidents going to war

39:53

presidents dealing with Congress presidents

39:56

and budget how almost every

39:58

president save perhaps Coolidge

40:00

and Harding and a kind of

40:02

Jefferson and a few others, almost

40:04

every president, increase the

40:06

budget during their time. They might have

40:09

to pay us with inflation or not.

40:11

So getting that kind of historical perspective,

40:13

do gas prices affect elections? Like these

40:16

are type of questions. Did inflation keep

40:18

us from going to space in the

40:20

past? What was inflation like? You

40:22

know, inflation is a great idea

40:25

that works well with my history, computer politics.

40:27

Because I was

40:29

telling people through the 2000s, even

40:31

the early part of the

40:34

2010s, guys, you

40:36

don't know what inflation is like. You don't know

40:38

what inflation is like. I can tell

40:40

you stories about the 70s. You have to understand

40:42

and to put them in that perspective. And now

40:44

everybody got a taste of it. Everybody

40:46

got a taste of it. But for the

40:49

length of time I've been doing the podcast, I've had

40:51

to just tell people what inflation was like. Oh, one

40:53

of the things it did is kind

40:55

of killed the space program. So we have an old episode

40:57

on that. You know, you can't go

40:59

to the moon again when it costs that much. So,

41:02

you know, the space shuttle was originally supposed to be

41:04

a shuttle. It was supposed to go back and forth

41:06

into a space station orbiting Earth.

41:09

And they

41:11

saved only the shuttle part of the

41:13

program and decided to do a few

41:15

trips, mostly in the military hardware. It

41:18

never reached that shuttle status that actually

41:20

Nixon had first proposed

41:22

and then eventually cut out of budgets, due

41:25

mostly to inflation. So

41:27

things like that. We look at history and

41:29

how can it help us understand today. I

41:31

try not to make people too angry, although

41:33

sometimes I do, but I'm

41:35

sorry for it. I

41:38

think most of the listeners who

41:40

listen though, and the greatest thing

41:42

I have listeners of all persuasions,

41:44

one guy, it's him and his

41:47

brother-in-law, totally opposite politics, both wrote

41:49

positive reviews of the podcast. Yeah,

41:52

I have to say, I listened to a bunch

41:54

of episodes over the

41:57

last couple of months, I guess, and I really

41:59

couldn't figure out. figure out what your political bent

42:02

was. Because you

42:04

were just telling the story and presenting

42:06

the facts and so on. And

42:10

I think my initial, when I just

42:12

saw the title, My History Can

42:14

Beat Up Your Politics, I was thinking, you're going to take one

42:16

side or the other. And it's definitely not

42:18

like that. So that's actually a compliment.

42:21

Oh, thank you. No, much appreciated. The name

42:23

is funny because when I first started, there's

42:25

that common phrase, like my dad can beat

42:27

up your dad or whatever used. I

42:30

do worry that the phrase is becoming less popular,

42:32

perhaps. So people aren't, I got one guy

42:34

at one time, like, I don't like violence.

42:37

I don't like violence either. It's not beating

42:39

up anything. It's very tongue in cheek. It's

42:42

almost like philosophy can beat up science.

42:44

Just think of it that way. History

42:46

can beat up politics. Hopefully, the

42:49

telling of history could change your

42:51

perspective. Maybe it won't change what

42:53

person you're voting for. But

42:55

it would change how you view an issue, like,

42:58

oh, there's a little more to it than that,

43:00

perhaps. And I try to focus on that

43:02

more than I try not to jump

43:04

to a lot of conclusions. I used to do that

43:06

more. Say, here's what you should think about this story.

43:09

And I, over time, let the listener do

43:11

that for themselves. So

43:14

Bruce, I asked you to choose a story that my listeners might

43:16

like to hear. So what did you choose? On

43:19

my podcast, I covered how Cincinnati

43:22

has an entire subway

43:24

system underneath it. And

43:27

many residents have no idea.

43:29

And it's not operable. So

43:32

in 2007, a track

43:34

always working on a new parking

43:36

garage for a hotel. And

43:39

all of a sudden, it gets stuck in the ground.

43:41

OK. You know, just

43:43

keep kind of revving back and forth. That's

43:45

the normal way to get yourself out. Oh,

43:47

no. It partially flips over

43:50

because the ground is sinking. No,

43:52

like, is this a sinkhole? I

43:54

mean, the construction crew has no idea.

43:56

They ask engineers in the area. They

43:58

have no idea. what's going

44:00

on. Maybe it's some kind of sinkhole. Even

44:03

some town agencies in Cincinnati aren't

44:05

aware until they start asking historians.

44:08

They say, hey, you hit the

44:10

Cincinnati subway that's there. The

44:13

what? And historians

44:15

knew that underneath that ground was

44:18

a tunnel originally constructed

44:20

to be a subway system

44:22

for Cincinnati, a city that

44:24

currently does not have one

44:26

that relies mostly on cars.

44:29

Buses is a key part of its

44:31

transit system in that city. And

44:34

although I have to say the story has

44:36

gotten out a little more than when I

44:38

first reported on it. There's more websites and

44:40

YouTube and things like that. I would say

44:43

most, or I think a

44:45

better word is many Cincinnatians do not

44:47

know that there's a subway

44:49

there. And at

44:51

least one government agency at the time had forgotten about

44:53

it to tell the construction

44:55

group. And it's

44:58

largely under the streets. There

45:01

are parts of Cincinnati where

45:03

you'll see these gates that

45:06

are usually padlocked. But

45:08

the problem is that

45:11

we're not talking about New York City here

45:14

with a lot of patrol capacity and to

45:16

keep going and a lot of maintenance crews

45:18

and to keep going and revisiting sites. There'll

45:21

be people who want

45:23

to go into some of the sites, do

45:25

their graffiti or what have you. They'll break

45:27

the padlocks and in a lot of cases

45:29

their remain padlocks. I was told by

45:31

one Cincinnati in that generally if you want to

45:33

get in there, you can get into this lost

45:37

ghost subway system because usually

45:39

the padlock will not be

45:43

locked. They are

45:45

right now dark, dank

45:48

tunnels, often filled

45:51

with graffiti. There are YouTube videos up

45:53

there. If you want to see, just

45:55

type in Cincinnati D.S.A.W.A. You'll

45:57

see YouTube videos of people walking.

