Podcasts about illinois central railroad

571.  This week we talk to Hans Rasmussen about the book he edited, A Girl's Life in New Orleans: The Diary of Ella Grunewald, 1884–1886. “A Girl's Life in New Orleans presents the diary of Ella Grunewald, an upper-middle-class teenager in New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century. Grunewald, the daughter of one of the Crescent City's leading music dealers, used her journal to record the major events of her day-to-day life, documenting family, friendships, schooling, musical education, and social activities. Her entries frequently describe illness, death, and other tragedies. Though attentive to the city's classical music scene, Grunewald also recounts theater shows, Carnival balls and parades, Catholic religious observances, and the World's Fair that the city hosted in 1884.” Hans Rasmussen is head of Special Collections Technical Services at LSU Libraries in Baton Rouge. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 220 years. Order your copy today! This week in Louisiana history. April 27, 1874. The White League (a paramilitary organization; its members wore no masks) organized to combat the Kellogg racial policies. This week in New Orleans history. The Illinois Central Railroad introduced the original City of New Orleans on April 27, 1947 as a daytime companion to the overnight Panama Limited. EMD E7 diesel locomotives pulled new lightweight Pullman Company coaches. The 921-mile route, which the City of New Orleans covered in 15 hours 55 minutes, was the longest daytime schedule in the United States. This week in Louisiana. 2nd Annual Lincoln Literarium Saturday, May 4, 2024 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm 910 N Trenton St. Ruston, LA Website  Contact Jeremy Bolom. jbolom@mylpl.org Join Bruce and Stephen, as well as other local authors, at the Lincoln Parish library. This will be our first event with our new book, Liberty in Louisiana. Head to the Linocln Parish Library for the 2nd Annual Lincoln Literarium event. Enjoy author signings along with book readings. If you are an author who is interested in participating, you can contact Jeremy Bolom at jbolom@mylpl.org. Postcards from Louisiana. dba Palmetta Bug Stompers.   Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook.

On this day in 1863, American folk hero Casey Jones was born in southeastern Missouri. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

rWotD Episode 2421: West Pullman, Chicago Welcome to random Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a random Wikipedia page every day.The random article for Wednesday, 20 December 2023 is West Pullman, Chicago.West Pullman is a neighborhood located on the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. The Neighborhood of West Pullman was largely inhabited by workers of the Pullman Train Company who were looking to escape the grip of the company town Pullman. The commercial corridor of Kensington/115th Street was one of many Italian communities within Chicago.It is bounded on the north by 115th Street, on the east by the former Illinois Central Railroad, on the south by the Calumet River and Riverdale, on the west by Calumet Park, Blue Island and Ashland Avenue.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:58 UTC on Wednesday, 20 December 2023.For the full current version of the article, see West Pullman, Chicago on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Justin Standard.

Join Jake LaMore as he explores the rich history of Kankakee and its transformative journey shaped by the Illinois Central Railroad. In this insightful episode, guests Jorie Walters and Jack Klasey from the Kankakee County Museum delve into the profound impact of the railroad on the town's development.Railroads and Economic GrowthDiscover how railroads, especially the Illinois Central, played a pivotal role in building America. The conversation unfolds, highlighting the intricate connection between railroads and the downtown development of Kankakee. Kankakee County's EvolutionJake and Jorie discuss how towns like Kankakee owe their growth to the strategic placement of railroads, emphasizing how the industrial base thrived, paving the way for economic prosperity.Immigration and Labor RecruitmentJack Klasey sheds light on the often overlooked aspect of the railroad's influence on immigration. Learn how the railroad recruited laborers from European immigrants, contributing to the diverse cultural fabric of Kankakee.Agricultural ImpactThe conversation details the profound effect the railroad had on the agricultural economy. Jack Klasey narrates stories of how the railroad expedited the transportation of crops, revolutionizing the way farmers operated in the area.Ethnicity, Churches, and ImmigrationJorie Walters shares insights into her research on the intertwining factors of ethnicity, churches, and immigration. Learn how certain areas developed specific ethnicities, echoing the cultural diversity that persists to this day.Legacy and Future EventsJake wraps up the episode by inviting listeners to explore the Kankakee County Museum, which stands as a living testament to the region's history. He highlights upcoming events, including the 75th-anniversary celebrations and encourages participation in various December events.ConclusionDig into Kankakee's roots, uncovering the profound impact of the Illinois Central Railroad, and gain a fresh perspective on the town's evolution. Don't miss this insightful episode that combines history, culture, and the enduring legacy of the railroad that shaped Kankakee.For more fascinating stories and events, visit Kankakee County Museum's website. Stay connected on social media for updates and follow Kankakee Podcast on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe now for more engaging episodes, and a special thanks to our sponsors and Patreon supporters for making this episode possible.----Support the show

Flooding has historically been frequent in the St. Louis region, including the 1844 and 1993 floods, which are probably the most famous. In 1903 another major flood took its toll on the eastern side of the river. Just press play to hear the whole story.-----  Click on search links to see if there are episodes with related content: Adam Kloppe, Environmental History, East St. Louis, Engineering, Mississippi River, Natural Disaster, Rivers, Disaster, Podcast Transcript: I'm Adam Kloppe, Public Historian at the Missouri History Museum, and Here's History on 88.1 KDHX. ——— If you've lived in the St. Louis area long enough, you were sure to have some experience with floods. The city is situated near the confluence of the two greatest rivers on the continent, the Missouri and the Mississippi, and the area has seen its share of devastating floods that have wiped out homes and businesses and farms over the years. ——— Stories of the greatest of these floods, like the floods of 1844 and 1993, are told time and time again. But other historic floods have been just as damaging to the St. Louis area. In 1903 in fact, East St. Louis faced the most devastating flood it has ever seen. That year, the Missouri River flooded its banks, devastating towns throughout Kansas and Missouri as the high water swept through. As the floodwaters from the Missouri rushed into the Mississippi in early June of 1903, the levees on the eastern side of the river began to give way as the river reached heights of 38 feet. Smaller towns on the river were completely washed away. Still, officials in East St. Louis were confident that they would stay dry. Over the years, streets had been elevated and levees and dikes have been built to help protect the city. None of that preparation was the payoff however. ——— On June 6, both the Madison County and Cahokia levees broke, even as men tirelessly worked to raise them. A few days later, on June 10, the last protection that East St. Louis had, a causeway that had been built by the Illinois Central Railroad line, gave way. Water rushed into the city, which at the time had a population of over 34,000 people. Some men with lanterns and pistols ran through the streets, firing into the air to wake their neighbors and warning them of the incoming water. Other folks made their way to the rooftops of houses and factories, often with their only remaining possessions as the clothes on their backs. Many others weren't even that lucky as dozens of people were lost in the floodwaters. ——— Over the ensuing hours, hasty efforts were made to rescue the stranded East St. Louisans. Boats were constructed to try to rescue those who have been trapped by the high waters. Once folks were rescued, they were taken to refugee camps for food and shelter. Some St. Louisans from the western edge of the Mississippi were a part of that rescue effort, as they gave money to flood relief efforts or offered their boats to help pick up refugees. Others weren't so helpful, and they made their way to the Eads Bridge to stand above the swollen banks of the river and take in the scenes of devastation. ——— Overall, the papers estimated that the damage done to East St. Louis would total over $16 million dollars. After cleanup from the flood was over, East St. Louis erected higher levees to keep out future floodwaters. These levees have been improved several times over the years and have worked to keep the city mostly dry as the years have passed. ——— Here's History is a joint production of the Missouri History Museum and KDHX. I'm Adam Kloppe and this is 88.1 KDHX St. Louis. ——— St. Louis is no stranger to floods. Stories of the greatest of these catastrophes, like the floods of 1844 and 1993, are told time and time again. But a lesser known one, which happened in 1903, nearly destroyed East St. Louis.

