Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Based on the dates, which are all From March of 1996, we have Norm Nathan shows from the 3rd, 4th, and 16th of that year. It's a regular guestapalooza. Hey, let's make that the title. The first guest author Vicki Leon, who wrote Uppity Women of Ancient Times. And she shares some fascinating stories of more than 200 women throughout 3200 years of history. Guest number two, author Liza Copeland, who had written Just Cruising and now is talking about her sequel to that book, Still Cruising. She tells tales of sailing the world for six years with her family. Guest number three, well, not really. J. Ben Lesser, author of A Foxy Old Woman's Guide to Traveling Alone Around Town and Around the World. After Norm's intro, the interview flew away into the ether. So next guest, David Feldman, author of what Are Hyenas Laughing At Anyway? He's a certified expert on imponderables. We actually take calls with David. We hear from David and Newton, Andrea in Canton and Gene in Medford. And to close out the show, it's all calls for Norm. Steve, who, who was a relative of Harry Aganis, Greta, talking chickens and the first egg of spring. And Kathy, who wants more Norm but can't pick up WBZ in Connecticut. Episode 225, Guestapalooza, invites its way to your ears.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Now, he's my kind of man.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: I listen to no Nathan every time.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: I can on WBZ in Boston. Down the.
[00:01:57] Speaker D: This is the Norm Nathan show and just so darn exciting to be with you. It's about six after 11. It is a cold night. I can watch for that. I give you a firsthand eyewitness account, having been outside, but it's. The temperature is 20 degrees, as Bob Ames had just said, but the wind is really whipping up and the. It just feels like we've lapsed back into wintertime again. But chin up, let's see. How does the saying go? Spring is really on the way. Thank you very, very much. Gonna talk with Vicki Leon in just a few minutes. She's written a number of books, the latest of which is called Uppity Women of Ancient Times. It's a fascinating book about women who lived way, way back. Leon, I'm glad to talk with you, Vicki.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Leon, I'm glad to talk with you, too.
[00:02:49] Speaker D: Okay. And Vicki is the author of a book called Uppity Women.
I love that title, Uppity Women. Nobody likes an uppity woman.
Guys don't because they feel it cuts into their masculinity. I have a feeling we're seeing that reflected in a lot of the first ladies, for example, have taken heated. Not, not just Mrs. Clinton, but it goes back to probably everybody because I remember Eleanor Roosevelt, who took a lot of heat because she seemed like a very independent woman who people thought were uppity and that kind of stuff. Is that the kind of thing that you had in mind?
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Well, absolutely. In fact, you know, both in our times and in ancient times, women have had a lot of barriers to overcome, as you know, and way back when, just like in our century, it took a very motivated, occasionally ruthless woman to overcome those barriers. And women often got bad mouthed in the process.
Maybe we should define our term uppity, though. I think your audience might get a kick out of it.
In my research, I ran across a story about a very picky mill shopper back in old school Sparta. Remember Sparta, the Greek city state?
[00:04:08] Speaker D: Yes, yes.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: Well, this story is 2500 years old or so. But anyway, this fellow was out comparison shopping for a slave or two and he was out checking out every single female on display at the market that day. And he finally went up to one particular woman and I don't know, you know, the guy must have been looking for a slave with a money back guarantee because he said, now, if I buy you, will you promise to be good? And she stared back at him. She was very cool. And you know, it's kind of tough to be cool when you're standing on an auction block in your birthday suit, but she did it. She looked him right in the eye. She said, well, yeah, I'll be good if you buy me, but hey, I'll be just as good if you don't. And see, to me, she epitomizes the uppity woman, whether past or present, for of, you know, spunk and humor and, and that certain sense of self worth no matter what hand life is dealt you. And she had some pretty crappy cards.
[00:05:09] Speaker D: I love the way you phrase that. Anyway, I know just, just before we get into that, the uppity women of the. Of ancient times. I'm just looking at your background and you, you, you used to write on nature and maybe you still do on nature and travel and all that kind of stuff. And you write for a company, the Canary Press, that has this.
Did this spawn a group called the Wild Woman Association?
[00:05:37] Speaker C: Oh, actually, the Wild Woman association began with a book that was done about three years ago. I did not do this book. It was by Autumn Stevens and it was called Wild Women, and it was about women in Victorian times. And consequently the Response was so great to that book that the organization, they started this organization and it has quite a few thousand members, card carrying wild women who are also being invited to participate as they read the Uppity Women book. So this is one of a series of books about women in times other than our own, although maybe we'll be doing some in the present day too. But basically it's a way of writing women back into history because they have been written out of it or overlooked out of history for so long.
[00:06:33] Speaker D: As I look through your book, Vicki, I was impressed with the fact that a lot of women in the times we're talking about and we're talking about. Well, we're talking about between 2800 B.C. 458. I mean really a long time ago, right?
[00:06:51] Speaker C: 3200 years of history.
[00:06:53] Speaker D: Yeah, A lot of these, a lot of these women accomplished quite a good deal and were in very strong positions of authority.
Do you think women during that period were more independent and than they are today? Because we've been going through this feminist kind of thing. And as I look through your book, you know, many of them led armies and did all kinds of things that I wonder whether they would be allowed to do today even.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Well, you know, you do have a good point there. There certainly were women who had, when they had power, you know, when they grabbed it, they certainly knew what to do with it and in many ways perhaps exercised more raw power than like you say commensurate woman would today, but neverthele. I still think that by and large we have it a great deal easier than they did 2,000 years ago. A woman could create a huge stink simply by being successful at almost anything. And so consequently, the women who did make it to the top really had tremendous will.
One of the things I like to mention here, Norm, is that people tend to think of, if they think of women in ancient times at all, they think, well, Cleopatra may be a queen or two, right? But one of the things that I took special joy in was encountering and digging out some of these women who were not royals and who weren't, you know, born with a silver spoon in their mouth like Kababa. Did you notice her? Did you remember her?
[00:08:37] Speaker D: I read about so many.
Refresh my memory.
[00:08:41] Speaker C: Well, she's one of my favorite, very favorite blue collar success stories. She was a woman who used beer to get to the top in old Mesopotamia and what better way, right? She was a tavern owner in the city of Kish, which, you know, 4,500 years ago, a long Long time ago in ancient Mesopotamia. But she obviously had more ambitions than, you know, running an early version of Cheers. But ultimately she became the ruler of this city, and she may very well have controlled other parts of the land of Mesopotamia as well.
And she started a dynasty, and that continued with her offspring for 100 years.
So, you know, this gal was the big enchilada of the whole area. But she was obviously very down to earth, because on the king's lists, which have survived to our day on those clay tablets that you read about, she called herself, simply called herself Kubaba, the Beer Woman. I don't know. I think that's classy, myself.
[00:09:47] Speaker D: I think that's very classy.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Also, talk about roots.
[00:09:53] Speaker D: How did you dig up the story of so many women that you talk about from thousands of years ago? You mentioned at one point that this is before paper and stuff, and a lot of histories and things were on tablets and that kind of stuff. Obviously, they've been reprinted in other ways other than tablets and all that. But how did you dig up. Because you're talking many, many, many women, some of them very, very obscure.
How do you go about researching a book like this?
[00:10:24] Speaker C: You know, Norm, it is. It is true that clues to these women turned up in some of the darndest places. And sometimes the clues I followed didn't even feel like clues at first. You know, it was kind of an intuitive detective search. For example, I'll tell you a little story about how I came across one woman. I was living in Spain years ago, and I was learning to cook, and I went to buy a double boiler. Do you know what that is?
[00:10:50] Speaker D: Yes, I do.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: Well, good for you. I'm not. Not. Not every person knows that. But anyway.
[00:10:57] Speaker D: Are you being condescending because I'm a guy?
[00:11:00] Speaker C: No, no, no, I'm not. But. But anyway, I just phrased that very carefully. I did. Anyway. But the thing is, getting back to this double boiler. It took me forever to find one in Spain, and it wasn't too surprising because they called it a Bano Maria, which means a Mary's bath. And nobody could tell me why it had this odd name. And later on, I was in France and Italy for a while, and it was the same story there. Well, so that didn't even seem like a clue to anything. It was just a very odd thing. And I kept it kind of in my mental file of weird facts. And years later, I found a couple of sentences about a female alchemist whose name was Mary. I thought, well, there's a coincidence for You. Then a little while after that, I located a diagram which showed one of Mary's inventions. And there it was. It was the prototype of the double boiler. And so finally this Mary's bath name made sense. And it only took me about 20 years, but then I had enough threads to tell her story.
[00:12:08] Speaker D: How did you, how did you just kind of backtrack and just a little bit, how did you happen to switch from, from the other stuff that you wrote, the nature and travel and that, onto this? And what, what about nature and travel? What did, what kind of books did. Obviously, what kind of books you wrote about nature and travel? That's a silly question, but where did you write this? And, and how did you get into that? And how'd you swing over to what you do, what you did in this Uppity Women book?
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Well, you know, really, Norm, the whole women thing almost predates almost all my other activities because some 25 or 30 years ago, I was doing a lot of traveling. I was living in Spain and Greece and Israel, and my travels took me to Greece and to the island of Crete, where I stayed for a while. And you know, that's the home of the Minoan civilization, which was flourished some 4,000 years years ago. And that experience, it just knocked me out. I don't quite know how to describe it.
I was so drawn to it, and especially when I saw that women had clearly played some important roles in that society. In fact, you might notice on the COVID of the Uppity Women book. Those are Minoan ladies.
Those are Minoan ladies. And you have probably seen those illustrations elsewhere because they're very famous. Well, being on Crete and encountering this incredible ancient civilization with such vitality and such opportunities for women just kind of jump started my search. And so consequently, kind of mole like, I have been collecting this material and wading through countless libraries, and I've done a lot of on site research in various Mediterranean countries for, you know, like I say, according quarter of a century. Meanwhile, again, I was doing lots of other things, other types of books. Obviously, travel was one of my first loves, and I've done a number of travel guides.