46:00

in. Sometimes the water that accumulates

46:02

in some of these subways is

46:05

disgusting and there's a lot of

46:07

water and there's garbage strewn over

46:10

it and it's kind of musky

46:12

and everything like that. The

46:14

thing to think about it is it is as

46:16

if an entire subway

46:19

system was built. Tunnel, the

46:22

spot for the tracks, the

46:25

ledges for the platforms where

46:27

people will stand on and

46:30

the tunnels in between for

46:33

miles and miles but

46:36

there are no trains and in

46:38

most cases no tracks built.

46:41

Did it ever open or was it abandoned

46:44

before it ever opened? It never opened. So

46:48

the story behind it is and a good way to

46:50

understand is that you know Cincinnati

46:52

if you get to the turn of

46:54

the century, it is still

46:58

a growing city. It's the seventh largest city

47:00

in America, Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati, Ohio has

47:03

a long history with America. You know

47:05

if you're talking about the 19th century,

47:07

Cincinnati is constantly showing up as

47:09

kind of the wonder city, growth city.

47:12

It's right on the Ohio River. It's

47:14

a great position for freight

47:18

shipping and

47:20

steamboats. The steamboat era

47:23

just helps Cincinnati even more though it

47:25

also sent traffic more to St. Louis

47:27

and other areas. The Erie Canal hurt

47:29

it a bit but still the growth

47:31

city, it's getting some of the big.

47:33

I haven't heard of a political convention

47:35

in Cincinnati in a long time but

47:37

it had political conventions back

47:40

in the 19th century. It's a pretty big city.

47:44

One thing as you reach the turn

47:46

of the century, even on seventh largest city

47:48

in America, it's getting eclipsed by say Chicago

47:50

and New York and one

47:52

of the things they have is much

47:54

better transit systems. At this

47:57

time before the really the automobile is

47:59

taken off, The thing that can

48:01

really grow a city's economy is a

48:04

transit system. And

48:06

so you have your streetcars. And we

48:08

know streetcars in history. We see them

48:10

above the ground. We see people dodging them

48:12

in some old films like kids running

48:14

down the street to across the tracks

48:16

before the train comes and the team,

48:18

the LA Dodgers, which used to be

48:20

the Brooklyn Dodgers that comes from Dodgers,

48:22

people dodging trains. Well, it's a problem

48:24

with that because you also have,

48:26

if we're talking about 1900, still

48:28

have a lot of horse and buggy traffic.

48:32

We still have some

48:34

automobiles and

48:37

those streetcars are taking the same

48:39

roads that those other forms of

48:41

transportation are taking in addition to

48:43

a pedestrian. So it's just

48:45

taking up space. It's something to dodge.

48:47

And so you can only do so

48:49

much with those. So most

48:52

cities, including New York, turn of the

48:54

century, let's get this underground and

48:57

develop a subway system to help grow

48:59

the economy. And Cincinnati

49:02

is a little late to the game and that's going to

49:04

be part of the problem. The other

49:07

thing is Cincinnati is

49:10

not unlike a lot of American cities.

49:12

There are some politics involved. It is

49:14

a in

49:16

the grip of a political machine. In

49:19

this case, because it's Ohio

49:21

around the time we're talking

49:23

about, this would be a

49:25

Republican political machine. There would

49:27

be several factions within Republican

49:29

politics. For instance, this machine

49:31

that controls Cincinnati, that's going

49:33

to be the Cox machine.

49:36

James Cox is later going to run

49:38

for president. You'd see Cox papers is

49:40

still a name that you might hear

49:43

still influential. George Cox was the

49:45

kind of the boss of

49:47

Cincinnati and he would be

49:49

backing, say James Blaine Republican

49:51

president. He would be backing

49:54

William Howard Taft comes from

49:56

Cincinnati connected with this group

49:59

where people. like Warren Harding, other Republicans,

50:02

not in Ohio, not big

50:04

fans of the Cox machine in

50:06

Cincinnati. And Cox

50:09

owns a saloon, he doesn't

50:11

get a permit for something from the city. And so

50:14

they they they rude the day that they didn't give

50:16

him his permit. And they

50:19

he developed an entire political machine took over

50:21

the city. If you wanted a job, you

50:24

had to go to his saloon and get

50:26

a job from Cox. In addition, he has

50:28

connections to Taft and all the other big

50:30

national politicians who want to win Ohio and

50:32

win the votes of the city of Cincinnati.

50:35

So but Cox dies

50:37

in 1916. Before

50:40

he does, he puts forth

50:42

this idea of let's put

50:45

together transit system, which also involves a

50:47

lot of jobs and a lot of

50:49

money that can come in from possibly

50:52

from state and some federal resources

50:55

for that. And you could also float.

50:58

Actually, at this time, the main source

51:00

of revenue would be floating municipal bonds.

51:03

So it's a $6 million project,

51:06

a lot of money in that

51:08

time. He dies, the machine

51:11

is taken over the political machine

51:14

by his

51:16

lieutenants. The boss

51:18

actually runs the politics in

51:20

Cincinnati, but doesn't want to live there. So he's

51:22

in New York. But

51:24

they do the bond in 1916.

51:26

They have the slogan that says

51:28

old Cincinnati can't new Cincinnati can

51:30

the citizens get together. Some ways

51:32

are really popular at this time.

51:35

It's overwhelmingly voted for. Well,

51:37

a couple things are going on.

51:40

In 1916, by the time

51:42

to actually get the bonds going and get

51:44

any construction started, they are late in the

51:47

game. And first of all, there's inflation from

51:49

World War One. So everything costs more. So

51:51

this money that they thought would last till

51:53

the 1940s, that's

51:56

$6 million bond money is

51:58

all used up by 1920s. Well,

52:01

and it probably wasn't even enough money

52:03

to begin with. People thought that it

52:05

should have been double or more. The

52:08

other thing you have is the

52:10

automobile starts becoming popular. And Cincinnati

52:12

now has to spend some money

52:15

on building new roads. And

52:18

the subway is being built very slowly while

52:20

the roads can be built in

52:22

a quicker fashion. On top

52:24

of that, politics change. And there is a

52:28

new mayor, the season good, who has

52:30

absolutely no interest in the old machine,

52:32

wants to kick out the corruption, and

52:34

season good wins election to city

52:37

manager. Then

52:39

he's able to become mayor of

52:41

the town and slowly gets

52:43

rid of the... First he says

52:46

he's going to shrink it, then gets rid of the

52:48

subway system. Right. So they had

52:50

built miles of tunnels. Some

52:52

stations even built the stairs going

52:54

up to the ground and everything,

52:57

but never had the resources or

52:59

the will at that time to

53:01

continue building the stations. And

53:06

he favors automobile, and

53:09

they're eventually going to build a major interstate

53:13

through the downtown in

53:15

Cincinnati rather than having this train.