After a successful career rising through the ranks of the FedEx Corporation in Memphis and then Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway in Fort Worth, Texas, Jeff Campbell returned to his hometown of Fulton, Kentucky. After discovering a need for some TLC, Campbell was inspired to contribute to his community through projects like "Let's Paint the Town" that inspired renovation and painting of more than 30 historic buildings downtown. He then funded, designed and oversaw construction of Campbell Plaza in a neglected vacant lot and joined with the Rotary Club to raise funds to develop the city's Unity Park. Campbell then turned his visionary eye to the historic Meadows Hotel, a 100-room hotel built in 1901 in Fulton to serve the guests of the Illinois Central Railroad. After acquiring what was left of the property, he oversaw a complete reconstruction project, returning The Meadows Hotel back to its former glory. Today, the historic boutique hotel features 20 luxurious rooms, and a popular full-service bar and restaurant. In this episode, Campbell shares the story of the project and more about the challenges and rewards of seeing a need in a rural community and working with the community to meet it. More about The Meadows Hotel. This episode is sponsored by The University of Tennessee at Martin.

During WWII, Illinois Central Railroad started an apprentice program for McComb high school boys. In this episode, Edwin Etheridge recalls working at the railroad maintenance shop during the day while taking classes at night.  As an apprentice at the McComb railroad shop, Etheridge was expected to learn all aspects train car and locomotive maintenance. He remembers the older men who patiently shared their experience with the newbies. After turning eighteen, Edwin Etheridge left his job on the railroad to serve in the Navy during WWII. He discusses returning to his apprenticeship after the war and the different skills he was taught. During his forty-plus years with Illinois Central, Etheridge rose through the ranks to become shop superintendent. He describes working on the wrecker crew and the equipment they used to clean up after train wrecks and derailments.  