It was an easier sell than Ancient Women, let me tell you. But the nature thing came about because that's another thing I'm very interested in. But some years ago in San Luis Obispo, where I live, which is in Central California on the coast, a local graphics communication company wanted to start a publishing arm and asked me to help out. And so consequently, I got the wonderful opportunity of building A line of books from the ground up, and we ended up publishing 22 different nature titles and seven or eight different travel titles. So that's kind of how I. How I began in writing in general and specifically how I got involved with the women. And the thing is that all along I've been collecting material, and I did an earlier book on the Greek women philosophers, but it wasn't until I kind of had this amount of material and I had finally gotten a good.
I had gotten a take on the material, figured out just how to work with it, that then everything kind of clicked. Where I found the perfect publisher, which is Canary Press, and they really are them, you know, an outstanding company here in. Here in California.
[00:15:37] Speaker D: Okay. That's where you are right this minute.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Mm.
[00:15:39] Speaker D: Okay. You're kind of lucky, because it's lucky for you not to be where we are here in New England.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: It sounds a little chilly tonight.
[00:15:46] Speaker D: It is very cold, and the wind is really whipping up, and we have snow on the ground, and the roads are icy. You don't care about that at all because where are you in the Los Angeles area?
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Well, no, we're equidistant between Los Angeles and San Francisco in a beautiful coastal region called San Luis Obispo County.
[00:16:06] Speaker D: Oh, yes, I know that area.
[00:16:07] Speaker C: Do you?
[00:16:07] Speaker D: I mean, I don't know. Well, I traveled down through there.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Speaker D: At one time. I think that's. That's beautiful country.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: It is. It's very pretty.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Okay, now. Now, I don't know where to begin, because you. You mentioned so many women, most of. Most of whom have names I can't even pronounce.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: They're tough, aren't they?
[00:16:25] Speaker D: Yeah, they are kind of tough, but. But they're fascinating. It's fascinating stuff. And the way you write about them, I think, is particularly fascinating. I was looking for a typical example of how you write, because you write in a very earthy kind of way. It's not written in this.
I mean, it's scholarly, but it's not the pedantic kind of thing you expect to read.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: I did try to write in street language and in a way that, you know, because I'm not a scholar and I want to write something that people just like me will enjoy, that you don't need an advanced degree or a tremendous, specialized background to understand, because really, these are civilizations that are very far removed from us in place and time, so. I'm glad to hear that you think I've been successful.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: No, you very much have been successful at that so far, as I'M concerned because I think you're right. Well, and you're right with a kind of tongue in cheek and fun and you get. Get your point across. And I. I certainly would argue with you when you say you're not scholarly because I don't think that's true at all. There's no way you could have done the kinds of things you do without being extremely scholarly.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah, well, scholarly in the sense that. Yes, I mean, I've conducted a long and careful research, but. But it's not written in that in scholarly fashion. That would be the. I guess what we want, we want. Would want to tell people. Right.
[00:17:53] Speaker D: Right. Here's my easy way out. And that is to ask you to pick some of the women that you found particularly intriguing.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:02] Speaker D: And if you would just tell us about them. Because I've enjoyed the book a very great deal and I don't. I just don't know where to begin to ask you stuff. So. So anyway, tell us.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: Okay. Well, let me start out with someone who was kind of a fighter and a lover. Her name was Artemisia ii. And Ardi ii, she really did it all. She was, you know, besides keeping her kingdom in ancient Asia Minor in line, she. She built the seventh wonder of the ancient world. And it was in honor of her late husband. His name was Mal Solis. And so Artie built the world's first mausoleum.
Well, that's where we get the name. And this, the mausoleum that Ardi built was really a traffic stopper. The thing was 14 stories high. It was as big around at the base as a football field. And it had a 24 step pyramid in the middle. Must have been a peculiar looking thing. But the thing about Artie, she carried the grieving widow thing kind of to extremes. It seems her husband had died three years prior and that's why she built this monument to him. But anyway, she. She invented a special wine cooler to drink at happy hour every day at the Mouse of Lamb. And Norm, do you want to guess what the secret ingredient of that wine cooler was?
[00:19:23] Speaker D: I've just been looking at your book to see if I remembered. Now what was it was made with her husband's bones and ashes.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: That's right. A generous amount of old hubby's bones and ashes. And she threw in a few spices to kind of cut the taste too. But needless to say that it was probably clogged arteries and not a broken heart. That sent Ardi on her way to a side by side with Mousolas about three years after he died. So that was the story of Artie. But let me tell you about, let's go to Egypt. And one of the things that also kind of turned into a pattern as I was writing this book was that, you know, looking at women through these from the female perspective, we also learn a lot about men of long ago. And for example, how about King Tut? Everybody's heard about King Tut and his tomb. Well, you know, the truth is that Tut didn't do squat. You know, he lived to be 18 years old and he did almost nothing. His wife.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: I love the way you and you write. You write the way you're talking, which I think is lovely.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I was going to say you're getting a sense of how the book is written because it certainly is, you know, it doesn't mince any words. Ankhesi Namun was Tut's wife and she led a most amazing life. You remember the pharaoh's little habit of marital incest?
[00:20:55] Speaker D: I remember reading about it in your book, yes.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: They were very, very prone to that. Well, as a teen, Ankh's first job was to marry her daddy. And then he died. Then she married her uncle, he didn't last. And finally she married her nine year old brother Tut. Well, Ankh was more than just a pretty piece of wedding cake to be handed around in a passive way. When Tut died after 10 years, this three time widow, she suspected there was another, yet another relative lurking in the wings. And she was a gutsy kid, you know, she, she sent a quick kind of a FedEx message to the neighboring Hittite king and he, she asked him to send one of his sons to her, you know, pronto because she only had 70 days. That's how long it took to embalm, you know, a king those days. And anyway, she said, she sent this Hittite king a message and said, said look, I'll, I'll make one of your sons the Pharaoh of Egypt. Well, the king finally came through and unfortunately the bridegroom to be was intercepted and, and, and rubbed out and on, on Kesar namun, who was 22 years old now she was without a game plan. She was now forced into marriage number four with none other than her own creepy and murderous grandfather.
I mean, you know, that's a, that's a pretty full life, I'd say.
[00:22:26] Speaker D: I guess, I guess so. I love, I love way telly story. You think, you think Uppity women of ancient times. Your book, Vicki will one day be required reading in Sunday school classes because you're talking about the kind of the, the era that, that kids are taught. There's something not quite this way, though.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Well, you know, it's a nice thing that you brought that up because the other day I gave a talk at the local university here, and you know who attended? There were four classes of sixth graders who were brought there by their teachers because they had been studying ancient history and Mesopotamia and Egypt. And you know what they asked their teacher, they said, where are the women? And the teacher happened to have gotten a copy of my book for Christmas. And then they learned of this speech I was giving. So they brought all four of their classes, girls and boys, and I thought that was one of the most wonderful things that's come out of this.
[00:23:26] Speaker D: No, I think it's great. And again, the earthy language that you use in the street, how did you phrase that? The street language and all that kind of stuff?
[00:23:38] Speaker C: Yeah, it's bratty, isn't it?
[00:23:40] Speaker D: Well, no, no.
Puts it in perspective. I mean, I, I, I think it, it makes people human even though they live three, 4,000 years ago. And most books that you read, these people don't, they don't seem real. They never seem real. And in your book they do. And I, that, that's one of the reasons I liked it. And you have sketches on so many, so many of these uppity women written that way and brief and all of that. It's just a great deal of fun to read it. Uppity women of ancient Times. And I think it puts a whole lot of things in perspective. One more question before I let you go.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: Vicki sure had enough of her accomplishments to talk about them on her tombstone. And so that's how we learn that she was, she was lawyers and so on. For example, there was a, one of the earliest women in my book was named Merritt Tah, and she was a doctor in Egypt 4700 years ago, before the pyramids were even built. Isn't that amazing? And you know, we know of her because her son was proud enough of her accomplishments to talk about them on her tombstone. And so that's how we learn that she was an accomplished doctor.
[00:24:56] Speaker D: Have women made any progress over these 4,000 years or so, do you think?
[00:25:02] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, we are the beneficiaries of these earlier women's struggle. And granted, it had to kept, you know, these struggles have had to been, these battles have had to be fought again and again that time. You know, as you go through different ages, sometimes there are, there are backward steps. And before you go Forward isn't just a continuum. But, yeah, we definitely have benefited so much by, you know, the boat rocking that these early women did, whether they were queens or slaves or politicians or pirates. You know, these gals were survivors, and they were. They were early role models for us.
[00:25:44] Speaker D: How do you think you would have fared in those times? Do you think you would have led an army or your opportunities would have been greater or different? This is a really stupid question.
I'm saying this. I'm saying, am I really. Is this really coming out of my mouth, these stupid comments? I guess the reason I was asking is I was married for a very long time to a very strong woman, and she would have been considered a notpity woman. My mother, to a lesser extent, would have been considered that, too. So I tell you that. Come close. I don't want everybody to hear this, but I have this thing for uppity women.
No, I think they're interesting. I think they're just not the usual bland kind of, you know, June Cleaver kind of people or Harriet Nelson in the Nelson family and stuff. I cannot imagine anybody living with people that bland. So when I read your book about these women who've again led battles and done all these wild kinds of things, even those who have put the husband's bones into something that they've drunk and all that kind of stuff, I find them so intriguing, and that's why I find the whole book absolutely intriguing. I would have loved to have known some of these.
I would have loved to have sat down and talked with so many of them.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: I would, too. And I must say I would have liked very much to have lived back then. I'm. I'm, you know, I'm very drawn to that period. I don't know whether I would have survived or not, but, you know, I probably would have, you know, mouthed off the way that any number of these uppity women did.
[00:27:20] Speaker D: I would guess, too, that they had to do this kind of quickly because their lifespan was not too terribly long back then.
[00:27:25] Speaker C: That's right. Most people had much shorter lifespans than both men and women.