53:17

So Cincinnati never

53:20

gets a subway system.

53:24

What they do have is a very

53:26

interesting kind of ghosty story and

53:28

an interesting place for enterprising teens

53:30

and new YouTubers to go down

53:33

or to people that are graffiti

53:35

artists to go and hang

53:37

out. From what I understand

53:40

from people that have been there, it's

53:42

not really a place where because it's

53:44

so cold and dank and the air

53:46

is not great. It's not really a

53:48

place where even a lot of homeless

53:50

ever stayed. It is occasionally checked by

53:52

the city and patrol, but not all

53:54

that much. There

53:58

were attempts. In

54:01

the 1970s, there's a nightclub and

54:03

actually the nightclub is owned by

54:05

the father of George Clooney and

54:08

he proposes to Make

54:10

a nightclub like the large nightclub

54:13

underground in this

54:15

Cincinnati subway But it

54:17

never gets off the ground in the 60s. They

54:19

talked about hey, let's use it as a bomb

54:21

shelter There's never just ever a

54:23

use for that even like in the 80s

54:26

and 90s So I think about

54:28

well, maybe we can tell Hollywood. This is a great

54:30

place to film movies If you want a subway, you

54:32

don't have to go to New York and ask them

54:34

to close down their subway They're not gonna do that.

54:36

We've got an empty subway here All

54:38

you need is to get you know, I kind

54:40

of a train prop and you can film They

54:44

proposed it to the producers of Batman,

54:46

but no Batman was ever filmed and

54:48

no movie has ever been filmed down

54:50

there To speak of

54:53

and when I talk about in my program is it's good

54:55

and bad On

54:57

one hand, of course back in the

54:59

day Cincinnati wasted a lot of no

55:02

doubt Absolutely wasted a lot of bond

55:04

money on the project. The bonds

55:06

were not paid off until the 1960s So

55:09

bond taken out of the teens not paid off to the

55:11

1960s and you know They

55:14

kept refinancing them and passing their costs and

55:16

all of that And

55:18

you know a citizen in Cincinnati has

55:20

to rely on bus transportation Which is

55:22

not the most effective way to get

55:25

around the city. The city is now

55:27

65th in Pennsylvania in

55:30

Pennsylvania 65th in

55:32

population Whereas in the time

55:34

we're talking about it was seventh in population

55:37

in the United States It's

55:40

not a result of not having

55:42

a subway necessarily, but it's a

55:44

factor in its economy On

55:47

the other hand, you know, I talked about on my

55:49

podcast on the other hand Not

55:52

having a subway Could be

55:54

a plus Two, you know, in the 60s, 70s,

55:56

and 80s, some urban cities. Paid

56:00

a price for their transit system.

56:03

It. Created a huge expanse of

56:05

land that has to be

56:07

put to a New York.

56:10

had thirty one hundred police.

56:12

During. It's high crime era.

56:15

I'm patrolling. The. subways

56:17

and in many cases crimes were

56:19

committed in as a high crime

56:22

area, all the transit systems in

56:24

the major urban cities of. Of

56:27

the country and so on One way

56:29

in in we in one sense Cincinnati

56:31

and may wait more on average for

56:34

transit than people in other cities seat

56:36

another, they may have dodged a bullet

56:38

and reformed odd, some pain. So.

56:41

We talk about that on the podcast. Oh,

56:44

I just reminds me why a few

56:46

things pop in my head. or Rochester

56:48

also has a hidden subway armed. but

56:50

it was actually used. Ah, I came

56:52

across this article for years ago. passive

56:54

more than that. Now pie that ten

56:56

years ago was in an area like

56:58

a New York State. His search history

57:01

magazines. And.they have a stay

57:03

Have a subway. The it was abandoned

57:05

in the sixties. I think this is

57:07

a small section of what underground he

57:10

of downtown or that still exists, but

57:12

anything above ground. Is gone

57:14

is my understanding but go what

57:16

it really reminds about his as

57:18

I wrote a story. Pain.

57:20

The late nineties, my website new

57:22

ended up a my first book.

57:25

Our is about this guy Alfred

57:27

beats in eating seventy. He his

57:29

father I believe founded the New

57:32

York Sun and he owns Scientific

57:34

Scientific American. So yeah he was.

57:36

While officers say. And.

57:39

The he'd look out his window from his

57:41

office and see you know the horses gone

57:43

back and forth and all the waste on

57:45

the streets and people trying to your processor.

57:47

you know, step in it. And.

57:50

He thought to be a good id hit

57:52

Iraq. Heard that they opened a subway in

57:54

London. He thought be good to have

57:56

one here in United States in your city. Or.

57:58

Forces: Colonel. you were getting

58:01

at, Boss Tweed controlled everything. And

58:04

there was no way to get approval for it

58:06

because Boss Tweed wouldn't have gotten all the kickbacks

58:09

on all these, you know, your cabs that were

58:11

going around the city, you know, the horse-driven cabs.

58:14

So he decided just build it in secret.

58:17

He, at night, they would, these, these work

58:19

memo go down into a basement of a

58:21

building, not too far from City Hall,

58:23

I think right near City Hall. And they

58:25

would just go down there and dig this tunnel out. And

58:28

when it opened, it was gorgeous. And

58:30

I had this beautiful, you know, he

58:32

had to impress people. So, but what

58:34

was interesting is you couldn't use, you

58:36

know, trains, because back then there were

58:38

no electric trains, they were running on,

58:40

you know, coal probably, or wood or

58:42

something like that. And people would die

58:44

from, you know, from the carbon monoxide.