The audio quality can be a little wonky this week. We've identified the issue and resolved it. Sorry about that.We've heard for years that gamers are violent. But what if gamers were more peaceful in game than the people around them in real life? A really interesting new study has identified that gamers behave differently in EVE Online depending on the type of community they live in.The Nirvana Nevermind baby isn't happy about his nudes being plastered all over record stores and the internet. Now he's suing. We're not legal beagles, but we've got opinions.Roblox is bad. It isn't the simple gameplay, the child targeted community, or the memes. Actually, it's bad because it's one of the worst deals for game devs out there. Roblox seem intent to make it hard to make money from developing on their platform. That's a really nice way to treat the people who made your game popular. People are also trying to recreate mass killings in a game for children. It's a mess.The Link Between Videogames And Violence Is Not What You Think- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240196#sec012Smells Like A Lawsuit- https://deadline.com/2021/08/baby-nirvana-nevermind-album-cover-sues-band-exploitation-1234821540/Roblox Drama- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-08-20-roblox-business-model-criticized-as-exploiting-children- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-06-03-parent-watchdog-group-warning-about-robloxOther topics discussedMilk crate challenge has doctors warning it's ‘worse than falling from a ladder'- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/25/milk-crate-challenge-tiktok-doctors-warningsWhat is the Milk Crate Challenge, how did it explode out of nowhere and why are people doing it?- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/what-is-milk-crate-challenge-viral-videos-doctors/100404942Ice Bucket Challenge (sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as motor neuron disease and in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease) and encourage donations to research.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_ChallengeJack Thompson (activist) (American activist and disbarred attorney, based in Coral Gables, Florida. He is known for his role as an anti-video-game activist, particularly against violence and sex in video games. During his time as an attorney, Thompson focused his legal efforts against what he perceives as obscenity in modern culture. This included rap music, broadcasts by shock jock Howard Stern, and the content of video games and their alleged effects on children.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (a parody and satire hoax organization created by sophomore Parsons The New School for Design student David Yoo as a final project in December 2002.)- https://gyaanipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Mothers_Against_Videogame_Addiction_and_ViolenceEve Online ((stylised EVE Online) is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games. Players of Eve Online can participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, piracy, manufacturing, trading, exploration, and combat (both player versus environment and player versus player). The game contains a total of 7,800 star systems that can be visited by players.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_OnlineEve Online's ‘million dollar' battle came up a little short last night- https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/24/16927594/eve-online-million-dollar-battle-resultsFIFA (video game series) ((also known as FIFA Soccer, FIFA Football or EA Sports FIFA) is a series of association football video games developed and released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. As of 2011, the FIFA franchise has been localised into 18 languages and available in 51 countries. Listed in Guinness World Records as the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world, the FIFA series has sold over 325 million copies as of 2021. It is also one of the best-selling video game franchises.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series)Australian Classification Board : Adult (18+) ratings for video games (Many games were banned before 2011 on the basis that the R18+ rating did not apply to video games at the time. This was the subject of complaint in the gaming community, who argued that there is no reason why adults should be prevented from seeing content in games that they could see in a film.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board#Adult_(18+)_ratings_for_video_gamesVideo game addiction (also known as gaming disorder or internet gaming disorder, is generally defined as the problematic, compulsive use of video games that results in significant impairment to an individual's ability to function in various life domains over a prolonged period of time. The World Health Organization included gaming disorder in the 11th revision of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD).)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addictionSurgeon Simulator : Surgeon Simulator is an over-the-top operation sim, stitching together pitch-black humour with life-saving surgery.- https://store.steampowered.com/app/233720/Surgeon_Simulator/Corrupted Blood incident ((or World of Warcraft pandemic) was a virtual pandemic in the MMORPG World of Warcraft, which began on September 13, 2005, and lasted for one month. The epidemic began with the introduction of the new raid Zul'Gurub and its end boss Hakkar the Soulflayer. When confronted and attacked, Hakkar would cast a hit point-draining and highly contagious debuff spell called "Corrupted Blood" on players.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incidentCorrupted Blood Incident : Comparison to the COVID-19 pandemic (The Corrupted Blood incident has been compared to the COVID-19 pandemic, and epidemiologists who studied the Corrupted Blood outbreak are using the research from the incident to better understand coronavirus's spread - primarily its sociological factors.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident#Comparison_to_the_COVID-19_pandemicCall Of Duty (a first-person shooter video game franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold War, futuristic worlds, and outer space. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then also by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_DutyUS man sues Nirvana for using his naked photo on iconic 'Nevermind' album : Spencer Eldon recreating the photo he took when he was a four-month-old baby in 1991.- https://www.malaymail.com/news/showbiz/2021/08/25/us-man-sues-nirvana-for-using-his-naked-photo-on-iconic-nevermind-album/2000325Viva Frei - Nirvana's "Nevermind" Baby Lawsuit is BOUND TO FAIL! Lawyer Explains - Viva Frei Vlawg- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXY_nlfZ_dI&t=257sGamer Chad - Roblox / Ultimate Slide Box Racing / Into the Toilet! / Gamer Chad Plays- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzqLTCT0vc4Columbine High School massacre : Doom connection and the Harris levels (Eric Harris was an enthusiast of the Doom series, owning some of the Doom novels and having designed Doom levels under the nicknames "REB", "Rebldomakr", and "RebDoomer". In a videotape recorded before the massacre, Harris expressed enthusiasm for the planned shooting, saying it would be like Doom. He also pointed out that the shotgun was "Straight out of Doom".)- https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacreSuper Columbine Massacre RPG! (a role-playing video game created by Danny Ledonne and released in April 2005. The game recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colorado. Players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, with flashbacks relating parts of Harris and Klebold's past experiences. The game begins on the day of the shootings and follows Harris and Klebold after their suicides to fictional adventures in perdition.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Columbine_Massacre_RPG!Robux ((R$) is the currency on Roblox. Robux was introduced on May 14, 2007 (alongside Tix) as a replacement of ROBLOX Points. Robux was one of two currencies on the platform alongside Tix, which was removed on April 14, 2016. Robux is known as Roblox's primary currency by the community and staff; all paid items within the avatar shop are sold for Robux, including user-created content such as microtransactions and game passes. The name 'Robux' is a portmanteau of Roblox and bucks.)- https://roblox.fandom.com/wiki/RobuxAttack on Pearl Harbor (a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States (a neutral country at the time) against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_HarborSix Days in Fallujah (an upcoming first-person shooter video game developed by Highwire Games and published by Victura. Described by Highwire Games as a tactical shooter, it is slated to be the first video game to focus directly on the Iraq War. The game's plot follows a squad of U.S. Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1), fighting in the Second Battle of Fallujah over the span of six days in November 2004.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Days_in_FallujahBattle of Hastings (fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_HastingsHistory (American TV network) ((formerly The History Channel from 1995 to 2008; stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainment Content division of the Walt Disney Company.The network was originally focused on history-based documentaries. During the late 2000s, History drifted into reality television programming. In addition to this change in format, the network has been criticized by many scientists, historians, and skeptics for broadcasting pseudo-documentaries and unsubstantiated, sensational investigative programming.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_(American_TV_network)The Curse of Oak Island : What Is the Oak Island Money Pit?- https://www.history.com/shows/the-curse-of-oak-island/articles/what-is-the-money-pitForged in Fire (TV series) (American competition series that airs on the History channel and is produced by Outpost Entertainment, a Leftfield Entertainment company.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forged_in_Fire_(TV_series)The Secret Playboy Mansion Games Room With Hidden Bedrooms, Mirrored Walls, Gambling & Arcades ?‍♀️- https://www.celebritywotnot.com/celebrity-homes/the-playboy-mansion-games-room-secret-cabin-hidden-bedrooms-mirrored-walls-gambling-arcades/Red Hat (an American IBM subsidiary software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat- https://www.redhat.com/enHistory of union busting in the United States (The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century which produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved away from farm work to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_StatesAmazon is using union-busting Pinkerton spies to track warehouse workers and labour movements at the company, according to a new report- https://www.businessinsider.com.au/amazon-pinkerton-spies-worker-labor-unions-2020-11?r=US&IR=TActivision Blizzard ‘suppressed' evidence in sex discrimination lawsuit, California claims- https://www.polygon.com/22641099/activision-blizzard-dfeh-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-amendmentThe Fly (1986 film) (a 1986 science-fiction psychological body horror film directed and co-written by David Cronenberg. Produced by Brooksfilms and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. Loosely based on George Langelaan's 1957 short story of the same name and the 1958 film of the same name, The Fly tells of an eccentric scientist who, after one of his experiments goes wrong, slowly turns into a fly-hybrid creature.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film)The Fly II (a 1989 American science fiction horror film directed by Chris Walas. The film stars Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga, and is a sequel to the 1986 film The Fly, itself a remake of the 1958 film of the same name.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_IIThe Fly (1958 film) (a 1958 American horror science-fiction film produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, and Herbert Marshall. The film was released in CinemaScope with color by Deluxe by 20th Century Fox. It was followed by two black-and-white sequels, Return of the Fly (1959) and Curse of the Fly (1965). The original film was remade in 1986 by director David Cronenberg.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1958_film)Arrival (film) (a 2016 American science fiction drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and adapted by Eric Heisserer, who conceived the movie as a spec script based on the 1998 short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. It stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. The film follows a linguist enlisted by the United States Army to discover how to communicate with extraterrestrial aliens who have arrived on Earth, before tensions lead to war.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)Verge Science - We decoded NASA's messages to aliens by hand (In 1977, twin golden records were sent into space on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Still sailing through space at nearly 60,000 km per hour, the records contain sound, songs, and images from earth.)