[00:27:31] Speaker D: Just tell the story of Esther. I mention that because we're coming into Purim on the Jewish calendar, and this and the story you had about Esther sort of ties in with that.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Well, that's one that people do know from the Bible, don't you think? I mean, that's one that's more familiar than most.
You know, actually, the. The unsung heroine of that story, although I really love Esther, was Her predecessor, Vashti, you know, basically, you know, Vashti was married to. She was a blue blooded Persian and she was married to a Persian king who obviously, you know, ran everything and was considered, you know, the absolute last word on earth. And anyway, he was throwing an intimate little party for 10,000 people or so. And anyway, they had all been drinking for about a week and he thought it'd be a great idea to have his gorgeous wife come out and he'd show her off. And he summoned her and she just said, well, no way, I'm not going to go out there. Because she had a feeling he wanted to display all her charms. And maybe he did. You know, I mean, this was.
[00:28:46] Speaker D: You're talking about her taking off her clothes and that kind of.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: It wasn't clear. It's not clear just what he wanted her to display. But obviously she thought that whatever it was, it was definitely out of line. So she said no. And consequently they got into a real stalemate about it. And his counselors huddled and said, well, you just can't have a woman telling you what to do like that. And so he ended up banishing her.
And then he started, you know, kind of a star search for another wife. And that's how Esther came to the picture. And she was. She and her uncle were Jews who had been living in exile in Persia, of course, for, you know, many, many generations by this time. So they were probably in many ways Persian as well as being Jewish. And so she kind of auditioned for the king and he took a look at a lot of. A lot of women and he obviously liked what he saw. And she. And she was in. And anyway, there's a complex story about Uncle Morty and how he and he and another fellow named Haman, you know, are doing power struggles kind of behind the king's back and so on. But ultimately, you know, Esther triumphed and managed to save the whole Jewish population from being annihilated by the, you know, the fiendish backstage work of this Haman. And consequently that, you know, she did end up being very much of a heroine for the Jewish population of Susa, which was this capital city of Persia. So that's the story of Esther kind of taken out of its religious context. But of course, that's why Purim is celebrated, is to celebrate the fact that she saved the Jewish population. And, and consequently it was, you know, every year there are all the different things having to do with hammam and so on, and those traditions are preserved today.
[00:31:07] Speaker D: I think you're adorable. And it sounds condescending. I don't mean it in that way.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: No, I take it in the best possible way. I am adorable, Norm, and I just appreciate your consummate good taste and abilities as sense that over the phone.
[00:31:22] Speaker D: You know, there is a picture of you in the book also which would indicate that very, very strongly.
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Oh, well, you think that's me? That's actually Esther.
[00:31:32] Speaker D: Oh, that's, that's really Esther. That's really Esther sat in for you? I do the same thing.
I have people like Robert Redford sit in for me taking pictures.
[00:31:41] Speaker C: I think it's so wise. Actually, I look more like June Cleaver, but don't tell anybody.
[00:31:45] Speaker D: Oh, stop.
[00:31:46] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:31:47] Speaker D: Anyway, is the book available most Canary Press. C. I'm spelling it like that, sounding it like the bird, but it's C O, N, A, R. I, uh huh.
[00:31:58] Speaker C: It's pronounced Canary Press. And it should be available all over Boston and the Eastern seaboard in good bookstores. You know, both independents and chains should be in all of those. And if someone should have difficulty, they can call Canari's 800 number and that is. Which is 800-685-9595.
[00:32:21] Speaker D: Okay. 1-800-685-9595. No, it's just, it's just kind of fun. This. I, I have a feeling I've, I've failed terribly on this interview because I didn't mention a whole lot of the things that you mentioned in the book, which is really interesting. But you talk about an awful lot of people.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: A lot of the women, nearly 200 women. Exactly.
[00:32:43] Speaker D: And they. And many of them. And they're all, they're all absolutely fascinating. And it's a great way not only of learning about what women were doing back in those very, very early days, but also it puts a great perspective on places like Mesopotamia, all kinds of places that sounded exotic to us. A kind of mysterious and maybe almost forbidden, like too much what do I care about Mesopotamia? But you put it in some great perspective in early Egypt and all of that, and it's just fun to read. And you've got some great illustrations and all in there, too. Uppity Women of Ancient Times. Oops.
Vicki, that's your very book. Here's what it sounds like when it's bounced on the table in Boston all the way across the United States. Anyway, by Vicki Leon, who's, who's the person who's been talking with. And I really appreciate you coming on the air with us at this time. And I was a Copeland who's Written a sequel to the book Just Cruising and called Still Cruising. She and her husband and three sons traveled around the world in. And were on this on the sea for six years. While you were not constantly on the sea for six years. But the trip took six years. And what a fascinating trip that was. Does life seem kind of dull for you now, Liza?
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Oh, yes. In fact, Norm, I have to tell you, we're planning another trip.
[00:34:18] Speaker D: Oh, really?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: That's right. We hope next year to do the canals and rivers of Europe and go through probably up the Seine to Paris and then link in with the canals to the Rhine that now there's a canal, joins it to the Danube, and then we'll finish in the Black Sea.
[00:34:36] Speaker D: Son of a gun. I knew we couldn't keep you on land very long.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: We used to keep my husband happy, you understand.
[00:34:42] Speaker D: Now, your husband. Your husband was in the Royal Navy. And you had done a lot of sailing and all that before. So you were not a couple of inexperienced people.
Life on the waters was not something that you had not known about.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: No, that's right. We actually, Andy and I met in Venezuela in a world championship in small boats and sunfish. But we had done quite a lot of sailing before, and we did quite a lot together and raced a lot before we ventured out on our trip. But we'd like to add that most people out there had not got the experience we had. And the important thing then is to be comfortable with your boat. Certainly take as many courses as you can, find out as much you can as possible, and just ease into the lifestyle gradually.
Don't set off on a long ocean trip as your first trip. And certainly don't go down into an area that's a hurricane area at the wrong time.
[00:35:42] Speaker D: Because you went into some interesting areas somewhere. They were, you know, there were pirates and all of that kind of thing. And very odd weather conditions. Well, I guess when you're on the sea for six years, you're bound to run in just about every possible condition. You can tell me about the Bagheera, which was the name of your boat. B A G H E E R E. Where'd the name come from? What was the boat like?
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Okay, the boat is. Bagheer is a Beneteau. Beneteau is a French company, and they also have a plant in the States, a 38 footer. The name Bagheera comes from the Black Panther in the Rudyard Kipling Jungle Book, the Mowgli Stories. And we'd had the name for quite a few years for many boats. And for us it was symbolic. Bagheera was sleek and fast and so have our boats been.
So we had chosen this boat. We looked at a lot of boats, but for us it worked very well. It had three cabins where we could sleep. So the two aft ones the boys went in. And we put an upper bunk for the third child. And then we slept forward. And we had a big main cabin area where they did school, a good chart table and of course, quite a few instruments and a reasonable galley with a big refrigerator and subsequently a freezer. So actually we were very comfortable on board. We never had what people envision, which is cabin fever.
[00:37:11] Speaker D: Yeah, because, you know, when you think of somebody taking a trip like you did, say across the Indian Ocean as part of the trip, which is massive, you would think that a family of five people just cooped up together, or maybe you didn't feel like you were. Obviously you didn't feel like you were cooped up together. You would think you'd get on each other's nerves after a while and start. There's no indication of that in your books.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Well, you know, what we did, for one thing is we planned our routes very carefully. So we were never in the bad weather areas during that season. So that's. If you look at our world map at the front of the book. We did a very similar zigzag routes of north and south of the equator to avoid the cyclone, the hurricane season or the monsoons. So, you know, if you're there in the nice weather, then you can be up on deck. And of course, we weren't a lot of time at sea. We did have a couple of very long trips which were crossing the Atlantic, which was 17 days, and from Galapagos to the Marquesas in the South Pacific, which was 19 days. Days. But generally it was much shorter trips, often just day sailing. So then of course, you know, you're out for a few hours on the water, but you get to a new place, you go ashore, you go swimming, you're up on deck. So you, you very seldom are you all below, unless of course, you're sleeping below. And when we were on the ocean, we always kept 24 hour watches. One one person would be on watch all the time. But no, it didn't seem small. In fact, it was funny when we came back because we left our boat in Florida for a bit and came back to the house and the kids would be asking me for things and I'd say, oh, darn. Got them on the boat, you know, haven't got Them in the house yet.
[00:39:00] Speaker D: Do I remember right, in your first book, just cruising the first part of the trip, did you have one of the sons? Was he born on that trip, the first part or apparently I'm remembering wrong.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Yes, actually no. Our youngest was two when we set out. Now all of our children have been on the boat from a very young age. I mean all of them have been on, I think cruising from just a few days old. And we were fortunate that way that for them it had always been a very positive experience. We go off here, we're in Vancouver and because of Vancouver, the island where we sail here is sort of like a big lake, lovely for kids. And we went off with other families. So when we had said to them the, the older two who were, oh, 6 and 8 when we made the decision to go, when we said, well, what do you think? I mean, for them? And of course we'd only planned originally for two years for them, they just said, oh, a two year summer holiday, this is fantastic.
And then of course we had to school on board, but we did that in the mornings and it really worked very well into the routine.
[00:40:07] Speaker D: Now you have. How old are your sons now? Cole and Duncan. Jamie. Duncan left you for a while and went back home to Vancouver for to go to a more formal school. But the other kids studied on board the ship? On board the boat as you were going around?
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Yes, in fact they ordered for the first three years.
And then we got to Australia and you may recall that we had been invited to be participants in the Tall Ships events in the Australian Bicentenary. And with that came a working visa. So we worked in Australia and the boys went to regular school for a year and we wanted to see how they would do both socially as well as academically. And when they were just fine, we decided, well, we needn't come back across the come home, return to Vancouver immediately. We could kind of go the long way round and complete our circumnavigation. But what we found was that Duncan then went on to the high school correspondence program which was far more arduous, took a lot more time and he'd been in a very active class in school, very stimulating class, and particularly got very involved in team sports, particularly in the community.