58:47

So he created an a pneumatic tube.

58:50

You know, basically, you know, like you go to the bank, and you put

58:53

your money in a tube, but it sucked it up. And

58:55

that it was just a giant version of that. And

58:57

people went down there and they take a ride on

58:59

this thing. And then but he never

59:01

made any money on it. And it got

59:04

sealed off. And when they were building

59:06

the City Hall subway

59:08

station, they actually knew it was there. When

59:11

they were building it, they broke ground

59:13

and there was fully intact sitting there. And

59:16

eventually, they just put up a plaque saying this

59:18

is where it once stood. But my understanding is

59:20

the plaque's long gone, you know. Yeah,

59:23

I mean, I think you can still go

59:25

to the area. It.

59:28

Oh, yeah, a couple of things

59:30

there. New York's subways were private

59:32

originally. And people,

59:35

even people like myself, who

59:38

have no business knowing the names, we

59:40

still say sometimes the IRRT or will

59:42

use the old private name

59:45

to describe a line that long ago,

59:47

in the 60s, it

59:49

was changed to the far the

59:51

five, the six, the 80, you

59:53

know, but there's still some people

59:55

still use those old names

59:58

that represent the private. industry

1:00:01

subways, none of which really were

1:00:03

that successful, especially the ones that

1:00:05

only went across the city as

1:00:07

opposed to up and down. The

1:00:11

pneumatic subway, yes, when it

1:00:14

opens, the mayor of New

1:00:16

York City is George

1:00:19

McClellan, the union

1:00:23

general from the Civil War that Lincoln

1:00:25

had some quarrels with. It didn't feel

1:00:27

like he was attacking enough and all

1:00:29

of that. But still a popular guy

1:00:31

in New York, his son, George

1:00:33

B McClellan Jr. is

1:00:36

the mayor. He takes

1:00:38

the first ceremonial drive except that

1:00:40

they're like, Mr. Mayor, this

1:00:43

is just a ceremonial drive. Oh no, he wants

1:00:45

to use the controls and drive the thing. He

1:00:48

takes everybody on a really fast ride. That's

1:00:50

the kind of mayor he was, he was

1:00:52

riding around in cars just

1:00:56

at the beginning of that and all of that.

1:00:59

He too would have his troubles with political

1:01:01

machine and would be forced out

1:01:03

of office. The

1:01:06

other thing that as I studied

1:01:09

the story of the Cincinnati, the

1:01:11

lost subway and

1:01:14

history of Cincinnati and everything like

1:01:17

that and subway systems, I realized

1:01:19

that Newark, New Jersey also had

1:01:21

a subway system. I

1:01:24

got an opportunity to ride on it once.

1:01:26

I mean, it's underground subway system,

1:01:28

which it no longer has. You

1:01:30

could ride from Warren Street with

1:01:32

the New Jersey Institute of Technology

1:01:34

is, I had a friend there

1:01:37

and to the Penn Station where

1:01:39

the main trains that go to New York

1:01:41

and other parts of New Jersey are. I

1:01:45

had a friend who was from South Jersey

1:01:47

who, and this is I'm talking

1:01:49

like 1994, and he

1:01:51

was like, oh,

1:01:56

you're going home, just go down the subway.

1:01:58

You can pick up some way. Yeah,

1:02:00

yeah, some way over there in the thing. I

1:02:02

took the subway. I went down

1:02:04

these stairs. And

1:02:07

I have never been in a

1:02:10

place that was so dark,

1:02:13

cold, and it's a city

1:02:15

that I was somewhat familiar with. I wasn't totally

1:02:17

super familiar with that end of the city. And

1:02:22

no one else on either side of the

1:02:24

tracks and just waiting sort

1:02:26

of hoping that this wasn't another abandoned

1:02:28

subway, that this actually was a subway

1:02:31

that was working when finally after maybe

1:02:33

a half hour of waiting, you know,

1:02:35

I see the lights. And

1:02:38

it was a little train. It's very

1:02:40

similar to the Boston T trains where

1:02:42

it's like a little bus. Not

1:02:45

like a silver bullet train. It almost looks

1:02:47

like a little bus on the tracks. And

1:02:49

that took me 35 cents in 1994. Since

1:02:52

then abandoned, it's all above ground

1:02:54

now. So New York has a

1:02:57

light rail. It's all above ground. So none

1:02:59

of that subway exists. I'm glad I got

1:03:01

the chance to at least ride on it.

1:03:04

Cincinnati tried that too. So in 2002,

1:03:06

they had an initiative like spend 2.7

1:03:08

billion, a lot of it's going to

1:03:10

come from the federal government. And

1:03:13

but some of it's got to come from

1:03:15

Hamilton County, Cincinnati. And we

1:03:17

can turn some of this subway

1:03:19

into light rail. Now

1:03:23

the voters rejected it two to one

1:03:25

back in 2002. So they don't have

1:03:27

that option to use there.

1:03:29

There were elements of the Cincinnati subway

1:03:31

that also were above ground. And

1:03:33

those were taken down in the 60s to make

1:03:36

way for other things in the city. Sure. Well,

1:03:39

that was an excellent story. So

1:03:42

the next section I want to get into is

1:03:45

what I call footnotes history. These are

1:03:47

just short little tidbits that I come

1:03:49

across. Basically for every story I come

1:03:51

across, there's like a hundred little one

1:03:53

paragraph, two paragraph type things. And

1:03:55

so these require no research. We're just going to read them word

1:03:57

for word. And we're just going to read them word for word.

1:04:00

going to take turns, okay? Sounds good.