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRuovINxpPcWTF is Happening! The Podcast (TNC Podcast)- https://anchor.fm/wtfihpodShout Outs 21st August 2021 – Nick Davatzes, Cable Pioneer Who Launched A&E Network and History Channel, passes away at 79 - https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/nick-davatzes-dead-79-ceo-ae-networks-1235046271/ Nickolas Davatzes, longtime CEO of A+E Networks who steered the launch of A&E Network and History Channel has passed away. Davatzes joined the company as CEO in 1983 just as A&E Networks was formed through the merger of fledgling cable channels Entertainment Network, owned by RCA and the Rockefeller family, and ARTS Network, owned by Hearst and ABC. A+E Networks today is a 50-50 joint venture of the Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp. Davatzes served as CEO emeritus. Davatzes led the company's launch of the signature A&E Network (an amalgam of Arts and Entertainment) in 1984 and History Channel in 1995 (History formally dropped “Channel” from its moniker in 2008). He served as CEO of the parent company through 2005, when he was succeeded by protege Abbe Raven, who started at the company as a secretary. Davatzes was known for promoting educational outreach and the importance of industry R&D during his run at A&E Networks. The company later expanded to include the Lifetime cable channel as well as more recent entries like lifestyle channel FYI and Lifetime Movie Network. Disney executive chairman Bob Iger hailed him as a “towering figure in the early days of cable television (who helped) build some of the most iconic brands in the media landscape.” Iger added that he was “a person of true integrity.” He died in Wilton, Connecticut.24th August 2021 – Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts passes away at 80 - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/rolling-stones-drummer-charlie-watts-dies-at-age-80/100404658Charlie Watts, the drummer who provided the backbone of the Rolling Stones' songs for more than half a century, has died. Watts "passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family," his publicist Bernard Doherty said. "Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones, as one of the greatest drummers of his generation." The quiet, elegantly dressed Watts was often ranked with Keith Moon, Ginger Baker and a handful of others as a premier rock drummer, respected worldwide for his muscular, swinging style as the band rose from its scruffy beginnings to international superstardom. He joined the Stones early in 1963 and remained over the next 60 years, ranked just behind Jagger and Keith Richards as the group's longest lasting and most essential members. Watts stayed on, and largely held himself apart, through the drug abuse, creative clashes and ego wars that helped kill founding member Brian Jones, drove bassist Bill Wyman and Jones' replacement Mick Taylor to quit and otherwise made being in the Stones the most exhausting of jobs. The Stones began, Watts said, "as white blokes from England playing black American music" but quickly evolved their own distinctive sound. Watts was a jazz drummer in his early years and never lost his affinity for the music he first loved, heading his own jazz band and taking on numerous other side projects. He had his eccentricities — Watts liked to collect cars even though he didn't drive and would simply sit in them in his garage. But he was a steadying influence on stage and off as the Stones defied all expectations by rocking well into their 70s, decades longer than their old rivals The Beatles. He died in London with his family around him.25th August 2021 – Linux turns 30 - https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-linuxs-30th-birthday/ In 1991, Unix was an important but secondary x86 operating system. That year, on August 25, a mild-mannered Finnish graduate student named Linus Benedict Torvalds announced on the Usenet group comp.os.minix that he was working on "a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." No one knew it, not even Torvalds, but the technology was going to change forever. Thirty years later, Linux rules IT. Almost all major websites -- including Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia -- run on Linux. It's the same with the clouds. Even on Microsoft's own Azure, the most popular operating system is Linux. As for supercomputers, all 500 of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers run Linux. Thanks to Android, Linux is also the most popular end-user operating system. Not bad for a hobby operating system! In those very first days, Linux wasn't formally known as Linux. Torvalds explained, "Linux was my working name, but I never wanted to release it as Linux. Linux was a perfectly good working name, but if I actually used it as the official one, people would think that I am an egomaniac and wouldn't take it seriously. So I chose this very bad name, "Freax," for "Free Unix." Fortunately, the first Linux administrator Ari Lemmk, decided Freax was a silly name too. Hence, he actually named it Linux because he thought this internal project name was Torvalds first choice.Remembrances25th August 1822 – William Herschel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_HerschelGerman-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Lucretia Herschel. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, William Herschel followed his father into the military band of Hanover, before emigrating to Great Britain in 1757 at the age of nineteen. Herschel constructed his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent nine years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars. Herschel published catalogues of nebulae in 1802 (2,500 objects) and in 1820 (5,000 objects). The resolving power of the Herschel telescopes revealed that many objects called nebulae in the Messier catalogue were actually clusters of stars. On 13 March 1781 while making observations he made note of a new object in the constellation of Gemini. This would, after several weeks of verification and consultation with other astronomers, be confirmed to be a new planet, eventually given the name of Uranus. This was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity, and Herschel became famous overnight. As a result of this discovery, George III appointed him Court Astronomer. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and grants were provided for the construction of new telescopes. Herschel pioneered the use of astronomical spectrophotometry, using prisms and temperature measuring equipment to measure the wavelength distribution of stellar spectra. In the course of these investigations, Herschel discovered infrared radiation. Other work included an improved determination of the rotation period of Mars, the discovery that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally, the discovery of Titania and Oberon (moons of Uranus) and Enceladus and Mimas (moons of Saturn). Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1816. He was the first President of the Royal Astronomical Society when it was founded in 1820. He died at the age of 83 at Observatory House, Windsor Road, Slough Herschel's epitaph is Coelorum perrupit claustra (He broke through the barriers of the heavens).Famous Birthdays25th August 1819 – Allan Pinkerton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_PinkertonScottish–American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton first became interested in criminal detective work while wandering through the wooded groves around Dundee, looking for trees to make barrel staves, when he came across a band of counterfeiters, who may have been affiliated with the notorious Banditti of the Prairie. After observing their movements for some time he informed the local sheriff, who arrested them. This later led to Pinkerton being appointed, in 1849, as the first police detective in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. In 1850, he partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in forming the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton & Co, and finally Pinkerton National Detective Agency, still in existence today as Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, a subsidiary of Securitas AB. Pinkerton's business insignia was a wide open eye with the caption "We never sleep." As the US expanded in territory, rail transport increased. Pinkerton's agency solved a series of train robberies during the 1850s, first bringing Pinkerton into contact with George McClellan, then Chief Engineer and Vice President of the Illinois Central Railroad, and Abraham Lincoln, the company's lawyer. When the Civil War began, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service during the first two years, heading off an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington, D.C. as well as identifying troop numbers in military campaigns. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton himself served on several undercover missions as a Confederate soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen. He worked across the Deep South in the summer of 1861, focusing on fortifications and Confederate plans. This counterintelligence work done by Pinkerton and his agents is comparable to the work done by today's U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agents in which Pinkerton's agency is considered an early predecessor. He was succeeded as Intelligence Service chief by Lafayette Baker; the Intelligence Service was the predecessor of the U.S. Secret Service. His work led to the establishment of the Federal secret service. Despite his agency's later reputation for anti-labor activities, Pinkerton himself was heavily involved in pro-labor politics as a young man. Though Pinkerton considered himself pro-labor, he opposed strikes and distrusted labor unions. He was born in Gorbals, Glasgow.Events of Interest25th August 1957- The Invisible Man Vs. The Human Fly premiered in Japan - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204691/ A star is born! On this day in 1957 (in Japan), The Invisible Man Vs. The Human Fly took to the silver screen for a monster of a pairing! Directed by Mitsuo Murayama, the SciFi/Fantasy starred Ryûji Shinagawa and Yoshirô Kitahara; and here's the plot summary: "A ruthless serial killer with a peculiar method of stalking and killing his victims comes face to face with a police officer turned invisible by a scientific experiment. Who will emerge triumphant?" In the late 1950s, in the United States this film was announced, and stills were published, under the English language title "The Murdering Mite." This film shares part of its Japanese title with the Japanese release of the much better-known 1958 U.S. science fiction film The Fly, which was released in Japan as Fear of the Fly Man (ハエ男の恐怖 Hae Otoko no Kyōfu), though with the 'Fly' in "Fly Man" spelled in katakana rather than kanji characters. While both films feature "fly men," The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly actually predates the latter film by almost an entire year.25th August 1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the last planet in the Solar System at the time, due to Pluto being within Neptune's orbit from 1979 to 1999 - https://www.wired.com/2010/08/0825voyager2-neptune/ Voyager 2 makes its closest encounter with Neptune, passing just 3,000 miles above the cloud tops of the most distant planet in our solar system. The Voyager 2 space probe has been our most productive unmanned space voyage. It visited all four of the outer planets and their systems of moons and rings, including the first visits to previously unexplored Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 found four rings and evidence for ring arcs, or incomplete rings, above Neptune. That means all four of the gas giants in our solar system have rings. Neptune's, however, are very meager compared to the magnificent rings around Saturn. In the late 19th century, astronomers thought that an unseen Planet X was influencing the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. The observed positions of the two planets and their calculated positions differed. Among those astronomers convinced of the existence of Planet X was Clyde Tombaugh. In 1930 while scanning areas of the sky for Planet X, he found Pluto. When Voyager 2 flew by Neptune, it took very precise measurements of Neptune's mass and found it to be about 0.5 percent less massive than previous estimates. When the orbits of Uranus and Neptune were recalculated using the more accurate mass figure, it became clear that the imprecise number for Neptune -- and not the gravity of an unseen planet -- had caused the observed orbital discrepancies. After its encounter with Neptune, the spacecraft was rechristened the Voyager Interstellar Mission by NASA to take measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field, plasma and charged-particle environment. But mostly it's searching for the heliopause, the distance at which the solar wind becomes subsumed by the more general interstellar wind.IntroArtist – Goblins from MarsSong Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJFollow us onFacebook- Page - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/- Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/440485136816406/Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamatedSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrSiTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nerds_amalgamated/Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.comSupport via Podhero- https://podhero.com/podcast/449127/nerds-amalgamated See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Abraham Lincoln’s view of the right to fulfill one’s economic destiny was at the core of his own beliefs—but some believe that he thought no one could climb that ladder without strong federal support. Some of his most enduring plans came to him before the Civil War, visions of a country linked by railroads running ocean to ocean, canals turning small towns into bustling cities, public works bridging farmers to market.Today’s guest John F. Wasik, author of “Lincolnomics” tracks Lincoln from his time in the 1830s as a young Illinois state legislator pushing for internal improvements; through his work as a lawyer representing the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1840s; to his presidential fight for the Transcontinental Railroad; and his support of land-grant colleges that educated a nation. To Lincoln, infrastructure meant not only the roads, bridges, and canals he shepherded as a lawyer and a public servant, but also much more.These brick-and-mortar developments were essential to how the nation could lift citizens above poverty and its isolating origins. Lincoln paved the way for Eisenhower’s interstate highways and FDR’s social amenities. We discuss:⋅ Lincoln’s championing of the Transcontinential Railroad and pivotal public works preceding it, including the Illinois Central Railroad and the Illinois & Michigan Canal;⋅ How infrastructure both hindered and enabled the Confederate and Lincoln-led UnionArmies during the Civil War;⋅ Lincoln’s support for land-grant colleges, the foundation for today’s public universities across the country; and⋅ Lincoln’s true dedication to infrastructure, among them the sketch of a town he surveyed, and a design he created and patented.