And as we went up quite a long Australian coast and the weather wasn't terrific, I realized how tough it was for him to be working by himself five hours a day. So I wrote back to Vancouver to a private school saying, you know, somewhere down the line maybe we would think of him going back and boarding. And when we got round to Darwin, they, they had a letter there saying, look, we'd like to have him now if he wants to come. So we said to Duncan, well, you've got this opportunity. And of course we didn't want him to leave. But when you extend from a two year trip to a six year trip, you do have to look at all the aspects for every family member.
And finally, after we'd gone through what he would miss if he left and various aspects of it, he said, well, I don't want to leave the cruising light, but if I don't start school again until we return. When he would be 16, he would have never got into team sports again. And team sports were really important to him. And now he's at university, he's been on a rugby scholarship, he's just been asked to play for Canada. So it was, it was good from that point of view that he came back and then he joined us in some holidays just, just to talk about.
[00:42:36] Speaker D: You and your husband for, for a bit. You're both from England and you both eventually ended up in Canada and you now live in Vancouver and have lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for some time. So you went, you went around the world as a, in a sense as a couple of Canadians, but, but you grew up in England. Now what was your, what was your background so far as the sea is concerned? Your background and a whole lot of other things is, is quite extensive psychology, primarily special education and all of that, vocational rehabilitation.
You're a very impressive lady.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Oh, well, I just sort of like to be simulated. But I grew up, I was very fortunate. My father was always interested in boating and sailing and my family home was just outside London on the Thames, on the River Thames. And that's where I first began sailing, sort of tacking up and down the river. But we also spent our summers on the south coast and had a cottage on the Solent.
And that's where I really learned to sail. And funnily enough, although I had met my husband in the Caribbean, he grew up across the way from where my summer cottage was on the Isle of White, sailing in very similar boats to me. And we also knew a lot of people in cost common, so I was fortunate that way in my boating background. And I think when you learn to sail in England, the weather can be pretty inclement at times. You learn what it's like to go out in the rain and the cold and the wind. And so that really equipped me quite well for going offshore and subsequently at university I raced for the university team. I was at Trinity Dublin and also did quite a lot of ocean racing. So I was used to being on the ocean.
[00:44:24] Speaker D: Now this book begins in Australia. As you mentioned, you've been called to take part in Australia's Tall Ships celebration and you were there for a year. And the book picks up at that point from Australia through or back to Florida and back to Canada and all of that through Africa and, and I'm going backwards now, but while reading your book, I kept looking at the maps and I kept looking at more extensive maps I had at home. And I kind of feel like it was a great education in world geography in addition to the fact that wondering how a family can stick together through all of this on a six year trip. But you spend a lot of, a lot of time of it on land visiting some really exotic places. Like, what did you find was particularly, particularly interesting? And were there places you had never been before?
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Oh, I think the Indian Ocean is just really exotic. In fact, most boats go across the Indian Ocean in about five months. And as soon as we got to Indonesia, and certainly it had been in the back of our minds before, we said, hey, we can't just rush this, we need a lot of time. And so, so we spent 18 months crossing the Indian Ocean and we didn't go up the Red Sea as did most of our friends because we had been in the Mediterranean. We decided we'd go around South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. And yes, I mean, it's phenomenal. We went to one island in Indonesia, Wanji, Wanji, where we were the first people overseas visitors since the Japanese had left at the end of the war and sent me into very different cultures. We went to see the Komodo dragons, we went to Borneo and then going further afield, Thailand was magnificent. And as you mentioned, travel was very much the focus of our trip and where we could, we would leave the boat, maybe leaving friends looking after it or find someone to look after it and then go inland. We might just take a local bus. It might be further afield. We went up from Phuket, where we were on the boat in Thailand, up to Bangkok and then right up to the Burmese border at Maihon Son.
And so that's what I really get into in my book as well, the fascinating travel you can do. And you can do it quite inexpensively. We used a lot of the backpackers books, the Lonely Planet guides that really were excellent.
And of course on a boat you go to places like Chagos in the Indian Ocean, which is south of the Maldives, where we also went. But Chagos, there's no population and you really can't get there at all unless you go by boat. So you go to these very remote places and have very different experiences to the average tourist.
[00:47:19] Speaker D: You've got some great pictures in here too.
Were those taken by you?
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Most of them, yes. I mean Andy or myself, one or two. My nephew came to stay, which is why we have the nice pictures of the family on, on the COVID of the book and one or two inside. We made a point of that because, you know what happens is when you're taking the photos you never, you never get yourselves together.
[00:47:41] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: In fact, the other day I had to find a photo. We have a, an article coming in in Sale magazine very soon and they wanted a photo of Andy and I together on the boat. And I had quite a struggle with that one.
[00:47:54] Speaker D: It's kind of funny. We had a comedy team out of Boston that worked nationally called Bob and Ray were very funny people. And one of their routines was about the Komodo dragon. And I thought they were making it up. It was a funny bit. And you got a whole section here on the Komodo dragon which is. Right, real.
Would you tell us about that? I've looked at pictures of that and it's a kind of ugly looking animal. I guess it dates back thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Like it has never evolved and. But they're still very much in, in, in existence in Indonesia.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: They're just mainly in this one island, Komodo, and a couple of islands just around there. And they were pretty much left alone because there's a, with the string of islands of southern Indonesia, the, the current that whips through them is pretty strong and it was always quite uncomfortable on a boat.
They're amazing that they're monitor lizards. When they've had a good meal, they get up to about 200 kilos.
We arrived and we've been told that there was a ravine.
[00:49:00] Speaker D: I'm sorry, you do a lot. You do the book in meters and stuff and I had to keep translating. But you said the Komodo dragons was in, in pounds. How much would that be?
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Oh, 200 kilos or 440 pounds. Okay, so pretty, pretty heavy stuff.
[00:49:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: So we went having been told that they, they fed these, these dragons in, in one of the ravines on a Sunday. We arrived on a Saturday to make sure, you know, everything was okay and where should we go? And the guide said, oh, do you want to Come and look at them today. So we walked up quite a long dusty path and there they were in this ravine, very sleepy. It was the heat, in the heat of the day. And the guide said, oh, do you want to go a little closer? So of course my son said, oh yes. We went down and the guide had a long prong fork and if the dragons got a little friendly, he put the, the prong on the back of their neck, kind of guided them away. Well, it was, it was very interesting. Bit scary, but very interesting getting so close to them. And yes, they do, I mean in, in every way they date back to, to skeletons that have been found, you know, at the end of the age of the dinosaurs. Anyway, so we had our good look at them when they were docile, went up the following morning and arrived just as a goat was being slaughtered and screaming away. And the dragons just go crazy at the smell of blood. And they were totally different animals. They just leapt up to try to get these bits of goat and the claws would kind of scrape on the other scales and squeal away. And it was amazing with their weight, how quickly they could move. And there was no biting or chewing. When they got a bit of goat, it just sort of glided down and disappeared and they wanted the next. Meanwhile we were put in a, what they called a theater. It was basically a cage at the top of the ravine to watch all this. And anyway, we watched the spectacle and we always laugh now because it was so awesome. We didn't take any photos of it at all. And it was all over and the dragons started wandering off. They live in burrows and they were wandering off down the road and some of the tourists wandered off too. And suddenly a girl was squealing and she realized as she and her, her boyfriend were walking down the path, a dragon was walking between them.
[00:51:27] Speaker D: Oh, jeez.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: And of course, guide should never have let them out there any. They were fine. But it was a dramatic ending to a dramatic morning.
[00:51:36] Speaker D: But apparently there's one guide or the guides have what, some kind of a stick or something control it, the drag. And I still wouldn't trust that guy with his stick. When you look at, you know, a 400 pound animal like that you have, because you've had over these six years, it's hard to know where to pin it down. But did you, did you come across many? It seemed as though there's kind of a group of people doing, if not a similar trip, doing, cruising along parts of where you were going. You seem to bump into people that you knew Quite often is this kind of an inner circle of people who know each other. That is one of the most stupid questions I think I've ever had.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: But sort of, right.
What happens is, and I have to tell you, the camaraderie between cruisers is probably when people are talking about their trip, that's always number one. I mean, it's just amazing, the close connection, the close relationships you form with these people. And I think last Christmas we had, oh, a good 60, if not 70 letters from people that we'd met cruising around the world. What you find is that there are. There are groups of people in certain places. So we met a group who were in the Mediterranean and then crossed the Atlantic together.
Then when we decided not to come back up to the States, but to continue into the Pacific, we were just with one or two boats. And then when we got to French Polynesia, we had met another group of people who come from the west coast of the States and Canada, maybe down to Mexico and then come down south. So we crossed the South Pacific with them.
Far fewer boats going on. In fact, very few going on into the Indian Ocean. And because we did it so slowly, I think there were maybe five others who are sort of doing the same trip as us. And we actually very seldom saw them, but we talked most days on the radio. And the radio is a wonderful link with the real world in every way. You talk to your fellow cruisers, you listen to the BBC or Voice of America or Radio Australia, whatever you can get into.
So, yes, there are a lot of people out there. What we see found as we went down was that people would maybe leave their boats. Friends of ours left their boat in New Zealand, went back to Bermuda, worked, and then set out again. And we all met up in Australia and then again in South Africa. And we hadn't seen them at that point for maybe three years.
So it's actually quite a small world when you get out there. And a friendship that will last forever. In fact, I have to tell you, last Monday was my 50th birthday and I met a girl who was 50 the next day. And her husband had sailed originally as a young lad with two other guys from Australia. And we had met both of those other men with their families in our travels. Anyway, I'd heard that they'd recently moved, this couple, and I thought, oh, I have no idea how to get hold of Susie. Well, she phoned me on her birthday from Abu Dhabi. So that was a really nice link with her again. I hadn't seen her since 1990 in Singapore. So that's the kind of camaraderie that you get out there.