1:04:03

Okay, so I'll do the first one. The

1:04:06

story appeared on page one of the January 10th, 1925

1:04:09

edition of the Herald Statesman, which

1:04:11

is in Yonkers, New York. The

1:04:14

headline reads, save this auto runs

1:04:16

off dock. The sub

1:04:19

headline is, watchman on city pier hall

1:04:21

chauffeur out of icy water fell

1:04:23

asleep at wheel of car, he says. Falling

1:04:27

asleep at the wheel of a light automobile, he was

1:04:29

driving on main street early this morning. A man

1:04:32

described as Hamilton Dow and 31

1:04:34

Inwell Avenue, Larchmont, New York, employed

1:04:36

as a chauffeur by the installation

1:04:38

engineering company 87 16 116

1:04:42

Street Richmond Hills, drove his car

1:04:44

off the city dock into the

1:04:46

Hudson River. He

1:04:49

was thrown clear of the machine, which

1:04:51

was completely submerged and was saved from

1:04:53

drowning by john Adrian sin. Watchman at

1:04:55

the pier who threw him a rope

1:04:57

and hauled him out of the icy

1:04:59

river. According

1:05:02

to a report of the accident made by

1:05:04

patrolman Paul both of the first precinct police

1:05:07

Dow and his car was proceeding west on main

1:05:09

street about 340 o'clock

1:05:11

this morning. The

1:05:13

car passed Buena Vista Avenue continuing under

1:05:15

the New York Central railroad trestle to

1:05:17

the city dock, where it

1:05:19

crashed over the string piece just a little

1:05:21

after the entrance to the recreation falling

1:05:25

into the water of the slip between

1:05:27

the pier and the national sugar refinery.

1:05:31

aging sin on duty at the forward end

1:05:33

of the pier heard the crashes the car

1:05:35

hit the string piece and turned just in

1:05:37

time to see the machine plunge over the

1:05:39

edge. He

1:05:41

ran to the spot where the car

1:05:43

disappeared and saw down who had apparently

1:05:45

been awakened as they struck the cold

1:05:47

water slandering about. Down

1:05:50

was able to grasp a rope which the

1:05:52

watchman threw to him and he was hauled

1:05:54

off. He was

1:05:56

removed to St. John's Hospital in an ambulance

1:05:58

which was summoned by patrolman. both. Dr.

1:06:02

Herbert Zurner found that the chauffeur had been

1:06:04

uninjured but detained him at the hospital for

1:06:06

observation. Later this morning it

1:06:08

was said that no serious effects of the immersion

1:06:11

had developed. Dallin

1:06:13

was questioned at the hospital by patrolmen

1:06:15

both who quoted the drivers having

1:06:17

said that he must have fallen asleep at the

1:06:20

wheel of the automobile as he had

1:06:22

no idea where he was going when the accident

1:06:24

happened. At

1:06:26

Dallin's request a wrecking crew was sent to the

1:06:28

dock to lift the machine from the water. Mechanics

1:06:31

succeeded in getting a line to the car but

1:06:33

because of the high water they were unable to

1:06:36

raise it this morning. Another

1:06:38

attempt will be made to move

1:06:40

the car at low tide this

1:06:42

afternoon. There's not you know New York,

1:06:45

New York can't beat it because there's a

1:06:47

story every day in the city. Oh

1:06:50

that is true. What this story reminded me

1:06:52

of was in 1986 I was in graduate

1:06:54

school at the time and my brother was

1:06:56

graduating from

1:07:00

college at SUNY Oswego and my parents

1:07:02

wanted me to come home to watch

1:07:04

their pet shop so they could go

1:07:06

to my brother's graduation. So

1:07:08

I come home I said to my dad

1:07:10

oh let's fix the sink in the bathroom

1:07:12

it was leaking so we go to the

1:07:15

plumbing supply we come home and I should

1:07:17

tell you that my parents pet shop was

1:07:20

originally in their house and

1:07:22

I look and there's a car sticking out of

1:07:24

the house. A

1:07:27

woman fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from

1:07:29

work. A straight road fell asleep took

1:07:31

a left turn went right into my parents house

1:07:33

took all the fish tanks on one wall and

1:07:35

they all went flying into the other and

1:07:39

I didn't go back to college for a month because

1:07:41

I had it. My parents decided to move the store

1:07:43

out of their house so I spent the next month

1:07:45

building them a new store you know painting

1:07:47

all the fish tanks putting the plumbing in

1:07:50

you know carpeting everything. So

1:07:52

anyway as I was working on this as

1:07:54

I was reading this story I couldn't help

1:07:56

but think of that so long time ago

1:07:58

though. Yeah, that is a

1:08:01

shocker, I mean. Fresh

1:08:30

for everyone. Savings may vary by state.

1:08:32

Restrictions apply. See site for details. It's

1:08:36

the... Okay, yeah, this is from the

1:08:38

February 12th, 1935 edition of the Hammond Times.

1:08:45

A winter snake story. Coldwater,

1:08:48

Michigan. Amos Cross,

1:08:50

a farmer, was loading wood on his

1:08:52

farm, he related today, when he stepped

1:08:54

on something. Looking down, he

1:08:56

froze into immobility as he saw a

1:08:59

coiled rattlesnake beneath his feet. Gingerly,

1:09:02

he reached back for a club. Cross

1:09:05

struck the coiled menets. To

1:09:08

his dismay, the snake shattered

1:09:10

into bits. Examination

1:09:13

proved the reptile had frozen to

1:09:15

death in its coiled position, leaving

1:09:18

the body extremely brittle. Very

1:09:20

good. I can tell you

1:09:22

read literature. Oh,

1:09:25

yes, absolutely. I think you got a pretty

1:09:27

life into these things. But what strikes me

1:09:29

is that, look, I mean, this doesn't mean

1:09:31

that Amos is not great. Yeah,

1:09:35

one thing it reminds me of is I

1:09:38

used to mow the lawn for my parents.

1:09:40

You know, they had about two acres of

1:09:42

land, and I would

1:09:44

go and hop on the lawn tractor. And sometimes

1:09:46

the lawn would be pretty high, not knowing there'd

1:09:48

be a snake in there. And I'd run over

1:09:51

it. And I can just can't even describe to

1:09:53

you what will come shooting out of the, you

1:09:55

know, so quite disgusting. Anyway, we're gonna move on.

1:09:57

I'll read the next one. This

1:10:01

appeared on page 1 of the January 16, 1940

1:10:04

edition of the Akron Beacon Journal. The

1:10:07

headline reads, Fire Drill is ordered even

1:10:09

if pupils shiver. Grrr.