One of the hidden gems of St. Tammany Parish is the Tammany Trace. Originally a well travelled corridor for the Illinois Central Railroad, today the Trace travels 31 miles through five Northshore communities – accessible only by bike or on foot. The official trailhead is located on Koop Drive where Sarah and Billy Rieger are waiting to welcome you. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon ice cream cones and more – it's the perfect way to begin or end your Tammany Trace adventure. It may amaze to learn that the Rieger's culinary adventures all began on a food truck in Canada!

One of the hidden gems of St. Tammany Parish is the Tammany Trace. Originally a well travelled corridor for the Illinois Central Railroad, today the Trace travels 31 miles through five Northshore communities – accessible only by bike or on foot. The official trailhead is located on Koop Drive where Sarah and Billy Rieger are waiting to welcome you. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon ice cream cones and more – it’s the perfect way to begin or end your Tammany Trace adventure. It may amaze to learn that the Rieger’s culinary adventures all began on a food truck in Canada!

It seems like Almost Yesterday that Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois experienced an unusually hot and dry summer. The year was 1867 and rainfall remained scarce well into the autumn. Temperatures were high, humidity low, and the landscape turned brown and crunchy. By mid-November, with crop yields low, a higher than usual number of hunters took to the woods and dry wetlands in pursuit of animals that could be used to sustain families through the coming winter. This resulted in an increased number of camp fires. On November 19, a heavy cloud of smoke covered all of Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. A Cairo, Illinois newspaper reported that “a sweeping, surging flame is spreading over hundreds of miles of our territory, and dense, heavy stifling smoke, like a pall, have settled upon the whole country.” Along the north-south Illinois Central Railroad, the heavy layer of smoke was said to be more than 100 miles wide. A journalist wrote that “the sight is one of awful