[00:55:00] Speaker D: Yeah, it sounds wonderful. I wondered too, the experience that your boys have get, does that make it difficult when they're dealing with kids who haven't traveled more than 50 miles away? I mean, these are kids who've had experience that has opened up a whole world to them in many, in many ways. How does this affect their lives?
[00:55:24] Speaker B: Oh, it affects them hugely.
Quite interestingly, when we came back, two were teenagers and Jamie was eight. And teenagers are not interested in other teenagers who've done different things. They're only interested if you're really good at hockey or you're really good at football or something like that. So my kids just sort of pretended, ignored it had kind of happened at that point. And there's someone directly asked them. Duncan, now at university. His university friends come back and they just can't ask me enough questions. Of course, they have a lot of souvenirs around the house, whether it's in pictures or carvings or shells or whatever, and they just can't ask me enough. Now Duncan, who's 19, has definitely got the wanderlust in his blood. I mean, he really wants to travel and he's hopefully going to go into forestry now, which is a good job to have if you want to go to particularly third world countries. Different countries.
Jamie at eight, his friends were interested in a sort of a wow kind of a way.
I had his cross on board the boat one day and I chewed them slides before and they came down to the boat and their first impression was, oh, it's awfully small. And they rushed below and said, oh, too small. Went up on deck and he was giving them rides in the boatswain's chair. He was sort of hauling them halfway up the mast and swinging them around. And when he'd given them the ride, they all came back down again. And I had our GPS on our navigation helper and I had a chart out and I showed them how to plot the latitude and longitude and they were fascinated by that. And then they started just sort of climbing to the end of a bunk and we've got lots of books on board and they take out a book and suddenly one of them said, hey, do you know there are 18 of us down here? This isn't crowded at all. This is really neat.
[00:57:17] Speaker D: Sounds the way, like the way kids talk. Hey, this is cool, man. But you, you hit. You hit just so many places.
Could you just pick out.
This is kind of the lazy way out for an interviewer.
But the book is so fascinating that I wondered if you could pick out some of the highlights or some of the places that you found particularly intriguing, because you hit so many places that most of the people who are listening today would probably never get to any of them.
You know, we're talking places like Indonesia, we're talking the Maldives, Seychelles, and places most people not even aware where they are. Could you just pick out a few highlights and tell us about that?
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. When we set out, we of course set out from England and went down the Atlantic European coast and into the Mediterranean. And we had a year there. And I think our highlight really of the Mediterranean, although we enjoyed all of it immensely, was Turkey. We had no idea what to expect and we were just enchanted in every way. The people were delightful. It's obviously a very different culture, a Muslim culture. They had Turkish carpets all over the cars to keep them cool. The food was delicious. The ancient sites were not crowded and magnificent. And that was for us, a real highlight of maybe that year and a half. And it was interesting. It was in Turkey that we met an Australian lady who invited to Australia, invited us to the tall ships event. So it was sort of significant in that way. It was the place where really it was instigated our continuing for the six years.
Another island which loved going out through the Mediterranean on our way to the Canaries across the Atlantic was Madeira. Not a great place to cruise. We actually had a little accident there. Someone lifted our anchor and we ended up having a rudder that had to be repaired in a major way. And so we were there longer than expected. And what a delightful island. So beautiful. We went walking on the Levadas, which are the old irrigation channels on the sides of the mountains. And love the food there again, and the people.
We're used to the Caribbean. I think the Caribbean is spectacular. But we had lived down there for a few years, so it's fun for us, just going home then crossing the Pacific. Well, Galapagos, I mean, if anyone who's listening has the opportunity to go to the Galapagos Islands, just take it. The animals are so changed.
And it's interesting, the impact on you, and particularly the boys, of actually having been there. After we were back, we saw a magnificent nature film on the Galapagos and I thought, oh, if only we'd been there or noticed that or known that. And yet listening to this film, the boys came up with so many comments of just observations and, well, why didn't they show that? That was really neat. And you remember this. So actually being In a place has just such a huge impact.
Australia is just a wonderfully exotic country. We could have easily gone on living there. In fact, we could have done all my job. But somehow, as our worlds and family are, Vancouver and England, it seems a long, long way away to suddenly resettle. The Indian Ocean. Yes, very remote. Indonesia, the same. So many countries to go to. It stretches for two and a half thousand miles.
[01:00:55] Speaker D: We went, I'm sorry, Indonesia. Indonesia has, did you write, 13, 14,000 islands made up Indonesia?
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Unbelievable numbers. And really very few are populated. The ones that are quite densely population populated, we found Bali is magnificent with the very artistic Hindu people and just beautiful to go to. Quite touristy in some areas, but actually even those were fun. But then going up in the hills, the peace, the calm, the magic of the music. I mean, just wonderful, wonderful place to visit.
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand. Very, very interesting indeed. And then we went on to the Andaman Islands that belong to India. And we were the third yacht that had ever been there, incidentally, the second with permission. And I had spent many hours and days in the Indian consulate in Singapore getting permission. And I think it was finally when I went in with the kids and their school books that they thought, oh, this lady means business, we better give it to her.
[01:02:04] Speaker D: That's right, because you ran into a lot of officials who really gave you a very bad time. The bureaucracy would show its face every now and then. Some countries tougher than others.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: No, yeah, it's not such a bad time as an irritating time. You know, officials everywhere, I guess they're the same, they just. This is their power and you have to be very patient. And usually my husband went along and visited the officials while I was teaching school and. And he's not someone who likes to wait, but it was just part of the life. He went along with his latest yachting magazine or novel or something like that.
[01:02:40] Speaker D: So I could sit down and read while he was waiting.
[01:02:44] Speaker B: And, you know, when they see that, then there's no point. And we never bribed anyone. I mean, you know, not only wouldn't we do that for ourselves, it wasn't on our budget, but you have to think of the people who are behind you cruising. You know, if you give something, they want more from the person behind you. So it's just patience.
[01:03:01] Speaker C: But we were very careful always to.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: Have our documents in order, and that took quite a lot of planning. And actually, one of the things that happened, which is quite amusing, I thought, but the officials didn't think it was amusing, was that I'd gone to endless trouble to get Jamie a visa for Brazil while we were in South Africa. Now the rest of us also had British passports and on a British passport you don't need a visa and Brazil, but you do on a Canadian one. So I had to send Jamie off passport off to get new pages put in and had to get them, you know, them to send it on to the Brazilian consulate. And we finally got it back in a different place.
We left, the wind was very light and when we finally arrived in Brazil, unknown to us, we didn't even think to look, his three month visa had expired by two days.
Well, let me tell you, the officials were not impressed. And I said but the wind was too light.
Well, they finally decided when we obviously weren't going to cough up with anything that you know, that as an eight year old he wasn't too an undesirable alien and they'd better let him in. But they kept us hanging around for a while.
[01:04:13] Speaker D: The repairs on the ship sounded like Humphrey Bogard in the African Queen because your husband did most of the repairs, did he not? And you must have got to some places where something went wrong and it must have been hard to find a replacement.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: That's right. I mean you carry as many replacements as you can and of course it's always sod's law that the thing that breaks is not what you got a replacement for.
Yes, and Andy is just wonderful that fixing anything in any, in any place. But as you go further afield you definitely have to be far more self sufficient in every way. And sometimes you have to wait for parts to be thrown in.
It's funny, in traveling the places that are really cheaper to travel in are the places where it's far more difficult to maintain your boat.
So you have to be prepared for that and you have to be flexible. The whole thing about the lifestyle is to be flexible. Flexible that your itinerary might have to change. Flexible that you may not be able to buy what you intended to buy ashore in terms of food and certainly not the brand names you're used to. But to us all that was part of the adventure.
We would wander ashore in a new place and incidentally, as we were sightseeing, say oh, you know, there's the bakery, might as well get some bread and oh, let's go to the market and what fruit and vegetables do they have here? And that is whether you're just a traveler on land in a regular sense or on a boat that is just so important for your enjoyment.
[01:05:49] Speaker D: When you were Going across the Indian Ocean, for example, which you said took.
How many days was that it took?
[01:05:56] Speaker B: Well, you know, we just short hopped across the Indian Ocean. We were at it for about a year and a half.
[01:06:03] Speaker D: But the Indian Ocean itself, I mean, that trek, when you were on the ocean, on the water for one of the longer periods, you took shorter treks where you got on land quite a good deal. But was that when you crossed the Indian Ocean?
Were you there a couple of weeks or something on the water? Am I remembering wrong?
[01:06:22] Speaker B: No, actually, no. We were more in the Pacific. The Pacific is by far the biggest ocean, the Indian Ocean. We left Thailand and it was probably, oh, maybe three days to the Andaman Islands, maybe four, five days to Sri Lanka, three days up to India, four days down to the Maldives, another four down to Chagos, a week across to the Seychelles, and another week across to Africa.
[01:06:47] Speaker D: Okay, now those. Okay. But the Pacific was obviously took a lot longer. And I just want to. I guess what I'm leading up to is, what about the kids? What do they do, young boys, to amuse themselves during that period of time? A certain amount of it is education, isn't it? Because they're doing their schooling.
But what I just can't imagine kids sitting still for that length of time.
[01:07:11] Speaker B: Well, you know, they just get into the routine. Now, when we did our first long trip, which was crossing the Atlantic, I had a new book or a new game to introduce to them every day. But as time went on, they were so used to being at sea, we always talked to other cruisers. So there would be a radio scare at 8 in the morning, and everyone listened to that avidly. And that would maybe go on for half an hour or three quarters of an hour. We were fishing all the time, so every so often we caught a fish. And that was a major activity. They had a lot of books, a lot of tapes.
They did their schoolwork.
We played games. I don't know how many card games I played, particularly Uno. I must have played that for hours and hours and hours on deck. And the other thing that I did a lot was I would read out loud a lot to the entire family. When the kids were younger, we just loved Roald Dahl. I mean, he's just great to read and so descriptive.
So there were a lot of family activities. They also collected shells. We were very conservationist about it, but we, we have a fine shell collection. They would look up in this shell books to do a lot of research, or it may be land animals or it may be the flowers, the trees, So I had a lot of books on board for the specific area. So that. That was an added stimulation. There was never a dull. You know, the boys never once at any time while we were. We were on the boat, said, I'm bored.