1:10:12

Come rain, snow, or high water, every

1:10:14

public school in Akron must have at

1:10:16

least one fire drill every month. Those

1:10:19

were the orders yesterday of members of the

1:10:22

Board of Education to the administrative staff. Most

1:10:26

of the members were aroused by a report

1:10:28

of Superintendent Ralph H. Waterhouse, which showed that

1:10:30

eight of the 59 schools in

1:10:32

December failed to have the monthly drills

1:10:35

required by state law. Member

1:10:38

W.B. Kester got no support when

1:10:41

he suggested, quote, we should let the

1:10:43

bars down slightly during cold weather, unquote.

1:10:47

Quote, if you

1:10:49

start letting the bars down, you

1:10:51

get nowhere, unquote, declared Clarence Faust.

1:10:54

Dr. Horace W. Butler and Kurt Arnold

1:10:57

both insisted that regardless of weather,

1:10:59

the children must go through the

1:11:01

drills regularly, although conceding that

1:11:03

an alarm should be rung on days when

1:11:05

the weather is fair if possible. Waterhouse

1:11:09

reported that at a recent meeting of

1:11:11

principals, he had insisted that, quote, there

1:11:13

must be no exceptions, unquote, to the

1:11:15

fire drill rule. Members

1:11:18

discussed the possibility of making arrangements so children

1:11:20

could get their coats when the alarm was

1:11:23

wrong, but Waterhouse said this would

1:11:25

cause too much confusion. So

1:11:28

Bruce, you remember doing all the fire drills in school? Absolutely.

1:11:31

I do remember. That was the

1:11:33

most enjoyable part of elementary

1:11:36

and certainly what we call middle school,

1:11:38

I guess other people would say junior

1:11:40

high, middle school, enjoyable part of it

1:11:42

for me. You know, those most enjoyable

1:11:44

part of the school, you

1:11:46

get to go out and be social

1:11:48

with everyone out in the blacktop. Yeah,

1:11:51

I, having been a teacher, I can say I've

1:11:53

done a lot of them. New York

1:11:55

State requires you to do 12 a year. You

1:11:58

know, they have to do, I think, eight. before

1:12:00

December 31st and four in the

1:12:02

spring. And you don't wanna be

1:12:04

out there on December 31st, with

1:12:07

the snow and everything. So they try and get them

1:12:09

done right away within the first few weeks of school

1:12:11

that you'll just be, twice in a day they'll have

1:12:14

you out there on the field. But

1:12:16

I do recall what I used to do in

1:12:18

my plan book is I'd write down

1:12:20

when the fire drills were. And one year it

1:12:22

was clear there was no way they did 12

1:12:24

of them. They must have

1:12:26

lied on that forms of the state. That's all I could

1:12:28

say. Yeah, I mean,

1:12:31

and this trend is, doesn't stop at school.

1:12:33

So worked in a New York City office

1:12:35

for a long time. And

1:12:37

we would have a pretty aggressive system

1:12:39

of both fire, but

1:12:43

then it also got to just general

1:12:45

incident type drills. And

1:12:48

each floor in the office building I

1:12:51

was in, somewhere near Penn Station there,

1:12:53

we would have a fire ward. No, I was

1:12:56

proud to say that I was the fire warden

1:12:58

for the floor. So

1:13:00

it was my job to go over

1:13:02

and grab the phone and tell

1:13:04

the phone we're all in the hallway or

1:13:07

whatever it was we were supposed to do

1:13:09

and await those instructions. It could be get

1:13:11

down or depending on where the fire was,

1:13:13

they could actually tell you to stay where

1:13:15

you were if that was the most safe,

1:13:17

if there was like a fire in between

1:13:19

or something like that. Never use the elevators

1:13:21

just to make sure everyone's

1:13:23

out of the bathrooms. It was my job to check the

1:13:26

men's room and make sure he was out. Then,

1:13:28

but the funny thing was we actually,

1:13:30

so this is obviously a volunteer position

1:13:33

just somebody in one of the offices

1:13:35

on the floor, but I

1:13:37

had wrestled the position away from

1:13:39

fire warden from somebody else. And

1:13:41

so there's a little bit of

1:13:43

politics, but this was a person

1:13:45

I never really showed up to the

1:13:47

office that much. So the three times that

1:13:50

we were to do the fire drill, I

1:13:52

had to take over as the deputy floor

1:13:54

warden. And so I took the position then

1:13:57

there was a little bit of backbiting.

1:14:00

over politics around this fire

1:14:02

warden position. Yeah,

1:14:05

I have to say I don't miss them. It

1:14:07

sounds crazy, but after a while, you don't even

1:14:09

pay attention to what you're doing. It's just up

1:14:11

there as the bell again, you know, and you

1:14:14

go outside. Oddly,

1:14:17

I had surgery on my shoulder and I was in a sling

1:14:19

and I was in all this pain, and

1:14:21

I purposely scheduled the surgery during Regents

1:14:24

Week, you know, the week that there's

1:14:26

midterms. And that's why I wouldn't

1:14:28

miss, you know, too many class periods, you know, too many days

1:14:30

of school. I come back, this is

1:14:32

the first day back, and kids,

1:14:34

you know, at the mid-year point, will change their classes

1:14:37

up. And I had a study

1:14:39

hall, and there's another study hall down the hallway,

1:14:42

and kids were all messed up. They're all going to the wrong room.

1:14:44

You know, someone going to the cafeteria, and they should have been in

1:14:46

my room, and vice versa. So I have my

1:14:48

door wide open. This kid comes

1:14:50

in late, he sits down, I go, who are you? I,

1:14:52

you know, I check it off. I don't know most of

1:14:54

the kids at this point. And

1:14:56

they tells me, and he's sitting there doing

1:14:59

some work, and he looks out

1:15:01

my door, and I can't repeat what he

1:15:03

said, and he runs out the door. And

1:15:06

I go, great, I'm back to

1:15:08

work, you know, all of like three periods, and

1:15:10

I got to fight. I go

1:15:12

out in the hall, and these two kids are

1:15:14

just bashing each other. They're rolling on the floor. And

1:15:17

I see one of the kids has a

1:15:19

plain white T-shirt on, and there's blood on

1:15:21

it. Some of them like, okay, who's got

1:15:23

the bloody nose? And,

1:15:25

you know, I'm watching and watching. I can't

1:15:28

figure it out. And finally, one

1:15:30

teacher comes running, I can't do anything, I'm in a sling,

1:15:32

you know. A teacher comes running down

1:15:34

the hall, pulls one kid back, another kid pulls

1:15:36

the other kid back, and they separate, and I

1:15:38

go back in my room, and one of the

1:15:41

kid goes, he had a knife. I'm like, what?