Dr. Hayes interviews Dr. Freireich on his involvement with combination chemotherapy.   TRANSCRIPT: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories, the Art of Oncology, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all of the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. Welcome to Cancer Stories. I'm Dr. Daniel Hayes. I'm a medical oncologist and a translational researcher at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. And I've also had the privilege of being the past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. I'm privileged to be your host for a series of podcast interviews with the people who founded our field. Over the last 40 years, I've been fortunate to have been trained, mentored, and also, frankly, inspired by these pioneers. In fact, it's my hope that, through these conversations, we can all be equally inspired by gaining an appreciation of the courage, the vision, and the scientific understanding that led these men and women to establish the field of clinical cancer care over the last 70 years. In fact, by understanding how we got to the present and what we now consider normal in oncology, we can also imagine, and we can work together towards a better future for our patients and their families during and after cancer treatment. Today, my guest on this podcast is Dr. Emil J. Freireich, who is generally considered one of the pioneers of combination chemotherapy. Dr. Freireich is currently the Ruth Harriet Haynesworth chair and distinguished teaching professor in the Department of Leukemia at the Division of Cancer Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was raised in Chicago during the Great Depression, the son of Hungarian immigrants. Dr. Freireich attended the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago starting, unbelievably, at age 16. And from there, he also received a medical degree in 1949. He completed his internship at Cook County Hospital and his residency at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. He then moved to Boston, where he studied hematology with Dr. Joseph Ross at Mass. General. And then he went to the NIH in 1955, where he stayed until he moved to MD Anderson a decade later. And there he still remains. He and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute, Drs. Jim Holland and Emil "Tom" Frei, were the first to demonstrate that administering concurrent combination chemotherapy, rather than giving it sequentially with each episode of disease progression, resulted in complete responses in childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia. And that paper was first published in the now classic paper in Blood in 1958. In the mid-1960s, they ultimately developed the VAMP regimen. And that was reported in 1965, with really, in my opinion, the first cures that we'd seen with chemotherapy in an advanced cancer of any sort. This work was the groundbreaking basis for the subsequent cures of advanced Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, adult leukemias, testicular cancer, and, in my opinion, the striking results of adjuvant combination chemotherapy in breast and many other cancers. Dr. Freireich has authored over 500 peer-reviewed papers, numerous reviews and editorials. He's edited 16 different textbooks. And he's won too many awards and honors for me to even begin to list. But in particular in 1972, he received the Lasker Award, America's most highly regarded medical honor. And most importantly to me, frankly, is that he proceeded me as president of ASCO in 1980 to 1981. Dr. Freireich, I'm sorry for the long introduction. But your career is pretty substantial. Welcome to our program. Thank you. I have a number of questions. And to start with, I know, as I said, you grew up in Chicago during the depression and that you entered college at the age of 16. And I think our listeners would love to hear more about those circumstances. That's pretty unusual. And I've actually read about some of your childhood. You want to tell us more about that and how was it you chose medicine in the first place? I was born 1927 of to immigrant Hungarians. I had an older sister three years older. And they had a Hungarian restaurant in Chicago. And 1929, when I was two years old, there was a big event in the United States. They lost their restaurant. My father died suddenly, I believe of suicide, but not proven. And my mother, tough mother, went to work in a sweatshop. She worked 20 hours a day. She had two children. She found an Irish lady who worked for room and board only, no salary. Her name was Mary. So Mary was my ex officio mother. And I grew up, as you pointed out, in a ghetto community. I spent my life stealing things, hubcaps and windshield wipers, and avoiding getting crushed by the roving gangs. When I finished elementary school and when I went to a ghetto high school called Tuley, T-U-L-E-Y. In Tuley High School, I majored in typing and shorthand. My mother thought I could make a living as a secretary. I was prepubescent, short and fat. And I was a frequent victim of my colleagues in school. When I was very young, I can't tell you when, about eight or so, I developed tonsillitis. And we had in our little ghetto community one of these Tree Grows in Brooklyn physicians. His name was Dr. Rosenblum. And he took care of people in the ghetto for favors. My mother made him goulash. Dr. Rosenblum came to your house. He didn't have an office, because we didn't have any transportation. So my mother called him. And I had tonsillitis. He came and looked to me. He was wearing a suit and tie. I'd never seen that. During the depression, all the men wore coveralls and dirty pants. And he looks very elegant. He had a suit and a tie. He looked in my throat, and he said to my mother, the treatment for tonsillitis is ice cream. I always remember Dr. Rosenblum, because my mother had to go out and buy ice scream. And it's not bad treatment. It actually cools off the hot throat. So when I went to high school, taking shorthand and typing and getting beaten up by the bigger guys, a professor appeared like Dr. Rosenblum, suit and tie, young guy, PhD. Came to a ghetto high school to teach physics. Physics fascinated me. So I worked very hard in physics. He had a contest. I did a project on the Bernoulli theorem. And the classic project is a jet of water. You put a ping pong ball in it. And the ping pong ball stays in the jet, amazingly. That was because of Bernoulli. What happens when the ping pong ball goes off to one side, the fluid goes faster on the other side. It reduces the pressure, and that pushes it back in the stream. And that's the principle of airplanes and so on and so forth. So I won first prize. And he called me to his office. He said, Mr. Freireich, you should go to college. I said, what's college? He said, well, there's-- [LAUGHTER] He said there's a place down south of here called the University of Illinois where you can get advanced studies. What do you want to be when you grow up? So I thought a minute, and I said, I want to be like Dr. Rosenblum. I want to be a family doctor. He said, well, you have to go to college first. So I said, what do I need to go to college? He said you need about $25, which in that day was a lot of money. So I went home, and I told if it was my mother, my professor wants me to go to college. And I need $25. My mother, she's hardened in the depression, working in sweatshops. And she said, OK, I'm going to get $25. She asked around in the little Hungarian ghetto community. And we found a lady who had lost her husband and had an insurance policy. And so she had money. And she distributed it to her colleagues in the ghetto community for good causes, wonderful lady. So my mother dressed me up in a borrowed suit. And we went to see Mrs. so-and-so. And she patted my head and gave my mother $25. It's an incredible story. In fact, I'm struck by the fact that one of the founders of our field was a juvenile delinquent stealing hubcaps. Oh, yeah. I did that to hubcaps and windshield wipers and everything you could take off a car. I got a ticket on the Illinois Central Railroad, $6. I got off the Champaign-Urbana. And I said to the guy, where's the university? He said, over there. I went over there. I said, where do you register. They said, over there. So I went over there. And I said, I'm Freireich, and I'm registering for college. The guy said, where's your transcript. I said, well, they told me at the high school that they would send everything they needed. He said, we've never had a student from Tuley High School. I was the first to go. I was the first Tuley student to go to college. And he said, OK, I'll register you. And I'll write the university, and I'll get your transcript. I presume you're qualified. So how much is registration? $6! So I'm down to $13. I'm getting pretty poor. So I registered. And then I said, where do I live? He said, there's a list over there. And I went over there. I found the lady who lost her husband. She rented his bedroom for $6. And then I had to figure out how to eat. And I asked my friend the registrar, where do I eat? He said, go to work in one of these rich sorority houses. You get free meals. So I waited tables in a sorority house. I got good grades. When I had to elect a language, I took German, because at that time, all the science was in the Festschrift. The Germans had invented the chemical industry. And my advisor said, that's good for you if you want to be a doctor. So I took German. My professor in German, he taught stage German. And he read the role the first day. And he came to my name and he said Freireich, [EXAGGERATING "CH" SOUND] because, he said, Americans can't say. [EXAGGERATED "CH" SOUND] Everybody called me "Freireish." But he called me Freireich [EXAGGERATING "CH" SOUND]. And our book was called, Ich lerne Deutsch, I'm learning German. So "ich" was important. Freireich was important. I got an A in German because of my great name. And I did well in physics. And everything was accelerated during the war. So the university had three semesters a year instead of two. There was no summer. And the requirements for medical school were dropped from three years to two years. So two years is four semesters. So at the end of the first year, I was eligible for medical school. And my physics professor said, you better apply, because all the guys coming out of the military want to be doctors. So I said, aw, damn, I'm having such a good time scrubbing floors and smoking and getting along with good looking girls. He said, you better do it. So I applied. And I was accepted. So I had to leave the beautiful campus of Champaign-Urbana and go back to the ghetto of Chicago where my mother and my sister were living. And I couldn't figure out where I was going to get the money to pay for medical school. I had a friend who had had polio. Polio was rampant in those days. And I said to him, how do you get money to go to college? He said he gets money from the state, rehabilitation. And he said my rehab guy is coming to see me tomorrow. Why don't you come and see if you're eligible? So the rehab guy came. He said, what's wrong with you, Freireich? I said, I had a broken leg in college. He said, OK, fill in the forms. And I became a ward of the state of Illinois Department of Rehabilitation. From that point on, they paid all my tuition, all my supplies, all my microscope rentals, and so on. So I went to medical school free thanks to the State of Illinois Department of rehabilitation. So I went to Chicago. And a bunch of us sat in the room for the opening introduction. And the dean of the medical school came in. His name was Andrew C Ivey. I don't know if you know the name, famous GI physiologist. And Dr. Ivey said, you guys are lucky to be in medical school. There were 20 applicants for everyone accepted, 20. Isn't that's amazing? Because all the guys who were medics in the military realized that being a doctor is a soft job. So they all wanted to be doctors. But they didn't have as good an academic career as I did. So anyhow, I went to medical school. I did pretty well. It was complicated, medical school. I had to ride the L in Chicago. It cost a nickel. And I lived at home. And I rode the L in the morning. And I walked to the university campus. I attended classes. I walked to the L. And I went back home. And I did that for four years. And then, as I said, I graduated number six in the class. And I graduated. And I had to decide where to do an intern. I wanted to be a family doctor like Dr. Rosenblum. So I interned at Cook County Hospital. Cook County Hospital was an abattoir, terrible place. In that year, 1949, the two most prominent diseases were tuberculosis and polio. So my first rotation was the TB ward. That was horrible what you had to do to those men. 90% of them died. Then my next rotation was infectious diseases. And that was all children in iron lungs who were doomed to die. So I started off pretty badly. And then I got to the good things like surgery. I delivered a hundred babies. I did the ear, nose and throat. So I did everything. And I felt ready to go into practice. And then I got to internal medicine. Internal medicine was not like OB and all that stuff, not mechanical. It was intellectual. You had the worry about the blood flow to the kidney. And you had to get diuretics and blood and stuff. So internal medicine fascinated me. When I was on-call, I would admit 20 new patients a night, 20. And one guy I admitted was very interesting. He was a learned guy. And he was dying of heart failure. And I had to figure out how to treat him. And I admitted him. And when I got done, exhausted in the morning, I went to make rounds. And I didn't see him. And I said to the nurse, where's Mr. so-and-so. She said, don't worry about him. He's gone. I said, where did he go. She said he goes into the death room. Cook County Hospital, the problem was they had too many patients for the beds. And the head nurse made rounds every day. And the sickest patients went to the death room. And I went in there. And I found my patient. And I said to the nurse, I want my patient on the ward. I'm a young squirt. How old was I? I was 19, I think. So the next day, I get a call from the hospital director. He says, Freireich, I think you better leave County. I said, what do you mean? I'm having a good time. I'm learning everything. He said, you don't know how we operate. The nurses run the ward. And you make trouble. And that means you've got to leave. Uh-oh. So I said, well, the only thing I can do is get a residency in medicine and learn all this complicated stuff. So next door was Presbyterian Hospital, which had the Rush Clinic. Have you heard the rush clinic? They were a bunch of famous guys. I made rounds with Roland Woodyatt, the first physician in the United States to use insulin. I made rounds with-- I forgot the name of the cardiologist who described coronary artery disease. He was the first to recognize the association between chest pain and myocardial infarction. So these guys were great. And Olie Poll, who taught me EKG-- And I was going along fine. But again, the chair of medicine was a Harvard import, S Howard Armstrong. And he had a teaching service. And all the house staff wanted to be on the teaching service where they learned stuff. Private doctors, of course, were offended. So they descended on administration. And they fired the chair of medicine. Armstrong was fired. The house staff teaching service was disbanded. And Armstrong tried to tend to his house. He called me in. He said, Freireich, what do you know about medicine? I said, Dr. Armstrong, you got a wonderful department. I learned EKG. I learned diabetes. I learned heart. I learned everything. The only thing I don't know anything about is hematology, because the guy who teaches hematology is a jerk. Armstrong said, don't worry, Freireich. Go to Boston, that's where the new medicine is coming from Europe. And he gave me letters to the three great hematologists in Boston, Bill Dameshek, Joe Ross, and Dr. Israel, who was a clotter. So I took everything I owned. I put it in my 1946 fastback, broken down Oldsmobile. And I drove to Boston. When I got to Boston, I met Dr. Ross. The guy in the lab who was the chief was so Stuart Finch. I think he just retired. And I collaborated with a young man named Aaron Miller who worked at the VA hospital. And my project funded. Dameshek gave me a job but no money. Israel gave me a job, no money. Ross gave me a job and paid me $5,000 a year, wonderful. So I became a hematologist. I worked on the mechanism of the anemia of inflammation. I studied patients with rheumatoid arthritis. And we had radioisotopes. So I was able to study the iron metabolism and the binding to transferrant. And we did experiments in dogs. And we worked out the mechanism of the anemia. The biggest hematology group in the country, the Wintrobe group, who wrote the textbook, had proven that the anemia of inflammation was due to a failure to incorporate iron into heme. And we found that that was false. When we put the ion on transferrant, it went right into heme. The difficulty was the reutilization of iron from hemoglobin to new heme. And we proved that in dogs. We did experiments with turpentine abcesses in dogs. So I was on a roll. I was doing Nobel laureate stuff. I mean, I gave a paper to the AAP. I gave a paper to the ASCI. I was doing well. And one day I got a letter. You are drafted into the army as a private. If you don't want to be a private, you can become a second lieutenant if you accept the assignment we give you. So I told Ross, I'm leaving. I got to go. I tried to finish up all my experiments. I told my wife we're in trouble. We didn't know what we'd do. We had one baby, one-year-old. She was pregnant with our second child. I didn't tell you the story about