[01:08:43] Speaker D: Are they going with you on this next trip?
[01:08:45] Speaker B: Oh, Jamie will. Jamie is 13, and he is going off this summer to the Optimist World Championships.
[01:08:52] Speaker C: He's.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: He's turned out the optimist of the. The small, probably the smallest, what certainly the most popular boats worldwide that the kids sail, and they're in some South Africa this year. So that's kind of exciting for him to go back to Cape Town. And they. He will. He will go on this next trip and I'm sure the other two will come and join us.
[01:09:12] Speaker D: I wish you the very best. The book is fascinating. Still Cruising. Does this have pretty good distribution in most bookstores, do you know?
[01:09:19] Speaker B: Yes, it may be in your bookstore, it may not. It's certainly in West Marine, the nautical bookstore in Boston. And I'd also like to give you an 800 number for the Armchair Sailor in Newport, Rhode island, because they definitely have the books in. And that's 829 chart. So that's C H A R T. Okay, 1 829.
[01:09:47] Speaker D: C H A R T then the book is called Still Cruising, written by Liza Copeland. You do all the writing then, and Andy does not write at all or give.
[01:09:56] Speaker B: Oh, yes, Andy does a lot of writing, but I just happen to have written the books and he's one of my major editors and. And I really appreciate his input.
[01:10:05] Speaker D: Okay. You're still friends even after being in close quarters together all that time. I think that's a marriage that could never fail.
[01:10:13] Speaker B: I think it's easier, you know, I think it's more difficult being home.
[01:10:18] Speaker D: Is that right this way you have a common project that you're working on together. I just thinking, what a lovely adventure later on. I mean, you have so much to talk about, so many things that you have done together.
That is. That is just perfect.
I was thinking what a lovely marriage you must have to have survived all this. And it probably has grown stronger. I may be getting too terribly emotional about this, but I think that is really nice. Plus the fact that I've learned an awful lot from the book. So much so that it was kind of hard for me to ask specific questions. There's such a wide area you covered about. You give. You give descriptions of different cities you've been in. Like, I feel like I've been to Singapore as a result of just reading your description of it and all these other places you've been to. It just it's just lovely. And I really thank you very much for coming on and talking about it.
[01:11:11] Speaker B: Liza oh, well, no, it's lovely to.
[01:11:13] Speaker D: Be with you and good luck on your next trip and I hope we'll talk again soon.
[01:11:18] Speaker B: Thanks very much.
[01:11:18] Speaker D: Take care.
[01:11:19] Speaker B: Bye.
[01:11:19] Speaker D: Bye.
Liza Copeland, still cruising it's it's very hard for me to imagine a family being in well, when I say they were at sea for six years, it wasn't they were on a trip for six years, but they did hit land and spend days in in some of the most exotic places in the world. What an absolutely incredible experience. You almost just can't imagine it.
Thank you very much. Later on, we're going to be talking with a woman named J. Ben Lasser, who has written a book called A Foxy Old Woman's Guide to Traveling Alone Around Town and Around the World. So if you're a woman ready to take a take a trip and you're wondering, should I, should I go, should I go by myself? That Tony Nesbitt has left for me. He does the the Lining up of People for the program. He says she has traveled around the world 13 times and will regale us with fascinating stories of her many encounters and adventures. And she will also provide invaluable travel advice on every from meeting single men at zoos in Zanzibar to how to pack all your stuff into one travel bag. Hey, that's you. That's a big assignment. Jay Ben Lesser, I'm delighted that to be able to talk with you.
[01:12:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:12:42] Speaker B: I think he sort of carried away there.
[01:12:44] Speaker D: You think? I was kind of floating off in some kind of some kind of a cloud. I was going to quote some of your stuff, David, but we'll take some calls. I think that'd be good. And people can ask you, did you come up with an answer? I looked.
[01:12:56] Speaker E: Right on. I looked. Some of my sources can find it. I think what happened is I found the answer in a book, so I didn't write about it because I found it in the book.
[01:13:06] Speaker D: Okay. And you figured, heck, it's already been answered. I want the tough ones. Okay. Let's go to Dave in Newton. Hi, Dave. You're on wbz.
[01:13:15] Speaker F: Hi. How are you doing?
[01:13:16] Speaker D: Good, thanks.
[01:13:16] Speaker F: I have a question.
The Americans who came or the people who came on the Mayflower and came to Virginia and Jamestown came around the same time in the beginning of the 1600s, and yet the people of the south today in New England have very different accents. And neither of them are like British accents today. And I'm wondering how that changed so drastically, if they came from the same place at the same time.
[01:13:41] Speaker E: Yeah, that's a very good question and I'm going to duck it as best I can, Dave, because it's very, very, very complicated.
What seems to happen is just as if you start interbreeding within one family, you get sort of weird kinds of diseases. When you get people who are insulated from outside culture together, even if they have the same backgrounds, they start talking in different ways than there are other people who are far away. I mean, in many countries it's much more extreme than it is here. For example, in Italy, you can travel 15 or 20 miles and find people who literally have different words for the same object and can't understand what you're saying in the dialects of people around you. It's funny because I'm trying to research something very similar, which is why southerners speak slower than people in the north. And I just, I can't get a decent answer to this, but there are whole books on the formations of accents. It's really very, very complicated. And it has a lot to do with how heterogeneous a population there is. For example, I've been sort of shocked. I've been down to Dallas a lot recently and noticed that they don't seem to have what I would call a Texas accent. And a lot of that is because Dallas is really a relatively new city. Most of the people are coming from other places, and as a result, the accents are sort of flattened out there now. I think what's going to happen over the next hundred years as the mass media has more and more of an impact and people are watching national television, is that the southern accent is going to flatten out and become more and more generic, generically American.
But I don't know, I think you. In other words, Dave, if you go to, say, Appalachia, where people are very poor, in some cases it's too poor to even have a television set, you'll find the accents much, much thicker than, say, if you go to Atlanta, which is sort of a cosmopolitan city, so why it developed the way it did in the south, I have no idea.
[01:16:17] Speaker D: Even here in New England we have different people. Talk about a New England accent and there really isn't any.
There are a whole lot of different accents.
[01:16:26] Speaker E: Do you think the degree of the, you know, so called Boston accent, the so called New England accent has, has decreased over the Years.
[01:16:34] Speaker D: Oh, I'm, I'm sure. As you pointed out, I think television and even, even radio before that to a lesser extent, and movies also, it kind of, people get to get to hear other ways of speaking. And I think it, I, I think I, I think in a way it's diminished a whole lot of things. Not only accents, but, you know, we have fast food places that look the same, the cities look the same. Across country, there are different kinds of looks to different communities. Like there used to be way back. But in New England, for example, around Boston, here's a Boston accent. Are you excited about me doing this little run through for you guys, or would you rather I just shut up?
Okay. Boston accent would be, hi, I come from Dorchester, around Upham's Corner, and I was kind of thinking of going to Harvard. But anyway, that's the Boston area. Then there's the country New England accent, which I think is much nicer. It's like this is Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont. There are differences in all three states, but roughly they sound like, I'm going out to milk the cows right now, you see, and then after that we'll, we'll have supper and later on, you know, that kind. But western Massachusetts sounds like Connecticut, which sounds like the Midwest, and, and Rhode island parts of it sound almost like Brooklyn. So there are a whole lot of different kinds of accents. I guess it depends, as David said, depends on where people settled and all that kind of stuff when they came here.
[01:18:12] Speaker E: Another place that's just a thick stew of accents is New Orleans area. You go just a little bit west of the city and you get the Cajun and the French influence, and it's like they're speaking a different language.
[01:18:26] Speaker D: Yeah, I think the Boston accent, some of Massachusetts, eastern Massachusetts accent, the Kennedys, for example, who people are aware of. Most of all, it's from the British who settled in this area. Absolutely.
[01:18:39] Speaker E: And you know, when you look at old movies, you see American movies from the 30s and the 40s, you see sort of a finishing school accent that has traces of England in it. I'm not sure anybody really spoke like that normally.
Katharine Hepburn was one example of that.
[01:19:02] Speaker D: That's right. And she was from New England. Bette Davis also. Hey, Dave, thank you very much for calling.
[01:19:07] Speaker F: Thank you.
[01:19:08] Speaker D: Okay, let's go to, let's see. Andrea in the town of Canton, Massachusetts. You're on the air with David Feldman. Andrea, good evening.
[01:19:18] Speaker C: My question concerns those little teeny ears of corn that you get at Chinese restaurants and some of their dishes.
[01:19:25] Speaker E: Right.
[01:19:25] Speaker C: I'd like to know how they grow. If they look like little baby corn plants, if they just take them when they're small or it's a whole different setup.
[01:19:36] Speaker E: No, they're called baby corn. And there is a scientific name for them. They do grow like other kinds of corn. They do have ears, they do have cobs.
It's funny because I did a little research on this question because a reader wrote to me and asked why you can't buy them in the supermarket.
Actually, in a few gourmet supermarkets you can.
You actually can buy them fresh. But they are. They were.
What's the word for that?
[01:20:11] Speaker D: Bread.
[01:20:12] Speaker E: They were, you know, genetically bred specifically for this purpose. They aren't some kind of strange mutation.
Somebody came up with the idea of. Of breeding these little baby corns.
[01:20:26] Speaker C: But are the plants like 4 or.
[01:20:28] Speaker G: 5Ft tall with big leaves?
[01:20:30] Speaker E: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Everything is smaller.
[01:20:32] Speaker C: Okay, so everything is miniature.
[01:20:34] Speaker E: But it is actually corn. It is just a different breed of corn.
[01:20:39] Speaker C: And it's got silk and everything.
[01:20:41] Speaker E: Yes.
[01:20:42] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:20:42] Speaker E: That's used to pollinate the corn.
[01:20:45] Speaker C: I feel bad for the poor people.