1:15:43

I didn't see any knife. So

1:15:45

I get all the kids back in, they

1:15:47

get on the PA system, like shut the

1:15:49

doors, don't let any kids go anywhere, blah,

1:15:52

blah, blah, blah. Basically, they couldn't

1:15:54

find the knife. So

1:15:56

they were looking for it, and what they learned eventually

1:15:58

was he, the kid who did the sting. stabbing. He

1:16:02

dropped it in the garbage in the nurse's office. Because

1:16:04

it turns out he didn't stab the other kid. He

1:16:06

opened it and it closed on his finger. Oh,

1:16:09

okay, I got you. Yeah. So

1:16:14

but the crazy part of it is we had

1:16:16

practiced all these emergency drills, lockdown drills, there was

1:16:18

code blue for this and code red for that.

1:16:20

And this is the one time we needed to

1:16:22

use it and it all went out the window,

1:16:24

you know, forgot about it, just shut the doors

1:16:26

and don't let anybody out, you know, so always

1:16:31

felt bad for teachers, they don't they don't teach you that

1:16:33

as part of the training, you know,

1:16:35

you're gonna have to break up fights. Yeah,

1:16:37

oddly, I didn't have to break up too many

1:16:39

over the years. It just it just kind of

1:16:42

comes with a job, maybe one every two years

1:16:44

or something like that, you know, and hopefully

1:16:48

never have to do that again. So so

1:16:51

Bruce, you're gonna read the next one. So why don't you take that one.

1:16:54

So this is from the August 19 1955 Lansing Michigan

1:16:59

State Journal. That's

1:17:03

just a trout with fly swatter. With

1:17:06

the help of her two sons, Mrs.

1:17:08

john johnson caught a four pound 24

1:17:11

inch trout with a

1:17:14

fly swatter. Seven

1:17:16

year old Steve spied the fish yesterday

1:17:18

near the shore of the round Lake

1:17:20

in this upper Michigan community. He called

1:17:22

his mother. She dashed out

1:17:25

of the house with a fly swatter and

1:17:27

took a cut at the trout. It jumped

1:17:29

right onto the shore and between the legs

1:17:32

of 12 year old

1:17:34

Jenny. That's a way

1:17:36

to do it. Yeah, oddly,

1:17:38

you know, I do these retro casts, but

1:17:41

I alternate them with full length stories. And

1:17:44

way back about four years

1:17:46

ago, three years ago, I did a story

1:17:48

called a nose for fishing. And

1:17:50

it's about this guy, he accomplished all these things in

1:17:52

his life. But when he was seven years old, is

1:17:54

1873. He was out with his mother in a boat

1:17:59

and he looked out over the boat and

1:18:01

a trout basically jumped out, jumped up

1:18:03

grabbed his note. He, he, you know,

1:18:05

pulled back and he caught, he

1:18:07

caught the fish with his nose and for the

1:18:09

rest of his life, he was known as the

1:18:12

guy who caught the fish with his nose. I

1:18:14

wrote that for my third book and the editor,

1:18:16

the editor didn't lie. I love the story, but

1:18:18

my editor didn't like it. So it got rejected.

1:18:20

That's why I did it for the podcast. Um,

1:18:23

you know, people like that story. She,

1:18:27

uh, we had definitely a different view

1:18:30

of things, you know, um,

1:18:32

or maybe a written word, maybe it's a

1:18:34

better spoken than written word. Maybe.

1:18:37

Um, I don't

1:18:39

know. I tend to like these human

1:18:41

interest little quirky stories, you know, and

1:18:43

that one really fit what I do.

1:18:45

So, okay.

1:18:47

So I'm going to do the last

1:18:49

one. This is from the May 12th, 1966

1:18:52

publication of the Akron beacon general and

1:18:54

appeared on page one. The

1:18:57

headline reads, beetle locks get

1:18:59

in swim Chicago. And it

1:19:02

reads, beat a link here on

1:19:04

the problems surrounding it have reached the bottom of

1:19:06

some main poles. It

1:19:09

clogs up the strangers and the

1:19:11

drains. Unquote. Vernon F. Herlin, director

1:19:13

of recreation for the Chicago park

1:19:15

district declared. Pool

1:19:18

operators have dealt with the long hair problem in the past by requiring

1:19:20

women to wear bathing

1:19:22

caps. Men, because

1:19:24

they wore their hair short were exempt from the bathing

1:19:27

cap rule. Now,

1:19:29

when a young man may have longer hair than his

1:19:31

girlfriend, pool owners

1:19:33

are revising their thinking. William

1:19:36

Diaz, 22, a life saving instructor

1:19:38

says he tells mob hair students

1:19:41

to cut their hair or wear

1:19:43

a cap. Quote, another

1:19:46

thing that comes up the works is the oil that they use to keep

1:19:48

their hair in place. It

1:19:51

forms a film on the water and we have to

1:19:53

clean it up. Unquote, Diaz said. And

1:19:57

it's got me thinking. In

1:20:00

the story all the oils that these kids are using

1:20:02

in their hair But I don't think the Beatles had

1:20:04

any oil in there. It was just mop tops, right?

1:20:06

They just wore their law their hair long. I don't

1:20:09

recall them like creasing it back They did I know before

1:20:11

they hit it they hit it big but yeah,

1:20:13

maybe beforehand that seems more of a

1:20:16

we definitely yeah the the the the

1:20:18

hoodlum would be more than I would

1:20:20

be you know something from like the

1:20:23

Outsiders where I'd be more likely to

1:20:25

see that that those oils then

1:20:27

the Beatles I think the Beatles were a

1:20:29

little Yeah,

1:20:32

they let it they let it free Yeah,

1:20:35

and I was trying to think of You

1:20:37

know what people using their hair what were

1:20:39

the brands they're like Brill cream and was

1:20:42

the other and hippity-doo dippity-doo that was it

1:20:45

Yeah, I'm looking at a picture as

1:20:48

we talk and really those are Those

1:20:52

are true. That's trimmed hair really

1:20:55

just shampooed if you ask me,

1:20:57

right? So

1:20:59

Bruce earlier in the podcast, I asked you

1:21:01

to guesstimate when carbon paper was invented. What's

1:21:03

your answer? What do you think around when?