my wife. What happened is the head nurse in the clinic, like me, she came for a visit to Boston. They broke into my car and stole her luggage. And so we became attached. And we got married. And we've been married 65 years. But anyhow, she got a job at Mass. General. I had a job at Mass. Memorial. We had enough money to live. And as I say, she got pregnant, and we had babies. And I got this letter that I'm drafted. So I said to my wife, we have to go to the Army. The next morning, I get a call from Chester Scott. Keefer, who you already mentioned-- Dr. Keefer was the physician in charge of the penicillin distribution during the war. He was a very famous infectious disease doctor. He was a brilliant teacher and respected and loved by everybody. When Eisenhower was elected president, as you probably know, like all Republicans, he wanted to decrease the size of the government. So he decided to combine three cabinet departments, Health, Education, and Welfare, into one. That was obviously going to save positions and money. And he appointed Oveta Culp Hobby, who was the publisher of the Houston Post newspaper. She didn't know anything about health. She didn't know anything about education or anything about welfare. So what she did was she hired three people as department heads. And she picked Dr. Keefer to be head of health. Dr. Keefer would not give up the dean of the medical school. So she agreed to have him do both jobs. He was dean of the medical school and Secretary of Health. And he called me to his office. And we all respected Dr. Keefer. You dressed up in a new coat and clicked your heels and said, yes, sir. He said, Freireich, Dr. Ross says you're doing good. Thank you, sir. Have you ever heard of the National Institutes of Health? No, sir. There's a place in Washington where they have a hospital out in the country. And they can't staff it. So we have to send young people who are drafted there. If you go to the public health service, you don't have to go in the army and get shot during the war. Yes, sir. He picked up the phone. Fred, I have a doctor Freireich in my office. He'll be there tomorrow morning. Bye. Thank you. I went home. I told my wife, I have to go to Washington. I got in my car, drove to Washington, 200 miles in a broken down car. I got there. I found the guy at the HEW. He said, Freireich, you have to go to NIH. So go out here and take the bus. It takes you to the clinical center. Before the war, they decided to put a clinical center in the campus of the National Institutes of Health, which were all basic science institutes. There was no medicine. So here was this hospital, and they couldn't staff it. So they took all the draft dodgers. They called us yellow berets. And they staff the NIH with guys right out of their training. So anyhow, I got in my car and drove out there. Where's NIH? There. Who do I talk to? There, you go there. I talked to all the clinical directors. No one needed me. I got to Gordon Zubrod, who had just come from St. Louis University. He was an infectious disease guy. Do you know Gordon Zubrod? Yeah, I actually met him a couple of times with Dr. Frei. Good, yes. Actually, I'd love to hear this story. Dr. Frei has told me the story, your first day at the NCI when you, quote, "found your office." Can you tell us about that one? Yeah. So anyhow, Dr. Zubrod said, what do you do, Freireich? I said, I'm a hematologist. He scratched his head. And he said, I'll tell you what, you have to cure leukemia. I said, yes, sir. You know I'm in the military, so you have to do what you're told. He said, your office is on the 12th floor. I went up to the the 12th floor. I walked along, looked for a name. I came to room that said Emil Frei. I said, isn't that like the damn government? They can't even spell my name. So I walked in. And there was a tall, skinny guy with no hair. I said, sir, you're in my office. He said, your office is next door. I'm Frei. You're Freireich. And we've been friends for a lifetime. He told that story to us many, many times, I'm going to tell you. He thought that was hilarious that this guy walked into his office and said, you're in my office. And he said, no, you're in my office. The other thing I want to talk about then, as you moved on, what made you and Dr. Frei and Dr. Holland decide to go at combination therapy? I think it was based on the infectious disease stuff. Correct, totally. At the time, we had three drugs, 6-MP, methotrexate, prednisone, 48, 53, and about 54, something. Each individually gave some responses. They lasted six to eight weeks. And the children all died. So the world's authority on hematology, Max Wintrobe, wrote a review. And he said, these drugs are simply torturing these children. And they don't do anything. Dameshek wrote editorials in Blood saying they're just killing children. So we were not very popular. But Zubrod came from infectious disease. And Tom Frei was infectious disease. And they had just discovered that in tuberculosis, if you use sequential streptomycin PAS, they became resistant to both drugs. If you gave them simultaneously, their effectiveness was prolonged. So combinations of agents were more effective than the sequences. So Zubrod said, why don't we do the same thing for cancer? We'll do 6-MP and methotrexate in sequence. And we'll do them in combination. To do the combination, we had to work out the doses. Dave Rolle did that in mice. 60% of two immunosuppressive drugs make one. And we gave 6-MP and methotrexate concurrently and in full dose sequentially, that is until they failed, we gave the other one. And the study was called Protocol 1. Jim Holland had gone to Roswell Park. And he agreed to join us. So we became the first acute leukemia cooperative group, Holland at Roswell Park, Frei and Freireich at MD Anderson. Freireich treated the children. And Frei protected Freireich from the rest at NCI and from Zubrod. Zubrod trusted Frei. So if I needed to do anything radical, I'd talk to Frei, and he'd talk to Zubrod. So we were a great team. That was really the start of the cooperative group set, right? That would be CALG, the cancer and leukemia group, is that right? That was the first cooperative group in the country. That's incredible. The cooperative group had to two institutions, Roswell Park and MD Anderson. Who tried to block you on these things? I know it must have taken a lot of courage to put all these drugs together. You mentioned Wintrobe. But were there others who were fundamentally opposed to using combinations? Oh, I'm getting to that. So with the first study, Protocol 1, Russell Park and MD Anderson, children received 6-MP and methotrexate simultaneously and in sequence. And it turned out that Protocol 1 was published. The combination had more frequent remissions and longer duration. So we were onto something. Next we did the prednisone. Prednisone's not myelosuppressive. We could do full-dose prednisone with 6-MP, full dose prednisone with methotrexate, same result. In every instance, the combination was superior to the sequence. So one day I'm sitting in my office. About once a week he'd come around and look. He came in one day. He said, Dr. Freireich, this ward is a mess. Everything is full of blood, the nurse's uniforms, the curtains, the ceiling. Well, anyhow, I was taking care of my bleeding children one day when a guy from Eli Lilly showed up. I think his name was Armstrong. And he said, we've got a new drug that was founded by-- you know who that was. Let me see his name. Mike Black. He discovered it in mice, periwinkle extract. Periwinkle had 80 alkaloids. And they screened them all against mice. And this one was active in one kind of mouse leukemia. But it wasn't active in L1210. So he said, we have this drug. And we offered it to Dr. Farber at Dana Farber. And we're going to offer it to you if you want to do it. I said, wonderful. So I wrote a protocol. And Zubrod said, but this drug is not active in L1210. And we know that the drugs active in L12101 leukemia are active in human leukemia. So this drug cannot be studied. Aha, time for Emil Frei III. I went to Tom. I said, look, Tom, vincristine is not myelosuppressive. As a single agent, it causes 80% complete remissions. I want to vincristine to 6-MP and methotrexate. Zubrod says no. Frei said, leave it to me. He talked to Zubrod. I told Zubrod, these children are dying. I've got to do something. So they approved it. And we did decide the VAMP. We knew prednisone was not myelosuppressive. We could add it to 6-MP and methotrexate, full dose. We knew this dose of 6-MP and methotrexate. Vincristine turned out to be not myelosuppressive, CNS toxicity. So we designed the VAMP drug. Then we said, let's let Holland and the other members of the cooperative group join so we can get this done quick. The cooperative group refused. Jim Holland refused. He wanted to do them one at a time, prednisone, 6-MP, methotrexate, vincristine, prednisone, vincristine, and so on. It would have taken us five years. We went through the same thing with MOPP. They wanted to do it one at a time. So we had to do it alone in the cancer institute. So Frei went to Zubrod and said, why can't we do it? Zubrod said, if you say it's OK, you can do it. Frei was chair of the group. And I'm not going to put my patients on the group. So Frei had to resign. Holland became the chair. And Frei was an advisor. So we started out with VAMP. We had 98% remissions. The remissions lasted about six weeks. We realized that they weren't cured. So we said to the parents, this treatment was toxic. It was full-dose 6-MP and methotrexate. And the parents said they're going to risk their children's life, but we're going to do what we called early intensification. That is, the children in complete remission would get full-dose induction therapy, never done before. And I met with the parents every morning and went over each child to be sure that they were with us. The parents were wonderful. We had solved the bleeding problem with platelet transfusions. We'd had white cell transfusions and so on. And they went along with us. So we did early intensification. We did it in about 12 patients. Two of them almost died, very severe infection on the brain. But we saved them. So we knew this was dangerous. But they all relapsed. Median duration remission was about eight weeks, even though we did early intensification. So MC Li had cured choriocarcinoma. I don't know if you know that story. MC Li and I were residents at Presbyterian at the same time. We were good friends. I was his advisor on this strategy. He measured chorionic gonadotropin in the urine. And he knew that as long as there was gonadotropin in the urine, they weren't cured. So he kept treating them. So we decided to follow the Li model. And what we did was we did early intensification, which they all survived, fortunately. And then we did intermittent reinduction. Every four to six weeks, we'd bring them in and give them another course of treatment. And we did that for a year. And then we stopped. And then we watched them. And that's when we found 20% of the patients were in remission at, I think, 18 months. Never been reported before. And I did report that to AACR. I've seen the AACR abstract. And I would love to know what was the energy in the room when that was presented. Did people stand up and throw rotten tomatoes at you, or did they stand up and applaud, or everything in between? No one applauded. Everybody was incredulous. The people in the group didn't believe it. Most people thought we were lying. If it wasn't for Frei, I'd have never gotten away with it. Let me ask you another question. Dr. Frei told me that the first patient you gave platelets to, you had to sneak out at night and do it. Is that true? He said there were people who did not want you to give platelet transfusions. The platelet transfusions were a bigger fight than the chemotherapy, because everybody knew that platelets were not the cause of it. Dr. Brecher had studied patients in the war from radiation injury. He had dogs that he completely phoresed, zero platelets. And they didn't bleed. So obviously, platelets were not the problem. The problem was a circulating anticoagulant. And I did experiments in the lab and proved that that was false. But anyway, the platelet transfusions are what made all of this possible, because the children all died of hemorrhage. And once we had platelets, we could treat them with the chemotherapy. Is there a story behind the first patients who got platelet transfusions? Again, Dr. Frei told me that-- Oh, boy, that's a wonderful story. I actually published it. This was a young man who was bleeding to death whose father was a minister. And since it was proven that platelets were not important and there was a circulating anticoagulant, I decided that the only way to arrest the hemorrhage was to do an exchange transfusion like you do in eritroblastosis fetalis. So I said to the minister, if you bring me 10 healthy volunteers, I want to do this experiment on your son. And he was desperate. His son was a beautiful 8-year-old boy. His name was Scotty Dinsmore. How do you like that? [LAUGHTER] Scotty Dinsmore was bleeding to death. And he arrived the next morning with 10 volunteers. And I sat down in the treatment room. And I did an exchange transfusion with 50 cc syringes, 50 ccs from Scotty in the trash can, 50 ccs from the donor in Scotty. And we calculated I had exchanged three blood volumes to get to where the concentration was detectable. And when I finished this four-hour procedure, bending over my back with syringes and volunteers, his platelet count was 100,000. And is bleeding completely stopped. So we thought we'd made a breakthrough, but we were smarter than that. We watched him every day and did a platelet count. And we found that the platelet lifespan was four to six days. And when the platelets got below 10,000-- we had done a retrospective study, and we knew what the threshold for bleeding was. And he started bleeding again. So it was obvious that it was not an anticoagulant. I did experiments in my lab. I took the serum and mixed it with the plasma and so forth. So we proved that it was platelets and not an anticoagulant. And then we had to figure out how to get platelets. And Allen Kleiman in the blood bank and I worked together to do platelet phoresis. We took the unit separate platelets, put the blood back, volunteer donors. And we proved that platelets stopped the bleeding. And we published that, a great paper, citation classic. I was going to say for the young folks. And I asked Dr. Frei this too when I was at the Dana Farber. Did you ever doubt yourself? Did you think, we need to quit doing this? This is more than we can handle. I know Dr. Farber was widely criticized in Boston for-- Oh, boy. He studied vincristine at the same time we did. Yeah. So did you ever say, maybe we should set this whole system down and give up? No, I was never intimidated, because Dr. Zubrod gave me orders, cure leukemia. So I was going to do it. Yeah, my impression from talking with Dr. Frei is Gordon Zubrod was the sort of unsung hero in all of this. He is. He is. He had the courage to back a 25-year-old guy and his resident to do things that were potentially insane. We could have gone to jail for what we did. We could have killed all those kids. That's what Dr. Frei-- Dr. Holland has told me the same story. So we owe you a great debt. So let me ask you. When you were the president of ASCO, in those days, what made you decide to run for ASCO? It was still pretty early in the early 1980s. Well, that's a very good story. I'm a pioneer in that regard too. When you became a cancer doctor, you had to join the AACR. AACR was dominant. I joined the AACR. I sent my papers on platelets and chemotherapy to AACR. They accepted all of them. But they put the clinical papers on Saturday morning. When I gave my first paper at AACR, the chairman of the session, my wife and my son were the only ones in the audience. Nobody stayed till Saturday morning. So I got mad. I said, I'm discovering things, and I can't present them at AACR. No one's listening. So we said, let's form a society that is clinical oncology and meets the day before AACR the clinical scientists who want to go AACR don't have to go to two meetings. So we organized a plenary meeting the day before AACR began. In the first session, we had a lecture on CML from-- I forgot who the talker was who is treating CML, Berechenal or someone. Karanovsky? I don't know. So we had lectures, not papers. And we did that for a couple of years. And then AACR knew what we were doing. We were totally cooperating. But we hired a manager. And we started a scientific exhibit. So we had lots of money. And AACR needed money. And we were rich. So I got a call from the president of AACR. And he said, we don't want to continue to meet at the same time, because all of our doctors want to get these free samples. And they go to your meetings, and they don't go to our meetings. So we're separating from ASCO. I said, that's terrible, because the ASCO doctors all want to go AACR. He said, sorry, we can't take you anymore. I forgot who was president at the time. So ASCO had to separate from AACR. They separated from us. Most people think we separated from them. They separated from us. You were there at the very start. So I really appreciate your contributions to the field. And I appreciate your taking time today. And I appreciate all the things you did to help all the patients who've now survived that wouldn't have if you hadn't. Thank you very much. Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Stories, the Art of Oncology podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories, the Art of Oncology podcast is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all the shows at podcast.asco.org.