[01:20:46] Speaker B: Who have to take and shuck them.
[01:20:49] Speaker E: Well, you know, that's another whole genre, Andrea, of questions I get asked. I mean, how do they peel cocktail onions?
How would you like to be the person who had to get rid of the shells of macadamia nuts?
[01:21:04] Speaker C: I would not want to be that. Those are the hardest nuts on Earth.
[01:21:07] Speaker E: Yeah. So, you know, in Hawaii, the way they do it when it grows in the wild is they drive their cars over them.
[01:21:15] Speaker C: No kidding.
[01:21:15] Speaker E: Yeah, they just. Using a hammer is not enough often to get those things open.
[01:21:21] Speaker C: Wow.
[01:21:22] Speaker B: Well, thank you.
[01:21:23] Speaker C: I would have a million questions, but I know other people have their own, so thank you very much.
[01:21:27] Speaker D: Yeah. Nice to call Andrew. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Let's. We really have time for maybe one or two more questions. Gene is in the Medford. Hi, Gene. You're on WBZ and you're talking with David Feldman.
[01:21:38] Speaker C: Hi, David.
[01:21:39] Speaker E: Hi, Gene.
[01:21:40] Speaker C: On a television program that's on Saturday.
[01:21:44] Speaker G: Night, which is Bible quizzes and so forth. They keep speaking of the Common Era.
[01:21:51] Speaker C: I can't find what that is.
[01:21:53] Speaker D: Oh, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, I know you know the answer to that, David, and even I know that too.
[01:21:58] Speaker E: Oh, go ahead.
[01:21:59] Speaker D: The Common Era. Because that replaces before Christ in the. In the Judaism.
[01:22:05] Speaker E: Right.
[01:22:05] Speaker D: In Judaism, they don't talk in terms of Christ, Christ as being the son of God and all of that. And as you do in Christianity. And so they substitute the term the years prior to the birth of Christ, rather than say BC before Christ. With the Common Era, that's a kind of a Jewish way of ignoring the fact that many other people, people in Christianity, believe in Christ as being the son of God.
[01:22:33] Speaker E: And Gene, if you want to get more information about it, like if you look it up in a dictionary, you probably won't see it under Common era because it's most often referred to as BCE before the Common Era, I had.
[01:22:49] Speaker G: A Bible commentary and a Bible dictionary.
[01:22:54] Speaker C: Large volumes of them, and I didn't.
[01:22:56] Speaker G: Find it in either one. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong.
[01:22:59] Speaker E: You might try under BCE or before the Common era.
[01:23:03] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[01:23:04] Speaker E: That might help you.
[01:23:06] Speaker D: Okay. Thank you very much, Gene. That's, that's interesting. I forgot about that. It is BC and in Judaism. Yeah, it's funny, I've never put.
[01:23:14] Speaker E: I've never seen, I've never seen it referred to as after the Common Era, though. You know, it's always before.
[01:23:20] Speaker D: That's right. Like in the year of our Lord.
[01:23:22] Speaker E: I guess we're in the uncommon era now.
[01:23:24] Speaker D: Okay. Okay.
Anyway, you want to give an address if people have questions or want to write to you? Sure. Books are fascinating and it's David Feldman. You're right. You have, you have had different publishers at various times, including Harper. The current book, why Are Hyenas Laughing? What Are Hyenas Laughing At? Anyway, published by Putnam. And, and anyway, what, what, what would the address be for?
[01:23:50] Speaker E: If you want to write straight me by mail, it's post office box 24815, Los Angeles, California. And the zip is 90024. And if you want a response, please send a self address stamped envelope. And if you want to reach me in cyberspace, just write to feldmanponderables.com and it'll get to me.
[01:24:17] Speaker D: That's excellent. You're. You're fascinating. We, we. I, we just have to do this again because an awful lot of people wanted to talk with you and I. You're really a great deal of fun.
[01:24:25] Speaker E: I'd be delighted. Anytime, Norm.
[01:24:27] Speaker D: Hey, thank you very much, David. And here's, here's hoping you have an early and warm and sunny and healthy spring.
[01:24:33] Speaker E: Thanks, you too.
[01:24:34] Speaker D: Take care. Bye.
[01:24:34] Speaker E: Bye.
[01:24:34] Speaker D: Bye. Bye. David Feldman, who's written about eight, eight books with all, all these kind of questions in them, which I find fascinating. For example, let's see, for example, what.
Why do newspapers yellow so much faster than other kinds of paper? Why do gorillas pound their chests? Well, we never got to the question about Baby Ruth Baby Ruth. The candy bar was not named after Babe Ruth.
I don't know if I got time before the news to tell you what was. It was. It was named after.
It Honors President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland's daughter.
They referred to as Baby Ruth. And there's a whole lot more besides. But the books are like that. They're just absolutely fascinating. Lived inland.
[01:25:24] Speaker F: Can I ask you what the years were?
[01:25:25] Speaker D: Yes, the years were 1950 to about 1956. I think we moved from there to Middleton about 56 or 56 Middleton all those years after that.
[01:25:39] Speaker F: The reason I'm asking you that is because I'm Greek and I hear a lot of stories about Harry Ganis.
[01:25:44] Speaker D: Oh, sure. Do you remember the ball player legend?
[01:25:48] Speaker F: Do you remember the funeral though at all?
[01:25:51] Speaker D: No, I, I don't. I remember. I remember he was very much revered by, by everybody.
[01:25:57] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:25:58] Speaker D: And. And he was from, of course from.
[01:26:00] Speaker F: Lynn because my last name is again it's. And I am a relative of Harry but.
[01:26:04] Speaker G: Oh really?
[01:26:05] Speaker F: I've always wanted to speak to somebody that basically grew up near the St. George church.
[01:26:10] Speaker D: Well, we, Yeah, I lived, I lived on Baker street at that point, which is on the other side of the common. St. George Church is our members on the South. South Common.
[01:26:21] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:26:21] Speaker D: And on the other side is North Common and we lived on Baker street which was off of there. It's, you know, within walking distance. It's within less than a mile of St. George Church.
[01:26:32] Speaker F: Because I heard the funeral was, was totally incredible. It was one of the biggest ones around.
[01:26:38] Speaker D: I, I wouldn't be surprised. He was, you know, everybody loved him and everybody was so saddened by the fact that he was a, an incredible athlete who died so young. So young. It was, it was heartbreaking. And so I would imagine the funeral, everything about him is to still legend.
[01:26:55] Speaker F: Yeah, that's true. We basically our church and different organizations raise money. We built a statue for him.
[01:27:05] Speaker D: Yes, it's in the sports museum. Oh, I didn't know. I didn't. Oh, that's right. I've heard about that. I haven't.
[01:27:12] Speaker F: At the mall there.
[01:27:12] Speaker D: Yeah, I've never, I've never been to the sports museum. Yeah, that, that was really nice that you were a cousin. Is that what you're saying?
[01:27:21] Speaker F: My father came from the same village as their, their parents and they were first cousins.
[01:27:28] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:27:29] Speaker F: So my father are basically first cousins and Harry Gas was my second cousin.
[01:27:33] Speaker D: Okay. I've never been able to figure out what, what the difference is between second cousins and a cousin twice removed. And it Gets kind of complicated. But anyway, you're a close relative.
[01:27:44] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:27:45] Speaker D: And you ought to be very proud of that. He, Me, apparently. Somebody. Something very special. I suspect he'd be proud of you, too.
[01:27:51] Speaker F: I don't know about that.
[01:27:53] Speaker D: What do you do?
[01:27:55] Speaker F: We're plowing snow right now. We do malls and stuff. Our company. Yeah.
[01:28:00] Speaker D: When you do good work for people.
[01:28:01] Speaker F: Nah, we try hard.
[01:28:03] Speaker D: You dig them out of bad situations. You're very valuable.
[01:28:07] Speaker F: Very difficult these days.
[01:28:09] Speaker D: I know it. I know it.
[01:28:10] Speaker F: I'm sure you know. Well, it's been, you know, a pleasure talking to you.
[01:28:14] Speaker D: Pleasure talking to you, Steve. Thanks.
Unless you heat the coop, they will not lay. And so once they start laying under those natural conditions, it means the days are longer and warmer. And it is a tremendous sign of spring. And this snowstorm is a beautiful spring snowstorm. Now, do you have hands? Yes. Obviously you do, because otherwise you wouldn't know what you just said.
[01:28:40] Speaker C: I have a dozen of them.
[01:28:41] Speaker D: Okay. What kind of hands do you have? Rhode Islands. Yeah. Yeah, Rhode Island.
[01:28:46] Speaker B: Reds.
[01:28:47] Speaker C: Listen, this is personal.
[01:28:49] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:28:50] Speaker B: What happened to Lavelle tonight when he.
[01:28:53] Speaker D: Ended up in the ditch? Who got him out?
I don't know. Now, I talked to Lavelle when I came in, but there's only about a five minute break while the news is on. Between the time he leaves, the time I come on. So I can't talk with him about anything in great detail because I had a guest on. But I. I heard the same thing you did. The fact that he. He spun out and ended up in the dish. Maybe he was able to drive himself out or maybe he got pulled out. I. I'm not. I'm gonna have to ask him. I'm not sure.
[01:29:23] Speaker B: Did you get in all right?
[01:29:25] Speaker D: Obviously, yes, I did. Yes. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Well, good night, Lavelle. Okay. Good night, Norm. Okay. Good night to you, Greta. Okay. 2, 5, 4, 10, 30. Area code 617.
No, I was driving kind of. I think kind of carefully because I heard of the roads. Could have been kind of slippery, but they were not bad. I left the last of March.
[01:29:49] Speaker G: Oh, God.
[01:29:50] Speaker D: March through the first. I don't have the schedule right in front of me.
[01:29:54] Speaker G: You know, you always say that to me.
[01:29:56] Speaker D: No, I know, because I keep the schedule at home and, you know, I don't bring it in with me. But it's the end of. It's the end. The last few days in March and the first week in April. Something that isn't too far off. That's another month I mean I don't.