1:21:10

1898 be a little bit off. I want

1:21:12

to make another guess. I'll go earlier Earlier.

1:21:16

Okay, so typewriter How

1:21:19

about it's more than typewriter here, right? 1801

1:21:26

Wow. Yeah, and Invented

1:21:29

by a guy named Pellegrino Turi

1:21:31

in Italy and he needed

1:21:33

ink for what he had He basically invented

1:21:35

a primitive typewriter and he needed ink and

1:21:37

that's why the carbon paper was invented Now

1:21:41

it was that did not

1:21:43

get into common use in 1806

1:21:46

English inventor Ralph Wedgwood He's part

1:21:48

of the family of the ceramics

1:21:50

Wedgwood He wanted

1:21:52

to duplicate documents. So he got

1:21:54

the patent on carbon paper

1:21:57

now Let's just remind putting

1:22:00

this together reminded me, I

1:22:02

talked physics for 30 years, I would

1:22:04

give I would give the kids carbon paper for the

1:22:06

lab, you know, ball would hit it, and

1:22:09

it would put an impression on

1:22:11

the paper underneath. And it never occurred

1:22:13

to me, you know, in the early days of

1:22:15

my teaching, kids knew what carbon paper was. But

1:22:18

towards the end of my career, they had

1:22:20

never touched a piece in their life. And

1:22:22

they'd always put the carbon paper in upside

1:22:24

down. So all it would do is put

1:22:26

the ink on the back of whatever was

1:22:28

hitting it, you know, so they they lift

1:22:30

up and there would be nothing on on

1:22:32

the paper. So, of

1:22:35

course, eventually they came out with the carbonless

1:22:37

carbon paper, you know, where the two pieces

1:22:39

just came in contact. It's

1:22:42

a fascinating thing, you know, in doing

1:22:44

historical research, an author had

1:22:47

said that the Kennedy

1:22:49

administration, there's so much information

1:22:52

on John Kennedy's presidency,

1:22:55

because a lot

1:22:58

of it was done because of

1:23:00

all the carbon paper, because they

1:23:03

would sometimes throw out the first copy

1:23:05

of documents, and even the second, but

1:23:07

some of these had triplicate carbon triplicate

1:23:10

paper, they would find that carbon copy

1:23:12

somewhere. And so there's so much information.

1:23:14

And his his point was that, you

1:23:16

know, if all of it was read,

1:23:18

maybe AI can do it. You know,

1:23:20

he said that the drugs that he

1:23:22

had to go through of information to

1:23:24

write a book, he knows he didn't

1:23:27

get everything. Right. So maybe

1:23:29

AI someday can tell you really what

1:23:31

happened in the Kennedy presidency, but on

1:23:34

all from all those carbon sheets. You

1:23:37

know, one of the things I've been doing

1:23:39

recently is going back through my old episodes,

1:23:41

because I recorded them with a really junky

1:23:43

microphone. And, you know, research

1:23:45

wasn't that great back then, it was very hard

1:23:47

to do research online. So as

1:23:50

I'm doing this, I actually still have all

1:23:53

the file folders for each episode. And

1:23:55

when I pull them out, I realize, a, how little

1:23:57

information I was writing those stories based on. But.

1:24:00

And just even the last 10 15

1:24:02

years how much information has become available online

1:24:06

It's just so much easier to do and every day. There's just

1:24:08

more and more and more There's

1:24:11

more and more you do. Oh, I

1:24:13

find definitely doing my history that You

1:24:16

have to check and recheck you have

1:24:18

to read you have to check little

1:24:20

things Just

1:24:23

you know little details Especially other things

1:24:25

that we have you up if you

1:24:27

if they're wrong one source may go

1:24:29

a little haywire on something that's only

1:24:31

a guess or

1:24:34

something said by one person and you

1:24:37

you can You know, but

1:24:39

you can also get episodes out of that

1:24:41

out of those controversies like just a whole 1820

1:24:44

did James Monroe

1:24:49

Get a electoral vote against him or not.

1:24:51

Was it an accident? Was

1:24:53

it somebody trying to preserve Washington's memory? Did

1:24:55

they actually not like Monroe? I did a

1:24:57

whole thing on that with the eight different

1:24:59

ways. It could be interpreted and all of

1:25:01

that So

1:25:05

Bruce I just want to thank you for being a

1:25:07

guest on this retro cast is great having you on

1:25:09

the story about the subway In Cincinnati

1:25:11

is great. I had never heard

1:25:14

that one and people tell me I know more

1:25:16

useless information anybody But that's one I definitely have

1:25:18

never heard. So just quickly where

1:25:20

can people find your podcast? Www

1:25:23

dot my history can beat

1:25:25

up your politics calm or

1:25:28

on Apple podcasts or Spotify

1:25:31

YouTube wherever you're listening to

1:25:34

podcasts. Yes Thanks

1:25:36

for having me on Steve. It was great and

1:25:38

you know, we are a part

1:25:40

of airwave media network both of us That

1:25:43

is correct Yeah,

1:25:45

this has been a great time. I really

1:25:47

enjoyed it Sometimes I think I'm talking to

1:25:49

myself and it's nice to have Have I've

1:25:51

known a human to share it with so

1:25:54

again. Thanks and let's say goodbye to everybody

1:25:57

Bye My

1:26:01

name is Greg Jackson. I'm a historian, professor,

1:26:04

and creator of History That Doesn't Suck, a

1:26:06

podcast that provides a complete overview of U.S.

1:26:08

history through storytelling yet keeps the rigor you'd

1:26:10

expect in a university class. Starting

1:26:13

with 22-year-old George Washington in his first

1:26:15

battle, join me for a chronological telling

1:26:17

of the United States story. It's unlikely

1:26:19

revolution, cautious civil war, tenacious inventors, brave

1:26:21

reformers, and more. With more

1:26:24

than 100 episodes, you can already binge-listen your way through

1:26:26

the progressive era. It doesn't

1:26:28

suck wherever you get your podcasts. You

1:26:30

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