Paul Wolf, Fonder and Publisher of "Find It In Fondren" and "Explore Lefleur" magazines discusses his journey to where he is today, his philosophy of staying positive, and the wonderful area of Jackson known at Fondren: Woodrow Wilson Avenue to the south, Northside Drive to the north, Interstate 55 to the east, and the Illinois Central Railroad to the west. Website: https://www.finditinfondren.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FindItInFondren/Twitter: https://twitter.com/finditinfondrenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/finditinfondren/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After graduating from medical school in 1947, Dr. Tom Mayer took a temporary job with the Mississippi State Department of Health while waiting to begin his internship. In this episode, he remembers trying to vaccinate school children in Walthall County. Later, he returned to McComb to set up a medical practice at the urging of a friend. In the mid-1950s, Mayer was hired by the Illinois Central Railroad to be the company doctor. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of being a railroad physician. At that time, penicillin had only recently been discovered.  He recalls the limited number of available drugs and one old doctor’s story of a fifty-cent price limit. Working around trains has always been a dangerous job and as a railroad doctor, Mayer has seen it all. He recounts some of his more memorable cases and reflects on the many friendships he collected during his career. (contains a bit of graphic description of a patient's injuries)

This week’s episode leads me to discuss the “ship of fools” allegory from Michel Foucault’s History of Madness, a brief history of Illinois Central Railroad and the nineteenth century California writer Bret Harte.

Like many of their friends and family, McComb natives Glover May and his twin brother Eddie, went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad at the McComb maintenance facility, in 1942. Their father, Glenn May was the boiler foreman in the locomotive shop. Nicknamed “The Storm” by his workers, who would call out “All right, y’all straighten up, here comes the storm,” when he walked into the shop, their father was a strict, task-oriented, company man.  In his 2006 interview for the McComb City Railroad Depot museum, Glover May recounts how he and his brother worked seven days a week for 32 cents per hour, with no days off. Even so, his father thought nothing of making his sons work all night to finish a job or to fill in for a sick employee for no extra pay. “He was tough, Glenn May was tough.  He was a railroad man, sure was.” In this episode, Glover May takes us through his 43-year career with IC. He recalls their first job, testing the water in the steam locomotives to see if the boiler needed cleaning.  When the May boys were promoted to positions in the boiler shop, their father became their supervisor. May remembers how his dad would try to treat the men’s minor injuries to keep from filing an accident report. After a train derails, specially-trained crews work until the wreckage is cleared and the tracks repaired. May discusses how he and his brother would cook for such a crew, in a rolling kitchen car. When a railroad maintenance crew is dispatched to the scene of an accident, they stay until the job is done.  Glover and Eddie always made sure their crew had lots of good food at every meal. According to May, after the twins retired on August 1, 1985, the kitchen car was retired as well, the end of an era in the age of fast food. PHOTO CREDIT: McComb City Railroad Depot Museum, http://mcrrmuseum.com/

Woodrow Addison worked for the Illinois Central Railroad shop in McComb for 38 years.  He worked first as a brakeman and then, a conductor.  Addison contrasts the duties of the two jobs.  He also discusses the advantages of diesel over steam power.