[01:30:10] Speaker C: Mean to say anything.
[01:30:11] Speaker G: You want to have the complete weekend? I mean I just.
[01:30:14] Speaker D: Well I'm. I'm on the. Pretty much the complete weekend.
[01:30:17] Speaker G: Oh no, you take off at 1:00 on Sunday.
[01:30:19] Speaker D: Well, I won't this Sunday night. This Sunday night I'll be on.
[01:30:22] Speaker B: Right now I have to go to.
[01:30:23] Speaker G: Connecticut to a show in the morning, give you my life story. And I'm just kidding around with you because I love you so much.
[01:30:32] Speaker D: I appreciate that, I really do. Thank you.
[01:30:34] Speaker G: And you know I don't mean to complain but you know we can't get you in Connecticut and I have tons of relatives there and they have tons of relatives and they have heard me talking about you so much and I'll be damned.
[01:30:47] Speaker B: We can't catch you.
[01:30:48] Speaker D: It's kind of odd the coverage because there are many parts of Connecticut that we don't come into too well. That's right. And parts of. Even parts of the Cape Cod and southern southeastern Massachusetts and around Springfield we don't do too well. And yet we come in. In Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania from.
[01:31:10] Speaker G: All over the place. I know here I am in Suffield, Connecticut and you know my sister, the.
[01:31:16] Speaker C: Brother in law and the kids they.
[01:31:17] Speaker G: Said oh they say we want to hear this man because they hear about you all the time. I talk about you non stop and they can't. And my sister said I would love to listen because she knows I'm you know, fussy who I like on the radio. I'm very fussy. And I always loved you and I love Larry Glick.
[01:31:33] Speaker D: He was. He's a nice man and a talented man.
[01:31:35] Speaker G: You both can make people laugh.
[01:31:38] Speaker D: Well, I was thinking about Larry Esty. You know we lost one of our great new newspaper.
[01:31:42] Speaker G: I know Daryl Gould.
[01:31:43] Speaker D: Daryl Gould. And I was saying that Daryl was one of those few guys in a business where there are no. There's an awful lot of cut. Cutthroat kind of activity. I mean there are good people in the business too but there's some tough ones and, and Daryl was, was.
Didn't have a mean bone in his body. He was one of the sweetest guys. He was so sweet. He was unbelievable. And the reason, reason I say that when you mention Larry Glick is. Larry Glick is the same way.
A sweetheart of a man.
[01:32:14] Speaker G: Very nice to make me laugh him in the Glick Nick University.
I mean you two are both hilarious.
[01:32:23] Speaker D: Well, thank you.
[01:32:24] Speaker G: I used to love it when you said the topic of tonight is nothing.
[01:32:27] Speaker D: That'S about the topic of every night I've been talking about nothing for 50 years.
[01:32:31] Speaker G: I love when you say that. Oh, I wanted to tell you something else before I hang up.
[01:32:36] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:32:38] Speaker G: Last night I really enjoyed it took place in Hartford. It was so moving. It was the skating and was in memory of the man who died.
Sergei. He was a 29 year old Russian skater.
[01:32:53] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:32:53] Speaker G: And his wife skated and Katerina Witt skated and Scott Hamilton, Brian Boitano and what was his name? Wiley. I forget it. Paul Wiley. It was in the arena in Hartford. It was so beautiful. And they had. Sergey's mother was there for Mercia and his wife's mother was there too, and his little two year old daughter.
You would have loved it.
[01:33:19] Speaker D: I wish I'd seen it.
[01:33:20] Speaker G: It was really, really beautiful. It was like a two or three hour. It was in memory of him. And you know what she said? The wife said at the end of the program, she spoke and she said, you know, I think of a lot of people when she says this. I mean, you lost your wife and.
[01:33:38] Speaker D: I lost Ray and I'm sorry, Ray was your husband?
[01:33:41] Speaker G: My boyfriend for 27 years.
[01:33:44] Speaker D: Really? Oh my.
[01:33:45] Speaker G: It was better than the marriage, believe me. But she said, you should always remember to tell people you love.
[01:33:50] Speaker C: This is what the.
[01:33:51] Speaker D: Absolutely. I said that. I said that to somebody the other day and I think people look at you like you're some kind of weirdo. I. I was talking with a friend of mine who we said. And I said, boy, hug your wife and treat her well because you don't know how long it's going to last.
[01:34:08] Speaker G: And you know, I have a lot of respect for you. I was listening to you last night and you are such a really great man and a really decent man and I liked all, all those nice things you were saying about Darrell Gould. And I got the paper today and I was reading that poor man, he was only 57.
[01:34:23] Speaker D: Yes, he wasn't he.
[01:34:24] Speaker G: I thought he was 67.
[01:34:26] Speaker D: No, he was very young and he retired very young. But he had, he had about every disease known to man.
[01:34:33] Speaker G: He died of colon cancer.
[01:34:34] Speaker D: Yeah, he died of colon cancer. He also had had a kidney replacement and he had diabetes.
He had. And his eyesight was failing where he could not drive at night.
And yet he always smiled and was so upbeat and you know, and he was married twice. His first wife died of cancer, Joan. And then he remarried this woman Kathy. Both of whom were lovely, lovely people.
Unusual. An unusual man. I mean, this guy is eligible for sainthood.
[01:35:09] Speaker G: I think oh, you are such a. You know, you have such class. I mean, you are such a classy man.
[01:35:15] Speaker D: Will you stop that?
[01:35:16] Speaker G: I mean, the way you were mentioning him last night and I was thinking what a great guy you are.
[01:35:21] Speaker D: Well, he was. It's easy to talk nice about guys like Daryl because he. He was the guy.
[01:35:26] Speaker G: You have a lot of nice things to say about a lot of people.
[01:35:30] Speaker D: Oh, there are a lot of people.
[01:35:30] Speaker G: Bring a lot of happiness and I don't think you realize it. And I don't know if the program director realizes that we're home alone at night. I live alone, you know. We'd like to hear someone like you. I don't want to discuss the world situation. Frankly, I don't care. I want to hear about happy things, you know, and about good things that make you feel good about yourself.
[01:35:52] Speaker D: Oh, that's nice, Kathy. I feel the way you do too. I care about world politics.
[01:35:57] Speaker G: Not in the middle of the night.
[01:35:59] Speaker D: No, not now. I mean, at times I especially get tired of talk shows where every talk host figures he's got an answer to every problem of the world. And I'm. He's going to pound it down your neck.
[01:36:10] Speaker G: And there were many. I'll be honest with you, Norman, there were many a lonely nights when you really kept me company.
[01:36:16] Speaker D: I thank you very much. You know, you're okay, Kathy.
[01:36:19] Speaker G: We have a good night.
[01:36:20] Speaker D: You have a good night too. Thanks a lot.
[01:36:22] Speaker G: Okay, bye.
[01:36:23] Speaker D: Bye. Wife who at the time was a State House correspondent for a paper called the Lawrence Eagle Tribune. And Daryl was covering the Massachusetts State House for wbc. And I heard him on the air and all, but I had never met him before and she introduced me to him and he was.
She liked him a whole lot. And they both ended up dying of cancer, which is unfortunate. Unfortunate. But he. He was something special. And I. So I've known him since those days. That would be. I know sometime back in the 60s or 70s, somewhere in that era.
[01:37:02] Speaker C: 57. That is awfully young.
[01:37:04] Speaker D: Well, it is considering that the. He retired last June because of failing eyesight. And it was. It was a problem for him to get in. Into the studios. He lives in a town about 20, 30 miles northwest of here. And so getting into. To do his job here was kind of tough. So he and the station worked out a nice arrangement. He was very pleased with retiring and it's just unfortunate he didn't have a chance to enjoy that retirement for too long.
[01:37:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I also enjoyed David Feldman and it's interesting, he said that he graduated.
[01:37:39] Speaker G: From the popular culture program with is kind of.
[01:37:43] Speaker C: And, well, Ray Brown sort of started off in my discipline. I'm a folklorist also.
[01:37:48] Speaker D: Oh, really? Yeah, really. And yeah, he was talking about Bowling Green.
[01:37:52] Speaker C: That's right.
[01:37:53] Speaker D: Did you go to Bowling Green?
[01:37:55] Speaker C: No, no. I, I, I graduated from Indiana University's folklore program.
[01:38:00] Speaker D: Oh, I see. Okay. That interesting that they, they have a folklore program there too.
[01:38:04] Speaker G: Yeah, well, they're, I mean, the popular.
[01:38:07] Speaker C: Culture program was sort of an offshoot of. Well, you know, since, since Brown started sort of started life as a folklorist. And then got into this whole. Got the Bowling Green thing off the ground.
[01:38:21] Speaker A: And on that note, let me remind you that you can support the show by checking out the links in the description box. Patreon Kastos. And buy me a coffee. Thanks, Fred. Closing the vault and leaving this world a little sillier than we found it.
[01:38:35] Speaker D: 4.
[01:38:36] Speaker A: The uppity Vicki Leone. The Wild Women Association. Minoan Ladies, Canary Press, Bones and Ashes, Wine Coolers, King Tut's Crazy Family. Liza Copeland, The Hardy Boat, Bagheera Sailing. Exotic Places. Komodo dragons and Monitor Lizards. Wanderlust. The Galapagos. The Armchair Sailor. Just Cruisin' still cruisin'foxy. Older Women, New England accents. Baby corn. B.C. a.D. C.E. and B.C.E. david Feldman. Putnam Publishing. Self addressed, Stamped envelopes, Imponderables. The New England Sports Museum. The First Egg of Spring. Lavelle in a Ditch, Happy Things. The Lawrence Eagle Tribune. Folklore. Bob Ames, St. Darrell Gould. And the man with the Penchant for Foxy, Uppity Women who Sail the World. Norm Nathan. Let me just say, I love you all. I'm Tony Nesbit.
[01:39:40] Speaker D: This is a really stupid question.
Am I really Is this really coming out of my mouth? These stupid comments?
